The hour badly spent

Last year the campus was gripped by a shortage of smug blonde rich girls. Brave student leaders immediately rolled up their sleeves and got to work on the greatest crisis of our age.

The efforts of the Greek Affairs employees, students and chapter advisers have not gone in vain. The recent changes they made to improve sorority recruitment resulted in an increase in retention, as well as time and money saved for students, staff and volunteers involved in the Sorority Recruitment Week.
“Recruitment went excellently,” said Shawn Eagleburger, assistant director for Greek Affairs. “We started and finished with more women than we ever have at K-State.” [ed. note: Heh.]
Eagleburger, who is also the primary sorority adviser, said he was impressed with the success of Recruitment Week, which took place August 17-21. Eagleburger and other staff and students changed a few aspects of the week to make it more beneficial, cheaper and less stressful for all those involved, he said.
At the end of the week, the sororities were able to offer 525 women membership and retained 86 percent of the women throughout the process, he said.

[Source: Deborah Muhwezi, K-State Collegian]

The narrative of the Red Tent — a book that I have never read (thanks for lending it to me, Rhymes With Leather!) — begins right after Jacob stole the family’s birthright from Esau and fled to escape the wrath of his brother or something. I’m not cracking open a Bible (which I have also never read) to look up the particulars of the story because eww. So, we hear, in a voice and language reminiscent of the Bible’s beautiful formality, the story of Jacob’s meeting Rachel and Leah, and the births of Jacobs sons and daughters, including the book’s actual narrator: Dinah, daughter of Leah.

The Red Tent was an actual tent that travelled with Jacob’s family and housed the women during their menstrual periods. This was not an exile or a punishment; rather, being in the red tent was an honour that all Israelite women shared. Jacob’s family scorned the women of Esau’s family for not having a red tent. In the tent, there was an underlying mood of solidarity among the women — even among rivals, like Leah — Jacob’s fruitful first wife, and Rachel, who, though nearly barren, was the one he loved most passionately. It is in the red tent that Dinah learns what a family is and what womanhood is. As she grows up, the story of Jacob becomes more peripheral while we, the readers, get a distinct portrait of womanhood in the time of the patriarchs (I don’t know if I should capitalize that and I’m not going to).

There is a formal, romanticized feel to Anita Diamant’s narrative voice. Landscapes, personalities, cooking, even sex and death all burn with a gentle glow in Dinah’s narration. I was impressed with how thorough this voice was: perfumey and smooth, somehow encapsulating all of Dinah’s personality.

So what made her story worth telling? Is it because she grew up knowing bigshot asshole patriarchs? There was something else lurking underneath this voice, thorough as it was, that seemed slightly frustrating and dishonest. Dinah doesn’t seem to be fully there when conflict arises. Because of this, at times it seems more like she is more interested in observing her own life than moving it along, as though it were just part of the scenery she was describing so sweetly.

The best example of this is a retelling of Genesis chapter 34: Dinah’s marriage to the Prince of Shechem. Although Dinah is wooed very tenderly and beautifully and falls in love with the prince and they have lots of great sex (yes, that’s pretty much the only part I paid attention to. Or, at least, I would have if I had actually read the book. Ahem), and the prince agrees that he and all of his kinsmen shall be circumcised to prove good faith before Jacob and his god, Dinah’s brothers act as though she has been raped. They take "revenge" by storming the Prince’s house at night, murdering him and all the other Shechemites there.

Dinah, obviously, is not too happy about this. But what could she do? Did I want her to go upside one of her brothers’ heads? Sure. But she couldn’t. Because they acted under Jacob’s sanction, and it is not possible for Dinah to act against the family hierarchy, whether the H.J.I.C. is male or female. And then it hit me: her lack of agency wasn’t dishonesty; it was her reaction to power and the structure of patriarchy: another lesson learned in the red tent.

In today’s Collegian Sarah Burford shared a story about cocking and shooting off at a local firing range. At first I thought the article was mostly kind of bleh. But when I re-read it, I noticed it seemed eerily similar to the Jenna Haze (NSFW!) movie I’ve got open in another window, right now. I am perfectly aware that this says more about me than about Sarah Burford, but humor me:

"Whoa!"

I let out an involuntary yell as the rifle butt slammed into my shoulder [ed. note: That is HOT!]. The men around me chuckled and continued to advise my shooting skills. It was my first experience at a firing range, and I didn’t know the first thing about guns. To me, they were foreign objects, entirely too powerful and consequently, rather intimidating.

But my timidity lessened and my interest increased as the volunteers at the Fancy Creek Range instructed me on the basics of shooting.

This is where I made a major shooting range faux pas: I described a gun as "cute." No matter what a girl thinks a gun looks like, she [should] keep her comments to herself if they have anything to do with femininity.

So coy, so sexy. It’s totally obvs that it’s her first time, right? Of course you can’t tell a guy that his gun is cute. It invokes the castration complex. THEY ARE ALL BIG AND SHINY. My gun is the resplendent avatar of my virility. I don’t want to give too much away, but let’s just say my actual penis doesn’t suffice at all, wink wink. In terms of length and girth, nudge nudge. This is what it looks like:

Yesterday I woke up to shitty weather, a sore throat, and a big ass screenwriting assignment due. A Thursday hat trick! Bonus: since I’m sick, I can’t smoke. Without cigarettes, I’m not nearly as smart or funny as I think I am, which makes it hard to write a sitcom script (or an entertaining blog, for that matter), but eventually the script got done and I felt fifty shades of relief. I celebrated by…oh right, no smoking. I took a nap.

