Little delightful things

Either I previously failed to notice this or it's new, but the plastic bags the libraries give out to protect your books from rain feature this quote:
Thy fate is the common fate of all

Into each life some rain must fall.

I looked up the poem from whence this line comes and wasn't convinced that it could support the weight of its subject, but it's just right for supporting the weight of my library books.

"The most comely of miniature mammals"

Mice, per contra, except to a few hysterical women,
rank among the most comely of all the miniature mammals
who impinge on our lives

Once, when I was living in a very old dorm in college with two oblivious, unhygienic roommates and one ultra-hygienic one, a family of mice installed themselves in our room. Their arrival was the unhygienic roommates' fault, but the hygienic roommate's burden, and she was intent on destroying them. But I put in a plea on their behalf--they are fragile and needy mammals like us (true, in a way...), they are unobtrusive and primarily go about their business quietly at night (not strictly true; my roommate woke up one night from their scuttlings and threw stuffed animals at me until I was awake enough to be informed that WE HAVE MICE), and, as long as they keep to their side of the contract I had outlined (cute, nocturnal, nondestructive) for them, we could harmoniously cohabit with them. My hygienic roommate reluctantly agreed, and we struck up a temporary truce with the mice, agreeing to provide them with a warm domicile in our walls for the winter if they agreed to stay out of our hair.

You never have managed, as all successful parasites must, to
break the code of your host, wise up on what habits can travel.
Ah!, if only You had, with what patience we would have trained You
how to obtemper your greeds, recalling the way that our Nannies
molded our nursery moeurs...

Good Little Mice never gnaw through
woodwork or nibble at packages. Good Little Mice never scatter
droppings that have to be swept up. Good Little Mice get a tidbit,
Bad Little Mice die young. Then, adapting an adage of lovers,
Two Little Mice are a company, Three Little Mice are a rabble.

One day soon after, I discovered strange holes in my laundry hamper, and more holes in the laundry within. The mice, it seemed, had dined on my t-shirts and underwear. Well, let's just say the mice lost their lawyer by this act of war, and, with the cohabitation treaty voided, they soon saw their doom.

What occurred now confirmed that ancient political axiom:
When Words fail to persuade, then Physical Force gives the orders.
Knowing You trusted in us and would never believe an unusual
object belonging to Men could be there for a sinister purpose,
traps were baited and one by one you were fatally humbugged:
all fourteen of You perished...

We had felt no talent to murder:
it was against our pluck. Why, why then? For raisons d’état. As
householders we had behaved exactly as every State does,
when there is something It wants, and a minor one gets in the way.

I was, needless to say, very pleased to come across this poem today, which though clearly not intended to recall my nearly identical encounter with representatives of the mouse race, did. Raison d'etat, cute rodents, raison d'etat. The sovereign resignedly does what it must to protect its underwear.

Occupy Harvard is liberated

The "weather-proof geodesic dome" blew away in the wind and, while the occupiers recessed to conduct an emergency meeting about whether they should try to affix the dome more firmly to the ground (no affixing without consensus!), the administration "seized" it. Weather-proofing fail, democracy fail. Satire win.

New semester, old foraging strategy

This year (which is to say, this academic year, since my life revolves around the academic rather than Gregorian calendar), I have a cubicle in the grad student office in the department building. My cube, it is a great cube. True, other cubes have many books in them to demonstrate their inhabitants' substantial erudition or concern for the appearance thereof (Exhibit A), while my cube (Exhibit B) lacks most decorative embellishments, but at least allows one to LEARN TO READ LATIN, or so the title claims. But it's a comfortable cube, furnished with all the infrastructural necessities of grad school: reading lights, an outlet, and a chair.

Comparative cubicle study

Exhibit A: This are a serious cube.

Exhibit B: This are my cube.

During the semester, I live in this cube. (Not pictured: the office futon, for the sleeping part of living.) But where one lives, one must also eat, and it's best when lodging includes meals. Fortunately, in the subfields of political science that aren't my own, people evidently have very large budgets and are always putting on extremely fascinating scholarly events that I alas cannot attend (schedule constraints!) but whose catering I always seem to have time for.

So last semester, I developed a foraging strategy whereby every weekday I could obtain free lunch. This involved a spreadsheet with the days, times, and locations of all weekly poli sci events, culled from various advertisements and forwarded emails from fascinating groups like the Center for the Quantitative Analysis of Minor Latin American Electoral Trends, along with a two-hour delay figured in for the time that must elapse between primary eater (event attendees) food access and secondary eater (me) access. However, a logistical dilemma often arises as a result of primary eater enthusiasm--namely, all the plates and forks are gone by the time that secondary eaters arrive. So, I also stockpiled disposable flatwear and dishes in my cube for enhanced foraging productivity. (Those who overlooked this step are reduced to putting their pad thai in paper cups.) A friend also introduced me to the American Politics coffee room, where fresh coffee with fresh milk live for even non-Americanists to take, at least while their purveyors' office doors are closed.

So I thought I was pretty well-covered last semester for food. Dinner was of course a problem, but one that could often be solved by eating twice as much pad thai for lunch. Then, today, two days shy of the new semester, I discovered a place called the second floor refrigerator. Apparently, this is where catering leftovers are stored! (Typically, I compete with other department scavengers to ensure that there is nothing to store.) Maybe these foods are from secret events not yet registered in my spreadsheet? Or non-recurring events? In any case, they seem not to be left out for secondary eaters. But they cannot be kept from enterprising and committed scavengers! So, this morning, I had a delicious piece of fruit tart for breakfast, compliments of my new friend, second floor refrigerator.

