They rejected me. I auditioned to join the ranks of the College’s tour guide elite and was flatly rejected after the first interview. To call my response to this rejection distraught would be an understatement. It felt like someone had driven a large metal clipboard straight into my heart. But I’ve started to get over my denial. In fact, I’m beginning to realize what a bunch of rotten lying liars the people we call tour guides really are.

p. My own realization of my imminent rejection occurred halfway through the interview.

p. “How would you describe religion on campus?” my interviewer asked. I stood in Blow Memorial Hall dumbfounded, while my fellow interviewees sat politely in front of me. Several rows of chairs back, a panel of veteran tour guides sat silently judging me. I rocked back and forth nervously. What else was I, a self-identified atheist, to do? I don’t believe in God, let alone pay attention to the practices of those who do.

p. “Well, I’d say that our campus is pretty open. We hold lots of religious services for all different kinds of things.” I paused. “There are also van services to take you to service types.”

p. What was I saying? Could I have sounded any more like a moron? My dreams were crushed.

p. But I did have some very lofty ideas for myself as a tour guide. Walking around campus, I’ve noticed plenty of guides in action, each of them addressing their groups as though talking to a mob of eager infants. “This is the library. It was recently renovated and it’s a really great place to get work done or meet up with some friends to study. Isn’t that interesting?” No, it’s not interesting. If anything, it’s the same absent-minded drivel that boring tour guides around this country say to prospective students on a daily basis. I would’ve been different.

p. Each and every person on my tours would have been addressed honestly; I wouldn’t have sugarcoated a thing. “Yeah, the food here’s not too great but, you know, it’s college. What do you expect?” I would have cracked jokes about how hard the College can be. “Some people call it ‘the place where fun dies’ and, you know, they’re often right.” I would have also made sure never to mention the fact that Jon Stewart went to school here. I mean honestly, he’s not that funny. And besides, he didn’t even like attending the College. Prospective students would have loved me for keeping it real, fathers would have found my brutal honesty refreshing and moms would have adored my charming good looks and working knowledge of every film featuring underrated alum Glenn Close — “Dangerous Liasons” anyone?

p. The truth of the matter remains, however, that I didn’t get the position. In fact, the powers that be chose not to call me back for the second round of auditions. Sure, I’d responded to the question asked with the insight and intellect of a 12 year old, but at least I was honest, right? The students who did get called back lied through their teeth. “What’s your favorite tradition on William and Mary’s campus?” the panel asked the group. “Well I’ve only been here for a semester, but gosh I’m just so excited about the Yule Log ceremony,” one of my fellow interviewees responded. “All my upperclassman friends tell me how much fun it is.” He was from the Midwest and wore a T-shirt from the Broadway musical “Wicked.” He smiled broadly, showing off every inch of his bright white teeth, and instantly reminded me of everything I hated about high school. Those darn theatre kids, those stinking performers, those people who did and said things only to impress others. I wanted to vomit.

p. What parent or prospective student would want to be led around campus by some doofus who obviously didn’t mean a single word he uttered so enthusiastically? I’ll bet he has an iPod full of showtunes and a closet full of t-shirts from Broadway musicals. But as much as I hated him for being fake, part of me wanted to believe that the things he said were true.

p. I told my friend Emily about my desire to write about my tour guide rejection the other day. “Well, I’m glad you’re writing about tour guides,” Emily said. “I think a lot of them are douchebags.” The bitter, rejected person in me reveled in her harsh language. Tour guides specialize in telling half-truths — they paint the College to be a perfect, ideal place when, in all truth, it’s not. School is hard, not only intellectually, but also emotionally. My freshman year was the most difficult year of my life. None of my tour guides ever told me this, but I don’t think I would have wanted them to. I desired, and still want to attend, the fictional place that their actions and stories motion to. A place where friends are plentiful, class is always intellectually stimulating and fun can always be had.

p. __James Damon is a sophomore at the College. His views do not necessarily represent those of The Flat Hat.__

I will remember Nov. 7 for the rest of my life. The commonwealth of Virginia, the place that I’ve called home for the latter half of my life, voted on a referendum regarding my lifestyle and I lost. Virginians voted 52 to 48 in favor of the Marshall-Newman Amendment. Yes, that amendment, the one better known as the “gay marriage amendment.” Given the past few weeks to think it over, though, I don’t think I’ll remember that day simply because my lifestyle lost in referendum, but because of the mistakes I made that day.

