A new campus pro-Israel organization called J Street U is currently applying for COSO recognition. This campus inter-faith group will promote an open discourse about the importance of a peaceful, two-state solution in Israel and Palestine. Although the group is openly pro-Israel, it stresses the role of Israel and all other nations in creating peace between all peoples in the Middle East. Still, the general reaction to the title of “pro-Israel” has caused some people to ask whether outwardly supporting Israel only serves to further polarize the debate on the middle east.

The association of “pro-Israel” with “anti-Palestinian” or “anti-Muslim” has always surprised me. At the end of every year, my Hebrew school votes on where to donate its tzedakah money. Tzedakah means” justice” in Hebrew, and each week the school collects money in order to redress the injustices of the world. The first year of the Iraq War, one of my friends suggested that we give to an organization that sent teddy bears to Iraqi children. Our Jewish history teacher, a native Israeli, took the podium and explained that we could not use our money to do this, because Iraqis hated Israel.

Anger seized me. Did she not understand that if we left them without toys, they would certainly come to hate Israel? Did she really believe that Iraqi children, possibly without homes, maybe mourning family members, were more focused on hatred of Israel than their own misery? Even if they were, would that be any reason to deny them compassion? I envisioned a vicious future without teddy bears and full of division—all due to an unwillingness to relinquish prejudice and fear.

In that moment, I was ashamed that I had ever sung Hatikvah (or, “Hope”), the Israeli national anthem, because I had lost hope. I had lost faith that this country could mean anything other than a blind and rigid instinct of self-defense. Our teacher’s statement made clear that a knee-jerk protection of Israel had overcome a commitment to tzedakah and tikkun olam (repairing the world). An intense and irrational instinct had replaced the most important Jewish values—the values that I, as a Jew and a person, hope to struggle for through the rest of my life.

Both in the classroom and in the global discourse on Israel, we sometimes lose track of these values. It seems that a healthy desire to protect Israel’s existence is often undermined with a fear of “the other”—whether the Palestinian, the Muslim, or anyone who disagrees with Israeli policy. As a result, many people today prefer not to define themselves as “pro-Israel” because the term has come to connote a narrow-minded and insular defense of all Israel’s actions.

I’m accustomed to insularity. I grew up in an area with a very small Jewish minority. Some people told me being Jewish was weird, others worried that I was un-baptized, and someone once asked me if Jews believe in God. People just didn’t have room for Judaism in their worldview. In sophomore year of high school, a rabbi spoke to us as part of our school series on spirituality. Afterwards, I asked my friend what she had thought of the lecture. She shrugged and answered that she hadn’t listened because Judaism wasn’t “her religion.” Just as I had when my teacher spoke against donating toys, I envisioned a future fractured by religious ignorance.

I wish to dedicate myself to preventing such a future. On-campus groups such as Multi-faith Council are a great way to promote interfaith dialogue and understanding, and I have learned much from my participation. While I was looking to take interfaith cooperation beyond discussion, a friend introduced me to J Street U, the campus arm of the political organization J Street. I was thrilled. J Street, which supports a two-state solution, is firmly grounded in the values of social justice and human rights. It offers an opportunity to advocate for humanitarian values and to put interfaith work on the ground by working with Jews and non-Jews to promote peace. Our small, close-knit campus offers a special opportunity for people of different backgrounds and beliefs to work together, and this microcosm will provide useful training for the larger world. Ultimately, I believe that the work of groups such as J Street U will provide a firm foundation for an Israel that I can be proud of.

“A future soundtrack to a documentary about early-twenty-first-century malaise,” (Rolling Stone 2008) seems little more than another way of saying that Radiohead is the only fix to fill the cathedral craters one’s left with on a suicide Tuesday, if you know what I mean. If the last decade was a cultural and musical comedown from the British-lead chemically fueled love-fest of the 1990s, it looks like the comedown will outlast the peak, as is often the case this side of the analogy anyway.

