he Sarah Palin fever that swept through the nation in the last few months of the 2008 election now appears to be thankfully over. Ultimately, however, the Alaska governor’s popularity was not something that materialized spontaneously from the McCain campaign’s bag of tricks. America has always had a strained relationship with its intellectuals. Back in the day, the trouble was how to uphold the common man Enlightenment philosophies that served as foundational principles of American society, while at the same time taking advantage of the flourishing intellectualism that characterized the free, albeit white male, society. Fast forward to the present, and we have a Republican Party, previously the party of the more educated and intellectual segment of America, becoming more and more virulently anti-intellectual. And, unfortunately, it isn’t just the Republicans. This problem has crawled right into the “rank and file” of the Democratic Party. Worst of all, a large segment of the American population has also contracted the anti-intellectual illness.

Anti-intellectualism is why we don’t have nuclear energy when much of Europe, France in particular, lives on it. This is why we still fight over evolution when much of the world has put the issue behind them for more than a century. We don’t trust those terrible “elites,” the people who are smart enough to know what they’re talking about. Instead, we’re told, we should trust “Joe the Plumber”—you know, the real American. I for one am not sure that the Founding Fathers would have thought of the good ‘ol beer can and a bag of chips “Joe the Plumber” as the ideal American pol, despite claims by the Republicans to the contrary. What has happened to intellectualism is absurd. Now, we find it too easy not to trust our experts, scientists, and thinkers to do the jobs everyone else didn’t train or study for.

Democracy does not mean “elect the most average person.” “Liberalism” and “conservatism” do not mean we should put into office the most mediocre among us. It is meant to elect those of us best qualified to represent and protect our interests. Ultimately, democracy’s greatest contribution to freedom is not putting “Joe the Plumber” in the White House or Congress but instead making sure that the most exceptional of us do not take advantage of our trust in them.

After trying rural, “everyman” presidents time and time again, we can now see in the disastrous election of George W. Bush that attempts to elect the everyman for our freedom and “representation” do not work. I expect that the election of Barack Obama, ultimately a consummate intellectual, is as strong a repudiation as we will find to this stance. I can only hope that his Presidency will ultimately rehabilitate the image of the intellectual politician, after its years of straw-man beatings by those who either are in power or seek it. It’s time for us to stop looking for the lowest common denominator—and to stop believing the lies of those who hope instead to use that rhetoric to take power for themselves. When the role of thinking and intelligence is ridiculed, after all, what is there truly left of a free society?

o, you’re a transfer student? Be prepared to answer inane questions, which will come seasonally. In the summer and fall, for example, you’ll get questions about your old school. As a transfer from UC Berkely, that amounted to wide-eyed disbelief about 800-1000 person classes and knowing nods about how Dartmouth is a much better learning environment. During the winter and parts of spring, if you come from a school at a lower latitude (in my case, California) you’ll get wild-eyed stares: “Why would you ever come to this winter wasteland?” Aside from occasional glances amidst amorphous mounds of scarves and winter coats, however, one will find that most Dartmouth students are more than friendly toward transfers. You will find that your status as a transfer student is an indispensable conversation starter.

However, being uprooted and dropped into a completely unfamiliar environment is never an easy thing, regardless of how kind your new schoolmates may be. My time at Dartmouth has been amazing, and I don’t regret leaving UC Berkeley. I’ve had great professors in classes that didn’t require an auditorium, had a blast paintballing with newfound friends, and ran around throwing snowballs at total strangers during a campus-wide snowball fight on the Green in winter. However, things didn’t start out that way, and as a transfer student, you have fewer resources and a smaller support network with which to start your Dartmouth career. I hope that by outlining a few of the primary problems and their potential solutions, I can help make your transition smoother than mine. Keep in mind that things may start out rough, but Dartmouth is a great place to spend one’s undergraduate years and is worth the time and effort it takes to grow to love it.

But now, let’s explore the difficulties. One problem that you’ll quickly find, coming in as a sophomore or junior, is that all the students already know one another from their previous years. Although students are welcoming enough if you reach out to them and try to get to know them, some will simply conclude that you’ve been a hermit or a recluse, which is why they have never seen you before. This is not too much of a problem to overcome, in part because of that indispensably useful conversation starter, but also because people are generally receptive to new friends because the D-plan shuffles the entire campus in and out anyway.