p. My first mistake: I had the hope that Virginians would move past their homophobia. It’s been hard for me to dress it up differently, not take it personally and approach it from a mature, rational point. Yes, I know that Virginians have traditionally voted conservatively. Yes, I know that I probably shouldn’t have expected Virginians to vote “no,” but I did. I had hoped that just maybe Virginians weren’t the hateful people that we’re known to be. I’m left feeling hurt and angry. I’m left with little else but one big question: Why am I so terrifying?

p. And all I get is silence from a mass of bigots.

p. This was my second mistake: I expected Virginians to grasp how this poorly-crafted piece of so-called legislation would harm those people who aren’t even involved in the scramble to “protect” marriage. I wonder if people read the last three sentences, the three sentences that actually took rights away from non-married, heterosexual Virginians. There are hundreds of thousands of heterosexual Virginians who aren’t married. Where will their protection from domestic violence go? Out the window. What will happen to these people’s children? Who knows. Where will their hospital visitation rights go? Down the drain. Where will their ability to formulate contracts that, as the Marshall-Newman Amendment says, “intend to approximate the design, qualities, significance or effects of marriage” go? In the trash. I’m left with another question: What will happen to these people?

p. And all I get is silence from a mass of ignorant voters.

p. The Marshall-Newman amendment has passed. I hope you know what that means. Our Bill of Rights now contains institutionalized discrimination and I’m desperately fumbling around in an effort to be the bigger person. I’m left with my final question: Where do we go from here?

p. And suddenly I don’t have silence. I have a voice and it’s not just my own. It’s a symphony of voices that blend together to form the voice that says, “You know what, Virginia? We won’t take this.” I’m taking steps, albeit small ones, to not be angry. I’m taking steps in the direction of trying to understand from where my opposition is coming. I’m taking steps to use my voice for the betterment of all Virginians. I will work with Equality Virginia, I will build coalitions with sympathetic Virginians and I will work to fight bigotry and homophobia throughout the commonwealth.

p. Yes, my lifestyle lost in referendum, but that’s not just it anymore. I am a gay man, I am an abused domestic partner, I am a child without a stable home, I am the person who can’t visit my friend who’s dying in the ICU and I will fight this.

p. __Nathaniel Amos is a junior at the College. His views do not necessarily represent those of The Flat Hat.__

Despite my fervent agreement with sophomore Matt Beato’s Nov. 10 column opposing Williamsburg’s cap on the number of unrelated people who can live off-campus together, I feel obliged, as a student who does live off-campus, to point out a number of matters in which he does an extreme disservice to students at the College. The columnist, who has been at the vanguard of the struggle for student voting rights during his brief time here, seems to have forgotten that the measures he urges the city to adopt to maintain order (if the housing ordinance is repealed) are precisely the sorts of measures that would be overturned if there were something resembling a democracy in Williamsburg. For example, Williamsburg might intensify the enforcement of its noise ordinance and, by implication, there might be a more vigorous enforcement of laws pertaining to drug and alcohol use.

p. In addition, by objecting to the city’s policy and distancing himself from the very people damaged by the policy, the columnist muddles the discourse on individual rights, which should be at the center of all of these battles with our local government. In his world, the people who exercise freedom of action and freedom of conscience are in the minority while good, law-abiding citizens, like himself, are in the majority. This is simply not the case.

p. There are many reasons why a student might opt to live off-campus after their required on-campus experience of freshman year. Even within our artificially-contracted housing market, rent is still, in most cases, markedly less expensive than the obscene rates charged for dorm rooms by Residence Life. More adequate cooking facilities, especially important for students with alternative dietary needs, are another perk. Beyond that, there is a rewarding difference in the pace of life experienced in a dwelling that functions as one’s home. Living off-campus, particularly if one is able to live in the same place for the last three years of his or her undergraduate study, lends a stability that is often lacking in dorm life. For all of these reasons, I would never choose to go back to living on-campus.

