Keep Halloween horrors

To the Editors:

(This is an open letter "to the Keep Keepers")

I've never trusted Halloween. Any holiday that has shady pagan roots and a mean reverence for dead shit is not worth trusting in my book. When I was sixteen, due to an unlucky turn of events I spent Halloween at the side of a road waiting for my parents to come get me from the clutches of fascist suburban police control. We were the baddest element for these guys to deal with on that the devil's night. I never felt more like hell spawn when my parents showed up and my poor mother said, "Pinch me. I have to be dreaming...". I'd also never had more trouble with the law than that. Enough about ancient history, the point is that this holiday somehow seems to turn people into the monster that they dress themselves as. In other words, they stop listening to reason and they throw their weight around as any good monster does. I think that it must be the super ego just waiting to bubble up from the murky depths of every one of us, and to lord over one's domain as the every day mild- mannered-glasses -wearing -journalist ego could never hope to do. There's definitely inherent danger in letting people dress how they want. It lets them get into character instead of deal with everybody through daily compromise, as most of us need to in order to navigate the social channels of the human condition.

I was unfortunate enough to not receive a stamp at the Keep Halloween party last night. As I sit here staring at this monitor through a film of malted hops in front of my retinas, I try and remember the chain of events that followed an attempted re-entry into this party. I walked up to the guy at the door (who was wearing a dress if this super ego crap means anything.) I knew I was in for a hard time when I realized that I had no stamp to verify my purchase of the right to get elbowed in the kidneys for flat keg beer. I figured that reason would prevail. I showed the guy the seventeen dollars that I had in my pocket from the twenty they broke. I used every form of persuasion and persistence I knew of. He confided in a fellow doorman (who was shirtless and strutting, the big authority figure). The doorman approached me in the middle of all that smoke and noise, looked me in the eyes and said, "I don't believe you." He wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise. There was nothing in the world that would have convinced him or his cohorts that I wasn't just another poorly dressed schmuck trying to wheeze cheap beer from the Co-op system. There wasn't anything I could do beyond giving them my word.

It didn't really matter that much. It was one of a thousand nights. But it was the principle of the damn thing. I understand being forceful and holding firm in your policies in managing a party. There is after all an untrustworthy element in any given crowd. I understand that no stamp means no entry. I respect authority, even if it is my own peers. I almost gave them three more dollars but then I asked whose fault this was. Somebody fucked up and it wasn't me, and somehow I was the menace that merited a threat to call campus security. I wasn't being belligerent. I was genuinely frustrated. In the end, if for no other reason than to get me out of their faces, they let me in; but with no cup and no stamp. I even apologized for being a pain in his ass on my way out, he pushed me through the door and said, "Man, I'd really like to kick that guy's ass." It was never a possibility in this guy's mind that I was being honest.

Look guys, this isn't written to expose some personal injustice. I don't really care that much. I just want you to know that I was telling the truth and that you should listen to everybody's case with an even head. You guys must think I'm a real asshole. Maybe I am, but I'm right so what's the difference? There's this notion in this place of the party hosts thinking they run the world. They do. But we need benevolent leaders in our crusade to relax after a long week. It sucks to be called a liar after wasting so much time over a simple principle. I think next Halloween I'll barricade my door with an armed garrison and sit in the dark with a case of warm beer and listen to Pat Boone or some shit. And I'll check under the bed for monsters before I turn in.

-Ethan Joselow, College sophomore

James and Lahetta played important role in Frisbee success

To the Editors:

We would like to publicly recognize the superb job done by the new administration in the Athletic Department in terms of relations with club sports, and men's Ultimate in particular. Both Eric Lahetta and Laura James have been outstanding in their attitude and support of our team this fall.

Mr. Lahetta has demonstrated his desire to meet the needs of club sports time and time again this fall. From learning the rules of Ultimate on his own to better understand the game, to helping arrange transportation to tournaments, he has been nothing but a joy to work with.

Mr. Lahetta was also instrumental in establishing the largest and best run intramural ultimate league Oberlin has ever seen. Not only was he supportive of our initial desire to form an intramural league, but he took it upon himself to furnish the league organizers with compensation of their hard work, lined fields for every game, and T-shirts for the league champions (Tank Co-op). Everyone associated with intramural ultimate this fall owes a big thank you to Eric Lahetta.

Mrs. James, too, has been of great assistance to men's Ultimate. She helped in scheduling indoor practice facilities for the team at reasonable times throughout the winter months. She has even gone as far as suggesting alternate plans and open facilities so that we can continue our year-round training.

These two individuals were part of the reason the Flying HorseCows had the best fall season in the team's history. We look forward to working with Mr. Lahetta and Mrs. James for the rest of the school year and commend the Athletic Department on hiring such capable people. It is fantastic to have an athletic administration that works with club sports instead of against them. Continued success.

-John Fedota, College Senior

-Ben Grubb, College Senior

Captains, Oberlin Flying HorseCows '98-'99

Oberlin students lack punctuality

To the Editors:

While greeting visitors in the Admissions Office last Friday, I met the mother of a prospective Oberlin student, a nice woman who teaches at the University of Michigan. She told me something so remarkable about students at the University of Michigan that I am passing it on to the Oberlin community.

While visiting Oberlin, she sat in on a class and noticed that many students came in late, even as much as a half hour, and that also some students got up and left class briefly in the middle. She was shocked and amazed. She told me, and this is the interesting part, that her students are on time for their classes, and that they do not leave class in the middle.

I was incredulous. Don't your students need a drink of water during your classes, I asked, or to visit the candy machine? No, she said, although she admitted one exception. Pregnant women, she said, sometimes do need to leave class briefly.

-Michael Henle, Professor of Mathematics