DART BOARD

THE MAN WHO WOULD BE GUV

When Democratic observers complained that gubernatorial candidates Michael J. Barrett '70 and Mark Roosevelt '78 were too similar, few figured a candidate like Richard E. Fenton would emerge as an alternative.

Homeless since December, when a judge issued a restraining order barring him form his Roslindale residence, Fenton has, since 1956, had a colorful history of more than 100 appearances before judges, as well as hospitalizations for mental illness.

Neither a Republican nor a Democrat, Fenton advocates electing judges while at the same time ending the Massachusetts sales tax. He doesn't know the national anthem. At a recent debate, he asked, "Is this the land of the home and the free and the brave?"

And he offended a female advocate of lesbian rights at the same event by repeatedly referring to her as "he." She walked out in the middle of the debate.

Maybe having two nearly identical Harvard graduates campaigning for the same position isn't so bad a proposition after all.

RIDING THE TIGER

Winston Churchill once remarked that despots ride the tiger; their precarious hold on power over an oppressed consituency will sooner or later crumble. Either Churchill was wrong or Harvard has some of the world's best tiger-riders.

Dunster House Master and Bigelow Professor of Ichthyology Karel F. Liem watched his "community" turn into a scene from "A House Divided." Students charged nepotism in tutor hiring, Liem attacked the accusers and students finally charged despotism.

Amid all the chaos, it seemed that the Bigelow professor of ichthyology's autocratic tiger ride was coming to a hasty and messy conclusion.

Yet last week Dean of the College L. Fred Jewett '57 announced that the Liem's had been re--hired-the tiger turned out to be too lazy to devour its tottering rider.

Liem it seems could offer lessons even to a seasoned professional like Fidel Castro.

For where Castro has ruled a poor island for the last three decades, a job which most might consider difficult and more than a little dangerous, Liem is among a select group of Harvard professors with the cynosure of sinecures, a house master ship.

Although Liem failed his prime (and only) directive--keep things running smoothly--he'll be back in the [tiger] saddle again.

HONOR THY ALMA MATER

Harvard has faced no deeper dishonor than that abominable piece of sappy drech, Alek P. Keshishian '86's ineptly titled movie, "With Honors." The only honor that this so-called film could compete for is that of the sappiest Harvard-related flick, a title currently held by the laughable "Love Story." Why is it that anytime a Harvard alum tries to pull off a heart-warming story about his alma mater, the result is, shall we say, less than inspiring? Perhaps because behind these ivy-clad walls, nothing interesting enough goes on to carry a halfway interesting movie.

Keshishian attributes certain highly unlikely characteristics to Cambridge (in order of ascending absurdity): pseudo-intellectual vagrants, these finished in November, and professors who can name every student in lecture. Characters who pass through the Winthrop House gate several times never once emerge in the same place. Granted, Winthrop House is full of quirks, but a gate poised by a rip in the space-time continuum is not, as far as we at Dartboard know, one of them.

And a quick hint to Joe Pesci's oh-so-lovable-character: if you are trying to keep your asbestosis condition under control, the one place NOT to make your nest is in a nook of Widener Library.