The second problem is more serious—blitz. Although it may sound trivial compared to not having any friends coming on campus, this prevents transfer students from actively making friends. Blitzes are pretty much the only way that people spread the word on Dartmouth’s campus about parties, activities, and the general social scene—but theses blitz lists are made by taking the names of all of the incoming freshman each fall to create a campus-wide blitz. A transfer student isn’t an incoming freshman. You won’t know about half (at least) of the events going on around campus. And as a transfer, you have no idea what events should be going on around campus, so you don’t even know you aren’t on these lists. For this, there is no easy solution. I was fortunate enough to have a very dedicated DOC trip leader, who was himself a transfer and neurotically (though we love him for it) went around signing us up on the various lists. You, however, may or may not be so fortunate. Sign up for bulletins, which aren’t a substitute by any means, but can get you some notices for some organizations, blitz groups yourself and ask to be added to their lists, and try to make friends who will introduce you to their friends and to the groups they belong to. On the upside, at least, you’ll also be blissfully unaware of much inane spam mail plagues the rest of campus—no, losing your indistinguishable Northface jacket at some fraternity does not merit blitzing 4,000 people. It’s been done.

Speaking on the subject of that spam mail, perhaps the next appropriate subject of interest is the fraternity (and sorority) system at Dartmouth. Though you may have experienced the Greek system at your old school, I can guarantee you that they are nothing like Dartmouth’s. You have probably already heard about how Dartmouth frats don’t require you to pay anything or do anything to get in (at UC Berkeley, there was a “rule of thumb”—if at least two-thirds of your group was female, you could get into a fraternity). You have also probably heard about the extreme participation rate of the campus (an absolute majority, among eligible students). Because of the general composition of campus, and in part because the high participation rate limits self-selection somewhat, you do not have the general “frat boy” or “sorority girl” at Dartmouth. The Greeks on campus usually participate in sports, campus groups, and are often good students, despite how much alcohol they imbibe. As a transfer student, joining the Greek system is one of the best ways to build social inroads. That’s not to say that your Dartmouth experience depends on frat life. It is, however, much easier to make friends quickly if you do, as you have a group of individuals who are very much intent (through rush and pledge terms) on both meeting you and letting you meet them—but then you run the risk of only making friends with people in your house. I would suggest that you go to the various fraternities and sororities and meet the brothers and sisters for yourself to decide whether or not it is for you.

Ultimately, leaping the hurdles of transferdom boils down to reaching out. If you do, I expect you’ll enjoy your time at Dartmouth far more than if you simply wait for others to embrace you. Dartmouth was a breath of fresh air for me after being at a university where classes were taught by loudspeaker and projector systems—the professor often being too far away to be heard and seen unaided—and where competition spurred students to hate their academic experiences and wish only for its end. Here, I’ve learned to appreciate not having to worry about a career and to instead focus on the spirit of liberal arts and also on the wild and free spirit of the New Hampshire wilderness. Some things, of course, have taken getting used to: in case you haven’t noticed or heard by this point, parties don’t just happen on Fridays and Saturdays—Dartmouth throws in Mondays and Wednesdays as well. Also, if you haven’t realized yet, coming from a quarter or semester system, Dartmouth isn’t actually a quarter or a semester system—it’s a semester system stuffed into a 10-week term, with the only saving grace being that you only have three classes. What you experience here will be what you make of it. Take a hike with some friends on the DOC trails. Join some organization that interests you. Take advantage of the many groups that helps students make a real difference. Go on one of those alternative spring break trips to do something to give back to the world. Take a professor out to a free lunch, using the FAST lunch program. Join a sports team. Join a Greek house. Just go out for one night and party, remembering that basically every week after the second and before the last is more or less “midterms week” due to the 10-week term. Mainly, just go out and do something. For those of you transfer students reading, you came here for a reason (I assume). Make the most of it now that you’re here, and enjoy the unique aspects of college that only Dartmouth can offer. And don’t forget to reach out if you need help—we’re all friendly people here and we’re glad to welcome you. You’re green now.

