Whatever lump of decisionmaking grey matter these two had in their whiny keisters has long ago evaporated.
LOTTERY FEVER
As all freshman know, and a few upperclassmen may remember, this week heralds the annual housing lottery. Blocking groups are hunkering down to rack their brains for strategies to beat the system. But not even 1,600 SATs can guarantee a reprieve from randomization.
They tell you that your fate is determined by a fair and impartial computer program. The reality is that housing assigments are actually decided by a bizarre entrail-reading ritual held at the stroke of midnight in Dean Epps' office.
Intrepid first-years should put away their HP calculators and get out their incense and a copy of the Necronomicon, or perhaps attempt to sacrifice a bull on the John Harvard statue. The Housing Gods cannot be swayed cheaply.
LIVING A LIE
House choices say a lot about a first-year's political views. The bleeding-hearts among us seem to have a peculiar attraction for Adams House; why is it that those who claim to trouble themselves with the fate of the downtrodden also scramble claw their way into the most luxurious dormitory on campus?
It is perhaps the most egregious hyprocrisy at Harvard, short of the policy that bars students from having pets while leaving tutors exempt.
If anyone truly wishes to live in sympathy with the less fortunate, Harvard does not lack opportunities. The House system might easily be billed as "The Slums of the Ages."
Winthrop House has the authentic overcrowded, dank flavor of a turn of the century immigrant ghetto; Mather evokes the impersonal oppressiveness of the projects.
Currier has all the tumble-down charm of the trailer-park on the edge of town.
Yet with all these opportunities to share the plight of the poverty-stricken, the caring and concerned seem irresistably drawn to Robert Kiely's commodious Bohemian hotel at the center of campus.
This confirms what an anonymous limerick has long proclaimed:
In sepulchral Adams House spaces
Guilt darkens the liberal faces
Of vagrants they sigh
And of "underclass" cry
But with 'em, they'd never change places.