Ring, Ring, Ring

Dartboard can't help but notice that classrooms this fall are not only overflowing with students, but also with cell phones. Who are these people who think their call is more important than everyone else in the room? They must have been accepted to Harvard, yet can't figure out how to turn their phones off, even after the first ring during a class. Few things are more obnoxious or distracting in the lecture hall.

"First Nights" covers material from Monteverdi to Stravinsky. But the fact that your phone happens to play one of these tunes for its ring is absolutely no excuse. Professor Kelly's lectures may fulfill your Lit-Arts B requirement, but the digital polyphony of multiple ringing nuisances will not. And if your phone rings "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," it isn't any better.

Dartboard also wonders what kind of urgent calls these students are getting at 10 in the morning. Are McKinsey recruiters ringing the star Ec concentrators with offers of multi-million dollar contracts? Are the Gov jocks waiting for a personal appeal from Gore or Bush? Is there an illicit network of drug deals going down on campus? Get a grip: we're all students, and we should show a little more respect for our esteemed professors and our classmates.

It's one thing if you live in the Quad and never make it home. But it still doesn't explain why you can't remember to turn the phone off--even if your significant other needs his or her regular check-ins. And for those TFs who've let their phones ring in section, it doesn't make you seem cool or important, just incompetent. So please: save our sanity and your Geiger counts--cancer's no fun. Just switch off before you enter our hallowed halls of learning. And it wouldn't hurt to do the same in dining halls, too.

—Michael L. Shenkman

The Fall of Man: An Ode

O Stoughton! Thy once-fair, unsullied name

Hallowed with time and Revolution fame

is now whispered but soft, in tones of shame;

No longer is thy roof with glory crown'd,

O Stoughton! For thy ceiling has come down.

Those upon whom the plaster chunks and boards

Collapsed, had not feared anything untowards;

Yet ne'er could Damocles with all his swords