Of Grim Times & Budget Cuts (2.25.2011)

Dartmouth’s Only Independent Newspaper Volume 30, Issue 8 February 25, 2011 The Hanover Review, Inc. P.O. Box 343 Hanover, NH 03755

Of Grim Times & Budget Cuts

An interview with Keith Hennessey, Former director of the National Economic Council Plus: A Tour of Jewish Vilna & Staffing Changes in Dartmouth Football

Page 2 The Dartmouth Review February 25, 2011

Gunther Kress is Smarter Than You

By Blake S. Neff

out the basics of his quest for a general theory of communica- could not afford a textbook from the last 20 years), this poem tion through the study of multimodality and meaning-making. now must share space with line numbers, a more prominent On Wednesday, February 23, a guest lecture was delivered To start off, he brought up a picture of a surgical team as an background illustration, assorted footnotes, and the like. As at Dartmouth. Such an event is ordinarily unexceptional, as example of the many ways one can communicate. The picture Kress put it, the poem is no longer a literary work, but is now plenty of distinguished academics fleet through the College’s contained a surgeon, assistant surgeon, anesthetist, and nurse. “transform[ed] into a pedagogic object.” Who knew that a hallowed halls every year to expound upon some new theory As he described it, the surgeon will talk, few line numbers could make such a or defend an old one. Unless the topic is particularly trendy, but not about surgical matters, while ine numbers on the poems difference? Gunther freaking Kress, amusing, or controversial, it’s unlikely to draw many students the nurse will rarely talk and instead that’s who. in textbooks: are they except for the inevitable several dozen there at a professor’s communicate via gestures or gazing.

Following this, a quick blitz was behest.

The assistant surgeon will notice the writing? Questions like these made through the remaining aspects This, however, was no ordinary guest lecture. No, this nurse’s gaze, feel nervous, and pay close of social semiotics and multimodalscream out for answers. was Gunther (freaking) Kress, here all the way from the attention to his role to avoid error. All ity. He summarized the importance of University of London to enlighten us on “Social Givens and of this communication is fraught with the various modes, or technologies of Semiotic Response: Principles of and Resources for Com- meaning and must cross a host of professional boundaries. transcription. The tools of transcription, he said, have their position in 21st Century Conditions of Provisionality.” With With all of this meaning getting tossed around, it’s amazing own epistemological and ontological trends that are crucial a title like that, it’s frankly surprising that the school’s 2A the surgical team ever has time to operate. Kress himself to recognize. Images show, writing tells, color frames and X-hours weren’t canceled in despair of anybody choosing to seems to have noticed this problem, as he ended the sojourn highlights. Deployed properly, they have the power to reshape attend class rather than the 4:30 lecture. into the surgical field with a jab at the foolish neoliberals in meaning. Not even something as apparently concrete as a cell’s The web page hyping the event online announced that the British health care system who broke up the country’s structure can exist as a truly independent fact. Instead, it can Kress’s lecture would “sketch an approach to multimodal system of surgical teams in the name of efficiency. The audi- only be expressed in assorted signs whose meanings change composition which assumes that meaning comes from the ence sagely guffawed at his socially conscious jab. with their composition. Saying “every cell has a nucleus” is social and from social interaction.” Reading this, I could hardly After finishing with this example, Kress moved on to lay vastly different from saying “in every cell there is a nucleus.” contain my excitement. Like all thinking men, I had long been out a rudimentary social semiotic sketch of communication. Furthermore, both of these sentences are nothing like the willing to accept that meaning As he described it, complete meaning expressed in a drawing of a cell, particularly if said came from social interaction, with gratuitous italics, interest drawing, like Kress’s, looks vaguely like the puffballs in old but to see that meaning could is central to attention, selection, Zoloft antidepressant ads. also come from “the social” and interpretation. Not only Following the lecture, the floor was opened to questions. was something I just had to see that, but interest is central to One audience member asked whether Kress’s assessment of proven with my own eyes. the making of signs, including meaning-making was merely historical and descriptive, or Kress himself is branded signs for oneself. Sign-making also prescriptive with a direct lesson that educators should as one of the world’s leading itself is meaning-making, and apply. Favoring the ever-appealing middle approach, Kress experts on multimodality, meaning-making is learning. argued that his approach was prescriptive but only moderately which is proven by the fact that Therefore, interest is central to so. The world, he said, is going through a major transformaa Google Search of the term learning. tion in communication largely rooted in the relative decline brings up a paper by him as To back up this chain of writing. Instead of being ideologically central, it is now —This is Gunther Kress’s drawing of a cell with a nucleus, the sixth result behind several of logic (as if that were really just one of many meaning-making means, and is frequently which he used in a paper. This imitation of a Zoloft puffball pages dealing with an unrelated necessary), samples of “interest” a marginal one at that. is actually a cell with a nucleus. But it’s not about what concept in computer science. taken from a museum visitorWith this change in writing’s role and rise of new modes, we mean, it’s about what this means to you— According to one reviewer, his studies project were presented. questions are coming up. For example, the line numbers on book Multimodality “represents Visitors to an English museum the poems in textbooks: are they writing? Questions like these a paradigm shift… yet, for all its path-breaking intellectual were asked to draw a map representing their experiences. scream out for answers. innovation and conceptual profundity, it contains a disarm- An unwilling young boy drew a picture whose main feature A companion of the author was perplexed by this answer ingly clear view of meaning-making, one in which human was an airplane he saw used in a diorama, while a visiting and took the opportunity to proffer his own question at the agency is at the centre.” Quite, unknown reviewer, quite.

German woman provided a more relevant sketch detailing the very end of the event. In the grand scheme of things, he said, Upon arrival at the event, it was clear that organizers museum’s natural history focus. These anecdotal examples hasn’t writing actually been on the rise due to the dramatic had feared overcrowding would result in a deadly stampede from a foreign visitor and a 10-year-old were used to make increase in literacy? Can we really say that writing is being and responded by pretending to cancel the lecture, since the the case that “interest determines our engagement with an marginalized when it still pervades our lives and more jobs only other people there appeared to be adults or graduate object.” No arguments there. than ever are based around forms of reading and writing rather students. Presumably, only this author’s general obliviousness After the matter of interest was dealt with, the lecture than manual labor? and nocturnal habits made him miss this announcement and moved into the immensely important realm of framing and Absolutely not, sprach the professor. He laid out the arrive at the lecture anyway. kinds of frames. Kress declared that the sentence constitutes whole argument for this poorly uninformed fellow. Bringing A German raised in Australia teaching in Britain lectur- one of the most important frames, and used a small sampling up another surgery photo and a sign directing drivers to a ing in America, the well-traveled Kress opened with a quote of textbooks to make his case. A 1936 science textbook had supermarket parking lot, he challenged anybody to describe from Goethe (classy!), declaring that “Der Mensch wird many clauses in its sentences, while a 1988 textbook for the in words what was in these pictures. The impossibility of this durch seine Umwelt midifiziert; er modifizier die Umwelt.” same subject never used more than two. In a similar vein, the task, he said, demonstrates that writing, while not disappearHe unfortunately did not provide an exact translation of 30’s book had just a handful of illustrations that were still ing, is not the sole maker of meanings. He then elaborated by this phrase, no doubt because everybody in the audience is notable enough to gain praise from reviewers, while the 80’s making reference to the first satellites, which taught us that already fluent in that most postmodern of languages. The textbook was saturated with the sorts of cost-raising pictures the world is actually not that big. Therefore, humans learned author chastised himself for studying Spanish and thus being every child of the period is familiar with. that when we pour our cooking oil down the sink, it doesn’t poorly prepared.

To the uneducated plebe, such differences may be trivial, go away.

Following this, Kress cut right into the matter of laying but Kress would have none of that nonsense. To make his point, Following this explanation, the author’s companion still he showcased a poem from a 30’s literature textbook, which seemed quite perplexed. But really, if such a lucid argument Mr. Neff is a sophomore at the College and a week editor was paired with nothing more than a Constable painting. By like that isn’t sufficient, what hope does one have? Some minds for The Dartmouth Review. the 1980’s (given current academic budget cuts, perhaps he simply insist on seeing mud in the clearest of waters.

•

L

Mr. Ding is a sophomore at the College and a Managing Editor of The Dartmouth Review.

February 25, 2011 The Dartmouth Review Page 3

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Editorial Our Generation Pays for Competing Demagogueries “The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots.” — H.L. Mencken

us who are still in school, or are just starting our careers — don’t vote.

On Monday, Keith Hennessey, formerly the head of The 112th Congress is only a month into its first legisla- President Bush’s National Economic Council, came to speak tive session, but the race to the bottom has already begun. at Dartmouth at the invitation of the Rockefeller Center. In This week, House Republicans proposed $5.7 billion in cuts an indication of just how politically engaged Dartmouth to federal Pell grants for the remainder of the fiscal year. Pell students — some of America’s “future leaders” — are, about grants, which are targeted at helping students from America’s ten students showed up to round out an audience composed poorest families afford a college education, are one of the of the economics faculty and a smattering of people from centerpieces of federal education aid — our government’s the Hanover community. Mr. Hennessey gave a compelling, biggest experiment in voucher funding for education. though highly partisan, presentation that laid out potential Meanwhile, by a largely party-line vote of 281 to 148, the political solutions to our budget crunch. He was highly opHouse upheld the US Army’s annual $7 million sponsorship timistic that the wave of fresh faces in Congress, many of of NASCAR Sprint Cup driver Ryan Newman. Of course, $7 them elected on the support of the Tea Party movement, will million is but a drop in the federal bucket. But $7 million a help put an end to political gridlock on entitlements. year would pay for about 1200 Pell grants — hardly a pittance We should believe it only when we see it. In any event, to those students who would stand figuring out how to reduce the to benefit from them. There is clear deficit is only half of America’s evidence to show that sharp reducpolitical battle, something that tions in federal financial aid are many Republicans currently seem likely to spur on the United States’ to blissfully unaware of. Jimmy already atrocious college dropout Carter-Barack Obama analogies rate. Pell grant recipients (and the notwithstanding, the United States American labor market) truly need is in a period of deep malaise right the investment. NASCAR driver now — a malaise that is mostly Ryan Newman doesn’t. unrelated to our budget woes.