p. But there is one more very simple reason why I would never live on campus: privacy. As Residence Life staff continually tromps out the notorious “failure to comply” rule to coax its way into students’ rooms, it is clear that students have something less than full Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights. As a person hell bent on violating the laws of both our commonwealth and our republic, I simply cannot stomach the idea that some RA on a power trip (thankfully, my only RA was not such a person) could endanger my ability to remain a student at the College. And over what? Over my decision to assert autonomy over my very own neurotransmitters. What could be a more inalienable right than the right to that autonomy? How can the pursuit of that autonomy be distinguished from Thomas Jefferson’s “right to the pursuit of happiness?” Let the record show that Jefferson did indeed make recreational use of a particular drug derived from the cannabis plant.

p. The Residence Life staff, by the way, is taught to recognize the aroma of burning cannabis during their training. While the cannabis that they burn is, no doubt, very poor in specimen, an RA armed with that training is far more capable of harassing a student smoking in her or his room than an officer of the Williamsburg Police Department would be in trying to inflict similar injustice unto a student living in a three-bedroom house off-campus. After all, the smell simply will not travel far enough to manifest itself under a yonder policeman’s nose. Students living off-campus are inherently less vulnerable to abridgements of their liberties resulting from our absurd drug and alcohol policies.
Having the sense to acknowledge that living off-campus is the safer bet, many students, who choose to make responsible use of both licit and illicit substances, act upon that instinct and move off-campus. Some of these people even have parties from time to time. We are in college, after all. If a neighbor has a problem with the noise emanating from a party, then it would seem as though the simplest way to deal with that issue would be for the offended party to simply tell his or her student neighbor about their concern. That is called common sense.

p. Matt Beato, in his piece, does not delve into the reasons why people choose to live off-campus. If he engaged in such a discourse, then he would have realized that the policies that he has suggested are just as incongruous with basic notions of liberty as the “three-person to a house rule.” He invites the city to rain down further injustice upon us, and I, personally, resent him for that.

p. __Thomas Silverstein is a junior at the College. His views do not necessarily represent those of The Flat Hat.__

With the 2006-midterm elections now in recent memory, it is an accepted fact that the election functioned as a veritable referendum in our republic on the majority Republican Party. As many pundits have assessed, though, the question remains if the election is a refutation of American conservatism. Liberals eagerly clamor that it is, but it is questionable if any coherent conservatism remains in the United States.

p. Republicans typically degrade their Democratic opponents as having neither cohesive policies nor programs. But perhaps introspection is warranted after such a cataclysmic election where the rule of Nov. 7 appeared to be anyone except a Republican. Those who question if conservatism was voted against must believe that the Republican Party still embodies conservative ideals, which it does not.

p. Modern Republicans have abandoned the tenets of their party and espoused a new incoherent “conservatism.” Under this new doctrine, Justices of the Supreme Court who interpret the Commerce Clause as a means to enforce states’ rights instead of expanding Congressional power are nominated and confirmed, as evidenced by United States v. Lopez. This same doctrine endorses the notions that the federal government has the authority to regulate education within many states and the ability to nationally intrude into the private lives of its citizens in continually aggravating ways. This new conservative philosophy also advocates the federal regulation of marital vows between individuals — a practice historically granted to the states under the Tenth Amendment. Subscribers to the “conservative” movement often advocate the national banning of all methods of abortion, describing it as nothing short of homicide. However, they do not offer an initiative to nationalize the crime of homicide that assuredly rests as a “police power,” which is guaranteed to the states under the provisions of the Constitution. Ironically, the conservative position that the Constitution does not permit federal banning of the deplorable practice of abortion most publicly resides with the 2004 presidential campaign stance of Senator John Kerry who expressed personal disapproval, but emphasized Constitutional propriety. Religion must guide, not govern.

p. If the Republican Party wants to maintain a prominent position within the federal government, it must return to its core values. Emerging Republican rhetoric states that the party was placed in power 12 years ago to “change government,” but that “government changed the Republican Party.” However, it is likely that these words shall prove to be little more than rhetoric. The Republican Party needs to return to its conservative origins. Currently, the “conservative” doctrine proclaims that government should stay out of personal matters but advocates governance by personal interests. As candidates emerge for the presidential election of 2008, the Republicans will ultimately choose the destination of the party. Either the doctrine of conservatism will return to offer the electorate true alternatives, or the modern doctrine of “conservatism,” as shown by the failed senators and representatives of Nov. 7, will linger.

