Normally, when I receive another alumni fundraising appeal from Dartmouth's development office, my main concerns are how much generosity my checking account can absorb and what I'm going to do with another tote bag.
Social protest at Dartmouth is a bit like a dandelion poking its yellow head up between the used condoms and McDonald's wrappers of an inner city gutter: It is so refreshing to see life's signature under such circumstances that the last thing you want to do is hold out for an orchid. Thus it is in the spirit of encouragement and constructive suggestion -- not criticism -- that I would like to address two of Dartmouth's more recent tempests-in-a-plastic-cup.
In the face of events which deny our understanding, we often fall back on our paradigmatic beliefs in order to contextualize them, to explain the inexplicable. So when I read about Dartmouth Broadcasting's incomprehensible intention to replace the College's AM free-form radio station, 1340 WDCR, with a 24-hour news station, I turned to the paradigms which we at Dartmouth use to understand our world.