**Sex column misguided**

p. **To the Editor:**

p. I recently was shown a column in The Flat Hat that is a veritable “how-to” on performing oral sex on a man. Such a column serves to highlight a piece of the depraved, immoral behavior of some students these days, but not much more. This tasteless content besmirches the intellect of fellow students, professors and alumni, and it further disgraces the legacy of great thinkers who resided at the College before us. I am embarrassed for the College and repulsed that this is the discourse going on in The Flat Hat. We live in an age in which our society suffers from abortion, high divorce rates and other social ills. The columnist’s writing skills would be better applied, and challenged, discussing how to maintain healthy, long-term relationships and good values.

p. __— Will Coggin ’07__

p. **Make a difference this fall break**

p. __To the Editor:__

p. As you make your way over the Industrial Canal westbound into downtown New Orleans, you can see in the rearview mirror the famed site of the levee breach. Written over it in red and white paint is a single word: “hindsight.” The view beyond the levee is nothing more than grass, empty lots and streetlights laid in a grid pattern — a spooky memorial to the neighborhood that once stood there. That was misconception number one before my trip to Louisiana. The lower ninth ward is not just a hard hit area of the city slow to recover. Some parts of it are utterly gone.

p. I planned a trip to do Habitat for Humanity the week after Labor Day. I had been to New Orleans a few times when I was younger and adored the culture. As I walked the streets of the French Quarter and held my breath, I found, to my delight, that its character remained completely intact. The drag queens who threw me beads were an assurance that The Quarter was still The Quarter. What storm?

p. But outside the heart of the city, a few miles to the east, lies St. Bernard Parish, gutted out and struggling to come to life again. Here, the abandoned K-Mart says it all. Two years later, the storm is an ever-present reality. Rebuilding is slow, contractors and government are equally distrusted, and the years that have passed have made very little difference to those just trying to get out of FEMA trailers and back into their houses. I did not learn this until I stumbled onto the St. Bernard Project — a non-profit begun by two people from Washington, D.C. who quit their jobs to come help. Unlike Habitat, which typically builds houses from the ground up, the St. Bernard Project guts out flooded houses, clears them of mold and warped studs, and rebuilds them with volunteer work. That was misconception number two: the Project has money. It has United Way and corporate sponsorship. It often receives donated building supplies. What it does not always have is volunteers to do the work.

p. After Katrina, much of the housing in St. Bernard was lost. It took weeks for the water to recede fully. Perhaps a few houses were livable, but most would need a complete restoration and still stand empty today. The red and white spray-painted “X”s, scrawled on the doors by rescue squads two years ago remain.
When I flew to New Orleans I expected to see cranes and trucks fast at work rebuilding the devastated city.

p. That was misconception number three. What I found was a small group of dedicated young volunteers who quit their jobs and now spend 10 hours a day, often six days a week, scraping out mold-infested houses, hanging drywall or laying kitchen tile. I came home with a duty to spread the word. They need help. Both Habitat and the St. Bernard Project present opportunities to make a difference: in the ninth ward, in the Parish or west in the Bayou. Anyone have fall break plans?

p. __— Ashley Wilson ’06__

Readers this week will see that the College is tied with Harvard University with 9 percent of enrolled students receiving Pell grants — the fifth lowest total among American colleges and universities. Pell grants are the federal financial aid program for which the neediest students are eligible. These statistics seem to support the assertion that the College is not very socio-economically diverse, and that despite the efforts of the College’s Gateway program and other initiatives to diversify campus, the College still has a ways to go.

p. These figures may seem disconcerting, but they also present the College with an opportunity to advance its reputation and increase the availability of education, both in the state of Virginia and throughout the country. As Economics Professor Robert Archibald, an expert in higher education financing, has pointed out, these statistics do not mean that students at the College are necessarily better off financially than those at other schools where the percentage of students receiving Pell grants is higher — including Duke University, Georgetown University and most Ivy League schools — but rather that the College has been doing a poor job spreading the word about its new programs to students in need.