The King of Limbs, released online February 18th, is the band’s eighth album and a follow-up to 2008’s In Rainbows. Most reviews note first and foremost, that The King of Limbs was not released like In Rainbows, which the band made available on their website as a pay-whatever-you-think-its-worth download. Unlike the ordinary payment method this time around, the video for “Lotus Flower,” probably the most mainstream-sounding track on
The King of Limbs, is a pretty blatant critique of the Industry from which Radiohead claimed their independence in 2004. The video, released with the downloadable versions (.mp3, or .wav for $5 more), ahead of the physical album (CD in stores March 28th , “Newspaper Package” including two clear vinyls May 9th), features lead vocalist and front man Thom Yorke dancing frantically in a bowler to a song that recalls Kid A’s How To Disappear Completely with the lines “I was thinking I would disappear, I would slip into your groove and cut me off” and “Just to feed your fast ballooning head/ listen to your heart.” The video, which concludes with an obvious “© Radiohead,” and Yorke’s mime-like movements remind us again in 2011 of our enduring need for Radiohead.
The album is only 37 minutes long simply because none of the band was in the mood to put out another full-length studio album. Yorke told The Believer in the summer of 2009, “None of us want to go into that creative hoo-ha of a long-play record again.” Their ever-evolving sound, now accompanied by an evolving form—that of the shorter album—is all at once subtler, smarter and funkier than ever before.

The album’s strongest track is the raw, haunting “Give Up the Ghost,” in which, I find, the lines “I think I should give up the ghost, into your arms,” recall the “haunted outtakes” in which “True Love Waits” (2001). On the funky, controlled “Separator,” Colin Greenwood’s sultry bass-line and Phil Selway’s spicy beat carry home the resounding message that Radiohead is here to stay: “Everyone, wake me up/ if you think this is over, then you’re wrong.”

Radiohead continues to fill important, otherwise unreachable spaces in the modern lives of those of us who listen. And these spaces are all at once more sensitive, more cultivated, and more impervious to what’s good, and what’s not, than they were when they were new. The King of Limbs confirms what we already knew about Radiohead, that they’re one of the extremely few—maybe the only—consistently good and already enduring post-pop groups on earth. The world needs Radiohead. And luckily, they’re not going anywhere.

On Wednesday, February 23, three women, all now healthy sexagenarians, shared their experiences from years of working as Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) organizers in the Deep South to an audience in Filene Auditorium. The event, called “Hands on the Freedom Plow,” was one of a series of events celebrating Black History Month, and was co-sponsored by the History, Women & Gender Studies and African American Studies departments. One of the women, Judy Richardson, recalled a story of a former cohort’s altercation with the police. “Don’t touch the fur, don’t touch the fur,” the woman told police as they placed her under arrest for participating in a sit-in at the local diner in Mississippi. Sit-ins were one of many tactics that Judy Richardson, Penny Patch and Janet Moses learned to use to fight discrimination and racism during their time organizing with SNCC.

Their stories evoked humorous and sometimes somber responses from those in attendance. Audience members struggled to fight back tears as Patch, one of SNCC’s first white female organizers, told of the time an elderly black woman offered to get up from her seat and allow Patch to sit down simply because she was white.

Beyond the discussions of fighting racism and discrimination in the context of the women’s’ experiences, a conversation about generational expectations of political advocacy was embedded within their stories

The women, like most SNCC organizers, were in their late teens to early twenties when they worked as organizers. Patch and Richardson both left Swarthmore, the college they were currently attending, to go south. They believed that their presence in southern states could help change the racial hierarchy that had long existed in American society. Not unlike civil rights advocacy today, the movement they took part in was energized by college students, both black and white.

The women were initially unaware of what they would face because, as Richardson told a History class earlier in the day, “If we had known the kind of people and thinking we were up against, we might not have went.” Even if a ghostly figure had appeared to warn her about traveling to Mississippi and organizing demonstrations against inequality, I doubt Richardson would have passed up the chance. Listening to her statement, I could not help but wonder if Richardson’s present thoughts about her younger years demonstrated a certain amount of pessimism that comes along with growing older.

So, what happened to her “anything is possible” attitude? Has she suddenly become content with the status quo in her old age? Of course not. Richardson’s will to see change is still alive, but society’s view of her as someone who might have the desire or capacity to bring about that change is dead. When we think of people like Patch, Moses, and Richardson we have the tendency to imagine sweet ole’ ladies who spend their days visiting grandchildren and cooking holiday feasts for their families. We rarely look to them to spawn the next great American social movement.