p. This midterm election has allowed the Republican Party the historic chance to reunite with its true origins, but the upcoming presidential election will determine the fate of the party. It will prove whether there has been enough damage to tear apart a party that, over two centuries ago, emerged from the collaboration of many wrecked coalitions and noble pursuits. The Grand Old Party, which saved the Union, has erroneously begun to enact the most divisive of political practices, which will lead to its own demise. True alternatives are deserved and desired by the people of the United States. It seems that no party upholds the Constitution any longer, electing to champion the sanctity of individual liberties. The grandeur of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower must return to a party long tethered to a sinking agenda by the Sunbelt, if it desires to save itself. True conservatism needs to return to serve the people of our republic.

p. __Aaron Griffin, a member of College Republicans, is a freshman at the College. His views do not necessarily represent those of The Flat Hat.__

Technology began with the first crude tool fashioned by man. From that moment until the late 18th century, it advanced at a sober pace. But the Industrial Revolution set technology off on a crash course, like that of a snowball rolling down a mountainside: ever growing in size, ever gaining in speed and ever less inclined to stop for those who willfully obstruct its path.

p. In the Nov. 17 Confusion Corner column, senior Lauren Bell observed correctly that students at the College “can’t live without” our cell phones. I hereby broaden her statement and say that our whole society has come to depend on the cellular phone, and practically overnight.

p. The case reminds me of a great movie called “The Gods Must Be Crazy.” It tells the story of N!ke, a Bushman of the Kalahari, who one day comes upon a strange and beautiful object unlike anything he has ever seen. The “thing,” as N!ke calls it, proves to be a real labor-saving device for him and his fellow Bushmen, mainly because it is harder than anything found in their desert habitat. The “thing” becomes so useful that everyone soon seems to need it all the time. The hithertofore cooperative Bushmen argue and even grapple with one another over this wonderful new tool (which any “civilized” viewer recognizes as a discarded Coke bottle). “Something they had never known before had become a necessity,” observes the narrator of the film. And such is the case with our reliance on cell phones.

p. The columnist also stated that our gadgets transpose us from the real world to the “insular world of technology.” This idea is discussed in “My Dinner with Andre,” a cult film that consists entirely of a conversation between the two writers Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn (of “The Princess Bride”). At one point, Wally tells Andre about his new electric blanket and insists that it affects the way he sleeps, the way he dreams and even the way he feels when he gets up in the morning. In response, Andre suggests to Wally that his blanket “separates him from reality in a very direct way.” Insulated under that blanket, Andre goes on to say that Wally will forget he ever struggled to keep warm in winter. He will lose what sympathy he has for people who still face that struggle. “You like to be comfortable and I like to be comfortable too,” Andre concedes. “But don’t you see, Wally, how comfort can lull you into a dangerous tranquility?” Indeed, with the mere flip of a switch, Wally can insulate himself from the forces of the seasons.

p. We so often hear technology described as a harbinger of new freedoms that we fail to see how it can do just the opposite. The World State of Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” sustains itself simply by keeping its subjects occupied. It provides them not only with leisure time but with the forms their leisure takes. Sports, for example, remain popular in the World State, though we would not recognize any that they play. Theirs are, without exception, outlandishly technological, and not by coincidence: the more machinery and high-tech equipment required by the game, the greater the levels of consumption and production required to play it. The people thus enjoy themselves and stimulate the state’s economy all at once; all parties seem to benefit. But the subjects of the World State know no pleasures besides those provided for them, and all of these are calculated both to gratify and to arouse the desire for further gratification. They have been deliberately reduced to the sum of their basest desires by a state that happily gives them their fixes. Most tragic of all, they adore their condition. They see their servitude as freedom.

p. I, for one, agree with Aldous and Andre: technology poses a threat to humanity — our humanity, as individuals. If everything is easy, quick and convenient, it follows that nothing is difficult and that nothing involves struggle nor demands our fullest commitment. I do not mean to suggest that I regard technology and humanity as irreconcilable; so long as we keep our eyes open and our minds active, we have nothing to fear. And in case of doubt, we might ask ourselves this question: can we handle solitude? Those among us who cannot bear the company of their own minds, consider the possibility that something of paramount importance has been stolen from you.

p. __Clint Condra is a senior at the College. His views do not necessarily represent those of The Flat Hat__