I mentioned this strategy to one of my professors last semester, and he looked at me as if to suggest, "If you were more prudent, you would keep your gauche habits to yourself." One day, I hope, I too will look back on these times and think them unclassy. On the other hand, I can't imagine ever wanting to actually pay for lunch, so maybe I will just be the person slinking by the pad thai troughs more guiltily in the future.

Sign-waving, demonstrated

From an overcrowded Romney rally in Manchester during which we got shunted into the "overflow room." And despite our suitably evident team spirit! Well, fortunately, the above is not the official endorsement of this blog (maybe).

Remember when this was a blog?

Well, those were good times. Maybe they'll return someday? Who knows? In other news, the magazine I started in college has a really nice new website. One of my college teachers has a nice article. And I'll be in NH tomorrow waving signs in order to "learn about primaries" so I can TA with marginally greater competence for an American politics class next term.

9th Congressional District news: new boundaries, same crazies.

Those of you familiar with my lingering hypothetical political ambitions will see why the new boundaries of the 9th District are so promising: all the areas added this year voted Republican in the 2010 House races. And what is the GOP doing with this promise? Running these people.

Remember the primary candidate from a few years ago whose entire platform consisted in opposing toll booths? He's evidently been reincarnated in this Atanus woman, who, in addition to claiming that market downturns are lies fabricated by "the Elite," is also unable to write in complete sentences. The other guy, after we put aside some minor grammatical errors, is a kind of acceptable fluffball, more interested in laying out his inarticulate political philosophy than any specific policies. "I believe in American Exceptionalism. This country was created with the idea of a specific destiny – that is to be an exceptional country based upon our unique American political system." Our destiny is to be exceptional based on our uniqueness. And, he would like to simplify the tax code somehow. Well, ok.

Why again am I not living in Skokie right now? The Joel Pollak strategy deserves a reprise effort under new conditions. Or at least, it deserves one more than the anti-tollbooth strategy does.

"You will remain there, incommunicado, until you are able to resume the exam."

TAs are required to read a script containing exam rules to all students before administering a final exam. It's quite long, but the best part is,

If you become ill during the exam, immediately contact an instructor. Note that a student who is present for any part of an exam is never entitled to a make-up exam. If you are too ill to continue the exam in the exam room you will be sent to University Health Services and will be seen by a doctor. If you are admitted to the Infirmary, you will remain there, incommunicado, until you are able to resume the exam. If you are seen by a doctor but the doctor does not feel that you are ill enough to be admitted to the Infirmary, you must go immediately and directly to the Science Center, room 112, and you will compete your exam there.

It goes on with detailed instructions about how to respond to a fire alarm ("stay together but do not discuss the exam"), but I've personally never managed to get past the part about being held incommunicado--either as reader or hearer of this text--without dissolving into giggles. I wonder if anyone's ever made it to this "room 112" during finals week.

Finals week, redux to infinity

What is about to be sent over my carrel wall to my neighbor in the facing carrel. Sorry peep, but it's gotta be said. Keep humming, et id [the airplane--no Latin for that, huh?] veniet tibi.

Occupy Aristotle

Occupy Harvard set up camp in the Yard (with tents that "look like they belong to the 1 percent," as one of my students observed) earlier this month, provoking the Administration to lock all but four of the gates into the university's main quad, which is now only open to Harvard ID holders. Miss Self-Important has mixed feelings about this. Every morning, she must decide between getting coffee or getting to Latin on time b/c the walk to class has been extended by half a mile (Latin timeliness has suffered dramatically). In the initial confusion of the occupation, there was only one tiny gate open for both entrance and exit, and it would take 20 minutes of standing in line to be permitted to leave, making me and my students all late for my discussion section on causes of revolution in Aristotle's Politics. Eventually though, we were able to occupy the classroom in order to occupy Aristotle. On the other hand, the patent absurdity of the "occupation" by approximately seven people (at least judging by the repetition of the names quoted in the articles) has provided a steady stream of entertainment from the Crimson.
In response to complaints from the freshmen living in the Yard whose mobility is hampered by the protest, we learn that

“Student inconvenience is not on the level of global oppression,” said Sandra Y. L. Korn ’14, who is also a Crimson editorial editor. “I have little concern for students who have to walk 30 seconds more to get to CVS.”

So local oppression is ok as long as it's in the name of fighting global oppression. When inclement weather broke the iron wills of some protesters, the movementarians responded

that the Occupy Harvard movement does not require a large number of people for the tent city in the Yard to remain active. “We don’t need all of our tents to be 100 percent full all the time,” Whitham said. “We just need to make sure there are enough people to hold down the fort in the encampment, and I think we’ll be ok.”

Or maybe they don't even need to be 1 percent full 99 percent of the time? Why not just pitch 'em and leave? The university will treat a cluster of empty tempts just as diplomatically as it's treating a cluster of half-empty tents, and Drew Faust will issue press releases extolling free speech for tents if she has to. Harvard is very protest-savvy. This is no small issue--if you've ever done any college "activism," the scripts for this event will sound familiar to you.