From mhallam1 at condor.sccs.swarthmore.edu Sat Jul 17 20:04:44 1999 Date: Mon, 21 Sep 1998 14:03:11 -0500 (EST) From: Megan Hallam To: _swat.org.swil at swarthmore.edu Subject: I think so Brain, but burlap chafes me so!, or SWILNews #1 AA (Anno , Atlantus) Having discovered that Chaos, Kira, and Will were not performing as hoped in their positions as mere figureheads to her Regime, Megan hatched a nefarious plot, along with her young [At least compared to Megan -J] [Isn't everyone young compared to Megan? -R] [Hey!! -M] and impressionable Atlantan cohorts, to seize power directly. Being a clever and masterful manipulator of minds, she even managed to make those cohorts believe that the whole thing was their idea!! While the unsuspecting co-presidents were off cavorting at RenFaire, she and her minions staged a glorious coup-de-tat... ~~~~~~~~~~~ Rising in the early morning hours, Megan and Robert sallied forth to the Rose Garden to bid a fond "Farewell!" to those carefree souls venturing to the Pennsylvania Renaissance Fair. There was much garb and rejoicing, and Dave was well-armed. With a great many winks and nods, assignments were given to the Atlantan spies to be on the watch for any messengers who might come with news of the revolt to the despotic triumvirate, thus thwarting the attempts of the Southern Contingent to bring peace, love, and prosperity back to the domain of SWILFolk. With crocodile tears [See, I can at least use the phrase correctly!! -M] [Yes, dear, that's very nice. -J] and much secret glee, the two conspirators waved goodbye to the caravan, and returned to their last-minute plotting. LATER THAT DAY: 'Twas a bleak and ominous morning in Sharples, and the Rabble were growing restless. Suddenly, the world fell into darkness!! A moment later, light was reborn into the world and there, in the doorway, stood Megan the . "Behold, the almighty Megan, come to liberate you from the oppressive tyranny of the Valkyries," intoned Robert the Ambitious Froshling. Raising her hand and pointing at the assembled Rabble [Okay, so it was only Jimmy, but you've got to start small... -M], she thundered, "Feel my power, and tremble before me!!!" At which the Rabble, er, that is, Jimmy, obligingly trembled in fear. At exactly noon a vote was cast to declare Robert, Megan, and Jess absolute rulers .. um, I mean, co-presidents.. of SWIL. At exactly one minute past the noon hour, Jimmosk arrived bearing bottles [Anyone else have a clue about that one? -R], disconcerted that he had missed the voting, but enthusiastic about the prospect of post-meeting SWAPA collation!! [8^) -M] Having acquired a few more attendees, the meeting was called to disorder. Much rioting ensued, followed shortly after by: _SWILBusiness_ A motion was passed that the French (having attempted to establish a metric system for time) were, in the past [Or was that 'passed'? -R], CRAZY!! The Dove [coo-coo, coo-coo! -TD] was elected offical bird of the new Regime. Discussion ensued regarding the new Regime's Divine Right to Rule: By the age-old test of knife/cup balancing, the femininity of all attendees was tested. All women succeeded (this included Robert, who established his femininity by this self-same measure the previous evening), but all men failed. Okay, so Jimmy succeeded, but he attributed this success to blind luck. It was later realized that it was in fact a by-product of the new Regime's Mandate of Heaven. Our encouragement of the inherent yin energy empowered all men at the meeting to thereafter prevail in the balancing test, which they did, post-haste. As further proof of this Heavenly Mandate, after a mere 13 minutes in power, the New Regime was able to control the climate of Sharples Room 4, relieving the burden of hellish heat from the populace and creating an Eden for the enjoyment of all present. At this point, most skeptics were converted [Namely Jimmosk, who can be one tough sell! -M] In case any doubt remained, the tale was told of Megan's dramatic entrance (please see above), which provided the most convincing argument yet. The Rabble cheered in unanimous support. Following the discussion of said Mandate, the New Regime began to advance its agenda for the future of SWIL: All present members were enfranchised. Shortly thereafter, all current non-members got remembered (Megan does have a darned good memory, after all...), and became voting members. Swil rulers were declared to have dominion over all swil members, regardless of suffrage status. Luckily, only voting members can affect the elections, so swil, as an institution, has total control of the world. [Hey, I like the new regime! -Jimmosk] That accomplished, the new, duly-elected, supreme rulers of SWIL