If you ever want advice or just to share some experience, feel free to drop me a line. I’m in the DND (blitzmail, command/control-L and type my name).

n December 1st’55, a young black activist—Rosa Parks—refused to move to the back of a segregated bus. This act of powerful symbolism helped launch the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement into public consciousness, which ultimately translated into gains for the black community and America itself. Not all movements, however, are so successful in achieving their goals or even getting their message across to their intended audience. The current Olympic Torch protests exemplify misguided activism.

The Chinese people are misunderstanding the message that the protesters would like to get across. To them, a people only just recently emerging from the humiliation of colonialism (something most of the world, especially the west, conveniently forgets) these protests are an attempt to hold down and control China yet again. Many—again, conveniently—bring up the fact that China has a state controlled media, and believe that it must be because of state propaganda that the Chinese misunderstand protesters’ noble cause.

I hate to break it to them, but it really isn’t terribly difficult to make grown men charging a disabled girl in a wheelchair look bad.

Those bewildered as to why the ignorant Chinese don’t rebel en masse against their communist masters, like the head of Darfur Now! questioned in an op-ed to CNN, do not understand the fundamental fact that most Chinese do not care about the state’s oppression of democracy. In their eyes, as long as the government can provide a good life for them, mainly through economic growth, it should keep doing whatever it is doing. Many western liberals agitating for overthrow of the Communist state don’t realize that state control ultimately only exists with the Chinese peoples’ implicit approval. The “totalitarian state,” in reality, is piteously inefficient and weak.

Witness the crises that occurred when the United States accidentally bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, when a U.S. spy plane collided with a Chinese fighter, or whenever the Japanese Prime Minister visited the Yasakuni War Shrine to Japanese WWII soldiers. During all of these incidents, the Chinese government fanned the flames of nationalism and protest, and then quickly turned around to extinguish the conflagration they had unleashed. The collective force of popular will is simply too powerful for the Chinese government to contain.

This time, history repeats itself. The Chinese state media advises the people to calm down and abandon their scheme to boycott Carrefour (basically a French version of Wal-Mart) over the Paris torch protests. Ironically, the state’s police force, seen as such a menacing and all-powerful presence to the West, is feebly attempting to suppress Pro-China, anti-Western protests that are spontaneously erupting among its not-so-docile population. The Chinese people have gone farther in their nationalism than the Communist government wanted them to go. The totalitarian Communist Party just wanted a boost of public support, whose original reason would quickly fade. Instead, it is now faced with a mob of millions armed with internet blogs and the grassroots organizers to not only support it, but to demand that it not give up an inch to the Western powers and especially not to Tibet.

Imagine for a moment that you are the Communist Party of China. What would you ideally want? You want the people to be behind you, so you would like them to cheer and cry out Pro-China slogans in a spurt of nationalistic fervor. Then you would like it to fade to unfeeling apathy as quickly as possible so you can put on a good face for the Olympics. Ideally, you would want the entire Tibet situation to go away as quietly and quickly as possible. Even, perhaps, to the point of making concessions—quiet ones, certainly—to the Dalai Lama, as long as he promises not to brag too loudly about them. As for Darfur, well, maybe you could put those shipments on hold, or start selling less lethal trinkets to Sudan—anything to get rid of this problem before the Olympics. Anything so long as you can avoid losing too much face.

This strategy doesn’t work quite as well when the nationalistic mob refuses to quit being nationalistic and in fact is very willing to overthrow the state if it doesn’t act as unyielding as possible towards the Western powers, Tibet, and Darfur. With bloggers watching its every move like hawks, it can’t even negotiate quietly without a huge uproar and outrage from its people. The reason it is in this plight is because self-proclaimed do-gooders have decided to protest clumsily, while disregarding what the mainstream aid organizations, Olympic sponsors, and heads of state know. These protests would only worsen the situation. The protesters are interested in their own spotlight; it isn’t about the suffering people in Tibet or those being massacred in Darfur.

