California Recall? What a Bummer.

Dartboard’s opinion on the war in Iraq and Dartboard’s opinion on the upcoming referendum to recall California Governor Gray Davis are roughly the same. As in the case of Saddam Hussein, there is little disagreement that Davis is a bad man—it is the prudence of regime change at this time that Dartboard questions.

Dartboard could devote a column to all that is unlikeable about Davis, from his transparent venality to his spineless centrism to his inhumanly flawless hair-do. And yet with the exception of his hair, these are fairly common vices among politicians. Moreover, while they feed into California voters’ general antipathy toward their governor, these are not the crimes the recall crowd has accused Davis of perpetrating. The damning pieces of evidence, say Davis’ opponents, are the electiricity crisis of two summers ago and the present budget deficit.

Yet neither of these unfortunate calamities were, properly speaking, Davis’ doing. As much as Dartboard would delight in bashing the helmet-haired weasel, Dartboard has to conclude that there is precious little a governor can do about inter-state price manipulation by large energy firms, let alone about a nation-wide economic slump, which has cut into state revenues across the country. (And no, Mr. President, this does not let you off the hook for your genuine economic mismanagement. The federal government is in a much better position to stimulate the economy, and Dartboard does not look kindly on your failure create jobs for the last three years.)

Dartboard cautions California’s voters not to punish their governor for problems he did not create—not because of any fondness on Dartboard’s part for the slick-haired sap, but because doing so would transform the governorship into a game of Russian roulette. If the governor can be tossed out in the street at any moment due to factors he cannot control, there will be no persuading any wise and prudent leader to run in the first place. Film actors and smut peddlers may be the kind of star candidates Californians will have to get used to.

—EOGHAN W. STAFFORD

You Have Nothing to Lose But Your Flip Phones

When Dartboard first arrived at Harvard last September from the backward, sparsely populated hills in the North, he discovered a whole new face of humanity for which material goods were as essential as, if not more so than, nature’s gifts of sunshine and trees. Dartboard was singled out for his lack of a cellular telephone almost immediately and did not fully benefit from the precious carefree days of Freshman Week, most of which were spent exchanging phone numbers and storing them in the devices’ mighty memory chips.

Dartboard’s conversations with unique, talented new fellow- students oh so keenly anticipated over the summer were interrupted by calls from other members of the ruling, cell-phone-bearing class. Dartboard resigned himself to his inferior status, fully aware that his communication abilities were not up to par with the rest of the Harvard elite.

Cell phones became merely the emblem of the extravagance to which the city folk so recklessly surrendered. Spur-of-the-moment meals at expensive restaurants and $100 water cooler rentals from HSA came as naturally as the phrase, “I’m blowing up.” But Dartboard is not cool enough to blow up. Paying monthly fees is not what Dartboard had in mind when he imagined getting a B.A. So Dartboard gives up his aspirations of joining the aristocratic majority of cell phone possessors and reluctantly endures his perpetual lowliness. Maybe it’s time you joined him; the weather’s nice down here.

—DANIEL B. HOLOCH