Republicans in Washington What is interesting about this disare whipped up into a frenzy about content is how unevenly it is felt deficit reduction, and rightly so. between those in Washington and The budget proposed by President New York and those in the rest of Obama this year would have the US the country. A recent Rasmussen government borrow $1.65 trillion; poll said it all: 68% of Americans that’s a healthy sum to add onto overall believe that America is our already astronomic $14 trilon the wrong track; yet the exact lion outstanding public debt. Yet inverse is true among the “political given the scale of the problem, class,” of which 68% thinks that it would seem that congressional America is on the right track.

Charles S. Dameron Republicans’ much-ballyhooed effort Getting to the bottom of this disto cut $100 billion from the budget this year is heavier on crepancy ought to be a top priority for both parties; the party political appearances than it is on policy substance. that is first able to genuinely connect with popular angst and The grim truth is that no matter who wins the current act on it could be the beneficiary, as were FDR’s Democrats, budget brawl in Washington, young people are likely to be of an epochal realignment in American politics. President among its biggest losers. The reason is simple: the American Obama has thus far clearly failed to tap into it. Coming into public has proven consistently its preference for a low-tax, 2012 and beyond, the Republicans will have a golden ophigh-entitlement regime that transfers wealth from the young portunity to respond effectively to the American people’s to the old and runs bucketfuls of red ink for which our genera- concerns. But doing so will require that they substantially tion will end up paying. The arithmetic of our budget woes is broaden their view of the problems we face and the tools at simple. A handful of programs make up the bulk of the federal the federal government’s disposal. government’s expenses: Social Security, defense, welfare and As TDR’s interview (pp. 6-8) with Keith Hennessey inunemployment relief, and Medicare and Medicaid. Invest- dicates, Republican leaders have opted to put off discussion ments in the future — in infrastructure, education, scientific of serious, systemic problems with the long-run American research, ecological protection, diplomatic outreach, and all economy. When asked why Republicans were choosing to the rest — are wedged into an increasingly narrow slice of cut federal education aid — a direct, long-term investment the pie. in the American workforce — Mr. Hennessey ended up setThe American people are completely uninformed about tling on the explanation that “a blue-collar worker in Ohio the fix we’re in. Recent polling has demonstrated that 56% with a high school education, whose kids are going to have of Americans are opposed to benefits adjustments for Social a high school education” shouldn’t be forced to “subsidize” Security, and 64% oppose much-needed changes to Medicare. privileged college students. Leave aside the faintly patronAt the same time, a solid majority of Americans is unwilling izing tone that lingers around that idea — the real problem to pay higher taxes to help fund these overdrawn subsidies for with it is that it gets the issue exactly backward. Pell grants retirees. Even among Republicans, only 41% are willing to are aimed at low-income students, many of whom are the first support entitlement cuts; the numbers are much lower among in their families to attend college. independents (32%) and Democrats (22%). Americans do More troublingly, when asked why the US experiences come out in strong numbers to support cuts to foreign aid, greater inequality of wealth than most other industrialized even though that represents one of the United States’ most nations, Mr. Hennessey professed, “I don’t know. Ask some effective foreign policy tools and eats up around only around of the labor economists that question.”

1% of the federal budget.

The GOP may be the party with ideas for cutting the deficit, The result of this incoherence is easy to predict. The but when it comes to very real macroeconomic issues — the president and his party are essentially unwilling to talk about issues that are fueling Americans’ frustrations — conservaentitlement adjustments and cry foul about any attempt to do tives are out to lunch. The divide in fundamental outlook so. Republicans take a hatchet to those discretionary slivers between elites and the nation at large is largely a function of of the budget which actually represent tangible investments America’s growing disparity of fortunes. American populist in our future —like Pell grants, early childhood education, anger at Wall Street and Washington isn’t irrational. But it or the country’s environmental regulatory apparatus — in gets channeled in all the wrong directions. order to appease the base, while making transparently vague At the end of the day, Republicans cannot blame all our promises about entitlement reform. Knowing full well how woes on big government. Tax cuts and spending cuts are poorly informed we are, both parties are all too happy to play not a winning formula by themselves — either politically, us for idiots. And why wouldn’t they be? The people who economically, or morally. For the sake of our own electoral will get stuck with the bill for all this profligacy— those of interests, we should stop pretending that they are.

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Page 4 The Dartmouth Review February 25, 2011

The Week in Review Pell Grant Cuts Threaten Higher College Costs While budget debates consume much of legislators’ attention at both the state and federal levels, for many students, a rising cost of attending college looms. Two bills backed by one of the major parties are being batted around as means to reduce spending; both bills include among other things some major educational cuts. The Republican bill reduces funding for Pell Grants, a key portion of federal financial aid, by 15%, while completely eliminating the Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant program. The total loss to Dartmouth’s financial aid budget would exceed $1.6 million under the Republican plan.

Although President Obama hopes to preserve these programs, the Democratic proposal includes increasing a key interest rate on Perkins loans from 5 percent to 6.8 percent, thus severely taxing students and families relying on these loans. Administrators and students at the College are closely watching this legislation unfold, as millions of dollars of the financial aid budget could evaporate if these cuts pass. No doubt there will be much wailing an gnashing of teeth, but ultimately, pain is a part of all meaningful cost-cutting.

Exactly which plan becomes law will determine whether the burden falls on the College or students receiving financial aid. In either case, perhaps the looming threat of federal funding pullbacks will force an honest assessment of the College’s spending and how it relates to the cost of a degree.

Administrative Pay Lags Behind the Times The Chronicle of Higher Education published a list of median salaries for a variety of top administrative jobs at American universities on February 21. At first glance, the list offers cursory look into the otherwise shadowy realm of administrative workings, itself a rare and valuable opportunity. A closer reading, however, reveals a pair of startling and objectionable trends.

First, the inexplicable disparity between compensation for certain jobs and departments: The Chronicle reported a median income of $93,646 for deans of mathematics and $104,721 for deans of social sciences. Compare these with statistics for less popular and questionably applicable departments like “forestry and environmental studies” and performing arts, the deans of which earn median salaries of $185,480 and $140,814 respectively.

Second among the suspect trends demonstrated by the list is the more than generous compensation for several positions whose very existence evokes perplexity, most notably the $102,447 for “chief diversity officers.”

Such prominent financial imbalances and irregularities

at the top levels of our academic institutions are particularly troubling in the context of frantic budget cutting measures taking place at businesses and government programs across the country. Universities will have to learn to resist the overbearing pressure of advocacy groups, the unquestionable cause of certain positions’ exaggerated salaries, or find themselves left behind in the current and future era of financial austerity.

Harvard Sparks Bad College Romance With the advent of a new Harvard social network, Dartmouth students have taken yet another step forward from having to actually interact with real people. Harvard’s CrimsonSpark has just rebranded itself as CollegiateSpark in preparation for its expansion in “serving” various other colleges (also known as pretty much just Dartmouth). Liberated from the burden of having to pay attention to social cues, Dartmouth students can now sign up at CollegiateSpark and “spark” individuals they are interested in. A spark can only be seen by an individual who independently returns the spark, sparing the easily-shamed Dartmouth student from any possible social sanction for ludicrous targeting.

The creation of a new outlet for romantically-frustrated Dartmouth students to channel their negative emotions into may be largely responsible for the recent drop in activity for Bored At Baker. Though depending on your point of view, it may be actually less productive for a Dartmouth student to endlessly wait with their MacBook on their lap in anticipation of being sparked back (likely to no avail). Despite all of this, CollegiateSpark already has hundreds of Dartmouth students signed up — a pity, since we thought that online date facilitators were something that one resorted to in the desperation of the post-college years. But insofar as anything decreases traffic on B@B, we’re fine with it.

Dartmouth Fires Janitors, Dumps on Profs Dartmouth’s color may be green, but nothing can ruin that delightful fact faster than the obnoxious efforts of the various eco-fiends on campus. Not only do students have two different waste bins in their room now, professors are required to take out their own trash. This program has been ongoing since the summer and now professors are required to use a bucket that would normally be seen in the construction of sandcastles. Once their small plastic pails buckets are filled, professors are required to haul their trash to the nearest set of trash/recycling bins and dump their detritus according to its type (paper, plastic, glass, etc.). Heaven help them if they have to make multiple runs.

All of this is part of an effort to reduce janitorial fees, though “voluntarily” going green is apparently the cover story.

This is, of course, a great idea when we operate in a competitive environment to hire and retain highly paid professors.

Wesleyan Launches War with Freedom of Association Troubling news down in Connecticut. President Michael Roth of Wesleyan University, one of the so-called “Little Ivies,” has recently issued a stunning letter which declares that starting next fall, students “will be prohibited from residing in — or using for social activities — houses or property owned, leased or operated by private societies that are not recognized by the University.” Students who violate the policy will face punishments up to and including suspension.

The policy is aimed squarely at Wesleyan’s Beta Theta Pi fraternity, which currently remains unrecognized by the university. The school hopes to force the fraternity to seek recognition from the college or else have its membership subject to suspension. Not surprisingly, though, such a broadly worded policy also in effect bars students from associating with other private societies in the vicinity of Wesleyan, such as the Elks Lodge.