College students fall victim to this polar assumption. It has become widely accepted that young, enthusiastic college students are overly eager to organize for any cause. Along with devaluing the causes college students organize by dismissing them as products of a youthful phase, we create a society in which aging men and women are encouraged to withdraw from public political discourse.

Even at Dartmouth, the large elderly community of Hanover is expected to support events at The Hop, but is not consulted when the administration proposes budget cuts and employee layoffs. Why have we created a community in which there is no space for aging, concerned women like these?

Through their very presence on our campus, the women of SNCC reminded me that as people grow old, nothing changes within them to make them less concerned about society. What changes are our expectations of them. We expect them to quiet down and give us a peek into an earlier time and place.

Along with valuing the history lessons that people like Patch, Moses and Richardson offer us, we might start making space in society and at Dartmouth for their voices, too. Their personal accounts can be read in a new anthology of narratives by women that organized for SNCC: Hands on the Freedom Plow: Personal Accounts by Women in SNCC (University of Illinois Press, 2010).

Tunisia, December 2010: A man self-immolates and consequently sparks a worldwide conflagration. Pro-democracy protesters respond in Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Jordan, Yemen, Morocco, Iraq. Calls for regime change, for economic empowerment, social and political justice, free speech, the ending of police brutality, and the eradication of corruption galvanize millions across North Africa and the Middle East. Streets are filled, strikes are leveraged, and now, on two occasions, regimes are toppled. Libya’s fate, both tragic and uncertain, will unfold in coming weeks. And as the storm continues to gather, the fate of world democracy, too, may soon unfold. At long last, the pillars of authoritarianism and neo-liberalism have been shaken; a new world is possible.

This historical moment has not been confined to North Africa and the Middle East. Rather, countries as diverse as China, South Africa, and Russia have experienced incipient and growing social unrest. Since the world economic meltdown, Greek, Spanish, French, British, Irish, and Portuguese citizens have protested en masse, opposing the proposed “austerity” measures of their governments. Workers have struck; millions have filled the streets. And now, via Wisconsin, the storm has arrived in the United States.

The unrest in Wisconsin was catalyzed by Governor Scott Walker’s explicit, legislative attempt to disembowel public sector unions. And as of Wednesday, March 9, this attempt has been successful. After weeks of protests and strikes in Madison, Wisconsin Republicans finally rammed Walker’s anti-union bill through the senate. Though senate Democrats had fled the state to prevent a vote, Republicans managed, by separating the legislation into two parts, to hold a vote without having reached a quorum. This legislative maneuvering is highly questionable. Democrats are already preparing legal challenges. Assuming their challenges are unsuccessful, though, Wisconsin unions will soon experience their most significant defeat in generations.

Walker’s bill contains a few key provisions. First, it would strip unions of collective bargaining rights, which are the primary means to the protection of workplace rights. Additionally, the bill would restrict unions to bargaining for base wages, limit raises to the rate of inflation, disallow union contributions to political campaigns, and prohibit the automatic deduction of union dues from paychecks. This last provision is crucial. It would severely drain union finances, thus further undermining unions’ capacity to advocate for their members. Additionally, the government would have the terrifying and draconian power to fire any state employee who engages in a strike or who misses more than three workdays. In short, public unions would become bankrupt, powerless, and politically inconsequential. Needless to say, this is an enticing prospect for the Republican governor, in light of unions’ strong allegiance to the Democratic Party.

Walker states that his legislation is necessary for the state to balance its $137 million budget deficit. Yet his actions suggest other motivations. Immediately after becoming governor, he signed corporate-friendly tax and health care legislation that will cost Wisconsin $117 million. He refused even to consider a marginal tax increase for the wealthy.

The governor’s attack on unions is not merely a cost-cutting strategy. Nor is it a necessary means to solvency. Rather, it stems from a much deeper, deeply ideological, right-wing attack on democracy. It represents a nation-wide, conservative backlash which aims to strip political and economic rights from citizens, granting them instead to the wealthiest, most powerful interests. Across the country, state governments are attempting to pass legislation like Walker’s. Some states have already succeeded. Some will likely soon succeed. Workers across the country are under siege.

