DARTBOARD

KIGALI ON THE CHARLES

The Government's legitimacy has broken down. The governed languish at the mercy of their leaders' kindness." Legal norms are a mere trifle to be pushed aside by an arrogant elite. Is Dartboard's intrepid correspondent sending back a frenzied dispatch from Rwanda? No, the crisis situation is centered in Emerson Hall, Harvard Yard, where the Undergraduate Council has unilaterally disqualified four out of five ballot questions .His Eminence, President and Grand Poobah Carey Gabay '94, Master of Peons and Terror of 12 Houses, through the unbounded benevolence of his magnanimous heart, has allowed a single question to remain, while chastising dangerous hooligan and adventurist counter-revolutionary Anjalee C. Davis '94 for her pernicious bourgeois-democratic notions. Gabay's electoral monkey business, under the guise of legalistic hair-splitting, would have done a despot like Juvenal Habyarimana proud.

All over campus, the very students the Undergraduate Council is supposed to represent (though Gabay, it seems, has taken his mandate as "to rule") are scratching their heads: does the council try to antagonize us or is its august leadership so rapt with the idea of its own Parliamentary Sovereignty that it couldn't care less about student opinion? After all, when the council's only sins were bumbling and incompetence, most students couldn't have cared less about them. But the insolent and smug dismissal of a petition with strong popular support is enough to halt the council's slide into irrelevance and raise the ire of heretofore (justifiably) uninterested students. The council can surely expect a jump in refund requests next semester; and, thankfully, Gabay, unlike his autocratic mentor in Kigali, has no well-armed Presidential guard to help out with dues collection--so far.

THE SHORT, HAPPY TENURE OF JERRY GREEN

The mystery of Provost Jerry R. Green's apparent resignation persists. No one--Green included--seems to want to talk about it. Judging from the lavish praise President Neil L. Rudenstine heaped on the outgoing provost in a letter to The Crimson this week, the reticence is hardly a surprise. Everyone knows that when the President (of Harvard or of the United States, for that matter) speaks of a departing subordinate in such glowing terms, something serious is going on.

So, was there some acrimony behind the scenes? Not quite, an unreliable source tells Dartboard. All those puns about the Provost being a "green" administrator weren't so far off. Green, says our source, was taken over by one of those pesky alien pod-people that seem to proliferate in the Yard this time of year. As we all know, the green gook that Harvard sprays all over the dirt is not, as the administrations claim, Hydraseed, but an anti-pod-person pesticide. But this year, they came a little early, and Provost Green was the first victim. President Rudenstine and staff have been trying to keep anyone from seeing or talking to him. Their ingenious plan is to shunt him off to a position where he will have as little interaction--especially with inquisitive students--as possible. Green, as you may have heard by now, will once again assume the role of Wells professor of political economy. So says our source, anyway.

WE'RE GONNA BE STARS!

"With Honors" is here. For those who were beginning to suspect that the big cinematic operation that clogged up the Square for several weeks last year was just an elaborate Lampoon prank to close streets, spew lots of synthetic snow all over campus and generally created a bothersome situation, proof is here that the smelly debacle actually was working towards some goal.

Advertisements have started appearing touting the imminent release of the new film, set at Harvard, and directed by Harvard's own Madonna-mongering Alek P. Keshishian '86.

We at Dartboard are worried about the consequences of this movie's release in the area. Luckily, thesis deadlines have long passed, so the film's idiotic premise (that a student loses the only copy of his thesis) won't provoke the catastrophic run on computer diskettes and Kinko's photocopiers that would have inevitably followed a pre-spring break release.

Some have worried that the lovable Joe Pesci will provoke students into going out and trying to find their very own curmudgeonly-but-cute Homeless Person to bring a little wit and wisdom to drab dorm rooms (and of course to fill all that extra space we have). Only time will tell.

But it seems inevitable that large segments of the Harvard population will be tempted by the prospect of seeing pieces of their collegiate existence captured on screen to rush to the theater. These same people may also prod non-Harvard friends into going for the same reason. The ensuing waste of valuable IQ-point-hours will be appalling.

If all that brain-time were spent on contemplation, instead of on a movie destined for the back rack of Blockbuster Video within a few weeks, the solution to ethnic strife, or the Unified Theory might finally be discovered.

If you are contemplating investing two hours in "With Honors" we urge you: just remember "Love Story." And just say no.