The Boutique Returns

I Told You So Dept.: Winthrop House residents will cast ballots for Undergraduate Council seats for the second time this week. Former council chair Noam A. Bramson '91 said the results of the first election were invalidated because of reports that some students had cast more than one ballot.

"And just how," you might ask, "Did those sneaky vote-rigging rascals evade the tight security that accompanies something as important as a council election?"

It really wasn't difficult; the ballot box and a stack of unmarked ballots were left unattended in the crowded dining hall during lunch.

To his credit, Bramson said the security breach alone would have invalidated the results of last week's vote in any case, even if no vote fraud were reported.

Unfortunately, as disturbing as the incident is, it's nothing new. If I may be permitted to quote myself, here are some observations which appeared in The Crimson on March 24, 1989, on the polling for last spring's council referendum:

"After turning in my own ballot and asking to have my name checked off of the list of voters, [former Winthrop Representative Julie A.] Chodacki informed me that `We don't have a list. We're just remembering people.'

"When I complained about these lax measures she replied, `We're supposed to have a list, but we're just trusting people not to vote more than once.'

"It gets worse. Another student, overhearing our exchange, asked Chodacki if he could vote again. She told him, `Not if you ask me. But if you just do it, you can.'''

You know what they say about those who do not remember the past.

VOODOO Economics Applied Dept.: Those who read closely Harvard's new health insurance waiver form were probably surprised by the fine print. (Students must fill out this form to prove that they have adequate health insurance, as required by a new Massachussetts law.)

According to the form, students must be covered by an insurance policy that will pay for "the services of Christian Science practitioners subject to the same exclusions, limitations and benefit levels as other services."

It seemed odd to me that the law should require non-believers in superstition therapy to pay for insurance against their need for it, so I decided to check it out.

As it turns out, Harvard had it wrong. The waiver form is misleading. A spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of Medical Security said that that regulation only applies to adherents of Christian Science.

So we have a law which applies only to members of a particular religious group. Hmmm... This brings up the obvious question: "Why doesn't the law require believers in tribal religions to have insurance that will pay for the services of witch doctors?"

BROTHERLY Love Dept.: As much as we like to bemoan the lack of security on the Harvard campus, I doubt that any of us would like to see Harvard adopt the measures currently employed at the University of Pennsylvania.

I spent last weekend at Penn for a parliamentary debate tournament. In order to be admitted to the tightly-sealed Penn Quadrangle, where I was to sleep, I had to show an official Penn housing pass, a driver's licence and be escorted by a card-carrying Penn student. The dormitory entrance resembled nothing so much as Checkpoint Charlie. It's enough to make you appreciate a campus where a cry of "Hold the door, please!" is sufficient to gain entry to a residence.

But just as the siege mentality that pervades U. Penn annoyed me, I can't deny that it is necessary. Within hours of our arrival in Philadelphia, one team member's car was stolen from a parking lot.

Mindless Nitpicking Dept.: What does Lehigh University have against women? Nothing, really. But an unexplained quirk in the athletic coupon book seems to imply that females were not welcome at the Harvard v. Lehigh football game. The coupons for every other game announce, in p.c. gender-neutral language, that students must present the signed coupon "with a Harvard identification card." The Lehigh game, for some reason, was open only to those with a coupon "signed by the owner, with his bursar's card."