p. Reaching lower income students is part of a larger necessity for the College to become better known nationwide. While about a third of students at the College are from out-of-state, less than 18 percent of students who are eligible to receive Pell grants hail from outside Virginia. This illustrates the College’s need to expand its interest base to middle- and lower-income areas of other states — areas where the name William and Mary may not resonate as well as it does in Virginia. In many areas, people are academically qualified to attend the College, but may simply be unfamiliar with our school.

p. The total number of applications that the College has received in recent years and our relatively high admission rate are not in line with the traditionally selective nature of this institution. In fact, they are quite poor. Not only will expanding the brand and name of the College to other regions of the country enhance the socio-economic diversity of our school, but it will also generate a popularity that may give the College a boost in the U.S. News & World Report rankings. Whether the school increases interest by upping the number of viewbooks it sends to students who take the SATs, attending more high school college fairs in diverse parts of the country or granting application fee waivers to highly qualified students, the admissions office must make a concerted effort to increase the size of the applicant pool.

p. As the quality and breadth of the applicant pool is enhanced, the College will be able to substantially increase its socio-economic diversity and ensure that each class that enters the College remains exceptionally qualified.

p. While an impressive percentage of Pell grant-eligible students admitted to the College choose to attend, the relatively low percentage of students here on Pell grants is something that the College must address. The recent budget cuts make the expansion of expensive financial aid programs difficult, but a considerable public relations campaign that reaches beyond the boundaries of Virginia may provide solutions to a number of the College’s critical problems. Establishing the Gateway program and other initiatives is a fine start. Now the College must spread the word.

According to my anthropology textbook, one American child consumes as much food as 34 Indian children or more than 200 Sub-Saharan children in one year. Consumption is fine until it starts becoming waste. I have never been able to finish everything on my plate during my meals in the dining halls on campus. As I slide my tray onto the conveyor belt at the University Center with a half-eaten pizza slice and unfinished vanilla pudding, I can distinctly hear plates being emptied out in the trash cans inside. And this is just me. Imagine the entire student body — more than 7,000 students — doing this at least twice a day, every day.

p. Thankfully, there is an organization on campus that cares about all this waste. The Campus Kitchen is an organization started in 2007 which uses leftover food from the cafeterias to help feed homeless shelters near our area. According to the Campus Kitchen listserv, they “take the surplus food from Dining Services, as well as other organizations such as the Williamsburg Food Bank, prepare the food and package it into meals, and deliver the meals to people in need in the area.” Although it may not seem like it, Williamsburg does have poverty issues that need to be addressed.

p. The Campus Kitchen is a premier example of the service that the College offers to the community. The College is a very service-oriented school and this organization shows everyone how true that is. Instead of monetary donations, students give up their time to package and deliver meals from dining halls to the needy — a creative way to help people because it gives the students a chance to experiment with different recipes and allows them to actually interact with those they are helping. This is a group that we need to support and cherish; it brings us closer to the community through a good cause.

p. I urge everyone to participate in the Campus Kitchen program because it tackles the primary need of existence: food. While it is true that some of our schedules may not be generous enough to allow us to participate in everything we want, we can still reduce our daily negative impact on the community through other simple acts. Perhaps, when we stand in line at the Commons Dining Hall next time, we can try to get what we need, rather than getting a plate full of everything that looks good. I am not saying to eat less, because that is not the point, but just try to waste less. I am notorious for being lazy — I get all my food at once and then realize that it is impossible for me to finish it. We all take the abundance of food available to us for granted, and while this may be a sign of a wealth, it can sometimes result in a little insensitivity toward those who do not live in such opulence — even those in our own neighborhood. Besides actually helping the community, Campus Kitchen serves as a mechanism of awareness for the student body.

