The Deserted Bandwagon

Author: MATT KUNZWEILER

It's the end of the spring semester and things are getting weird.

For the past two years my column has been devoted to exposing the absurdities in campus life, but recently it feels as though the absurdities are no longer attempting to conceal themselves and are starting to run amok. So maybe my column is obsolete, which is fine by me. Mission accomplished. Now I can slack off and write a shoddy, slapped-together column with segues that barely even make sense.

First off: Does Eli Berman think he's Jesus Christ? Honestly, Eli, we know that by using duct tape to crucify yourself to the side of Mead Chapel you're just begging for the comparison. The red hair helps, but you're fooling no one.

And it seems like Middlebury's favorite student politico isn't the only one audaciously comparing himself to something in the outside world of religious importance: ADP recently renamed itself the Delta House, which is a very tragically lame mistake. Of course the name refers to the infamous film "Animal House." Really though, I can't think of any place on campus more dissimilar to Animal House: ADP is not filled with wacky social outcasts; the members do not live in a dilapidated building (their residence is as immaculate as any uninspired phase 2 ski chalet from the mid 90s); they are not anti-establishment (see their Beirut table with the Republican elephant painted on it); and their annual toga party is merely a dull reenactment of a cliché.

So ADP idolizes Animal House (which is adorable), and, similarly, the new liquor inspector idolizes Robocop (equally adorable) - proven by the fact that he cannot follow in his predecessors' footsteps by interpreting the Law - but man, can he ever apply it like a ruthless machine…even at the detriment to the very people the Law is supposed to protect.

Of course, the liquor inspector probably has good intentions and I recognize this. The same could be said for the various committees and organizations on campus that think student awareness and open-mindedness will be improved by tying condoms to phallic-shaped chicken wire constructions and spray-painting racial slurs onto plywood. With that logic, maybe during testicle awareness week they can go around kicking people between the legs.

But as far as shameless attention-getting tactics go, who could beat that grammatically incorrect "hooray-for-Stanton" insertion into The Campus a few weeks back? It sure got attention, didn't it? But in the process it brought the printed word to new, never-before-seen lows. If that's guerilla journalism, then MySpace blogging represents a fine literary art. But what annoys me most of all about that idiotic insertion was the submitter's willingness to violate the sanctity of the Opinions Section, which is Middlebury College's exclusive forum for campus-wide dialogue, where students, faculty and staff alike are able to air their poignant complaints, half-baked criticisms and miscellanea on a level playing field. It is The Campus' rumpus room, and we like it that way. Besides, the section's editors are even kind enough to clean up some of the submission's syntactical shortcomings (an editing process from which the "illegal" insertion would have benefited greatly).

Anyway, my point is this: Listen to the Dark Horse Candidates. They rock pretty hard.