In addition, the policy blatantly violates the school’s own “Joint Statement on the Rights and Freedoms of Individuals,” which promises that the college will not inhibit any of the students’ “rights of citizenship” either on or off-campus. Of course, freedom of association has been considered a First Amendment right since 1958’s NAACP v. Alabama. Count on one of the nation’s most liberal universities to initiate a policy opposing a major civil rights decision

Sheepish Princeton, Harvard Bring Back Early Admission In a sharp reversal of previous policies designed to help support lower-income students in the college admissions process, university administrators at both Princeton and Harvard announced Thursday that they would once again accept applications for ‘early action’ college admissions starting this fall.

The move comes just four years after Harvard and Princeton agreed not to accept early applications, since it is widely believed that early applications disfavor low- or middle-income students whose college choices often hinge on the size and availability of need-based financial aid, which is generally not disbursed until well after early admission decisions are released. Traditionally, early admissions programs have been seen to benefit legacy applicants and recruited athletes.

Princeton president Shirley Tilghman and Harvard Dean Michael D. Smith were eager to play down the significance of the change, and both noted that they hoped their institutions continued to prove attractive to lower-income applicants.

Thursday’s announcement is expected by college admissions experts to reduce applications to Yale.

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February 25, 2011 The Dartmouth Review Page 5

SexFest: Techno Breasts & Weenie Angst

By Michael Hoch and Samuel Johnson

the question of why anyone bothered. However, everybody but us apparently has a survey fetish, because the table had collected several dozen completed surveys by the time we stopped by. Good for them?

However, given the content of the other booths at SexFest, one could be forgiven for wondering if the counter-cultural view of Worth the Wait was necessary. While there was the usual assortment of fetish booths and advice on sex toys (batteries not included), a majority of booths served to highlight

the booth offered no advice on the best method to ward off any unctuous types: our best friends Smith and Wesson ‘52.

Well, it’s February again. While lesser minds may look Evidently, it’s better to invest time that could be spent at a forward to skiing, corporate recruiting, Winter Carnival, or shooting range learning martial arts and other hand-to-hand other plebeian activities, the real intellectual elites of our self-defense techniques. Just how useful these techniques beloved college on the hill all know the true summit of the would be against an adversary with an 87-pound weight second month: SexFest. advantage was unclear.

Yes, once again, it wais time for all of us to get reacAll that said, not every booth impressed upon visitors the quainted with the finer aspects of carnal living, lest we forget catastrophic dangers of sex. The infamous lube-tasting booth and fall into that sexless torpor we was back in all its glory, inviting call “marriage.” The horror! Thusly passersby to compare flavors such we girded our loins, cinched up our as watermelon, mint, and berry, (chastity?) belts, and readied ourmuch in the manner those little old selves to set forth into the cave of ladies offer you product samples at carnal knowledge known as Collis Sam’s Club. However, lube conCommonground, for that one night noisseurs like ourselves were upset doubling as Dartmouth’s very own that the finer brands of Burgundian Sodom and Gomorrah. lube-making were not represented; But alas, SexFest is not as we such are the sacrifices to be made once knew it. Like an old lover, it for our age of austerity and for mass has lost some of that spark, some of appeal (by the way, watermelon that luster and innate attractiveness is the best flavor). Also back was that once beckoned like a gleaming the sex toys booth, complete with light, or at least like glow-in-theproducts so incredibly amazing and dark lube. The event, last year a detailed that our editor has viciously two-hour-long orgy of everything censored any description of them. relating to man’s only desire, was Similarly censored is the booth on this year shortened to an hour and a taboos, sadomasochism, and all half, and was starting to close up by those other fun things that people the time the correspondents arrived do not talk about outside of their 50 minutes in. We suppose it’s true secret basement torture chambers. what they say happens to you as you Sometimes you just have to be get older...shorter and less stamina. there, folks.

One didn’t have to walk far beNotably missing, though, was fore bumping into a table purporting the booth for Planned Parenthood, to discuss “the five love languages.” which had held a prominent spot And no, those aren’t Latin, Spanish, at last year’s SexFest. Perhaps the French, Italian and Portuguese. No, impending loss of federal funding good friends, these were the lanhas forced them to “abort” such outguages of quality time, acts of service, reach efforts while totally oblivious gifts, physical touch and words of to the irony. affirmation. Te adoro, chica.

As in years past, each participant “Services as in, like, building a who wished to ogle at the oddness house?” Mike asked. was handed a “sexual passport” “As in doing things for somewhich could be stamped at each one,” answered one of the peppy of the booths. Upon securing ten girls behind the table. stamps, people could enter into a “Ah,” Mike said. “In the context drawing to win The Guide to GetI’m thinking of?” ting it On, a brick sized bible for “Like, mowing the lawn,” she all bedroom banging, with chapter replied. titles like “Sunsets, Orgasms and “So more in the Boy Scout sense Hand Grenades,” “Techno Breasts of the term.” and Weenie Angst,” and “Popsicles “Yes.” and Penises.” While no doubt a fine Samuel’s curiosity still wasn’t conversation piece, this may be one sated, however. of those rare occasions where length “Are the women all getting gifts? is off-putting.

Because that would explain a major So perhaps SexFest itself was stereotype.” anticlimactic.

This isn’t terribly —As you don your condom, take a moment to celebrate diversity— “Gifts doesn’t [sic] have to be surprising, as it has been increasbuying something, per se, it can be like, a card or something the dangerous, depressing, or terrifying aspects of sex, leav- ingly marginalized as an event over the years, possibly out of ing one to wonder why anyone would be foolish enough to embarrassment. But we should not despair, as what was once like that.” engage in such a lethal activity. There were multiple booths a mild collection of sex-related February festivities centered “Yeah, but they want us to buy things for them.”

“No,” she insisted, “I think the most common is quality for topics like sexual assault, abusive relationships, and the around a “V-Day” on Valentine’s Day has ballooned into “Vvarious types of STD’s one can acquire, from herpes simplex Week” and now into the less definable “V-Time,” during which time.”

“Dude...” Mike muttered, trying to drop the hint that to herpes complex. Well, actually, they’re called STI’s now, every effort is made to turn stiflingly patriarchal Hanover because “sexually transmitted diseases” did not account for into a glitzy Vaginopolis. Positioning itself as a campaign to Samuel might be trolling just a little too hard.

“Hey,” Sam laughed, “if I can’t express misogyny at the fact that not all infections end violence against women are diseases. This rhetorical SexFest, where can I express it?” ositioning itself as a campaign to end and their objectification as We both thought that, given how saucy and “enlightening” shortcoming was so devassex objects, many events violence against women and their objecti- this year sought to identify SexFest tries to pass itself off as, it was almost disappoint- tating it had to be changed ing to find out that “acts of service” didn’t refer to “acts of posthaste. fication as sex objects, many events this year women with a uniquely sexWhatever the rhetorical servicing.” Not particularly informative, but harmless. sought to identify women with a uniquely ual organ as strongly as posOnce again taking up its position as the lone voice crying issues, these booths were sible. As with most aspects of out in the darkness, much like a Salvation Army outpost in the probably the most educa- sexual organ as strongly as possible. feminist theory and planning, red light district of Amsterdam, Worth the Wait was back for tional aspect of SexFest. For there’s no perceivable way its second year. Backed primarily by religious organizations on example, one booth advertisany of this could backfire. campus such as Aquinas House, the booth offered articles from ing the HPV vaccine — now for men! — informed us of eviBut as our fathers always told us growing up, it’s not publications such as The Economist discussing the modern dence of a link between oral sex and various facial and throat the size of your SexFest that matters, it’s how you use it. virtue of celibacy and the sexual toll that modernization has cancers. To think that Deep Throat, one of the most famous This isn’t to say that all the events are total wastes of time. A had on women in particular. They also offered passerby the and popular pornographic films ever made (we had to look documentary shown on February 23 in Collis Commonground opportunity to fill out surveys where they could express their that up on Wikipedia, we swear!), was actually responsible titled Very Young Girls discusses sex trafficking of girls and own attitudes towards sex and marriage. It is highly doubtful for countless deaths. It’s depressing enough to drive one to young women in the United States, a sobering topic to be sure, that anybody planned to read these surveys, which leads to celibacy or to the Computer Science department. delivered with a tone much more likely to raise awareness. A Similarly, another booth informed us of the myriad pity more of the “wacky,” “fun” and “hysterical” booths out Mssrs. Hoch and Johnson are juniors at the College and means by which women could protect themselves from the there can’t take the same sober approach. If they did, people contributors to The Dartmouth Review. predators who threaten them at every turn. Unfortunately, might just take SexFest seriously.

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Page 6 The Dartmouth Review February 25, 2011

TDR Talks Econ with Keith Hennessey

By Charles S. Dameron The Dartmouth Review: You’re a member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. What’s your summary distillation of the causes of the crisis, and where does the US go from here?

step in and prevent these institutions from failing because we were afraid of the consequences to the rest of the system if they failed in a disorderly fashion.

TDR: How do you unwind the moral hazard that’s been created by the bailouts of 2008?

because we have what’s called bracket creep, because we have a progressive tax structure, and we have the economy growing — revenues will grow as a share of the economy over time. You have to come in every so often and tamp that down so you don’t have taxes growing and growing and growing as a share of the economy.

So absolutely the Bush tax cuts were the right thing to do in 2001 and 2003, because I care not just about the deficit effects, but also about the share of the economy that’s going through the government. I’m not a starve-the-beast guy. I don’t believe that if you cut taxes that will create a political incentive to cut spending. That’s what some people used to argue twenty or thirty years ago.

