I want to start out by pointing out my bias: I am the Chief of Staff of the Student Finance Committee (SFC). Well, if you'd like to be completely constitutional, call me the SFC assistant.
What I hope to accomplish in this letter to the student body is to do what no one else seems to care to do: to put up some sort of defense when it comes to the ruckus surrounding the SFC since what might be called the "crew incident." Why am I, as opposed to some elected member of the SFC, writing this? Because somebody has to.
Under the review that followed the crew team's accusations of impropriety and lack of professionalism, among other things, what we as a group, and even as a student body, got was nothing but hot air. No proof, nor backed-up arguments; indeed I would go as far as to say that the report is an ambiguous and problematic document.
Clearly, there are constitutional problems with the current system. But they apply not only to the SFC, but also to the Senate in general. Not only has the SGO been accused of failing to accomplish anything this semester, but it has also overspent its budget in the process. Review and Recognition is happening later than demanded by the constitution, which therefore does not allow the SFC to make budget allocations in the specified time. Despite the fact that the SFC has been running like a well-oiled machine, I believe it has been hindered by-and is taking the hit for-the overall lack of consistency in all the elected bodies on campus.
But what we've been seeing ever since is that SFC hunting season is on. Anyone and everyone, for whatever reason, justified or not, has dibs on offending SFC officers whenever they feel like it.
At least from where I'm standing, what we've been seeing are elected officials, many of whom ran unopposed and who dedicate a valuable amount of their time, being misrepresented and personally attacked, while being unfairly patronized by the SGO ad-hoc committee and told to act professionally. While someone wrote to The Student a week or two ago saying how unfair it was to attack the SGO E-board and inhumane to single them out in front of the senate, not a single individual seems to notice that, with even less evidence, the SFC has been put to the stake and there it seems completely constitutional.
Granted, some concerns are clearly valid; the SFC makes mistakes. But the vast majority of complaints come from people who are completely misinformed about SFC policies and procedures and are merely unhappy because they didn't have their cash demands answered exactly as they wanted them to be most of whom constantly make mistakes on their end and expect the SFC to cut them slack. "Cut us a break, we're only students. We have other things that we do too," they say.
Jorge Alves '02
Relax people, it's just TAP
Having heard from afar about the controversy surrounding "Pimps and Hos" TAP, a veritable Amherst tradition, I would like to side with Windy Booher '02, agreeing that political correctness has blown the whole thing way out of proportion. Without coming across as too insensitive to the fearful evils of sex work in the U.S. and elsewhere, I believe I can safely say that this phenomenon has very little to do with the damage a bunch of overprivileged college students inflict on their livers on a Saturday night.
Personally, I have never thought of the "pimps and hos" that attend the party as representing the kind of professionals Amherst students are likely to have encountered. To me, pimps and hos always translated into the popular slang for males and females that enjoy a higher-than-average frequency of sexual activity.
There are other terms that could be used-"Sluts and Don Juans," "Sex Addicts and Nymphomaniacs" or maybe just "People Who Get a Lot of Ass." But as these labored pairings show, none of them come close to the pithy poetry of that classic phrase, "Pimps and Hos." I am saddened to see the richness of English endangered by a spirit of moral censorship. Although I sympathize with its motives, it seeks to impose this censorship that would make absolutely no difference in the lives of anyone outside Amherst.
The wisdom of promoting promiscuity on a campus whose smallness leads to many an embarrassing Sunday morning encounter at the breakfast bar is another matter. Nor am I ignorant of the perils-twisted ankles resulting from drunkenness in stiletto heels, accidental strangulation by gold chains-faced even by those who do not hook up when they dress in accordance with the party's theme. But the purpose here is the recreational sense of pimp and ho; there can be no great harm in letting it stand as it is. In other words, girls and boys, relax. It's only a party.
Rebecca Johnson '03
Protecting the right to caffeine
Finals period begins in a couple weeks, and the one thing I know for sure is that several long nights will be spent in the computer lab. I know this not because I have an excessive number of papers to write, although I do, but because I am consistently unable to do anything ahead of time. I believe this is a trait shared by many Amherst students; at the very least, I know that many will be working late next to me. Some of you may be organized and diligent, always finishing your papers early. But rest assured that you are in the minority and, given current evolutionary trends, will soon disappear from the population. The majority will only grow stronger-the late night binges will continue, fueled by the miracle drug: caffeine.
Caffeine, or "speed light," as I call it, is used to rejuvenate the brain at times when it has run out of juvenation. My fondest memories of Amherst are the late nights spent shaking in the computer center, Mountain Dew in front of me as I feebly type the last few paragraphs of a paper whose only merit is that it's long enough to hand in. That's when I know I've won.
But I can't keep winning without caffeine, and I can't get it without a caffeine transporting medium. For some that medium is coffee or tea, but for me it's soda, preferably something that will lower my sperm count like Mountain Dew. And where does Mountain Dew originally come from? Canada. But closer to home, it's found in the soda machines in Seeley Mudd.
Which brings me to my point: Amherst has a responsibility, nay a duty, to stock those machines as often as possible, especially during finals period. Working late at night without caffeine is like milking a rat. I think you see where I'm going with this. If I earned a dollar every time those machines ran out, I'd have at least seven dollars. Is Amherst willing to pay me this money, or is it willing to save what might be $15 or even $20 by following my suggestion?
I'm not an expert but I'm pretty damn sure that the right to drink soda at 3 a.m. to finish a paper is somewhere in the Constitution, maybe in the back where it says we can change the law for terrorists. So if Amherst wants to prevent some sort of litigation, or sit-in or, at the very least, general apathy and late papers, I suggest they find a way to keep that blessed machine full of soda.
Jake Schulz '02