Though these attacks on the working class have recently reached a feverish pitch, we must see them within a larger historical context. Since the passage of the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, working people have seen their rights slowly chiseled away under the blows of corporate interests and sympathetic governments. The union movement today shares few similarities with the movement that earned Americans health care, the weekend, and the eight-hour workday. Today, union participation is at a record low. The movement is moribund and quite often ineffectual. Unions are a dying breed.

In this precarious position, Walker’s bill will likely deliver a deathblow to the union movement. Scores of labor historians and union members agree that if Wisconsin does indeed “fall,” the other states will soon follow suit. In other words, if Walker is successful, the Republican anti-union agenda will quickly gather unstoppable momentum. Consequently, the workplace rights of millions of Americans will be instantaneously jeopardized. Millions will lose bargaining power. Millions will experience sudden income and benefit cuts. Millions will be made to suffer in the name of “deficit-reduction.” In the meantime, the banks and corporations responsible for the economic crisis will rightfully expect further bailouts and tax breaks. Injustice, in our country, will reach a sickening level.

This attack on workers, though, is not isolated to government policy. Rather, it is one feature of a larger, corporate mindset which has permeated all corners of public life. At Dartmouth, for example, the priority of efficiency has become a defining characteristic of the Kim administration. Over the last two years, Dartmouth staff have experienced substantial lay-offs, hour cuts (read: salary reductions), and benefit reductions. Furthermore, since 2005, the college has invested over $100 million in trustee-owned firms. Such an investment policy is an obvious conflict of interest and raises critical concerns regarding the priorities of our trustees. Lastly, the resignations of Deans Spears, Larimore, and Ivery have indicated broader, institutional problems within the administration. Our college is increasingly run like a corporation.

These trends, representative of anti-democratic strains within Dartmouth, have thrust the question of democracy into the campus spotlight. Students, faculty, and staff have rightly begun to demand answers from the administration. Like the protesters in Wisconsin and Egypt, we have begun to demand accountability from our “rulers.” We have begun to demand more say in the way that our lives are run.

History will view 2011 as a flash of light in the global struggle for democracy. Less than three months into the year, two regimes have been toppled. Many more tremble in the winds of social unrest. Needless to say, our struggles are far from over. Egypt is still controlled by the military, enormous protests in Europe have been largely ineffectual, and Scott Walker has all but demolished Wisconsin’s unions. Thus, the enormous and perpetual task of transforming society is still ahead of us. And yet, as we have seen, the masses are no longer slumbering. Rather, in fitful, seemingly spontaneous bursts—in Egypt, Wisconsin, or France—they have woken to demand a better world. They have done so with passion, tenacity, and a deep yearning for democracy. As the people of North Africa struggle to free themselves from neo-liberal and authoritarian rule, we must follow their example. We, too, can demand a more just society. We, too, can demand a better world.

Since the DFP’s last article on the Koch brothers, certain events, both humorous and compelling, have involved the covert political powerhouse. A recap of the infamous duo’s past couple of weeks:

After successfully convincing secretaries and aides that he was indeed Mr. Koch, the blogger was connected to the Governor. The conversation went right to Walker’s budget repair legislation and the protests against it in the state capital. The impersonator told Walker that he considered “planting some troublemakers” (possibly with the help of Americans for Prosperity, a special interest group supported by the brothers) to damage the protestors’ image.

Scott responded by saying he had considered the same idea. After agreeing with the fake Koch’s statement that MSNBC’s Mika Brzeznski is a “real piece of ass,” Walker revealed his aspiration to defeat unions à la Reagan and the striking air traffic controllers of 1981. The fake Koch then promised, “Once you crush those bastards I’ll fly out to Cali and show you a good time.” Walker accepted this offer and claimed that his efforts are done in the name of freedom.

The phone call revealed more about Scott Walker than it did the Kochs. Still, Walker’s obvious truculence demonstrates the brothers’ influence. James Joyner of Outside the Beltway says the call “showed the extent to which politicians are beholden to campaign money.” Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chair Mike Tate noted Walker’s refusal to listen to the workers of Wisconsin while nonetheless listening to an oil billionaire. The Wisconsin Legislature has responded to the prank by introducing a bill that would prohibit misleading call recipients about the caller’s identity. State Republicans like Mary Lazich have authored the bill, which would also ban masking one’s voice during a phone call.