I do believe in the converse of that, which is “don’t feed the beast.” If you leave money on the table in Washington, people in Washington will find a way to spend it. There’s a real danger in that, especially with the modern-day configuration in Washington, where it’s, “every dollar of taxes we raise, we’re going to find something to spend it on.” And that’s a problem?

Keith Hennessey: It was primarily an economic crisis driven KH: If we were now in the position where the financial instituby economic forces. I think the explanation of the crisis has tions could be allowed to fail, then I wouldn’t worry about it. to start with the credit bubble. I think the biggest mistake that The problem is, to whatever extent we increase moral hazard a lot of people make is that they start off by looking at US by intervening, combined with still having a financial system financial system policies and regulations and US supervision. where we can’t allow those biggest institutions to fail.

But you have to recognize that at least the initiating force of My policy instincts would be to worry a lot about moral the crisis was global, and that while the most visible aspects hazard. Based on what I saw in the crisis, it doesn’t appear to of the crisis were in the US, there were parallels going on in have been that big of a factor. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Western Europe and even It certainly exists, and other parts of the world. you have to be concerned There were housing bubabout doing anything bles in at least half a dozen, that exacerbates it. Some a dozen other countries. argue that the government There were large financial interventions in early institutional failures — 2008 helped contribute TDR: You talked about a starve-the-beast mentality. It big banks failed in a bunch to problems later in 2008, seems clear that the political situation in the US militates of other countries. and I don’t buy that. against any tax increases — people aren’t willing to vote And so what that for tax increases — but they’re also unwilling to vote for means is, if you’re lookTDR: You’ve been writ- benefits or spending cuts. ing solely at particular ing a lot about the curflaws in the US financial rent fiscal crisis and our KH: I think the first has always been true. I think the second system — and there are looming deficit burden. has always been true, up until recently. The absolute great plenty of them — those by Jonathan Chait in The thing about all these new members of Congress who are themselves can’t explain New Republic has gone coming in is that they are absolutely rejecting that. They’re why bad things happen after you, saying that the saying, “government is getting too big, and I don’t care in other countries. Alan Bush Administration what the sacred cows or political risks are: we need to make Greenspan’s deregulawas at least partially government smaller.” tory philosophy probresponsible for the fiscal And so, I think that seeing the statements from congresably didn’t cause German hole we’re in now. What sional Republicans now, saying that they’re going to propose banks to fail. And flaws are your thoughts about real entitlement reforms, is an incredibly responsible thing to in US housing policies that? Looking back on do. The conventional wisdom is that it’s politically risky. So probably didn’t cause the it, do you think that good for them for standing up and proposing not just to go Spanish housing bubble. the Bush tax cuts were after the 15% of the budget that’s non-defense discretionary And flaws in US housing imprudent? And if they spending, but to take on the things that have been sacred policies did contribute to weren’t, how do you go cows, because that’s where the money is — it’s in the entitle—Keith Hennessey served on the National Economic Council for the US housing bubble, but about righting the Unit- ments. six and a half years. Prior to that, he was an economic aide to you need to have a broader ed States’ fiscal position I think it’s also great that these new members are coming Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi— explanation to explain without substantially in and saying the problem is spending. I am a low tax guy, why it was happening in raising taxes? but Republicans in the past have often wanted to spend all different parts of the world. of their time talking about taxes, and not enough of it talking So I think it starts with the credit bubble. I think there KH: A couple of points. First, we care a lot about deficits. We about actually cutting spending, and it’s great, because they’re were some foul-ups in US housing policy on both the too- also care a lot about the size of government. The deficit is of in now and they’re doing it. And they just voted for it. much-government-intervention side and in the misdirected- course the delta between spending and revenues, and that’s government-intervention side. I think as a general matter, too big, and it’s going to be getting even bigger, and we have TDR: Do you think that the proposed non-defense diselected officials of both parties always wanted to subsidize to do something about that. At the cretionary cuts are appropriate? housing more, and so we had a system that was encouraging same time, the levels of spending am a low tax guy, but Republicans Like you said, it’s a really small everybody everywhere to get as big a house as they could and revenues have shifted upward chunk of the federal budget. in the past have often wanted to ever think of, and I think that hurt. considerably, so that a greater share of society’s resources is go- spend all of their time talking about KH: Look, like I said, I’m a small TDR: Including the former president, President Bush… ing through the government rather taxes, and not enough of it talking government guy, so you put me in than through the private sector. We a room with spending cuts, and I’m KH: I think elected officials of both parties, absolutely. I think should care about both of those about actually cutting spending going to be naturally attracted to this is a broadly bipartisan issue where every elected official things. Washington debate tends to doing them. In almost every substansays, “I’m for more homeownership.” And I think the needle focus only on the delta between the two, and not the absolute tive discussion about spending cuts, I end up being one of turned too far in that direction. At the same time, I think that level of spending and revenues, and that’s a mistake. the guys who’s arguing for all or almost all of them. I have the disclosure rules for mortgage lenders were poor, and in The criticism of President Bush’s fiscal policy all tend not gone through the full list of everything they did, but as some cases non-existent, and so you had a whole lot of people to take the forms of, “If only he had done x, which I prefer, a general matter, they’re going in and doing absolutely what who were taking out mortgages that they didn’t understand then we would have ended up in a different situation.” If they should have done, and will they make some changes that and couldn’t afford in the first place. you look at the results of where the fiscal policies ended up, I might not have done by myself? Yeah, maybe. But you also I spend most of my focus on what happened once we had federal spending as a share of the economy was lower under have to remember that this is not a single decision-maker; this all of these bad loans in the financial system, and in particular President Bush than it was under his dad and under President is a group of a couple of hundred people, all trying to pull on what we call the “concentration of highly correlated risk,” Reagan. Taxes were lower and deficits were lower. together and all trying to achieve the overall goal of reducing by which I mean, most of the big banks made the same bad bet The attacks that come from the left almost always center the total amount of spending. on housing. When the tech bubble burst in the late 1990s, lots on a mistaken economic projection that was made in 2001, So even if they do it in a way that is somewhat different of people lost a little bit of money that they had in the stock where the budget forecasters all thought that the tech bubble from the way I would have done it if I had a magic wand, market. Here, the losses on housing-related financial assets and the higher revenues from it were going to continue forever. those differences are far less important to me than the fact tend to be concentrated in large financial institutions. Our And then they compare the trillions of dollars of surpluses that they’re achieving the top-line goal, which is to get the whole financial sector was very highly leveraged on a single that were incorrectly foreseen at the time with the resulting total amount down. If they cut things that I would naturally flawed assumption that housing prices would rise forever. It policies. If you look at the resulting policies, Bush’s deficits not have cut, more power to them, because they’re the ones was that concentration of risk that meant that when that bet were very close to the historic average, measured as a share who ran for office and they got elected. They have the priviturned out to be wrong, the whole system imploded. of the economy. lege of making these decisions. Good for them for making The other big thing was that we had a system in which the decisions and taking the risk. policymakers and supervisors were afraid of letting the TDR: If Bush hadn’t enacted the 2001 tax cuts, you think biggest financial institutions fail. When you have a system there wouldn’t have been a surplus anyway? What would TDR: The conversation in DC is really focused on the where you’re unwilling to let certain financial institutions have been the fiscal result of that? budget deficit, which is exciting. For Republicans, it’s fail, you’re in trouble. We experienced that heavily in 2008 exciting. But I also wonder about the conversation on and 2009, where we felt like there was no alternative but to KH: Well, first of all, enacting the Bush tax cuts — if you employment numbers, and the macroeconomic trends of take out the short-term economic cycle aspects of it — were the economy. We’re still in a pretty bad spot.

Mr. Dameron is a senior at the College and the editor- necessary to keep revenues at or near their historic average in-chief of The Dartmouth Review. share of the economy. If you don’t come in and cut taxes — KH: 9% unemployment is real bad. It’s not just pretty bad;

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February 25, 2011 The Dartmouth Review Page 7

Bush’s National Economic Council Chief there anything else after Korea? Or does the administration want to be one and done? And you know, the Korea FTA is TDR: What do you see going forward the next few years a good deal, and we absolutely should get it done.

But we also need to make sure that the administration with employment? What are the options that the federal isn’t just going to do that one, and then not doing anything government has? else on free trade for the next couple of years. There’s a risk KH: So I’m not a forecaster. The smartest forecasters who of that, and I think that you need to make sure that you get some sort of commitment from I listen to generally think that that they’re going to be the recovery is going to be slow. he United States needs to be out them pushing. And not just Colombia Recoveries tend to be slow after there pushing for free trade and open and Panama, which are important recessions caused by financial crises, and this appears to be one investment. We’ve seen basically radio at least as much for the foreign reasons of helping friends and of them. The really hard thing for silence for the past couple of years. allies in Central America. But Washington is when you have a you also have to see: what are we bad problem in front of you, what doing on global free trade talks? do you do when none of the policy options you have look to What are we doing to push back on protectionism? We just be effective? Do you do something that you know is probably going to be relatively ineffective, but will allow you to say haven’t seen that yet? you’re doing something? Or do you admit that you really don’t have the tools to solve the problem, and say, “Sorry, but we’re TDR: One of the items you mentioned when you were just going to have to suck it up and wait for the economy to talking about long-term growth was the US commitment recover.” And that’s what Washington has been struggling to education — higher education — and investments in with for the past couple of years. It was interesting during human capital. The front page of The Daily Dartmouth the State of the Union address how little airtime the president today was talking about cuts to federal education aid. dedicated to the short-term situation and to the short-term Do you think that’s an appropriate austerity measure? economic messaging. He was not selling his China message Obviously, these are tight budget conditions, but do you or his infrastructure message primarily as a short-term job think it’s appropriate to be cutting that? creation program. He was selling it as a long-term economic competitiveness strategy, which has its own issues. But it was KH: So there are three different aspects when you are talkastonishing to me how little he talked about [the short-run ing about the world-class universities. One is the cost to situation], and how much the debate has now shifted to what students of attending them. The second is the output of those universities in terms of smart, young graduates. The third is was previously called the austerity discussion.