and, well, everything else, pronounced Swarthmore College to be a political extension of the State of Georgia, thereby qualifying all students from said state to receive Hope Scholarship reimbursement for tuition paid to said institution. (In other words, the Southern Contingent gets $$$ for school from the poor saps [Hey, don't call my mother a sap! -M] who throw away their hard-earned money on Lotto Georgia every week) Following this pronouncement, Jim "The Indian-Giver" Mosk reversed his earlier show of support and attempted to orchestrate an overturning of The New Regime. Luckily, the Mandate of Heaven stepped in and 'whomped his ass'!! [What do you expect, we're hicks from Georgia! -M] After careful explanation of the complex rationale behind the controversial decision to annex Swarthmore, namely a technicality for the sake of financial aid, the Rabble was appeased, Jim was officially returned to favor, and all was again well in the world. To enforce this and other rulings, Dave Phillips (the guy with all the weaponry) was appointed master of arms, chief of security, and secretary of military and defense. By unanimous vote, the term "biumvirate" was accepted as an official governmental structure within SWIL and any organizations containing a quorum of SWILfolk. The exceptionally wise and user-friendly The New Regime(tm) outlawed the daily use of obsure, unpronounceable, and hard-to-spell nicknames. As such, the use of said nicknames shall hereafter be restricted to Scottish Dance, namely the newly appointed official dance of SWIL, "Hlokk, Goll, and Skogull's Farewell to Auchterarder." [Commonly refered to as the mumble dance... -R] The Exceptionally Wise and User-Friendly New Regime(tm) further agreed to adopt straightforward and easy-to-recall aliases that reflect the atmosphere and flavor of the beloved South. [Ooh! Ooh! Let me be Frank with you!! -M] As such, we will hereafter be known as Frank [2 guesses who that is! -J], Earl, and Daisy. However, to prevent confusion, we will not use those names for purposes of SWILNews commentary until the Rabble has been given a suitable adjustment period. In a gesture of goodwill [Hunting? -R] [Grr... Although, good point. Pterodactyl Hunt is apparently going. -M] [Going how? -J] [Hmm, not sure, but going! -M], Chaos, Kira, and Will were appointed as the official cabinet of The New Regime(tm). [Wouldn't it be less trouble to just put them _in_ our cabinet? -R] [I don't know, that's asking for trouble. I used to lock my roommate in the closet, but after she called the cops on me... -M] Alice was appointed official Dresser of The Exceptionally Wise and User-Friendly New Regime(tm) [She is a snappy dresser, isn't she? -M] [Oh, quite! -J] [With drawers, no less! -R] [Yay!! -Alice] Jimmy's attempt to become Drawer was thwarted by the fact that Alice already has drawers. Sorry, Jimmy! Jim is now the Ottoman Empire [How about Umpire? -M], okay Umpire [No, I don't want to be Umpire! -Jim], okay Empire, [Oh, okay, I'll be Umpire! -J] [Grr, no more changes, my paper looks like a fractal drawing!! -M], okay Umpire. And that's the end of it. Unable to come up with additional witty positions, The New Regime(tm) wisely (no, not lazily, wisely) established a task force to furnish ideas for additional government offices. The newly established Committee on Office Furniture [Okay, that's just lame, guys! -J] [What do you want? It's hard to make a pun on furniture! -M] [Yeah, it's much easier standing up! -R] [Aargh! -J] [Hey, we're not allowing thocking for puns anymore!! Didn't you read the memo? -R] [What memo? -M,J] [Oh, darn, I knew I forgot something! -R] -- <> Effective immediately, thocking will no longer be tolerated as a method for dealing with punsters, pungents, and other annoying [Ahem! -R] [Oh, fine! -J], that is to say, clever and witty, personages. <> {begin sneaky, underhanded, subliminal message- John Doe is a darned nice guy! [Oh, wait, no, that's Lois & Clark! -M] [God, is there anything you won't watch? -Megan's Mom] [Mom, get out of my SWILNews!! -Megan] We Are Your Friends, Hail The New Regime(tm), Death To All Who Oppose Us, Hail The New Regime(tm), Peace Love And Happiness Prevail, Hail The New Regime(tm)!! -end sneaky, underhanded, subliminal message} -- will be taking applications for committee Chair starting next week. In an interesting note, Tom is now Phil, and Ben (Williams), who woke up for the first time this semester to attend meeting [No, silly, he woke up to attend meeting for the first time this semester! -J] [Oh, well... -M], is now Hector. At long last, Megan (aka Frank) was re-established as most honest person east of the Mississippi. [Whoo, doggies!!! -M] It was established, to the