p. For us, such organizations are just the beginning. There are many other ways to reduce our wastefulness besides food. The other day, two students came to my door with reusable plastic cups, so I could reduce the trash caused by throwing away paper ones. Campus is bustling with service opportunities, but it’s up to us how big of a difference we choose to make — both good and bad. Try not to be like me, and go for seconds if you need to. This way, rather than piling the baked ziti on your plate all at once, you won’t hear it being scraped into the trash can as you walk out.

p. __Kalyani Phansalkar is a freshman at the College.__

With marathon season underway, I face a cold road ahead of me. It’s a season of dark nights bleeding into the day — of barren trees, their leaves riddling the road like rubble. The cold is perceivable, revealing to its audience members their spectral breaths, their aches and pains felt from within their hollowed bones.

p. It is for this reason I have chosen to father a beard this season. It’s a matter of practicality, really. Beards are cheaper than most windbreakers, parkas or scarves. Beards are runner-friendly, preventing salt and snot from touching skin and dramatically reducing the reddening and chafing of the chin and cheek region during longer, colder runs. When worn in competitive running events, I count on my shaggy facial outfit to psych out my competition, suggesting long, lonesome months of training in the barren mountains of Colorado and, behind my beard, betraying an intrinsic insanity.

p. Off the trails, however, beards serve a higher purpose. A beard isn’t something for the rabble. You don’t just slap one on. Beards are for the greats, for the men among men. Beards are for the few and the proud — for the likes of gods. Here I think of Christ, of Shakespeare and of Chuck Norris. We, too, must emulate the gods.

p. Indeed, a holy month has descended upon us all. All around the world, working-class men, women and children are coming together in observance of the sacred rite of Octobeardfest. For one month, devout Octobeardfesters must abstain from shaving entirely, allowing their humble beards to flourish, their souls repenting the daily onslaught of stubble-slaughtering and facial mutilations of the six-blade.

p. Octobeardfest is a world phenomenon that bore its roots several hundred days ago in the city of Portland, Ore. Octobeardfest does not discriminate. It transcends class, race, age and gender. Currently, about 12 percent of the population is observing Octobeardfest. That’s a lot of fucking people.

p. Octobeardfest is more than a way of life for some. Boiled down, it’s a professional sport, a gentleman’s game. And, like all great sports, there are rules. Participants must have shaven themselves clean the night before the first of October. Each contestant is encouraged to keep a steady reading journal and/or picture blog, mapping out his stubble’s shadowy journey into beardhood. Haircuts of any sort are most gravely frowned upon, and result in automatic disqualification. Those who shave their beards midway suffer the promised midnight molestations of insomnia, temporary blindness and castration anxiety.

p. For more on Octobeardfest, visit octobeardfest.com, “official homepage for the Octobeard Festival, an annual toast to the madcap of the chinstrap and the hooby-doo of the fu manchu.”
If you’re interested in participating in this holy fest, fret not, for you don’t have to wait a year to let your face go, as No Shave November is just around the corner.

p. Sacraments aside, my advice is to stop shaving now and just run with it. College is the best time to nurse the six-month stubble, as you’re old enough to actually grow facial hair and not peach fuzz. Plus, you’re free to lose all respect of composure, unconstrained by those impending nine-to-fives. With a beard, one has the potential to age anywhere between two and 12 years, deflecting the impotent effects of male-pattern baldness. Before beginning this noble experiment of mine, I could not enter R-rated movies without being carded. With a beard, however, I have license to steal, to kill.

p. Beards work wonders in the classroom. With a beard, you have something to hold on to, something to rub and massage, giving impressions of deep, critical thinking. You can appear to be lost in the philosophical paradoxes presented in “Moby Dick,” rubbing your chin methodically when, in reality, you’re concentrating on the whale-tail in front of you.

p. But it doesn’t stop there. It never does. The next step would be to invest in a pipe, for effect. Beards and pipes work well as a pair. They’ll give you all the experience in the world. You’ll know what it’s like to father children, to own a pair, to be a man.
Sherif Abdelkarim is a junior at the College.