These people are armchair liberals. People who would happily give a dollar to Unicef or any similar organization asking for donations, not because they really care about the tangible effects of that donation, but because it makes them feel good. These people aren’t the ones on the ground in sub-Saharan Africa, making the difficult decision to abide by strict government rules to not treat political dissidents, in order to treat the thousands of other sick and dying people in the country. Instead, they are the ones on a soapbox on Saturday morning, after their Starbucks coffee and scone, decrying the organization’s outrageous decision and demanding that it pull out until the government acquiesces to rules that sound more “human-rightsey” to them. All the while, they are leaving thousands of innocent people, who did nothing to deserve their fate, to die. They cannot be called progressive—or at least I can’t feel comfortable calling them that. They aren’t looking for results; especially since results would mean that they could no longer complain about the issue and look noble by championing it. No. Instead they care about the feel-good factor. They want to spend their free time pushing some worthy cause that they know little about and, in reality, care even less about. They aren’t the ones on the ground. They aren’t the ones who put in much of their time, energy, and lifeblood to try to get some results and do at least some small good in this world. They aren’t the ones who accept the difficulties and contradictions in real life—which is not a novel with a hero who can always do unambiguous good—to do it.

What is important is human life. Justice is important. Ultimately, the human effects are important. Symbolism, at most, is a tool for achieving that end. Unfortunately, that’s what so many of these protesters, most of them armchair liberals, misunderstand. Or, even more tragically, that’s what many of them really care about. Not the reality of doing some good, but just the appearance and the illusion of doing so—and the more widely broadcasted the better. After all, they want as many people as possible to know what good people they are. They want this, even if, in the end, it costs the lives and freedom of those they claim to be trying to help.

he rest of the world sometimes blames America for its problems, often because America is the most visible target. However, if you look at our farm policies, you’ll find that the rest of the world has a relatively good point.

While it may not be the sexiest of political topics, America’s farm policies are some of the most grievous propagators of, among other things, the underdevelopment of Africa—and in turn, the tragedies and suffering that result from that underdevelopment. Most African countries, in the manner of many developing nations, subsist mainly on an agricultural economy. Thus, their prosperity and ability to develop capital depends on how well their crops fare on the world market. While there has been a great deal of ennobling rhetoric over “helping” Africa, the U.S. is perhaps one of the strongest economic forces holding African economies in Third World conditions. To understand why, it is necessary to understand the nature of American farm subsidies.

While the subject is a confusing maze of jargon such as “loan deficiency payments,” attempts to define “qualified beginning” and “socially disadvantaged” farmers and ranchers, or long discourses about “base acreage,” the basic tenets stretch back to New Deal legislation. American farmers are mandated to follow production limits, and all excess production that can’t be sold on the market is sold to the government for a fixed price. Beyond this, farmers are subsidized for meeting the dizzying array of qualifications (for instance, the amazingly difficult requirement of owning farmland) that have only expanded in recent years. Following the Great Depression, these measures were meant as a temporary solution to the economic emergency of the times. Farmers liked them so much they utilized the powerful farm lobby to pay/bribe politicians to keep the legislation.

In Africa, the consequences of these policies have been disastrous. The most obvious and fundamental of these consequences is that African farmers can’t compete. Africa should have a comparative advantage for labor-intensive crops like cotton, but with subsidies, American farmers can easily undercut African farmers and still make a hefty profit, courtesy of the American taxpayer. This is even true for highly perishable goods such as milk. Due to a clause that gives substantial subsidies for U.S. farmers exporting powdered milk, dairy farms have been devastated in most developing countries that were opened up to “free trade” with America. Thousands of gallons of milk each day are simply emptied out onto the ground—unsold and wasted—while milk cows are sold off for the slaughter or left to die because feeding them has become too expensive. This is happening even as children die of malnutrition in nearby villages. Somehow, perversely, it’s cheaper to import powdered (and thus processed) milk, ship it across the ocean, and reconstitute it into milk than it is to produce fresh milk. This isn’t a case of extreme American technological advantage—it’s simply unfair trade.

One result is that Africa is not developing as quickly as it should, or in some cases, at all. According to the United Nations, the World Bank, and the non-profit organization Oxfam, the elimination, or at least reduction of, the massive $300 billion a year Congress pours into farm subsidies would provide the “single biggest possible benefit for the economies of poor countries with many subsistence farmers.”

