Ring, Ring, Ring

Dartboard can't help but notice that classrooms this fall are not only overflowing with students, but also with cell phones. Who are these people who think their call is more important than everyone else in the room? They must have been accepted to Harvard, yet can't figure out how to turn their phones off, even after the first ring during a class. Few things are more obnoxious or distracting in the lecture hall.

"First Nights" covers material from Monteverdi to Stravinsky. But the fact that your phone happens to play one of these tunes for its ring is absolutely no excuse. Professor Kelly's lectures may fulfill your Lit-Arts B requirement, but the digital polyphony of multiple ringing nuisances will not. And if your phone rings "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," it isn't any better.

Dartboard also wonders what kind of urgent calls these students are getting at 10 in the morning. Are McKinsey recruiters ringing the star Ec concentrators with offers of multi-million dollar contracts? Are the Gov jocks waiting for a personal appeal from Gore or Bush? Is there an illicit network of drug deals going down on campus? Get a grip: we're all students, and we should show a little more respect for our esteemed professors and our classmates.

It's one thing if you live in the Quad and never make it home. But it still doesn't explain why you can't remember to turn the phone off--even if your significant other needs his or her regular check-ins. And for those TFs who've let their phones ring in section, it doesn't make you seem cool or important, just incompetent. So please: save our sanity and your Geiger counts--cancer's no fun. Just switch off before you enter our hallowed halls of learning. And it wouldn't hurt to do the same in dining halls, too.

—Michael L. Shenkman

The Fall of Man: An Ode

O Stoughton! Thy once-fair, unsullied name

Hallowed with time and Revolution fame

is now whispered but soft, in tones of shame;

No longer is thy roof with glory crown'd,

O Stoughton! For thy ceiling has come down.

Those upon whom the plaster chunks and boards

Collapsed, had not feared anything untowards;

Yet ne'er could Damocles with all his swords

Imagine waiting perched above his head

The peril with which thou art ceilingèd.

Those students from your womb untimely ripp'd

To Loker's cold and empty hearths were shipped

And now sleep where sweet Starbucks should be sipp'd;

O, where the merry Fly-By line should be

Behold the piteous cries of refugees!

Ye jesters who would scoff at Stoughton's fate

Or Hollis-ites forced to evacuate—

Ye who would laugh at such a grievous state,

Though now in Grays or Thayer thou feelst free,

Know that the Mem Church bell hath tolled for thee!

Shall Weld be next? Or Hurlbut, or the MAC?

Shall we awake one morn to cry, "Alack,"

"Thirteen more first-years have been Pennypack'd!"

Thou Architect whose Temples stand upright,

Preserve us from this terror in the night!

O Stoughton! Thy new and frightened first-years weep

That e'er in the vastness of thy keep

They were assigned by FDO to sleep!

Take heart, thou first-years, for although thy room

Is empty, thy proud tow'rs wreathed in gloom;

Thy college life is not controlled by fate!

Thy First Nights do not thy career create!

Thou shall achieve in time a happier state!

Honor thy hall with honest heart and hand,

And Stoughton's true ceilings shall forever stand.

—Stephen E. Sachs