At 3:14 PM 8/23/94 -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
Russell Nelson says:
In our high school we had a student government. We had no prisons and no guns.
Then you were a club.
Indeed. [snip] (I once was part of a debate held by Columbia University's Philolexian Society on the topic "Resolved: Student Government is Amazingly Lame", in which I noted that the low probability of a student government coup d'etat complete with tanks rolling about the campus, and of the following student government dictatorship run by a student military junta, demonstrated that the student "government" wasn't a government but a weak way to keep students placated, devoid even of the mild entertainment the occassional revolt could bring.)
Alas. How true. One of my friends got elected student government president at the University of Missouri by standing outside polling places in a clown suit bribing people to vote for him with play money. Later that year, I authored a student senate declaration of war against the University of Wisconsin. They had originated the concept of snickerocracy, or rule by clowns, and as potential competition for scarce laughs had to be destroyed. The declaration passed unanimously. We passed the hat in the bars for our defense budget (to be spent by the sacred Council of War, COW for short), and sent four determined and somewhat inebriated agriculture majors to Wisconsin's dairy barns to collect one ton of bullshit and deposit it on their student union steps at 3 am. In their defense, I must say that the administration generously let us (the senate) vote on the allocation of about $1.3 million of the university's money (somewhat less than 1% of the total, I believe), which made for a lot of sand in the old sandbox. And, I got to meet both Timothy Leary and Ralph Nader out of the deal. I have trouble telling them apart to this day... Ah, Yout'! Adulthood is terminal, Bob Hettinga ----------------- Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com) "There is no difference between someone Shipwright Development Corporation who eats too little and sees Heaven and 44 Farquhar Street someone who drinks too much and sees Boston, MA 02331 USA snakes." -- Bertrand Russell (617) 323-7923