Another rarely addressed destructive factor to the African agricultural industry is the United States’ way of handling the excess food it purchases from farmers. Through aid programs, it dumps it right into Africa for free. While the World Food Program and similar agencies serve a necessary and noble purpose, America’s conception of it and way of supplying it destroys livelihoods, helping to create the very conditions that the programs attempt to combat. In this way, American farm policy’s creeping tendrils taint even the most benevolent of causes: feeding the hungry.

As one would expect, farmers from Third World countries have protested American excesses with the World Trade Organization. Most significantly, in the 2004 Doha Round of the WTO, the WTO panel decided that the billions of dollars in subsidies that America directly and indirectly gifts to its cotton industry are, in fact, illegal. This forced the U.S. to consider the possibility that many of its other subsidies to agribusinesses are also illegal under international trade agreements. Unfortunately, while the WTO offers some censures of American policy, the interests within it are largely beholden to the United States. The US has appealed the opinion, and is still dragging its feet on the issue without any real resolution in sight. Just last month, President Bush reportedly told Boni Yayi, president of West African Benin, that he “considers that the question of these subsidies was an American matter.” That’s polite Bush-speak for, “Buzz off.”

Farm policy might not attract as much mainstream or even celebrity attention as poverty, hunger, and war—it certainly doesn’t get Steven Spielberg or Angelina Jolie riled up or excited—but it is one of the fundamental causes for many of the social and political ills on that troubled continent. Economists preach the widespread benefits to free trade for all parties involved, but that only works when the trade on both sides is truly “free.” To be fair, America is not the only propagator of hypocritical agricultural policy—the European Union is another prominent double-talking entity that delivers ultimatums and preaches the moral code of free trade while vehemently insisting that its “poor” agricultural sector must be sheltered. Regardless of who the perpetrators are, the effects of this skewed system are that poor nations naively entering into the international system get the pain of playing a game where the strongest players make rules that apply to everyone except them. America, as free trade’s most visible and powerful advocate, should be the standard bearer that fearlessly leads by example. In reality, however, it is one of the slyest and most blatant cheaters of this global system. If the United States truly wants its word in economics and international trade to be credible, it should start following its own “advice.”

ear, and very little progress to show for it—these are the fruits of the War on Drugs. Even though the “War on Drugs” has become old news for most Americans now that the new “War on Terrorism” has taken center stage, the War on Drugs still drains the nation’s coffers and sends scores of its young men to prison just as much as it did when it was in the forefront of the nation’s consciousness. And with both wars in full throttle, another sticky dimension and crosscurrent has been added to the mix.

After over thirty-five years and $19 billion in 2003 alone, the War on Drugs has failed to prevent illicit cocaine, heroin, and the like from pouring in from traditional strongholds like Colombia. Adding to the dismal picture of policy failure, there has been little reduction in supply, and price has been plummeting in most places around the world. With opium now pouring in from Afghanistan—an unfortunate byproduct of our invasion into that country—the interaction between “War on Terror” and “War on Drugs” has caused the progress of both to deteriorate even further.

Growing and trafficking opium poppies remains illegal, except for in a few specific areas—like India, where the growth of these substances is meant for pharmaceutical production—and so Afghanistan’s new lawlessness makes it a perfect place to grow poppy. What makes the situation even worse is America’s stubborn insistence to continue the War on Drugs in a war-zone. As a result of this insistence, American troops are attempting to destroy poppy fields that they come across in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, not only has this policy of “eradication” failed—according to the Washington Post, Afghanistan now accounts for 95% of the world’s poppy crop—but when it has been carried out, it has only alienated the poor farmers that now turn to it as one of the only profitable crops left in a war-torn country.

At this point, only lawless areas can be real suppliers of the drug, so simply stopping the eradication policy wouldn’t fix things. The Taliban now counts opium taxation as one of its greatest revenue generators, and support of opium farmers as one of its most significant appeals to the population in Afghanistan. Even if America stops eradication, this dynamic of the Taliban’s resurgence will still occur—and if it doesn’t, the destruction of poppy fields will only drive more poor peasants into the Taliban’s arms without stopping the flow of drugs.

