Students relieved

From the Hampshire College daily announcements, February 2, 2011 

toilet found! thanks everyone.
thank you for all email responses, mod 106 has found our toilet! now that we have it back, we look forward to binge eating and pooping a whole whole lot :) 
More Info: https://intranet.hampshire.edu/viewDetails.php?messageNumber=35963

Radical Student Movement

from an announcement of a massive student-faculty protest against proposed changes to the use and configuration of a campus building.

Naturally, there is the typical organizing work to do: draft petitions, draw up demands, form committees—in that order. Hmmm. It would seem a lot more sensible to figure out what your demands are before you draft the petitions (hasn't always happened that way around here, believe it or not), but that may just be my atavistic logocentric, linear thinking at work. Or maybe those items were listed in random rather than chronological order.

Anyway: After that, there's . . . dancing:

"~organizing a samba parade, starting on the library lawn and ending at ASH at 4
pm on Tuesday, to raise awareness, share information, and distribute petitions"

Grow Up!

"the problem is, we have to get the students to show faculty how to behave like adults"

colleagues, in the course of an informal conversation on how to increase civility and intellectual openness on campus

Postcards From the Edge: Hampshire Secrets Revealed

Hampedia recently added an entry for the "Postcard Project," an outcome of an experiential education course intended to create an art installation in which community members communicate their feelings about the college on anonymous postcards:

Decorate the reverse side of this postcard and share a secret, revelation, or statement about your experience of and feelings about HAMPSHIRE COLLEGE. It's anonymous, so anything goes!

There's some interesting and just plain strange stuff there. And to my even greater surprise, I showed up in one of the cards. Go figure. Never a dull moment here.

Eye-Sore

"We're still tied up in the word and the number and that old hierarchy. The image was there before the word, and we are really going fuddy-duddy."

—faculty member, in discussion of curriculum and standards, criticizing the emphasis on improving student writing, analytical reasoning, and quantitative skills

The Write Stuff

"I'm curious as to why we think all students need to write well."

—faculty member in discussion about requirements and standards

Amherst: Your Tax Dollars at Work

So, here's what happened.

We get our local census form in March, as always, just before the spring election, so that we can ensure we are on the voter rolls. Recording household pets is optional. On the back, there is also a form on which one can fill out an application for a dog license, which must be renewed each spring. One can send a stamped, self-addressed envelope and have the license mailed, or one can pick up the license in person.

Last year, I dropped off the form and paid the license fee right away at Town Hall, but was told that the license--which is required by April 1 and whose purchase is enforced after May 31--was not ready yet. I came back for it a few weeks later.

So, this year, when the form arrived, I sent in the fee and figured that I would save myself the postage and save the clerks the trouble of doing a mailing by instead stopping by Town Hall (where I often have to go on business anyway) to get the license later when it was finally ready.

Evidently, the Town bureaucrats had a better idea. Writing me via first-class mail--which cost the Town and the taxpayers 42 cents--they informed me that I had neglected to provide them with a self-addressed envelope bearing stamps worth 84 cents.


We are in the midst of a budget crisis. You do the math and contemplate the logic. Any questions?

Bad Santas

I have appreciated, over the years, various forms of strange Santa humor--though it was hard to tell what was more problematic about the film, "Bad Santa": the disturbing nastiness of the protagonist or the disturbingly uplifting ending and message that the creators felt compelled to include. That tension was a sign of social and cultural uncertainty. Do you want to provoke (offend) or gratify (pander)?. Alas, the latter prevails where money and conventional taste rule.

It's better just to decide: either/or. As P.G. Wodehouse has Bertie Wooster explain, "you can do one of two things: Be a dictator; or design ladies underwear. One or the other, not both."