By the way, as we approach the 2012 election, to the the output of those universities in terms of research that is extent unemployment does stay high, I expect that to rise being done, to push the envelope on all sorts of things that back up in prominence. It will be the major point of political make our economy more productive. Most of the benefits of graduating from Dartmouth accrue to the individual who debate. it’s real bad.

T

TDR: You sort of hinted at this with your discussion of Obama’s agenda for long-term US competitiveness, but what conditions need to be in place for the US economy to recover?

loans, so that they’re paying them off when they’re 28 rather than 27. You know, that’s too bad, but if the alternative is to tax that blue-collar worker in Ohio — I’m not for that.

TDR: I was talking recently with a Republican who mentioned to me that Republicans aren’t talking about these bigger issues with the American economy. Something he cited was growing economic inequality in the United States.

And that’s something that traditionally hasn’t been on the agenda on the right. What are your thoughts about that — is that a real issue?

KH: I think the term “growing economic inequality” is a little too broad. You have to understand both what is going on in terms of the increasing inequality and why you think that’s a problem. So, if I remember correctly — and I haven’t looked at this in a couple of years — the principal increase in income inequality is happening at the very top. It’s not that the poor are getting poorer. It’s that the top tenth of one percent or top one-hundredth of one percent — those stratospheric incomes — are getting even more stratospheric.

And what’s interesting is that people’s reactions tend to differ based on the industry in which the person operates.

Does an incredible athlete deserve the multi-million dollar contract that he gets? Most people tend to think that they’re okay with that, since it’s a competitive market, and that’s what the player is worth. Is an incredible actor or actress worth the millions of dollars that they can clear per picture?

The very top dozen actors or actresses are making millions of dollars per picture. And we tend to react not that negatively and say, “Look, they’re superstars. They’re producing a lot of value in the economy, or at least something that people are willing to pay a lot for, and so they’re getting the fruits of their labor.”

You get very different reactions when you talk about Wall Street, or the financial sector, where it’s much harder for us to understand if there’s value being created, or if there’s some other flaw in the system where people are figuring out how to skim the cream for themselves without actually producing a benefit for society. If so, then there are flaws within the financial system, within the incentives that are built up. That’s what would concern me much more than the results of the fact that a star athlete or a superstar in some other unbroken industry can clear tens of millions of dollars.

KH: I think you have to look at why the US economy has been so successful and so strong in the long run. And you look at things like a stable legal framework, and a sound monetary policy — both of which TDR: Why is there greater income inlend predictability so that people can do equality in the US than in most other business. Relative to a lot of other rich industrialized nations? economies, we have traditionally had a lowtax, low-regulatory environment. We’ve KH: I don’t know. Ask some of the labor had an entrepreneurial culture. We’ve had economists that question. I don’t really a system of higher education and R&D that know. You know, I’ve read a lot about the creates a lot of intellectual talent, intelsuperstar theory, which is that with mass lectual capital. Before the financial crisis, communications and technology, these I would have said that we have deep and —Hennessey (second from left) with President Bush’s economic team in late 2008— superstars can leverage their abilities or flexible financial markets. That’s clearly skills to capture an even greater share of under repair. But we also have very deep graduates from Dartmouth. So reducing the subsidies for the market or to do more for whatever they’re doing. But I and very flexible labor markets.

And you know, the key word is always flexibility. You people — and most of the studies show that if you go to don’t really know. want the economy to be able to adjust when bad things happen. Dartmouth, even if you have to borrow a lot of money, it’s And you want to make sure that policies don’t slow down that a good investment as a financial matter — so if, ultimately, TDR: You came on board as chief of the National Economic adjustment, so that when you have a financial shock, or you we have to reduce the subsidy for something that’s otherwise Council right at the tail end of the Bush Administration.

What was that like — taking on the top NEC job as the have a natural disaster, you have some sort of other economic a good investment… economy went into crisis? shock, the economy can recover and adapt as quickly as it can.

To me, that means creating predictability on the long-term TDR: What about students who aren’t going to a place KH: When I got bumped up in the end of 2007, we knew fiscal path, and it means making sure you’re not massively like Dartmouth? that we had a foreclosure crisis, expanding the regulatory agenda. It’s scary what EPA can do with its authorities, and is starting to talk about doing — KH: Yeah, and that’s why, first of art of what gives me hope is and serious mortgage problems that were going to develop through where it can come in and regulate all over the place. This is all, colleges and universities have seeing the rise of the Tea Party 2008 and 2009. But we did not see the carbon stuff. And they could really slow down economic financial aid programs. It’s why they target the private dollars that and all of the related political and the evidence of the financial shocks growth, with little to no discernible environmental benefit.

So you have to worry about these things. Health care they raise — generally, they target societal forces that we’ve seen over that were going to occur. So at that point, 2008 looked like it was going is the other thing, where you’re massively expanding the them toward lower-income kids the past couple of years to be a normal economic policy year reach of government and slowing things down in all sorts of and families.

The question is: should a bluein the last year of an administration, ways. and we learned otherwise as the year So I think you do those things. I also think you need to collar taxpayer in Ohio with a high actually have an international economic agenda. The United school education, whose kids are going to have a high-school progressed. Obviously, it was a lot more responsibility, but I States needs to be out there pushing for free trade and open education, should that worker pay higher taxes to subsidize was doing very similar kind of work to what I had done for investment. We’ve seen basically radio silence for the past a non-poor kid going to Dartmouth? And elected officials the five and a half years prior to that. I mean, I was literally probably can’t say that. moving up one rank in an organization — I spent six and a couple of years.

You know, college is incredibly expensive. It’s also, as a half years on the president’s National Economic Council. For TDR: Well, the Korean Free Trade Agreement is back financial matter, it’s a cash-flow issue. You need the cash up me, it all flows together. front to pay the university, and then you have to pay it back on the table. on the back end. Maybe, if you reduce the subsidy, it means TDR: Before that, you worked on the Hill for a long time KH: Korea’s back on the table. The follow-on question is: is that someone has to work another year to pay off their student as an aide to senators Pete Dominici and Trent Lott. How

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Page 8 The Dartmouth Review February 25, 2011

Hennessey Focuses on Spending & Debt ask, “Why would anyone lend the US Treasury money?” He later noted that we don’t know when our sources of funding “I hope to end on a somewhat happy note.” After uttering will dry up. Once we hit that wall, however, we will have to those ominous words, Keith Hennessey launched into an hour endure the same hardships now facing Greece and Ireland. and a half long deconstruction of entitlement programs in the For those of our readers who have been living under a rock United States – and how their costs will soon balloon past a for the past few months, that would be very bad.

The government will also become bigger. As a result of sustainable level. Hennessey is too qualified to be dismissed as just another deficit hawk, briefly soaring in from the far the crisis, the government last year spent 25% of the national GDP in an attempt to boost the economy. The efficacy of that right to screech for a moment or two.

Hennessey spent about ten years in Washington, D.C. measure has been, and will no doubt continue to be, debated analyzing economic policy. From 2007 to 2009, he served as along partisan lines, but the fact remains that government Director of the National Economic Council under President spending was unusually large. According to Hennessey and the Bush. Since leaving the White House, Hennessey has run government’s projections, that trend will continue. President a blog analyzing macroeconomic issues, financial market Obama’s budget proposals would maintain federal spending issues, tax policy, energy and climate change, health care, at 25% of GDP, with projected growth in coming years bringing it to an all-time high of Social Security, and almost 32%. All of these numbers every other policy realm mean one simple thing: under the sun. Hennessey more and more of America’s shoulders his Herculean resources would be allocated policy expertise surprisby politicians and bureauingly well — according to crats in Washington.How is The Wall Street Journal, this happening? The simple he runs one of the top 25 answer is that Social Secueconomics blogs on the rity, Medicare and Medicaid internet. And he exudes will grow and grow until the a certain joie de vivre in entire system collapses. The spite of the dark future he more complicated answer is foretells, grinning even as that due to decades of “kickhe discusses the calamitous ing the can down the road,” possibility of foreign lendpoliticians have been able to ers refusing to buy Treasury ignore difficult decisions. As bills.

—Projected budget shortfalls threaten to cripple long as the crisis wasn’t imBefore he began disthe US government— minent, spending decisions cussing the unsustainable could be put off until the next future of government spending, however, Hennessey quickly reviewed the past fifty years election…and then the next…and so on. Today’s politicians of government expenditures. Surprisingly enough, the federal aren’t responsible for the coming crisis: their predecessors’ government’s spending has been relatively stable. Over the predecessors were. For the past few election cycles, politipast few decades, the United States has generally held to an cians have known that these entitlement programs offer too 80/20 rule. According to this rule, the federal government many benefits and collect too little in taxes. They just didn’t spends approximately 20% of the national GDP, leaving the want to have to go to voters and explain the hard truths. remaining 80% to be divided between the state and local The problem is that the government has continued to promise governments and the private sector. Generally, the federal the equivalent of unlimited candy to all Americans despite government borrows 2% of GDP to cover the difference the massive demographic changes of the past few years. The between spending and taxes — a gap that Hennessey prefers main difficulty is that the ratio of retirees to active workers has ballooned thanks to both the post-World War II baby to call “future taxes.”

