“Kirkland has talked trash about Mather for a while,” said Hunter A. Maats ’04, Mather’s secretary of war. Maats referred to an e-mail that Daniel E. Kafie ’05 and his blockmates sent to the Mather-open list before transferring into Kirkland from Mather last May.

“NEVER will we have to be surrounded by nasty concrete and holes in our walls,” Kafie wrote in the e-mail. “NEVER will we get disgusting, cold food at the dining hall, NEVER will we have to walk through ‘McDonalds’ to get to our room, NEVER will [we] have alcohol-less formals under a tent, and the list NEVER ends....”

Kafie, also a Crimson editor, said the e-mail was meant as a joke, but Corker said that when Kafie and his blockmates left Mather, “they insulted our House and our residents.”

“[Kafie] is a defector and one of the great evils in this conflict,” Corker added.

In addition to Kafie’s alleged treachery, Corker and his Mather cohorts claim that Kirkland’s space in DeWolfe threatens their sovereign territory.

“Their being in DeWolfe is an encroachment in our sphere of influence,” Corker said. “They have their side of the river and we have ours.”

But Kalamchi of Kirkland House said he is not convinced of the sincerity of the Mather leadership’s arguments.

“Annexing DeWolfe is trying to compensate for their current housing situation,” he said. “They are trying to escape their Russian bunkers.”

And he cast doubt on Mather’s veritas regarding the war’s central issue—the gong.

“I suspect the gong is in Mather,” Kalamchi said. “I don’t think Mather has enough money to send it to Russia.”

HoCo members in Adams—the “defenseless” victim Mather has sworn to defend—echo Kalamchi’s suspicions.

“That’s rubbish. Maybe they have convinced their own people, but everyone else can see through it,” Christopher A. Lamie ’04, co-chair of Adams’ HoCo, said of Mather’s assertion that Kirkland stole the gong. “Whoever took the gong is being kind of sneaky.”

He added that when Pforzheimer House residents stole the gong a few years ago, they let Adams know they had it, and after Adams answered their challenge, they were able to recover the gong.

“Mather has inserted itself into this issue quiet suspiciously,” he added.

Joshua A. Barro ’05, incoming Adams HoCo co-chair, was more direct.