Dr. Wheelock's Journal
Divers Notes & Observations
The college green was pretty bleak in late January, when this was being written. However, snow was being brought in by truck (of course), indicating that Carnival soon will be here. The sculpture will embody the theme "How the Grinch Stole Carnival." For a while the publishers of the late Theodor Seuss Geisel '25, Random House, played the part of the Grinch and for some occult reason refused permission, but finally relented. (Why the students even bothered to ask escapes us. Possibly cowed by all the recent flap over what constitutes plagiarism?)
Pat Buchanan was not so meticulous in his appearance on January 9 at Spaulding. At one point he used the term "Globaloney," which he must be old enough to be able to attribute to its coiner, the late waspish congresswoman of the thirties, Clare Booth Luce. But he handled the turn-away crowd in acceptable "Crossfire" fashion. One listener was heard to remark, "These people ought to be forced to listen to their own questions first before asking them." The large majority of the students were by no means unruly, but it distresses us to see those omnipresent few with signs and slogans in questionable taste.
Every candidate, except David Duke has invaded the state in the past few weeks, many but not all paying their respects to us in Hanover. Paul Tsongas '62 was among the first, and we have it reliably that his current TV commercial was not shot in the Spaulding Pool. In the event that Governor Bill Clinton makes it to the White House, his personable lawyerwife, Hillary, who spoke on his behalf at the Hinman Forum, will give Barbara Bush a run for the tide of this decade's favorite running mate. (George was then hawking cars in the Land of the Rising Trade Balance.)
As though the joint were not jumpin' enough, all varieties of noncandidate faces have appeared on campus in the past weeks. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. warned of "the virus of tribalism," which in our nation today belittles "unum" and glorifies "pluribus." Harrison Salisbury feared that democracy in Russia can never be made to work. Hodding Carter said that in ten years Japan's GNP will equal that of the United States. Newly appointed head of the National Institutes of Health Dr. Bernardine Healy was the keynote speaker at the Third Annual Biotechnology Conference at the hospital. Gore Vidal, Montgomery Fellow for a week, was—well, Gore Vidal. A former Trustee of the College—honorary, to be sure, but we heard that his attendance at meetings was always exemplary has been invited to be a visiting fellow for an undetermined term: John Sununu. Even Oliver Stone, director of the controversial film "JFK" was here for a day, billed as representing a national organization that encourages students to get out and vote. The Daily D printed the release on its front page, and must actually have believed that was why he came.
WINTER HAS NOT BEEN overly kind, sportwise, to the Green. Both men's hockey and basketball are showing plenty of drive and talent—for a period or a half, and then disastersville. The women are doing better. Coach Jackie Hullah's basketeers could be on the way to their tenth Ivy banner in the past 16 years, and the hockey team upset unbeaten and nationally number-one-ranked Northeastern, 6-3. The track and field Heptagonals will be held at Leverone this year, and the Green will boast a strong contingent in the middle and long distances. Many potential Dartmouth Olympians were in the winter book, but at present it seems that the only one making the trip to Albertville next month will be Cammy Myler '92, in the luge. She was the daredevil you saw in our last issue.
Last December, True to Boston's James Michael Curley/Last Hurrah political tradition, the banner at the Anti Defamation League's dinner welcomed President "James O'Freedman." The President was honored with the ADL's William O. Douglas First Amendment Freedom Award before a distinguished crowd including Senator Warren Rudman, Paul Tsongas, Brown President Vartan Gregorian and six other college presidents, previous honorees, and even 12 students. The award was for Freedman's career-long defense of free speech. The Dartmouth Review, however, trivialized the award, criticized the ADL, and again maligned Dartmouth's president. It is our feeling that these students should be the very last to cavil. Under many of Freedman's predecessors, their brand of journalism would long ago have earned them a one-way ticket to far out of town. But as he said at the ADL dinner, "Colleges and universities must respond to speech that is hateful and loathsome in ways that preserve fully the values embodied in the First Amendment. It means that they must resist the expedient lure of disciplinary codes that would limit or chill with overbroad prohibitions the freedom of expression of their students, however abrasive and obnoxious that expression might be."
The american festival Project, an unusual cross-cultural event featuring five minority-theater groups, charmed Hopkins Center audiences for a full week last month. There was a black group, Junebug Productions; a group from Appalachia, Roadside Theatre; El Teatro de la Esperanza; A Travelling Jewish Theatre; and the Oklahoma Indian Theatre and Dance Company. The actors discussed racial issues with students.
Writes john H. sinnigen '67, "Since Dinesh D'Souza begins his response to my letter (October 1991) by citing two spelling errors, I would appreciate an indication in your next issue that those errata were yours and not mine." We are not this magazine's proofreader but the apologist, so, Mr. Sinnigen, they are hereby acknowledged as such. In fact, in re-reading D'Souza's response, we note that he says your letter "is filled with non sequitors." Could that one be ours, too? As that one-time girlfriend of ours was wont to say, "try and have anything nice."
Candidates came to pitch, providing Dartmouth students a primary education.