Hennessey then turned to future projects of spending and boom and the medical advances of the past few decades. So tax revenue, saying “…it starts to get a little scary.” That may we have more seniors collecting entitlement payments for be the understatement of the year. Hennessey’s graphs are the longer. The only way to sustain this is to somehow reduce the most frightening images that I have seen since an exhibit of amount paid out or to dramatically increase taxes. Without Bosch’s paintings of Hell. Essentially, the United States gov- reducing the acceleration of spending, the United States will ernment’s projections reveal that in the future, deficits will be continue to run larger and larger deficits.

Other analysts claim that the lion’s share of future deficits big and they will keep getting bigger. Essentially, the growth in spending is going to accelerate at an unbelievably high rate, is purely a function of increasing medical costs. Often these far outpacing the growth in tax revenues. In all of the projec- fear mongers will brandish graphs of exponential curves tions, this trend has no end in sight, prompting Hennessey to labeled “medical costs.” Even if we set aside the troublingly Malthusian reasoning behind these graphs, a new hole apMr. Harrington is a freshman at the College and a contribu- pears in their reasoning. To paraphrase Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, as Hennessy chose to do, “the fall’s going tor to The Dartmouth Review.

By J.P. Harrington

to kill us before…we get to rising healthcare costs.” Long before healthcare costs wreck the United States’ balance sheets, demographic costs will have ripped them to shreds.

Politicians have no choice but to cut entitlement payments.

That leaves them with an unpleasant choice between cutting benefits or raising the retirement age. Essentially, politicians get to choose whether to take candy from the baby’s right hand or left hand. Neither of those is a particularly popular proposal. Historically, the political response has been to ignore the situation entirely until it explodes. Hennessey termed this avoidance of hard decisions the “Illinois Syndrome,” which has lead to that great state’s current fiscal difficulties.

So where exactly does Hennessey find hope among all of this doom and gloom? Well, Hennessey believes that the 2010 midterm election results demonstrate that Americans have finally realized that they are driving towards a cliff. He cited as evidence the Tea Party movement and Congressman Paul Ryan’s proposals to cut the growth of spending drastically over the next few years. Yet this silver lining was somewhat tarnished by Hennessey’s answers during the follow-up Q&A session. When this Review staffer asked for a counterexample to the Illinois Syndrome, Hennessey responded that there wasn’t one. Sadly enough, even after a significant bit of research, I would have to agree. Of course, this time may be different – but the political track record for responsible spending does not instill confidence in the slightest.

During the coda of the speech, Hennessey also described his efforts under President George W. Bush to reform both the Social Security and Medicare programs. Bush floated the idea of reforming Medicare in order to reduce costs and pay for Medicare Part D (which paid for seniors’ prescription drugs). Congress rejected the reforms, but naturally accepted Part D’s expansion of government aid: yet another example of the Illinois Syndrome. A few years later, when Bush suggested Social Security reform, the proposition was met with a very cool response from congressional Republicans and a frosty reaction from the Democrats. In each case, both parties rejected the chance to slam on the brakes – or even pump them. Instead, for the past few years, America has continued to accelerate towards the chasm of bankruptcy.

Although Mr. Hennessey’s slight optimism may be founded more on wishful thinking than on hard facts, his speech was certainly worth an hour and a half of attention.

Sadly, the majority of the audience was closer to receiving Social Security than their undergraduate years. Despite the fact that these entitlements will oblige our generation to support seniors through lifestyles that we will not enjoy, students hardly seem to care.

Or at least they don’t care yet. Let us hope that Hennessey is right – that older Americans, at least, have finally gathered the political will to cut these liabilities to a manageable level.

If we could also reduce the size of the federal government, at least back to the 80/20 rule, then that would be the best of both worlds. At the end of the day, the American people need to stand up and solve this problem themselves. Politicians are unwilling to take away the bountiful promises of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. It’s high time the American people grew up and accepted that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

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Hennessey: “The Dynamic is Changing...” did you get into being a Capitol Hill economic advisor?

TDR: What do you think will happen to the role of government as we become a grayer society?

of years. The common-sense instincts of the American people are pushing back and saying, “government’s trying to do too much.” That was kind of spontaneous and organic. It didn’t come from Washington. And it’s an incredibly powerful force.

I happen to think it’s an incredibly positive force. When it is that broad-based, it can completely change the dynamic in Washington. As long as the conventional political rules apply to Washington, government is just going to keep getting bigger and bigger. But what gives me some hope is that the American people have changed the rules over the past couple of years, and nobody saw it coming. This pushback that you have — which is unprecedented in the twenty years that I’ve been doing this — is so powerful that it can overwhelm other political forces. And you have new members coming in and saying, “I don’t care if you old-timers think what I’m doing is politically stupid. This is why I’m here; this is the right thing to do, and I’m going to do it.” And that throwing out of the old political rules gives me hope.

KH: You might think I’m going to say that it’s going to get bigger. But I don’t actually know that. And part of what gives me hope is seeing the rise of the Tea Party and all of the related political and societal forces that we’ve seen over the past couple

TDR: That’s liable to make one very optimistic. Do you think, though, that a lot of the passion driving the Tea Party movement is going to stick around once you’re talking about changes to Medicare? You know, they may

KH: After I went to the Kennedy School, I worked for a bipartisan commission on entitlement and tax reform for seven months in 1994. Toward the very end of that was the Republican Revolution of 1994, when Republicans took over the House and Senate. And that was seven weeks before the commission was ended. So it was a great time to be a young Republican in Washington, DC with a little bit of knowledge about fiscal policy. There were job openings, and I managed to get a job working for Dominici and kind of slotted in right when they were hiring — sort of like it is right now.

If you’re a Republican getting started in Washington, there have been a bunch of openings for young Republican staff on Capitol Hill.

all want to cut foreign aid, but it gets a lot harder…

KH: Look at Chris Christie and Mitch Daniels. Both of them spoke recently. And Paul Ryan is a third. All three of them are out there saying things that ten years ago no Republican elected official would have said. Not only are they not being punished for them, but they’re being rewarded for having said those things, even though they’re saying very unpleasant things.

It was less noticed but last year, before the election, the current Speaker of the House floated the idea of looking at the eligibility age for Social Security and Medicare. Five years ago that was sacrosanct. No elected official in his right mind would have gone out there and said that. The dynamic is changing. And what you hope is that the American people will reward Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels, John Boehner, Paul Ryan, and Eric Cantor and a bunch of other folks for saying those kinds of things because they’re unpopular. Someone is finally up there and saying, “Look, I’m not going to lie to you anymore. I’m going to tell you that this situation is really bad, and here’s what we’ve got to do.” And you hope that the American people will reward those politicians for doing that.

•

February 25, 2011 The Dartmouth Review Page 9

Stroll Show A Vital Piece of Dartmouth

By Christina Chen Webster Avenue and its spectacles are infamous among the student body, and at other colleges, for being the most notable and defining aspect of the Big Green experience.

This assumption proves fallible, as it only considers the most obvious social options on campus even though several alternative communities exist, such as Dartmouth’s minority fraternities and sororities.

These five houses form a special niche in the Greek system that, while holding a less prominent spotlight, provide an alternate option for students not interested in traditional Greek life.

In addition to the other twenty-eight houses, Dartmouth is also home to the fraternities Alpha Phi Alpha and Lambda Upsilon Lambda, and the sororities Alpha Kappa Alpha, Sigma Lambda Upsilon, and Alpha Pi Omega. Their legacies in relation to Dartmouth’s overall Greek system are young, with the earliest organization, Alpha Phi Alpha – a historically African-American fraternity – established on campus only in 1972. Despite their short histories, minority fraternities are an important dimension of campus life, and with their historical racial affiliations, add to Dartmouth’s diversity by providing a community for those who do not find mainstream social venues attractive.

It’s the Saturday evening of Winter Carnival 2011, and I’m going to go see the Stroll Show, a minority Greek event in which members represent their respective house through synchronized dance routines that display their organization’s unique and signature moves. These moves include the Alpha Kappa Alpha ladies’ use of their hands as mirrors to simulate checking their reflections, and the Lambda Upsilon Lambda brothers signaling the Greek letters that compose their name.

A Dartmouth stroll show however is less noted for its strolling, and more for its markedly different attitude, scene, and audience as compared to something like Monday Night Freeze. The show is held in the hygienic and aboveground Collis, and its attendees are overwhelmingly ethnic, an observation someone behind me keenly puts as “this is definitely like a minority event!” I think many would agree that the audience could be awarded “‘most diverse for a Greek event attendance,”’ as all the colors of the race spectrum are represented, from Native American to Asian to Caucasian.

I’m at Collis with my (white) friend Kyle, and a crowd forms a circle on the floor for the fraternities and sororities to stroll in. The music starts, the strolls commence, and the Commonground becomes alive, not in the ”cheer after the a capella group performs” alive, but a “start dancing to the beat with the strollers while calling out encouragements” alive.

The Alpha Phi Alphas have on their game faces, expressions emulating the organization’s symbol, and the Alpha Kappa Alphas dance in their black stiletto heels, intriguing some of the audience members.

Kyle, having never heard of a stroll show before, responds humorlessly, claiming “that was awesome” with a cool shrug of his shoulders. I agree. There was an ineffably fly and sharp characteristic about these performances that harkens to Thunderbirds and Pink Ladies, minus the hair gel. With the addition of a lively audience who all collectively participated in cheering and whooping encouragements during each stroll, the show offered up more than just dance routines. It was also an opportunity for cultural expression from traditionally less visible communities on campus.

