Feb
5
Students for a Dainty Society
February 5, 2007 | 6 Comments
When I was a young college punk at Kent State University way back in the 1970s, the SDS had already sunk into irrelevance, but they at least tried to keep up appearances of being tough, staging loud and boisterous protests around the campus in which ragged jeans, dirty T-shirts, and very long hair (hey, it was the 70s–we listened to Foreigner) were all de rigueur. So what are students for a democratic society up to these days? Well, here’s a nice passage from a story about the SDS here at Ohio University (my emphasis added):
The students never did get to present their demands to [Ohio University President Roderick] McDavis. When they arrived at Baker Center’s ballroom he was not there.”There’s the dean of students,” someone said, pointing at Terry Hogan, who had followed the group to the ballroom. “Let’s give [the demands] to him.”
The others agred (by a show of hands) and made Hogan pinkie swear that he would hand deliver a list of the demands to McDavis. Hogan pinkie-swore, and OU sophomore Gui Guenther read the list of demands aloud to Hogan.
YEAH baby! I’m sick and tired of being hassled by the Man! Off the establishment! Hey, who drank my latte?!
Man, how the mighty are fallen. I think that if I were Gui Guenther, I would crawl under a rock and hide out there until I turned 30–how embarrassing for him to have his name associated with this milquetoast version of “student activism.”
Oh, what were they protesting, you ask? U.S. involvement in Iraq? Warrantless wiretapping? Gitmo? Read it and weep:
Graduate Student Senate president Dominic Barbato shared his hope for a future Ohio University where “the free and open green space will not require bureaucratic red tape for students to use it.”
Um…OK…has anybody seen my AC/DC 8-tracks?
Comments
6 Comments so far
What are AC/DC 8-tracks?
I’m sure the University powers-that-be are just being earth-conscious and are protecting the green spaces from this destructive, radical, latte slurping, pinkie-fliphing mob. Although I’m sure all that red tape around the green spaces is probably a bit unsightly.
Green space and red tape makes for a nice effect at Christmas time, though.
Regardless of what I think of the new SDS’s strategy or goals a pinkie-swear, used to make an administrator deal on their terms and making a spectacle out of authority, is a sight better than keeping up “appearances of being tough”.
The demands were for the removal of rules requiring registration to demonstrate and limiting that registration to registered student groups and also for the greater goal of a more democratic university vis-a-vis more open decision making processes and inclusion of student input.
Using a latte as emblamatic of the “bourgeois activist” is so passé. Maybe if they drank some black coffee they would gain credibility in your eyes?
And incidentally, Gui Guenther is a woman.
Maybe if they drank some black coffee they would gain credibility in your eyes?
I’ll be satisfied if they just grow up a little.
See, I’m still idealistic after all these years.
Oh, by the way: the only thing more passé than using a latte as emblematic of the bourgeois activist is calling things passé when (a) you didn’t understand the point of the comment you’re calling passé and (b) you don’t know how to use the word “passé” correctly.
There may still be some hope for you, however, since you’re still naive enough to think that getting an administrator to pinky swear has the effect of “making a spectacle out of authority.” I have to thank you for giving me something to laugh out loud at in the face of such puerility as the SDS is now and has ever been.
Perhaps trite would been a better word choice for my intended meaning? I was going to ask about the proper usage but after checking its definition I see my mistake. So much for relying on my word-intuition as a dictionary.
At least I used vis-a-vis correctly, eh?
Yes, trite really is a much better word. It also has the advantage of being more generally applicable: you can basically say it about just about everything I write.