A ‘hacktivist’ group, Anonymous, recently started an Internet protest against paper products of Koch companies and its subsidiaries. The blacklisted products include popular toilet papers like Quilted Northern, Brawny, Angel Soft as well as a list of other brands owned by Koch subsidiary Georgia-Pacific. In a press release, the group invites all citizens of the United States to join in the effort against what they see as an attempt to “usurp American Democracy” by the Kochs. While this effort has spread awareness about the brothers’ shady doings, the prominence of Koch Industries products will make it hard to have a real effect on the powerful conglomerate.

“A future soundtrack to a documentary about early-twenty-first-century malaise,” (Rolling Stone 2008) seems little more than another way of saying that Radiohead is the only fix to fill the cathedral craters one’s left with on a suicide Tuesday, if you know what I mean. If the last decade was a cultural and musical comedown from the British-lead chemically fueled love-fest of the 1990s, it looks like the comedown will outlast the peak, as is often the case this side of the analogy anyway.

The King of Limbs, released online February 18th, is the band’s eighth album and a follow-up to 2008’s In Rainbows. Most reviews note first and foremost, that The King of Limbs was not released like In Rainbows, which the band made available on their website as a pay-whatever-you-think-its-worth download. Unlike the ordinary payment method this time around, the video for “Lotus Flower,” probably the most mainstream-sounding track on The King of Limbs, is a pretty blatant critique of the Industry from which Radiohead claimed their independence in 2004. The video, released with the downloadable versions (.mp3, or .wav for $5 more), ahead of the physical album (CD in stores March 28th , “Newspaper Package” including two clear vinyls May 9th), features lead vocalist and front man Thom Yorke dancing frantically in a bowler to a song that recalls Kid A’s How To Disappear Completely with the lines “I was thinking I would disappear, I would slip into your groove and cut me off” and “Just to feed your fast ballooning head/ listen to your heart.” The video, which concludes with an obvious “© Radiohead,” and Yorke’s mime-like movements remind us again in 2011 of our enduring need for Radiohead.

The album is only 37 minutes long simply because none of the band was in the mood to put out another full-length studio album. Yorke told The Believer in the summer of 2009, “None of us want to go into that creative hoo-ha of a long-play record again.” Their ever-evolving sound, now accompanied by an evolving form—that of the shorter album—is all at once subtler, smarter and funkier than ever before.

The album’s strongest track is the raw, haunting “Give Up the Ghost,” in which, I find, the lines “I think I should give up the ghost, into your arms,” recall the “haunted outtakes” in which “True Love Waits” (2001). On the funky, controlled “Separator,” Colin Greenwood’s sultry bass-line and Phil Selway’s spicy beat carry home the resounding message that Radiohead is here to stay: “Everyone, wake me up/ if you think this is over, then you’re wrong.”

Last week I had the opportunity to interview three-time US presidential candidate Ralph Nader. Our conversation, which ranged from topics of consumer advocacy, collective bargaining, the media, and the election process, begins at the fourth paragraph below.

Beyond his political ambitions, Mr. Nader is a renowned consumer advocate whose 1965 report on car safety is largely credited with inspiring Congress to pass federal seat belt laws. Additionally, he founded Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG) and the Center for Study of Responsive Law, where he now works alongside his “Nader’s Raiders”—a team of expert investigators, attorneys, and consumer advocates.

Since his last election, Nader has received scant media attention. To my surprise, though, he has been far from quiet in Washington, advocating for more legislation and creating more non-profit organizations than ever.

When I asked him what new initiatives he’s involved with, he replied, “Well we’re always busy. We were recently trying to pass a bill in response to the recent recalls with Toyota, but it got vetoed by the Republicans in Congress. We have also been working on financial regulation reform. So to answer your question, we at CSRL believe people need more choices and more voices. And in this era of corporate globalization, we need to remind people that some things are not for sale. Government should not be for sale. Basic education should not be for sale. Democracy around the world is on the verge of a huge breakthrough, and now its time to subordinate corporatism to the sovereignty of the people here in the United States. Look how little energy it took to sound the national alarm in Wisconsin!”

Knowing that Nader is not known for optimism, I pointed out that “the overall political climate of the US right now, at least in the media, is a tendency for liberals to compromise both in Town Halls and in the White House. What about the watered-down Obama budget, or the growing resistance to liberal institutions in the Midwest?”