In sitting down with a few brothers of Alpha Phi Alpha (all other organizations declined to be interviewed), I was able Miss Chen is a junior at the College and contributor to The Dartmouth Review.

to witness their enthusiasm and respectable solemnity toward the roles of fraternity brothers. Greek houses at Dartmouth are not usually cited for being pinnacles of proprietypriety. Rather, they are centers of entertainment and socialization in the rural Upper Valley. Alpha Phi Alpha, on the other hand — and I daresay this applies to other minority Greek organizations as well — understand that its campus mission is to produce

effect mainstream fraternities and sororities have on the undergraduate population, yet from my standpoint, divisive effects occur in all instances when a defined community exists.

Both the minority and mainstream Greeks are communities that ably carry out their role on campus., At the same time, these organizations are prone to certain flaws. Frat row

—A stroll show at George Washington University—

leaders. As Tyler Melancon ’12 puts it, Alpha Phi Alpha men are “exceptional both academically and socially.”

Of course, parties do help to establish the Alpha’s social reputation on campus, Alex Tejeda ’12 admits, but the fraternity accomplishes so much more per term, giving each of the nine brothers a substantial workload. “On Wednesdays, we’re planning events,” Tejeda says, such as the Evening of Roses: Women’s Appreciation Dinner, community service trips, and of course, strolls. Their goal is to reach out to all minorities, not just the African diaspora, and to make Dartmouth a friendlier and more comfortable environment for everyone.

Melancon cites the Alpha’s diversity — past members have also included Dominicans and Asians. The stroll show allows the Alphas to communicate with Dartmouth students, and share their pride in being fraternity brothers and leaders of minority communities.

Yet amid all the positive reaction towards the show’s message, there are inevitably those who express other opinions. Waiting in line for a Hop breakfast sandwich Sunday morning, I shamelessly eavesdroped on a conversation in which two white girls discussed the previous evening’s festivities. They enjoyed the show, citing its cool attitude and “chill” atmosphere, but they also admitted feeling “kind of uncomfortable, actually.”

At last year’s stroll show, I had also felt uncomfortable, not from dissatisfaction with the strolls, as I had clearly enjoyed it enough to warrant attending another show, but because it was different. Growing up in Southern California — where the ethnic makeup of my school was half white and half Asian — Dartmouth seemed like a rainbow campus to me. Certainly, this highlights my high school community’s lack of diversity, but I had simply never been exposed to the communal sense that minority fraternities evoked. Despite being fit for an Ivy League education, I had been completely unprepared for a stroll show.

A parallel sense of discomfort is usually expressed in the feelings many minorities experience on frat row, as the racial makeup of affiliated undergraduates is statistically whiter than that of the total undergraduate population. Looking through the archives of The Daily Dartmouth, several past articles on diversity issues cite this exact sentiment among minorities as a major obstacle towards feeling at home here at Dartmouth.

These articles aim at exposing the unpleasant and divisive

carries out its responsibility as the entertainment and social center for undergraduates, as well as providing a brotherhood or sisterhood for students seeking that specific type of community. Minority fraternities and sororities act similarly, but with a different target audience. Both sides of the Greek system claim openness and inclusivity, but this rhetoric proves is belied by the persistence of minority discomfort on frat row, along with white discomfort with minority organizations.

There is a diverse set of communities on campus giving all a place to fit in, a characteristic of Dartmouth that helps to explain our consistently loyal alumni base. Some communities are admittedly more conspicuous than others, but these loud presences should not negate the existence, or importance, of the quieter others. Find the community you fit into, and if no community exists to your liking, emulate the founders of Alpha Phi Alpha. They began their organization as a study group while students at Cornell University in 1906, in order to support one another in the face of racial antagonism.; We benefit from diversity at Dartmouth. As a Dartmouth student, I am free to see a stroll show, attend DAO (Dartmouth Asian Organization) Culture Night, and play a game of pong in a frat basement. Our statistics certainly show a higher percentage of white students than any other race, but numbers should not be the focal point. Diversity isn’t simply about seeing different colors; it’s also about embodying acceptance and awareness. Accepting other campus groups and respecting the significance they hold for others — as well as being aware that while you may feel at home in the group, others may not necessarily share in your comfort — is an important part of being a citizen of Dartmouth. Diversity is not enhanced simply by changing statistics, or by sporadic realizations and espousals of heated rhetoric at 3 a.m. in the morning. This issue does not sleep while we play pong or watch a stroll show, because the dynamics of diversity persist everywhere that communal differences occur. Take the initiative to step out of your community and your comfort zone so that you can empathize with the other in those moments when you too do not fit in. That attitude of openness then makes it much easier to actively seek out new or different members and make them feel welcome when you’re sitting easily within your community. It is a credit to Dartmouth, and to my friends and peers here, that I can call this place home, no matter what situation I find myself in.

•

Page 10 The Dartmouth Review February 25, 2011

The World of Jewish Vilna Recalled

By Coleman E. Shear

toric capital, but in 1920 the Polish army seized Vilna from the newly independent Lithuanian state. The Poles told the international community that their military captured Vilna on its own without orders and that the situation was out of the Polish government’s control. In reality, the Polish government staged these events in order to annex Lithuania into the new Polish nation. Between the world wars, Vilna had more Poles

different groups in the ghetto were still there and could be fierce but never quite reached the level of animosity they Many Dartmouth students, even those of Jewish descent did in Poland. would not know the differences between a Galicianer, an The traditionalists in Jewish Vilna were the Orthodox Oberlander, a Yekke, and a Litvak, but to their grandparents Jews who followed the Mitnagim, also known as the Lithuand great-grandparents, these differences and the stereoanian brand of Orthodox Judaism. These Jews largely rejected types that accompanied these different types of Jews were Zionism and were against assimilating into Lithuanian and very real. After the Holocaust, the differences Polish society. They believed that the lives of amongst European Jewry ceased to exist, and the Jewish people could be improved through Jews became, simply, Jews. The once vibrant the study of Torah and the strict adherence to world of yiddishkeit culture was destroyed. At the laws of Judaism. The Zionists believed that the center of this extinct Yiddish world was the Jews would never be safe in Eastern Europe Jewish Vilna. and that they could never truly be Poles or Samuel Kassow, professor of Russian HisLithuanians. For the Zionists, the only way was tory at Trinity College, is one of the world’s immigration to the land of Israel and the foundaexperts on Ashkenazi Jewry. His lecture on tion of a Jewish homeland there. The Zionists “The Uniqueness of Jewish Vilna” temporarily were a diverse group; they included fiercely brought this lost world back to life in the minds socialist Labor Zionists, right wing revisionist of all those in attendance.

Zionists who followed the ideology of Vladimir Vilna, known today as the city of Vilnius Jabotinsky and religious Zionists who mixed in Lithuania, stood at the crossroads between Orthodox Judaism with Zionism. empires. Before the First World War, it lay The Bundists, a Jewish socialist party, were between the German and Russian Empires, another popular political organization in the and in the interwar period between the Soviet ghetto. They held that Jews should work to build Union and the newly independent nations of a socialist community in the Diaspora and that Poland and Lithuania. Vilna’s location on the only true socialism could lead to Jewish equalBaltic and its ethnic diversity; a city of Jews, ity and acceptance. The Bundists were known Poles, Lithuanians, White Russians, and Germans — A group of World War II Jewish partisans from Vilna, modern-day Vilnius— for championing the use of the Yiddish language made it a constant battleground. The Jewish comas the language of the Jewish people. Communism munity in Vilna was the capital of the Litvak Jewish world, than Lithuanians, and so the Poles viewed it as a part of the was also popular amongst some Jews in Vilna. Communist an Ashkenazi and Sephardic world that this author’s great- greater Polish nation.

Jews rejected Judaism as a religion and ethnicity altogether, The Jews in Vilna never identified as Lithuanians, Poles viewing ethnicity as a bourgeois creation meant to keep the grandfather and namesake, Kalman, came from. The cultural area that was Litvak Jewry included Lithuania, Northeastern or Russians. Most had no desire to identify as Lithuanians workers of the world in an endless circle of hatred, never or Poles of the Mosaic faith because Jews in Germany had realizing that their true enemies were their capitalist masters.

Poland, Belarus, and Northern Ukraine.

The historical differences between the Litvaks and Polish attempted to identify themselves as ethnic Germans of the All of these political forces existed at once in a community Jewry lie in the Litvaks’ rejection of Hassidic Judaism. The Mosaic faith. This created an extremely distinct culture from of fifty-five thousand Jews.

Hassidic brand of Judaism emphasized Jewish mysticism, and the societies that surrounded them. They identified as Jews first Professor Kassow told two stories of Jewish martyrdom demanded more equality in learning for all Jews. The Vilna and foremost. This created an interesting political situation that I believe greatly reveal the character of Litvak Jewry, both Gaon, the chief Rabbi of Vilna and one of the leading Rabbis amongst the Litvak Jews, who were constantly being wooed their secular and religious sides. Both men involved in their of the Middle Ages, rejected Hassidism and worked hard to by the Lithuanians to identify themselves as Lithuanians of acts of martyrdom held very different views on the world, but the Mosaic faith. This would they were both motivated by a willingness to die for a Jewish stop its spread out of Poland.

