Stam goes to Michigan

Dartblog reported today that Professor Allan Stam of the Government Department is leaving Dartmouth for the University of Michigan. I took Gov 5 with Professor Stam last fall, and his class was excellent. He's a very offbeat guy and a truly great lecturer, and his departure is certainly a major loss for the department. Like Joe Malchow at Dartblog, I am also concerned about the ability of the Government Department to find a replacement of his caliber.

CNN.com Revamped

CNN.com has a new layout, a sleeker design that's a pretty big departure from his old setup. I'm not an immediate fan, but it will probably grow on me.

Dartmouth in the Times

Nothing big, but The New York Times name dropped Dartmouth in the lede of an article about an initiative for a new website to collect information about colleges. I guess the Times is trying to be cool or something.

Libby Goes Free

Tonight, George W. Bush commuted the 30 month prison sentence of Scooter Libby, who was convicted of perjury in the CIA leak investigation. I'm not surprised, but I'm disappointed. This sets a very disturbing precedent for the Bush administration, which is the shadiest administration since the Nixon era. Certainly, Libby is not the first Bush official to break the law, and certainly he will not be the last sentenced to go to jail. By using the power of presidential clemency to forgive internal wrongdoing, President Bush is placing his administration above the law. At the same time, I think it's also clear that Libby was the fall guy for the administration. When it comes to the special prosecutor for the case, Patrick Fitzgerald, what's most special about him is that he's not much of a prosecutor.

The River

This past week has been incredibly hot up at Dartmouth, much warmer than the weather I experienced in Israel the week before. During this term, I'm living down in the River cluster in the Hillel apartment, which is part of Maxwell. While the apartment is amazing, normally the location would be considered bad, since the River cluster is about as far from the Green as you can go on campus. But the great thing is that it's near the river, and in this hot weather it's been a real pleasure to jump in.

Food Report from Sophomore Summer

Well, I'm back at Dartmouth. Sophomore Summer has begun, and it's been a good term so far - great weather, laid-back atmosphere, all that stuff.

Since I'm a complainer by nature, though, I'll air some gripes about the food. There's not a lot of places to get it. Home Plate is closed, the Hop is gone during the weekends, and Collis pasta is a memory. I'm a fervent believer that Food Court only exists to make the other food places look better, except for the very rare good special, I'd rather not eat there. I realize that Dartmouth food tends to be great in comparison in other colleges, so I know I shouldn't be complaining, but I've gotten use to good food (a.k.a. meals at Home Plate). I'm not saying that they have much choice financially - I'm on the Student Budget Advisory Committee, so I've seen the DDS numbers - but that doesn't make better. I've gotten so desperate that I ordered EBA's by myself for the first time last night. Turns out it's only good under the influence of alcohol.

Bloomberg Leaves the GOP

Michael Bloomberg left the Republican Party yesterday , ending 13 years of GOP control in New York City. I think that Bloomberg is an excellent mayor - I voted for him in the last election - and I'm very glad that he is registering as an independent. There's no question about it now, he's running for president. Check out his new website launched only a few weeks ago.

1-877-478-7778 - Forever imprinted on my mind

I have just finished one of the most frustrating experiences of my entire life. Tomorrow morning, I am flying to Israel, and after spending two weeks non-stop on the phone talking to the national passport office and to Congressional offices, I finally got my passport about fifteen minutes ago.

It turns out I had the terrible misfortune of applying for a renewal in the midst of a passport crisis. Normally, processing is supposed to take 6 weeks. I applied over 12 weeks ago, and it was only by a lot of work and a lot of luck that I ended up getting it on time. During the past two weeks, I have called the passport center at least fifteen times - each time it has taken about an hour to get through to talk to somebody. For a long time, I thought I was the only one experiencing problems, but it gave me little comfort to wake up Thursday to a New York Times article about the crisis. The Bush administration put in place new regulations mandating passports for Americans returning from Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean by air, but somehow didn't anticipate that there would be a major rush for passports. Well, it turns out that the number of applicants has doubled, which understandably has caused major problems.

Even when I got finally got through to the passport center, the people I spoke to had no clue what they were talking about. Everybody gave me a different story. On Monday, they told me my passport was being shipped out that night. Good luck with that. It finally shipped on Thursday afternoon, but they totally messed up the shipping. They told both me and a very helpful staff member from Rep. Hodes's office that they were shipping it overnight mail or "express mail." That was definitely necessary because the other option was "priority mail" which takes "2-3 days, or longer." Well, two days would be today, three days would be tomorrow, when I'm flying, too late. Of course, despite their assurances they messed up, and shipped it Priority Mail. Only by complete luck (and probably because I live in Manhattan) did I get it in time.

Okay, so I'm relieved that I finally have the passport, but completely pissed off that I had to spend twenty hours on the phone and ultimately only rely on luck to get my passport. I hate to do this, but I really think that George W. Bush is to blame for this. All these new passport restrictions were done in the name of fighting terrorism, but I don't see how it accomplishes anything. Right now, you need a birth certificate and a driver's license (or S.S. card) to get back into the U.S. from Canada, Mexico, and those other places. Those are the same documents you use to get a passport. It's the same thing. If they can reliable ascertain the authenticity of those documents (which they should be able to) then requiring a passport doesn't add security. And it won't fuck up my travel plans or completely ruin a week of my life, which it has, because rather than chilling this past week, I've been on the phone 24/7. If I were a conservative, I would probably turn this into some rant against "big government," but I believe in the ability of government to help people and improve lives. Instead, this is the outcome of a completely incompenent government. It is really inexpliciable that they would not inticipate the increased demand for passports. What were they thinking?

All right, so now that I have my passport, I'll be in Israel for the next ten days, so Super Dartmouth will be on vacation. As a sophomore, I'll be at Dartmouth for the summer, so this blog will be back in full effect around June 21. And for the first time, I'll be able to actually blog from Dartmouth.