January 16, 2007

Dartmouth Boys Love Their Haterade

I'm off campus, and generally isolated in my ivory tower, so I'm not really well-positioned to comment on any of this, but fuck if I care. Off the bat, I should admit its gender-biased of me to assume its only men doing the hating, but I think its a pretty fair assumption. Also, I should admit that I throw my hat in the ring only for the attention, since an angry shit-storm is the closest any of us could get to celebrity status on our sleepy campus. That Seal has been hated on so much, and even Connor, but not me? Well. I am hurt. I am shocked and offended - and hurt.
Anyway, I think its just freaking incredible how idiotic some of these comments are, and as a neutral observer (not being a member of the Seal-Andreadis left wing conspiracy), I'd like to review things as I see them. Aside from the maybe questionable decision to fully reveal the alleged disciplinary sanctions, Seal has qualified a lot of his claims. If you take the trouble to read all the comments, not much of this is objectionable.

There was pre-existing animosity between Shpeen and Tim, and Tim's decision to report Shpeen, though I don't know the full circumstances, seems pretty stupid. If Shpeen already wanted Tim out, its not hard to believe that this was the last straw. Now, why have people rallied against Tim? Some are friends of Shpeen, some already disliked Tim, some are ideologically opposed to Tim, and some are eager to feel significant and important. But, as far as I can tell, it was Shpeen that kicked off this whole party. Now, while there may be a wide range of reasons that people want to abolish SA or impeach Tim, this hardly seems to be a constructive impulse grounded in good will. I agree with Adam that SA could use some drastic reform, but this looks like poorly-timed gesture of ill-will that lacks any particular direction, and it could have profound consequences on SA (if not the campus...that depends on one's opinion of SA).

So, even if you agree that SA needs to be shaken up, there's good reason to wait until later, when the animosity has died down a bit, and a more carefully thought-out approach takes shape. Even if the motives are legit (which, honestly, I have trouble believing) the circumstances would delegitimize any reforms that grew out of this 'movement.'

Those of you that are ragging on Seal with personal attacks, I'm sure it feels great to get your best pong-game shit-talk witticisms out of the basement and aired out online. Congratulations, we all recognize what hilarious (and yet, still persuasive) people you are. The rest of you, I urge you to take a deep breath, chill out a bit, and approach this whole thing skeptically. This personal skirmish has already gotten blown horribly out of proportion, and to allow it to further escalate to the point where insults are traded and published on the internet (an offense to such an otherwise honorable venue) would be a mark of shame on all of us. Honestly, this is a steaming load of shit, and the only forum low enough to deserve this is the basement - Tim vs. Shpeen pong honor match, anyone?

11 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:45 PM

    Stop sucking Seal's nuts

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  2. Anonymous5:02 PM

    Adam got a consensus for COS reform. Tim blocked it. SA is insignificant, altho doncha luv the newspapers, and this spat is insignificant. Seal clearly crosses the line in his "journalism." Anymore gossipy nuggets you wanna crap out about your classmates buddy?
    --seatofheat

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  3. Anonymous5:04 PM

    Wow, mature comment - pat on the back to you.

    I don't see what's wrong with turning any of this in. Attacking people as "rats" and "tattle-tales," terminology that has not been used since 6th grade or so, is just ridiculous. I don't care what personal vendettas there were or are. Maybe if there were accountability on this campus, some things would be different.

    This seems to be a conspiracy to overthrow Tim by someone who has a "vendetta" against him, given the roster of people that attended the last SA meeting. But, ultimately, it will be up to the SA to decide if they want to do whatever Shpeen says he wants to do. If Tim has enough supporters, they too will show up to show their support and nothing will happen. I think it's crazy to attack him in the way commentators have been on this blog and ridiculous to say the majority of the student body is upset with his leadership. In fact, I'd venture a guess that the majority doesn't give a rat's butt what the SA does (as long as the blitz terminals are operational) or pay attention at all.

    As far as this issue with Shpeen's record getting on the Internet, employers look for that stuff anyway and maybe he should have thought about how that looked before he served alcohol to minors beyond the safety of Chi Gam. That was certainly a stupid decision, don't you think?