After so many years and billions of dollars, the War on Drugs has had little to show for the federal government’s efforts except for overflowing prisons, a strained judicial system, and an overwhelming tendency to imprison poor black men. Even beyond these problems, however, the War on Drugs is now a major burden on the War on Terror. Things have only gotten worse, yet politicians today have little incentive to eliminate the cause, which in popular conception still sounds like it should be a good idea. Besides, who still cares about the “War on Drugs” now that we have the “War on Terror?” The fact that these two are now inseparably intertwined and mutually destructive is rarely discussed in popular discourse, and thus we can expect the forgotten effort to curtail the production and sale of narcotics to continue to burden and stain our efforts in the War on Terror.

ffirmative action is a topic that rarely fails to ignite controversy. Unfortunately, it is also a topic that should not receive nearly as much attention as it does; affirmative action is merely the symptom of a far wider problem. While self-styled liberals and conservatives argue on the fairness and necessity of affirmative action, America’s broken K-12 educational system continues to produce students in a manner that prevents the question from dying a quiet death.

The public school system that most Americans entrust their children to is a bureaucratic, inefficient, and underfunded monster; perhaps the only thing worse is that the extent to which public schools embody these characteristics is horrifyingly uneven. Accounts of textbooks and maps still depicting the world as it was in the Cold War era (or even earlier) are common. Schools fight desperately to keep teachers from leaving impoverished areas of the country—areas that often need good teachers the most. Sadly, these teachers are often overwhelmed, and end up deciding to leave due to poor pay and even poorer teaching conditions. All of this is occurring in classrooms across the country, even as politicians in this latest election cycle argue for more funding for the arts and music education, even as many students across the country are having difficulty with basic math and English skills.

Many public schools, especially with federal and state funding for education plummeting over the past decades, rely heavily on municipal support. This funding is largely provided indirectly through property taxes—with the passage of’78’s Proposition 13 in California, for example, funding was significantly cut. In the case of California, this proposition froze capped property taxes, and reduced revenue by an average of 57%. It is now known as the political “third rail”—no elected official that wishes to continue being an elected official dares to even approach the issue. Many states have enacted similar measures, and others have passed a variety of measures that in some way or another cut taxes for the triumph of “the American taxpayer” to the sorrow of American schoolchildren, slowly strangling America’s schools, often unbeknownst to many of the enthusiastic voters for the measures.

With this state of affairs, there are few cities that are willing or even able to support their schools with as much funding as they require—these cities are disproportionately affluent, with less funding required to maintain large police forces or repair crumbling infrastructure. This leaves less affluent neighborhoods disproportionally filled with so-called “underrepresented minorities,” groups that often need far more academic support from schools that unfortunately don’t have the extra funding to do so. These students ultimately find themselves disadvantaged in the college admissions process—they are forced to meander through the difficulties of applying to college without the support their more affluent counterparts are receiving. Without proper education beyond high school, students go on to have a significantly lower earning power, statistically, and they stay disadvantaged and outside of “affluent” neighborhoods, where their children begin the cycle anew.

We can keep trying to fix this imbalance with our poor attempts at a stopgap in the form of affirmative action and try to bring a few of these individuals into higher education. But oftentimes all we succeed in doing is to drop them into a college environment underprepared. And even when those students are not underprepared, we burden them with the stigma of affirmative action and being “admitted just because you’re ____”—regardless of how untrue that might be. Instead of this poor excuse for an attempt at “equality,” let us bring true equality and be serious about fixing our educational system, accepting the high costs of doing so, and fund it adequately. Throwing money at a problem might not solve it, but in this case, it might just buy geography maps that don’t still contain a monolith labeled “U.S.S.R.”

ftentimes, as Dartmouth students, we ignore the blaring headlines in the news and media that scream, “Recession on the Horizon!” or “Massive Job Cuts Expected!” After all, safely entrenched in Hanover, many of us don’t have to think about these issues as anything more than just another set of headlines that don’t really affect us directly. But as the recent economic downturn demonstrates, these distant, overarching events can hit us very close to home—and for graduating seniors, far too close to home and far too close to reality.