I woke up at around 7:35. Five minutes late for the Take Back the Night rally - just in time to miss the strident speech expressing solidarity with women everywhere. I’m sure it was grand. I arrived just before the march started. Those girls I hardly ever see anymore were there too. The ladies marched to City Park. I ducked into the library then met up with them in an auditorium at the park.

There were tables set up. And explanatory pamphlets. And a band. And T-shirts. It wasn’t quite what I expected. The atmosphere was…. kind of, I don’t know, fun? Except that there weren’t really that many students here. Or professors. Or townies. Or local law enforcement. And the weather outside was frightful. The girls I hardly ever see any more left shortly before nine. I decided to stay, in order to spite them (I’m kind of petty) and express solidarity with the cause (I’m kind of noble. Chalk it up to the dual nature of man). Curiously, once they left, the party picked up. Or maybe I just payed closer attention to it.

The band was two MILFs with quirky, subdued humor and a good rapport, one on keyboard and one on guitar, and their songs were actually pretty catchy. The few people who remained even started dancing. It got to feel like I was watching a bunch of friends hanging out. Good times for all, except those who had to trudge back home in the rain. Suckers, I said, before I noticed that my socks were soggy and my umbrella was fucked up. I don’t know what else to add, because I’m still sick and I really have no idea how to frame a coherent narrative without nicotine.

For the past seven weeks or so, the tone of the media has been, "Hill, you’re gonna lose, so you might as well just quit." At last, an op-ed columnist has offered a concise, realistic analysis of Hillary’s campaign and her treatment by the media. It’s not the lazy, puerile propaganda you’ll see every day in the NY Times (zing!); it’s trenchant, informed, and observant. And it’s from Adam Phan in the fucking Collegian. Behold!

"Clinton also drags alongside her the heaviest set of burdens. She is widely perceived as a conniving carpet-bagger with no sense of humor and a titanic sense of entitlement - an eclectic set of assertions that are part truth, part exaggeration and part fiction entirely. They generally betray more about the perceiver than the senator herself."

"The most grievous insult is that she is "unlikable," an insipid ad hominem whose hurtfulness is matched only by its vagueness, and the most dimwitted insult is that she is "unelectable," a circular contention that inexplicably has managed to become a piece of its own evidence. And this is not even to mention the effect of Clinton’s most fervent and visible surrogate, mixed as it might have been."

"To achieve the change the country wants, we need a leader who can finally move beyond the divisive politics of Washington and bring Democrats, independents, and Republicans together to get things done."

Not I!

I need someone who won’t put up with wingnut bullshit. At all.

I need someone tough enough to kick their fucking heads in, carve them up like pie, dump their corpses out back with the Dahlia, the same way they’ve kicked the American middle class aside for the last eight years, and I firmly believe Hillary is the best candidate to represent my venomous fury. I think that out of all the candidates, Hillary is the one I’d most like to see in a fistfight. I bet she’d be beaten to a bloody pulp, left for dead, and seconds after you turn your back and walk away, she’d lurch upright like Dracula coming out of his coffin, pounce on you like a five-thousand-dollar whore, garrote you like a Harlem crack-fiend, and that, frankly, is exactly what I want to see in a Democratic president.

My kewgrish Spanish teacher let us know that her novio, on occasion, lovingly calls her "Gorda."

Every single girl in the class - except the 6-foot athlete - gasped deeply with indignation. At this, Ms. Diaz had to actually explain, to a class full of grown women, the difference between an insult and a term of endearment; that in Hispanic culture, "fat girl" falls into the latter. Bravo! At this point, when women fly off into paroxysms of rage over the F word, I get more annoyed than apologetic.

The girls weren’t hearing it. They were BAFFLED that such an explosive term could casually denote intimacy between lovers. In an attempt to step up and get some action, I told both Jessicas that they were hot, skinny, sexy bitches. But I guess my timing was off, because the blonde one unloaded three rounds into my chest. Nevertheless, the question persisted: is vanity really more important than intimacy?

At this point, when women fly off into paroxysms of rage over the F word, I get more annoyed than apologetic. Like, what is so special and so powerful about that one word that reduces everyone to quivering middle-schoolers? I asked the Sexy Communist Spy about it.

"In Russia, fat girl insult YOU!"*

What for; just because I have a freakishly short, slender penis? My left hand doesn’t mind one bit. But seriously, what’s the BFD? Your boyfriends really couldn’t care less. Single gorditas can easily find non-Dbags who are attracted to them. I feel like the indignation is false vanity. Help me understand, Spy!

"Women are insecure and paranoid and need reassurance about men’s affection. I mean, if you’re joking and she knows it, it could be a little different, but it would still hurt a bit."

- Right. But isn’t the point of relationships that you can overcome paranoia and insecurity through, ahem, love? Could it be that so many girls have no idea how to love? Why do I sound like Carrie Bradshaw?

"My theory is nobody has a good self-esteem and those that ‘do’ are just too stupid to realize they shouldn’t"

Wrong there! I have poor self-esteem AND I’m a moron! Explain that one!

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*[ed. note: this quote was manufactured by the Ministry of Truth]