“The Republicans are just better fighters than the Democrats,” Nader, the Independent, responded. “Unlike Republicans, Democrats often flounder in their victories and lose lasting impact. Governor Scott Walker won his election on a tea-party platform sponsored by the Koch Brothers and driven by mass media, and now that he is there he plans to exercise his power.” (This statement that Walker ran on a tea-party platform is actually inaccurate. In reality, Walker ran on a moderate platform and beat out a self-described tea-party candidate in the Republican Primary). Nader continued, “You’ll notice that when you hear conservatives talking about the hot issues, their arguments are generally either factually inaccurate or extremely vague moral or ethical stances.”

“Scott Walker has been defending the ban on collective bargaining on the grounds that collective bargaining punishes the most efficient workers,” I added. “He also says that it is necessary to reduce the deficit in a struggling economy. How would you respond to that?”

“Collective bargaining exists,” said Nader, “so that if somebody messes up they go to their union and file a complaint, and based on their argument they evaluate the complaint to raise standards or wages. Nothing about that punishes an efficient worker. On the contrary, the most productive workforce in American history were the car manufacturers in the 50’s who were supported by the largest unions in the country. Walker is just using the deficit as a so-called ‘useful’ crisis which he hopes will gain momentum in order to fight other democratic institutions associated with unions, such as health care reform. The truth is that Wisconsin’s total deficit isn’t actually that bad. Even if the crisis were real, we should not be taking money away from unions first. What about the corporations and special interests to whom the Wisconsin taxpayers gave over $140 million last year? Which one should go first?”

The actual budget deficit in Wisconsin is $137 million, and is by no means an outlier when compared to other states. Contrary to popular belief, Wisconsin’s public sector is among the 10 leanest in the country. The idea that the Wisconsin deficit is due to a ballooning public sector with a byzantine bureaucracy is a myth.

“The decision of the Democrats to flee the state,” I suggested, “while passionate and successful in the short term, is not a long term solution. As a specialist in legal matters, what do you think is the best way to win back collective bargaining in the long run? Is anything Scott Walker doing illegal? What about threatening to cut 12,000 jobs if the protesters don’t stand down, isn’t that essentially blackmail?”

“Governor Walker isn’t doing anything illegal,” Nader said with cold confidence. “The best thing we can do is elect him out of office in two years. In the long run, what we can focus on is teaching students and advocates better civic skills. Even up there at Dartmouth, they teach you how to maximize efficiency and profits, and to do many other wonderful arts and sciences, but they don’t teach you how to defend your rights, organize a protest, and subordinate the corporations to the sovereignty of the people.”

Though I had told myself to refrain from questioning him about his presidential campaign, I couldn’t help but ask, “Many people, both Democrats and Republicans, claim that you were the reason why Bush was elected to 8 years in office. How do you justify your presidential campaign in 2000?”

“This is an absurd idea. The American people have the freedom to vote for whomever they want, and the suggestion that I should not run for president goes directly against the constitutional right for my supporters to vote for whoever you want.”

Finally, as I had the impression that Mr. Nader was extraordinarily well informed, I asked him where he reads his news.

“You know, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian. They tend to cover everything, and after a while you get used to cutting through all the fat. One publication that I recommend especially for the liberal-minded is an online publication called ‘Progressive Populist.’ It really has a lot of great ammunition for people like you, with columns by really eloquent people like Amy Goodman from Democracy Now.”

I thanked Mr. Nader for his time and he immediately asked me for my address so that he could send me a box full of books, magazines, and other resources. If there is one thing If there is one thing I learned about Ralph Nader from this interview, beyond that he has an unapologetic yet benevolent attitude towards politics, it is that the man certainly does his homework.

With surges of anti-choice bills in state and federal legislatures, America’s political climate has taken another turn towards social issues. In fact, the political climate hasn’t been so anti-choice in decades. For example, Arizona is introducing a barrage of bills that would force women to view ultrasounds of their fetuses. Another bill in Congress would prevent businesses from offering their employees health insurance that covers abortion.