He preferred the traditional he Jews in Vilna never identified as give Lithuania more credibility cause. One story is of an 18th century Polish nobleman who in the eyes of the League of converted to Judaism from Catholicism, and was burned at Yeshiva world’s strict adherLithuanians, Poles or Russians Nations in their claim over the the stake for his actions. The convert’s ashes were spread next ence to rules to the mysticism city of Vilna. of the Hassidim. While Jewish to the burial place of the Vilna Gaon, and supposedly a tree During the interwar period, Poles made up the majority grew there in the shape of a praying man. The other story of mysticism became popular in Poland, it never took hold in Lithuania. The Litvaks rejection of Hassidism greatly influ- of Vilna’s population. Many Jews in Lithuania were surprised martyrdom is of Hirsh Lekert, an active Bundist. Lekert was enced generations of Litvak Jews, who — although being by the ferocity of Lithuanian collaborators in the Holocaust angered by the Tsarist Governor of Lithuania flogging Jewish Orthodox, Jews — were notably less religious than their because many recalled that before the war, they had always workers during the Bundist May Day parade. Lekert attempted Galicianer Polish cousins. Professor Kassow explained this gotten along better with their Lithuanian neighbors than their to assassinate the governor in response, but failed. Before difference through an old joke about how the Polish Jews Polish neighbors. Of all the countries in Eastern Europe, Lekert was hanged, he was given the option of talking to a complained that the Litvaks “wore a cross on their forehead”, Lithuania had one of the highest rates of collaboration with Rabbi. Lekert refused to beg for mercy as the Rabbi suggested and the Litvaks responded back “You don’t need to kiss my and went to the galforehead”. This story illustrates the sort of chutzpah that lows proudly. Lekert Litvak Jews were known for: displaying a stereotype that reached a “secular they proudly wore. sainthood” in the The other great separation between Litvak Jewry and eyes of the Bundist the rest of the Jewish world was in their use of language. movement. Both For the Litvaks, Yiddish reigned supreme. It was spoken in these stories reveal the home, and treasured. Vilna was the center of the YIVO, the strong passion the Jewish Scientific Institute, which was responsible for the that Litvak Jews felt preservation of the Yiddish language. Even the Zionist groups for the Jewish people in Vilna usually didn’t challenge Yiddish’s supremacy in favor whether in a religious of Hebrew as the language of the Jewish people, knowing or secular sense. how unpopular this decision would have been. While Yiddish The Jews of th continued to be spoken in Poland, by the early 20 century Vilna created a vibrant culture where with Polish independence and Jewish emancipation, many Yiddish was the main Jews began to abandon Yiddish in favor of Polish, wanting language of commuto appear to be good Polish citizens of the Mosaic faith. nication. This culture Professor Kassow told a story of a Polish Jew who wanted was renowned for its to study at University in Vilna, but lacked the necessary theaters and both its Yiddish language requirements. Thus, he enrolled in Yiddish secular and religious language classes. He was walking on the streets of Vilna learning. Vilna truly with a group of Litvak friends who were speaking Polish was the Jerusalem of so that he could better keep up with the conversation. When Lithuania. Like all his Litvak friends saw a group of Poles approaching them, stories of the Jews they immediately switched back to Yiddish. The Polish Jew —The skyline of modern Vilnius— of Eastern Europe, was amazed because in Poland it would happen the opposite this one ends in the way. Litvak Jews were determined to set themselves apart from the Lithuanian and Polish communities that surrounded the Nazis and after the loss of Vilna and the takeover by the tragedy of the Holocaust, which largely wiped out the whole them. Despite being more secular than their Jewish cousins in Soviet Union, Lithuanians viewed the Jews as collaborating community. The majority of the survivors left for Israel after the war. Vilna’s greatest legacy though, which should be rePoland, they carved their own niche out through their defiance with the Soviets, which was far from true.

The Jews of Vilna, despite having many different views membered to this day, is that a community of very different to ever be classified as anything but Jews.

The Lithuanians have always claimed Vilna as their his- amongst themselves on what would bring about the deliver- people were able to coexist despite their political differences. ance of the Jewish people, managed to create a united com- This community — rich and poor, secular and religious —came Mr. Shear is a sophomore at the College and associate munity where even secular and Orthodox Jews cooperated together to help one another and achieve a united polity that editor for The Dartmouth Review. for the greater good of the community. The rivalries between was greater than the sum of its parts.

•

T

February 25, 2011 The Dartmouth Review Page 11

Football Staff Addition Strengthens Indians

By Sterling C. Beard

Sheehy shouldn’t have much trouble bringing in someone good; they’ve proven they can bring top coaching talent to There have been some interesting moves within the Hanover. One need only look at the staff’s newest hire to see Dartmouth football coaching staff this off-season. what I’m talking about.

First, the program mutually parted ways with one year Calvin Thibodeaux is the newly minted defensive line offensive coordinator Jim Pry, citing coach for the Indians. Thibodeaux, a 2006 “philosophical differences.” Under his graduate of the University of Oklahoma, direction, the Indian offense averaged was a four year letterman as well as an over ten more points per game than Associated Press All Big-XII selection they had in 2009, climbing from 16.1 as a junior, a season in which he was a to 26.4, which placed them third in the terror on the edge. That year, he posted Ivy League in terms of scoring offense, 10 sacks from his position at defensive just behind League champion Penn and end, good enough to rank 15th all time in second-place Harvard. The rushing game the Sooner record books. He also played also saw improvement, with the ground in four BCS bowl games, including the attack piling up 57.9 more yards per game Rose, Fiesta, Sugar, and Orange, the latfor an average of 165.7 in each contest. ter of which were for the BCS national The aerial assault regressed by seven championship. yards per game, from 184.9 to 177.9, but After he graduated from OU, he this is due to the success the squad had briefly played for the Calgary Stampedin running the ball more than any other ers in the Canadian Football League factor. before becoming a graduate assistant at Fry’s departure will now leave University of Houston under head coach Dartmouth searching for its third ofKevin Sumlin. His first year coaching for fensive coordinator in as many years. the Cougars, they ended a decades-long This may seem like a problem, but it’s bowl drought, defeating Air Force in the important to remember that whatever co2008 Armed Forces Bowl, and finishing ordinator Athletic Director Harry Sheehy with an 8-5 record. and Head Coach Buddy Teevens ’79 bring Thibodeaux was then hired as dein, he’ll have a stacked deck with which fensive line coach and video coordinator to work. for Navarro College (Corsicana, Texas).

Dartmouth operates a spread offense, During his tenure there, the Bulldogs comprimarily basing out of four wide receivpiled an 11-1 record, winning the National ers sets and sets with three wideouts and Junior College Athletic Association chamone tight end. This allows the numerous pionship over Butler Community College playmakers on the squad to get the ball in (El Dorado, Kansas), thereby avenging a open space and do some damage, whether first game loss and the lone blemish on it’s a pass caught in the open field or their remarkable championship crusade. spreading opposing defenses thin for the The run defense was outstanding, rankIndians’ powerful running game to smash ing 11th overall while allowing a mere 81 through. QB Conner Kempe ’12 returns yards per game, and the defense as a whole for his second full year as field general ranked 12th, while hauling down the opwith a fleet of pass catching threats that posing QB 41 times. This was thanks, in should inspire jealousy in any squad in —Calvin Thibodeaux, the Indians’new defensive line coach, graduated at the University of Oklahoma, no small part, to the Bulldogs’ sophomore where he played in four BCS bowl games— the Ivy League, including the top three defensive lineman Toby Jackson, who receiving threats off of the 2010 squad, recorded an eye-popping thirteen sacks all-Ivy honorable mention Michael Reilly ’12 (22 catches team selection left guard Ryan O’Neill ’12 and second team and was named defensive MVP of the championship game as for 525 yards and 3 TDs), second team all-Ivy tight end John selection center Austin Fletcher ’12. Fletcher has started 28 well as an NJCAA All-American; he has committed to play Gallagher ’12 (16-133-3) and all-Ivy first team selection Tim out of 30 games in his career, an impressive number. Equally for the University of Central Florida.

McManus ’11 (38-528-2), who was granted a fifth year of impressive is that the offensive line allowed less than a sack Thibodeaux’s had plenty of experience playing and coacheligibility due to a broken leg that kept him off the field in per game, 0.7, to rank seventh nationally. This group is a ing on big stages. He’s a young hire as well, who’s already fortress when it comes to pass protection and should have no had wild success. He’ll be taking over from James Jones, the ’09 campaign.

The backfield is well stocked; co-Ivy player of the year trouble opening up gaps for the one-two punch of Schwieger who is now at Northern Colorado. There’ll be no shortage Nick Schwieger ’12 will return for his senior year after amass- and Pierre. of experience for him to work with, either. Eddie Smith ’12, “I think we will have the most explosive offense in the defensive tackle, has made 20 consecutive starts in the middle ing 1840 yards toting the rock and an additional 210 receiving while racking up 14 TDs in only nine games. He’s quickly Ivy League,” Nick Schwieger stated in a brief e-mail inter- and 25 overall. Also in the middle will be Mark Dwyer ’12, climbing up the charts of Dartmouth’s all-time rushing list, view. “Look for us to run the ball with authority, as our goal who has had varsity experience since his freshman year. The only 412 yards behind Al Rosier ’91. Joining Schwieger in is to run for over 200 yards every game.”Schwieger could edge isn’t without its strengths, either, as Connor Philips ’12 the backfield will be Dominick Pierre ’14, the lightning to very well be right. In total, the Indians return eight players and Teddy Reed ’12 return, looking to make the same sort of Schwieger’s thunder, who averaged 5.1 yards per carry and with starting or playing experience on an offense that saw impact that Charles Bay ’11 had. found the endzone four times despite seeing limited action. marked improvement from the year before. This is an absurd Overall, the staff in place is excellent and the Indians will amount of talent and veteran perspective. A goodly number put one of the most experienced teams on the field they’ve had Mr. Beard is a junior at the College and managing editor of offensive coordinators would be salivating at the chance in years. The whispers are beginning…Dartmouth is poised for The Dartmouth Review. to take charge of the situation at Dartmouth. Teevens and to make an Ivy League title run in 2011.

• Now, as any football enthusiast will tell you, the O-line is the offense’s engine and will make or break an offense. Fortunately for the Indians, they bring one of the most experienced lines imaginable, with four of the starting five offensive linemen returning from the 2010 season, including all-Ivy first

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Page 12 The Dartmouth Review February 25, 2011

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