At any rate, from the New York Times, reports that naughty Santas will assault the city:

COSTUMED PUBLIC DRUNKENNESS
Very Bad Santas
By MELENA RYZIK
Friday, December 12, 2008

Santa hits New York tomorrow. Or rather, hundreds of Santas do, all attired in traditional red suits and white beards, carrying the nontraditional MetroCard and occasional hip flask. It’s Santacon, when hordes of St. Nicks ride subways instead of reindeer, down pastrami and booze instead of cookies and milk, and create holly jolly mayhem in holiday stomping grounds like Central Park, Times Square and strip clubs. Check santacon.com for updates, or follow the trail of ho-ho-hos. (read the full article)

The tradition goes back almost a decade and a half, as this report from four years ago explains:

No Saints in Sight as These Santas Get Their Jollies
By ALAN FEUER
Published: December 12, 2004

Santa broke out the sour mash at 10 a.m. Christmas was coming. Why not have a drink?

He raised his glass to another Santa, who was sucking back some Colt 45.

"Pace yourself," the second Santa said. "I started with beer this year, not Jim Beam like last year."

Santa got drunk yesterday. He cursed. He smoked. He took off his clothes in public. It was Santacon, an annual gathering of nasty Santas, in which some 500 naughty Clauses marched through the city, shouting, drinking, raising gentle mayhem.

Santacon began 10 years ago in San Francisco, where 30 friends, disheartened by the happiness of Christmas, got together in their Santa suits and set out to have some fun. They crashed a dinner dance and stole people's drinks. Went to a strip club. Drank themselves silly. Some made it home. Others slept in the streets.

This year, Santacon was - or will be - celebrated from New York to Tokyo and places in between. Its schedule and history can be found online at www.santarchy.com. (read the full article)

Alas, there will be no official santarchy or santacon events in Amherst. But then, do we need them? Our town is already surreal.  No great items in this week's Bulletin, so I will dive into the archive for a few historical pearls (compiled, as always, by the indefatigable Scott Merzbach) from the November 7 issue that I didn't include because I was preoccupied with election news:

AMHERST POLICE:

* A black bear in North Amherst neighborhoods caused problems on the night of Oct. 31 during the peak time for trick-or-treating.

At 6:38 p.m., police took a report that a bear was on the porch at a High Point Drive home and taking candy that was left for trick-or-treaters. The bear then got inside the garage, where it began eating bird seed. When police got there, the bear was leaving the area and was observed to have candy protruding from its mouth.

The woman who lives at the home was advised to close her garage door, bring the remaining candy inside and turn off the lights to discourage children from coming to her home, just in case the bear returned.

Nearly an hour later, the same bear was observed on Juniper Lane, where it got inside a screen porch and began damaging the structure. Police used pepper spray balls to get the bear to move along into the woods.

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 15
SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY

* 12:09 a.m. and 1:14 a.m. - Two people urinating outside a downtown restaurant and at the Town Common were issued warnings and advised to use bathrooms.

* 1:08 a.m. - A woman on Amity Street told police a man got onto the porch at the home and attempted to steal a bicycle. Police determined the man lived at the location and there was just a misunderstanding that led to the call.

Others from the print edition of the same date, but not the online edition:

SUNDAY, OCT. 19
DISTURBANCES

* 1:16 a.m. Men chest-bumping each other on East Pleasant St. checked out OK.

VANDALISM
* 10:53 a.m. A lit candle was thrown at the entrance to the Harp, possibly in a break-in attempt. No entrance was gained and the only damage to the door was some wax stuck to it.

[NOTE: This is our premier--hell, only--Irish pub, and as such, a sacred place. And: the owner is a historian. What more could you want?]

FRIDAY, OCT. 24
NOISE COMPLAINTS

* 11:50 p.m. Loud car stereos on Belchertown Road were gone when police got there.

[Note: This is--depending on one's point of view--either an improvement on or a regrettable decline from Scott's classic style of yore, epitomized by the classic announcement that gunshots were silent when police arrived at the scene. Still, there is still some room for comfortingly confusing ambiguity: Did someone turn down the volume on the car stereos? Did the cars with the car stereos in them disappear? Or were the stereos perhaps stolen from the cars? This is why the realm of the imagination is such a pleasant place in which to wander.]

SUNDAY, OCT. 26
SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY

* 2:11 a.m. A man who yelled obscenities at a police cruiser and made obscene gestures on Sunset Avenue checked out OK.

[Does this mean it's okay to do those things? or was it just that he turned out to be a run-of-the-mill chest-bumper {see above}?].