And in an effort to make it even more difficult to obtain abortions, the House recently passed a bill that would axe all funding for Title X and Planned Parenthood. This bill is moving forward despite that fact that Planned Parenthood is already barred from using federal funds to provide abortions, outside of rape and incest cases. Instead of decreasing abortions, though, Planned Parenthood has said that this bill would eliminate important health services provided to lower-income women. Most outrageously, South Dakota, Iowa, and Nebraska Republicans are attempting to pass laws that would legalize homicide against abortion providers—so much for protecting life.

Given all of this recent anti-choice fervor I shouldn’t have been surprised when the movement reached our lonely corner in the frigid North in the form of an advertising campaign. Perhaps you’ve noticed the flyers cropping up all over campus with grainy black and white images of an ultrasound of a fetus, labeled“Baby Lucy.”Vita Clamantis, a campus anti-choice group associated with Aquinas House, has been putting up posters in order to “provoke thought and discussions at Dartmouth.” The organization plans to post more flyers showing the monthly development of the imaginary Baby Lucy. According to one flyer, Baby Lucy tells us, “By now, I can grasp with my hands, kick, or even somersault! I am five and a half inches long and weigh nearly half a pound. At this point, eyebrows and eyelashes have appeared on my face.” According to the Aquinas House website, the flyer campaign is supposed to culminate in a baby shower for Baby Lucy at the end of term. In an apparent attempt to make this egregious campaign less polarizing, the bottom of each flyer directs those in need of support to contact an unplanned pregnancy center for post-abortion healing.

After seeing this footnote, my curiosity was piqued—what exactly, is a “pregnancy center?” From the title, it sounds a bit like Planned Parenthood—so why would Vita Clamantis, with its staunch anti-choice position, be supporting it? As it turns out, the Dartmouth Free Press has reported on the Pregnancy Center of the Upper Valley before (formerly known as the Care Net Pregnancy Center of the Upper Valley). It is one of many “crisis pregnancy centers” (CPCs) in the U.S. which are supposed to look like real abortion clinics (and are sometimes even located closed to Planned Parent locations), in order to lure pregnant women and inundate them with anti-choice propaganda.

Using federal funding, CPCs offer free pregnancy tests similar to those found at CVS. And even though CPCs rarely staff medical technicians, they nonetheless offer ultrasounds. When asked whether or not they provide abortions, CPCs dodge the question. As a part of a Congressional report for California Congressman Henry Waxman in 2006, undercover reporters showed that 87 percent of CPCs they visited provided false or misleading information. The false information provided by CPC counselors included statements to the extent that having an abortion increases the risk of breast cancer, or that abortion causes post traumatic stress disorder comparable to the kind seen in Vietnam War veterans. A 2010 report by NARAL shows that CPCs also give false information regarding the risks of surgical abortion. This information states, for example, that abortion might result in a woman’s uterine lining being sucked out. Women who have visited these CPCs also report being interrogated about their religious beliefs, being shown graphic depictions of abortions, and even being asked to pray with counselors.

The CPC in West Lebanon is no different. In 2008, DFP reporter Mary Novak visited the Pregnancy Center of the Upper Valley, posing as someone worried about an unplanned pregnancy. , Along with stressing the increased risk of post-abortion stress, counselors falsely advised her that having an abortion would increase her risk of infertility in the future. While they were sure to emphasize the risks at every stage of abortion, they had absolutely nothing negative to say about natural childbirth, which is far more dangerous than having an abortion. The counselors also pressured her to get an ultrasound, interrogated her about her religious background, and offered her a Bible. Towards the end of her visit, Mary was directed to a downstairs gift shop to start buying baby clothes. Mary Novak described it as a “frightening and intimidating” experience.

Women’s reproductive health is already under attack. Vita Clamantis is perfectly within its rights to question individuals’ beliefs with “Baby Lucy” blurbs. However, their association with the Pregnancy Center, an organization that uses scare tactics to prevent abortions, is disturbing. Regardless of one’s personal opinions about abortion, it is reprehensible that a campus group would support and donate to a center that poses as a medical clinic and knowingly disseminates false information in order to mislead women.

And, dear reader, if you happen to find yourself unexpectedly pregnant, please don’t go to the Pregnancy Center of the Upper Valley; you’re not likely to find accurate information there. Besides West Leb’s Planned Parenthood is just down the street.

There is a general understanding surrounding sex on this campus concerning who comes and who doesn’t. Maybe it spans beyond this small campus, but we’ll limit our scientific study and broad generalizations to Dartmouth. The understanding involves straight sex, a man, a woman, and one orgasm. But whose orgasm?

