In December, the Rockefeller Center decided to go another direction with the Lifetime event after a fringe candidate announced he would attend the debate. The fact that the fringe candidate Lyndon LaRouche was invited to the debate was a collective mistake. Miscommunication between the College, student organizers and the Drum Major Institute resulted in a letter accidentally being sent from the College. None of the three parties deserves all the blame for this. Moreover, many solutions were proposed: change the date or venue, cancel and reschedule the event or stipulate that the media partner would only air the major candidates.
A "collective mistake"? Notice the strange passive tense used here. This is obfuscation. A "collective mistake" is often another way of saying: we were disorganized OR we are not going to say who messed up. Some questions to be answered: Who sent out the letter to Larouche? Who had the idea in the first place? Who was responsible for checking the final invitation list? None of the these questions are answered.
Also, when Riner speaks of "three parties" he says "the College, student organizers and the Drum Major Institute". One of those "three parties" is *not* the Rockefeller Center. There's no way anyone at Rocky would have invited or permitted an invitation to be sent to Lyndon LaRouche. Based on what I've heard so far, it makes perfect sense that Rocky would view such an invitation as evidence of Buzzflood's ineptness. If Buzzflood wants to say it was "a collective mistake"-- well, then it was collective ineptness on the part of two or more of those parties. Rocky, not unsensibly, then disassociated themselves from such ineptness, collective or otherwise.
Update: If you haven't seen them, The Dartmouth Review has an editorial here, and an report on events surrounding the cancelled Buzzflood debate here. (Hmm... The Review has quite a "dignified" Indian on the top of their webpage.) Alston prints a further insult here.
Posted by Timothy,
12:09 PM
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Monday, February 09, 2004 The New Russia
William Safire quoting Sen. McCain: "Under President Putin, Russia has refused to comply with the terms of the Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe [requiring pulling Russian troops out of fmr. eastern bloc countries]. Russian troops occupy parts of Georgia and Moldova . . . Russian agents are working to bring Ukraine further into Moscow's orbit. Russian support sustains Europe's last dictatorship in Belarus. And Moscow has . . . enforced its stranglehold on energy supplies into Latvia in order to squeeze the democratic government in Riga."
The new Russia is grappling with a foreign policy based on neo-imperialism; an internal political climate that fosters supression of dissent (or at least some pretty shady events related to Putin's political opponents); and its inability to combat asymmetrical warfare in the form of terrorist attacks largely related to a military occupation.
So are we becoming more like Russia, or are they becoming more like us?
Posted by Dan,
8:55 AM
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Orton Hicks, Jr. '49, Tu. 50, Adv. 56
Founder of The Aires and a gentleman of old Dartmouth just passed away. According to Caz Liske '04, current director of the a cappella group, Mr. Hicks lived in Woodstock, VT, and would invite the Aires over to sing songs and play whatever instruments they could find. In Liske's words, Orton Hicks was "a kind man who was grateful for what Dartmouth had given him."