great initial disappointment of Ben, I mean Hector, Williams, that there will be no redefining of numbers in The New Regime(tm). Much to his relief, we have decided that there will also be no reversal of previous redefinitions, such that pi=3 shall remain true. [Of course, we couldn't reverse pi=3, because that would, in itself, be redefining a number, and we just outlawed that... -M] [Hey, good point, I hadn't thought of that! Nice going, dear! -J] [*beam* -M] The following further items were addressed: - Out: flourescent drinks. In: mint juleps. [We're excercising our veranda rights! -Jimmosk]. Robert stood up for them, and then said no more. This point passed resoundingly, and we moved on... - Freshman stuffing will now include directions to the Small Room by way of "The Big Chicken." - One of the three co-presidents must rock back and forth in his/her chair at all times. This was attempted with less than complete success by both present representatives of The Exceptionally Wise and User-Friendly New Regime(tm). - Jeff Foxworthy will be in charge of writing new filks. "You know you're a sci-fi geek when..." - We shall fly the great flag of the state of Georgia from the top of Parrish, St. Andrew's cross and all. (Dare our tormentors discriminate against oppressed Catholics?). With great sadness we abandoned this hope in deference to the unease of Tom "Phil" Stepleton. [Oh well, there's always next meeting... -J] The following item were not addressed, and may be discussed at a later date: - Instead of the Star Wars marathon, SWIL will show Gone With the Wind, at which non-members will gripe that none of the four leads were Southern and it doesn't count if you're not watching it at the Fox Theatre anyway. - Instead of Spamaggedon, we will institute Onionringageddon, to be held from the top level of the parking lot of the Varsity. - Any College Bowl teams entered with more than two SWILnonmembers shall officially be known as "That's Nacho Cheese," Pennsylvania chapter. After much grumbling, we resigned ourselves to the idea of being out of SWILBusiness, and turned half-heartedly to: _Non-SWILBusiness_ Andrea is changing jobs in October. Yay, Andrea! She will be doing Market Analysis for The Franklin Mint (The plate people, not the Credit Union). According to Andrea, Star Trek is big, and Dragons outsell Spiderman. Duh!! Roundsinging will be held Sunday, 7pm in the Belltower. SWAPA will be, or rather was, collated afer SWILMeeting in Greylock 301. Cookie-decorating will happen Saturday the 26th at Andrea's (G-101). She needs help decorating bat cookies for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer 3rd Season Premiere Party. [Hey, the cookies that bite you back!! -Hector] Speaking of which, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer 3rd Season Premiere Party will happen Tuesday the 29th from 8-midnight in Megan's room, Parrish N277. Come as your favorite character and bring an appropriate snack. Babylon 5 catch-up showings will start this week. Contact Jimmosk for details. Hector is running an Alternity campaign this semester. Let him know if you're interested, etc. Sheri's whereabouts were called into question. Fortunately, she later showed up with the soon-after-collated SWAPAs. At 1:20, Andrea moved that we move the meeting to Greylock at 1:30. Hector then moved that we move the motion to move ten minutes from now to ten minutes from now. The motion passed, and the motion to move was moved. Eventually, the motion to move was reviewed, and the meeting was adjourned in order to move. List of Supporters of The New Regime(tm) - 9/19 Namwen Nimajneb Jimmy Mikado Sanzenin Zhen Bei Kong Tom "Kevin Philips Bong" Stepleton Dave "The Kaghan" Szent-Gyorgyi '83, One-Time Duly Elected Self-Proclaimed Gang of Four Alice "The Centerpiece, aka the Dresser-With-Drawers" Unger Andrea "First meeting of the year" Hall Jim "What comes next in this series: 0,1,2,720!,__?" Moskowitz Ben, nay, Hector "100% Attendance in 1998-1999" Illiamswey Catherine "Alice's Drawers" Osborn Melissa "I see they're teaching the new members well" Binde Snibor "I heartily approve of this course of action" Eoj Melissa "I hope your coup went well today!" Binde Snibor "I'm not actually there to support your actions, but you may have the secret support of an ex-president, if you so desire. :-)" Eoj Robert "It's good to be King" McFarland Megan "Finally, a co-president!! Mwa-ha-ha-ha..." Hallam Jesse "[Hey, I met him once! -M]" Jackson Jimmy "Now that Saddam is behaving I have time on my hands" Carter Zell "Classical music for everyone!" Miller George "Recently Dead" Wallace Francisco "Still Dead" Franco Newt "Newt" Gingrich --- Megan, Jess, & Robert (Frank, Earl, & Daisy)