The current economic downturn centers on the collapse of the “housing bubble,” which has led to a slowdown in demand for new housing, and more significantly, a fall in real estate prices. While this might seem like good news to many students who wonder how they will ever afford their own homes with skyrocketing housing prices, this fall in prices has set off a vicious chain of events. A vastly simplified description of this chain is that many homebuyers who relied on ever-increasing housing prices to help pay for their mortgages suddenly found that they were a lot poorer, with their largest asset, their homes, plummeting in value. Concurrently, banks, realizing that the housing market had slowed, tightened their lending standards, making it even harder to buy houses and thus worsening the housing market even more. This raised interest rates, which combined with the falling prices of their homes, put too much burden on some homebuyers who then found themselves unable to make mortgage payments. These defaults caused banks to tighten their lending standards, driving up interest rates, continuing the cycle that exacerbated the problem. Where exactly the chain and cycle started is a point of some debate—what’s unquestionable is that it is having very real, and for many, very painful, effects.

While the Fed and Congress are scrambling to stimulate the economy—trying to prevent a recession that many see as likely, if not certain—the current economic turbulence has already taken a large number of casualties. Among the hardest hit have been investment banks, one of the staple employers of Dartmouth students. These banks were some of the largest holders of “mortgage-backed securities,” positions that were backed by mortgage payments from homebuyers, though the financial ripples have spread well beyond these particular securities. With the massive rates of default though, supposedly safe, solid investments suddenly turned sour. Even the largest firms have been shaken to the core by the tumult. Citigroup and Merrill Lynch are among these firms and have, according to BusinessWeek, taken $21 billion and $16.8 billion of losses respectively from these and other similar investments just in the second half of 2007, with more huge losses on the horizon. Other banks have not fared much better. As a whole, the industry has cut 25,000 jobs in the past six months and has been forced to write down losses in excess of $150 billion due to mortgage backed securities, according to the New York Times on February 13th. As one would expect, the downsizing also means that the investment banks will reduce the number of students they recruit. According to one student, alumni have cited reduced recruitment targets at many campuses, including Dartmouth, especially at firms like Goldman Sachs that prefer reducing hires rather than downsizing existing employees.

Unfortunately, the problems extend beyond investment banking jobs. Since houses are usually the largest store of wealth for individuals, a fall in their value effectively causes consumers to be far poorer, and people who feel poorer tend to spend less. This hurts industries that rely on customers to buy their products—which encompasses, more or less, all businesses. This means that no jobs are truly shielded by the economic downturn that is devastating the financial services industry, even if they were able to avoid “spillover” effects from the damage. Even the most traditional and straightforward businesses are being hit hard, as was demonstrated by one motivated ’09 who, seeking an internship, took the time to drive out to Sprint’s office only to be directed by morbidly amused staffers to a recent newspaper article that cited massive layoffs.

Not all hope is lost, however, as students do have an extra option available to them that some of the unfortunate individuals who have recently become jobseekers do not have. A visiting ’06 during Winter Carnival mentioned that partly because of the lackluster job market, he was taking the LSAT and applying to law school instead, and he is certainly not alone. According to Professor Feyrer in the Economics Department, many students follow a similar game plan. “There is a very strong correlation between the unemployment rate and the number of students taking LSATs,” Feyrer stated. When students find that it’s hard to get jobs, they turn to graduate school—taking a few more years off from the job market to delay the payment of student loans and to boost their credentials just a little bit more. Others simply choose the option to take it easy for a while, looking into the storm calmly and deciding, given the circumstances, to take a well-deserved break after four strenuous years of college and vacation or volunteer for a year before testing the waters.

Unfortunately, for some students, neither of these alternatives is an option. If their chosen career path does not make grad school a viable option, or if they simply need to start getting a paycheck right away, there is no shirking from a weak jobs market. All the privileges and advantages that come with being a Dartmouth student cannot change the reality of the nation’s broader economic conditions. Hopefully, the stimulus package and the Fed rates cut will bring these jobs back, but until they do, there is nothing to do but wait.

etter Late Than Never?