    Let's move on.

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  4. Anonymous5:30 PM

    Danielle,
    Adults recognize and distance themselves from people who are rats pretty quickly; being a rat is not an admirable quality, but it is the term that encompasses the deceit and self-interest Andreadis AND Seal have demonstrated. There is something to be said for the idea of weighing the pros and cons of a situation and determining that reporting underage drinking was the best idea in this situation. This whole incident started when Andreadis decided to side against a member of his student body. How come Andreadis never turned himself in when he engaged in underage drinking? Because he is selfish, and decided that this would be his underhanded way of "getting" Shpeen.
    Bad at SA, and bad at representing the student body. This does not sound like the kind of guy I want representing the student body. Why do you want him to be your Student Body President?

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  5. Anonymous5:50 PM

    Wow, as interesting as this all was yesterday, I'm bored of it already. Yea SA sucks, and yea, Tim is a shitty president. But shpeen is a pretty shitty person too. Though he may be on to something with abolishing SA. Everybody involved in this (including Seal and those who have been regularly commenting here) now look incredibly petty.

    Let's find somethign else to be irrationally angry about for a few days.

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  6. Anonymous8:54 PM

    re 5:30: You don't seem to understand that Tim's issue wasn't underage drinking. It was the fact that Shpeen brought beers for all the members of his committee during a meeting in the SA office, in COLLIS. If Shpeen had asked to convene in a frat foyer or basement, I really doubt Tim would've given a rat's ass about it. It's not just Tim's neck on the line but SA's reputation too if S&S walked by the open door of the meeting to see a bunch of people having beers in Collis. And we all know how often random S&S officers patrol through places on campus at even the most unexpected times.

    I don't think it was right of Tim to report Shpeen, and I do have suspicions that if it had been someone else leading the meeting, perhaps he would've given second thought. That said, however, think about it this way. We're all trying to be so self-righteous here but let's be honest: if you saw someone you'd already been engaged in conflicts with blatantly flaunting the rules in ways that could get you in a ton of trouble, would you hesitate to take the first step that would ensure otherwise? Tim asked for the beers to be put away and all he received was laughter in his face. Maybe he was motivated by reasons such as anger and irritation other than just rule-obedience, but that's understandable.

    I may not be a big fan of either but Shpeen's motivations are ill-founded and will have a much bigger impact on the student body than people think. "Dissolving" SA goes far beyond just retaliation for his getting on probation.

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  7. Anonymous12:01 AM

    Haha OMG 4:45!! You're so witty, because, like, Niral and Seal must be gay lovers since their opinions are similar!! LOL!! Gay jokes!!

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  8. Anonymous11:38 AM

    I think its interesting (and also seemingly overlooked so far) that Tim was in fact a Chi Gam last year.

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  9. Anonymous3:12 PM

    SA actually doesn't get all that much funding, and half of it goes to sponsoring the newspaper program that greatly benefits the campus. Programming Board and Collis get more than ten times the amount of money SA does.

    Why does it matter if Tim depledged? It is irrelevant.

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  10. Anonymous1:38 AM

    I think most people consider Andreadis the "rat".
    There is much discussed sense of community among the student body. Part of that community is the mutual understanding that students don't turn in other students for things like "drinking in collis", nor should they post private information on blogs for wide dissemination...its the kind of behavior that suggests deceit and self-interest. Now, since you've seen "The Departed" and have cultivated a very special understanding of the term, you may not agree. Most people would suggest that by betraying the community, choosing to run to the nearest grown-up instead of handling a problem, Andreadis has behaved in rat-like fashion. Shpeen got his spanking, thanks to Tim.

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  11. Anonymous5:47 PM

    2 thoughts:

    1. Punching a hole in the wall and this impeachment stunt kind of confirms all of the stereotypes about Chi Gam.

    2. SA is a useless organization full of self-important assholes padding their resumes at the expense of the rest of the student body. Tens of thousands of dollars that could be better spent are diverted to SA to play with, and SA's pretense of speaking for the student body often does more harm than good. I'll be happy to see it end, even if it's at the hands of a mob and a douchebag with a vendetta.

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