Duke is torn, as a university, between two forces: the drive for academic success and the compulsion to be a good-times party school. These forces are constantly wrestling with one another, attempting to gain control of the school, appearing to all the world like two toddlers fighting over a toy, a piece of candy, or a nationally renowned research university. These battling forces each claim certain small victories. For example, if you squint your eyes on a foggy day, the campus looks a bit like Princeton. But, if you close your eyes on a Friday night, the campus smells a bit like Joe Namath's bathroom floor.
The forum for this battle for the very soul of Duke University is varied. It is a battle waged in the bed of every sleepy student for whom last night's Keystones preempt this morning's econometrics. It is a battle waged in the back of every classroom, as students decide whether to pay attention or to drink illegal moonshine from an unmarked ceramic jug. It is a battle waged in RDU, as students decide whether that most painful and intimate of "carry-on" spaces is better used for a copy of The Fountainhead or for a balloon full of powder they were asked by a pockmarked stranger to bring as far as Baltimore.
But more often than not, the battle is waged right here, in the editorial pages of one of the nation's least-awful student newspapers. You could be jotting notes in the margins of this column for your upcoming monograph on the impact of Frantz Fanon's post-colonial thought on a modern reading of Yeats' dramatic works. [Boring!] You could be using this paper to sop up the bodily fluids left over from last night's bacchanalian orgy involving seven of your best guy friends, four of your best girl friends, three waitresses from Applebee's, and a prominent member of the Durham City Council. [Gross!] It doesn't matter. The battle for Duke is being fought here.
Columnists for The Chronicle can be divided into two categories: the intellectuals and the have-a-lot-of-sex-uals. [It bears noting that, in the real world, these two groups are not mutually exclusive. Paris Hilton is working on her second Ph.D, and Howard Zinn has slept with every Playmate since July of '77.] Neither group is perfect. The former can often seem like shrill and self-righteous apple-shiners trying desperately to impress some non-existent teacher. The latter's contributions to the intellectual discourse has degenerated to the point where it has become an open letter to the Duke community asking whoever ended up with their panties Friday night to return them ASAP, as they cost more than RAMONA QUIMBY'S car.
RAMONA QUIMBY, like children of divorce everywhere, believes this problem can be talked out. To use a metaphor favored by one type of columnist, RAMONA QUIMBY wants to be the friend who convinces an estranged couple to kiss and make up. To use imagery favored by other columnists, RAMONA QUIMBY wants to be like the United States in the Middle East, a red-nosed good ol' boy clapping a Powerpuff Girls Band-Aid on a wound too deep to ever be healed. The goal of this column is to suggest middle ways, collaborative efforts wherein the Duke community can become better-versed in important world issues without giving up on their dreams of salacious reading material.
First of all, the first few weeks of every columnist's tenure need to be devoted to enhancing the basic knowledge of the readership. Before telling us about the "toilet ratio," make sure we know what a ratio is. For that matter, a toilet. Before teaching us about "date function earning potential," teach us what earning potential is. Before explaining how Duke's social life is like a pinecone with skin cancer, make sure know we to how order in put simple a sentence. These columnists need to take as their teaching example the insanely pedantic and condescending first few pages of any social science textbook, excerpted here: "You may not think you know about economics, but if you've ever bought a slice of pizza, sold a raffle ticket or traded your Handi-Snacks for a Lunchable, you are already a budding economist! (You can probably get a teaching position at Emory.)" This firm base of knowledge will help readers later in the semester, when basic economic, physical and biological knowledge will then be applied to help you trick your man into remembering your birthday. Or something.
The other thing that will help columnists is cross-pollination. Let the problems of the Duke social scene inform the problems of the world, and vice versa. Here's an example: "The Democratic Presidential nomination seems sewn up by John Kerry (basically a Deke), who has a sizable lead over such competitors as John Edwards (SAE), Joe Liebermann (AEPi) and Wesley Clark (KA), as well as fringe candidates Carol Mosely Braun (Mirecourt) and Denis Kucinich (SigEp, until he deactivated following an embarrassing speech at the semi-formal his junior year)."
This could also be applied to columns about Duke life. "When your man starts occupying your time like your name was Tibet, it's time to brush him off like De Gaulle at Yalta."
The soul of Duke University is up for grabs. The Chronicle wants to do more in this fight than simply be a bunch of half-finished crosswords and barely-comprehensible Doonesburys at the bottom of the birdcage that is Duke's intellectual discourse. By implementing these suggestions, the most strident of cause-heads and the most vacuous of sex-advice columnists can be made to work together towards a common goal: the betterment of dating in war-torn areas of the world.
RAMONA QUIMBY, AGE 38 is a charter member of the "A Capella Out of Duke" movement.
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