Peacekeeping talks in Kenya have finally commenced between the two rival leaders, after ethnic violence between their tribes has already claimed as many as 900 lives. The leading mediator, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, was delayed for almost two weeks due to having contracted the flu. Yet, despite this down time to ponder the circumstances, Annan arrived “with no solution” but, fortunately for the people of Kenya, insisted that a solution must be found. After Annan arrived and conducted opening ceremonies on Tuesday, January 30th, the negotiations began to “properly get to work” on Thursday.

In other news, you probably didn’t even know that Kenya had exploded into political turmoil, resulting in the meaningless loss of lives. FUCK YOU, you privileged piece of shit. Fuck you.

A Lifeline Cut

Large parts of Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa were recently left without Internet service after an undersea cable carrying most of the transmissions between Europe and the Middle East was damaged. The source of the damage is still currently unknown, but massive Internet slowdowns were reported and outages were announced by certain ISPs. The outage also caused major disruption to phone and television services.

In other news, Africa has other things to worry about.

What’s Pink And Bubbly And Taps On The Glass?

A microwaved baby (hahahaha!) has instigated court proceedings and a jury selection for a mother accused of mistaking her child for a hot pocket. Coroners became suspicious when they discovered the baby had high-heat internal injuries but no external burns. The mother’s defense attorney claimed that the mother had nothing to do with the incident. According to the mother, she simply warmed a bottle in the microwave, tried to give it to the baby, changed the baby’s diaper, and fell asleep on the couch with the baby. However, she was doing this after she had, according to her own words, consumed nearly half of a pint of high-proof rum in 90 minutes.

Steve Miller, with tears of nostalgia in his deep, mysterious brown eyes, commented on the baby’s death, saying, “She’s a baby. She’s baby. She’s a dead fucking baby. I play my music in the sun.”

Space Junk

As early as this month, a 20,000 pound U.S. spy satellite will be falling towards Earth. Unhelpful as it is, John McDowell, an astronomer with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told the New York Times that while the satellite isn’t completely nonfunctional, ground controllers can’t communicate with it and can’t stop the satellite from falling to earth. However, other scientists expect that this satellite will probably burn out in the atmosphere, and that we should be more worried about the other 900,000 pounds of space junk currently orbiting Earth.

Speaking of spies, my, oh, my has Michelle Trachtenberg (Harriet the Spy) grown up. Jesus.

Junk In The Trunk

Recently, a TSA tester, posing as a normal passenger, was able to slip past security with a mock bomb tucked in the small of his back. However, this doesn’t seem to be an uncommon event. USA Today disclosed that investigators like this one have gotten past security with 75% of fake bombs at LAX, 60% at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, and 20% at San Francisco International.

Speaking of a bomb that slipped by, my, oh, my has Michelle Trachtenberg (Harriet the Spy) grown up. Daaaamn.

In Green-Eyed Tribute

Heath Ledger made headlines with his death, and America mourned. In addition to glossy eyes, a Best Buy employee mourned with a glossy sign, “HEATH LEDGER $mdash; REMEMBER A GREAT ACTOR THROUGH HIS GREAT PERFORMANCES” and a makeshift shrine of Ledger’s movies. When customers protested, however, Best Buy removed the shrine, stating that, “While we believe this employee’s heart was in the right place, it was a poor choice. One could easily view this as an attempt to profit from Mr. Ledger’s death.”

Steve Miller, with tears of nostalgia in his deep, mysterious brown eyes, commented on Ledger’s death, saying, “He was a jouster. He was the joker. He was a Jake Gyllenhaal poker. Took too many pills and now he’s done.”

Other Junk

With Britney Spears’ rapidly accumulating scandals and escapades of late, her value to the entertainment industry has increased dramatically. According to Francois Navarre, founder of paparazzi agency X17, “Britney is the most bankable celebrity out there right now, and she has been for the past year.” Exclusive pictures of Britney Spears fetch up to $10,000 each, in comparison with $125 to $700 for mentally stable celebrities. Her new record, “Blackout” hit number one on the billboards last fall, and her single, “Gimme More” hit #3 at its peak.

Speaking of attractive celebs, my, oh, my has Michelle Trachtenberg (Harriet the Spy) grown up. Sheeeit, son.