The man’s orgasm. Sorry for being biased, but the male orgasm is so damn unmysterious and, dare I say it, boring. As my XY chromosomed friend informed me when I asked him to describe his orgasm to me, you just pump and then climax. Boom.

Booooooorrrrriiinnnnngggg. So back to the situation described above, imagine this sex session: his penis enters her vagina, sashays back and forth a bit, hopefully she likes the feeling, and then he cums. On a scale from 1 to 10, how normal would you rate this interaction? I’d give it a resounding 9.5 for normality, with that extra 0.5 accounting for any errors in my data collection and processing (told you this was scientific).

I don’t want to say anything sacrilegious about sex in a sex column, but that type of sex, the sex that revolves solely around the man splooging, is just as boring to me as the actual male orgasm. And yet, this idea about sex seems completely normal, and even expected, especially within the bounds of the straight “hookup culture” at Dartmouth. It is when we reverse it that people become somewhat uncomfortable. Let us imagine instead that as sexual shenanigans get heavy between a male and female, it is she who comes first! She is tired, perhaps he is too, and they fall asleep, her cervix still wet from the recent orgasm. The next time these two hook up, she again comes first, and he does not. Repeat indefinitely and sprinkle in some orgasms for the male every now and then.

That’d seem weird right? For many women, the vagina’s biological refractory period after orgasm is about zero seconds, a sizable contrast to its counterpart, the dick. So for these vaginas, this situation of one-sided orgasms is perhaps a little far-fetched, but hopefully you have followed along with my thought experiment anyways. It certainly makes me gnash my teeth knowing that many couples out there have fallen into the lonely-male-orgasm hole. Maybe I have penis envy, maybe I’m just bitter that my orgasm isn’t usually the first priority with a partner, whatever. There’s one thing that keeps me going through the cold nights and unfulfilled horniness: the female orgasm.

I think I had a seizure. The intense release of muscle tension caused one thigh to cramp up. My ears were ringing afterwards and I was light-headed, dizzy, and weak. The next day I noticed mysterious general muscle soreness, as if I had worked out or something. Some external places in the vaginal region were sensitive to the touch and seemed almost bruised.

It’s ok, no one beat me up. The blame for my ailments rests completely on his dick and my two fingers. Perhaps I should be nicer and expand “dick” to “male Dartmouth student,” since his penis was particularly nice and not necessarily directly interchangeable with another one. Whatever—this man/dick gave me a 10 second orgasm.

A lot can happen in 10 seconds, especially if within the next 10 seconds after the initial 10 seconds, you cum again. Multiple female orgasms, fuck yeah.

If sex is generally hailed as a good painkiller by medical experts, then I’m gonna say that the female orgasm is straight up Oxycontin, which explains my ignorance of all the injuries sustained. One typical horny day I was lying in my bathtub masturbating, and forgetting that the tub was porcelain and I was not, I managed to bruise my lower back for a week. I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but I’ve made a note to stop by Walmart and buy some kind of waterproof geriatric shower cushioning next time I’m on a trip to un-dun. While my back healed, masturbation helped with the pain. Maybe you can see how this might turn into a vicious cycle.

I want to say one more thing before this column ends and you realize you have 40 papers to write by tomorrow and zero time to stick your hands down your pants. When the post-finals sex comes around, think about that female orgasm yo. Here’s one nice way to achieve female orgasm with a male partner for those beginners out there. Rated super easy. Necessary active participants: 2. Assume missionary position and vaginal penetration, with the male raised on both arms so that the female can reach down and stimulate her clit. The male then thrusts according to female direction. This appears to be the key for most women, the combination of vaginal and clitoral stimulation. You each take care of one job– pretty efficient!

Everyone deserves a bust/squirt now and then, from the XX to the XY. If you find yourself in a one-orgasm, two-person situation, do your best to change it! Only you can prevent unrequited orgasms.

THE MASTHEAD
Editor-in-Chief: Paul Lintilhac
Executive Editor: Zack De
Managing Editor: Eli Lichtenstein
Publisher: Joseph Z. T. Mesfin
Treasurer: Kate B. Miller

Read Issue 11.3!