Attention: I, Atobe, have an important announcement to make!

On Monday, my devoted fangirls, the childhood dream of my co-blogger, Leslie Higgins, shall be realized. He shall become, and just in time for finals, a knight!

That is, he's to be inducted into the the first degree of that fine Catholic fraternal organization, the Knights of Columbus. How came this to be, you ask? Well, two of his fellow ultramontanist knuckleheads got a-scheming, and hatched a plan to reactivate the Assumption College council of the Knights, which was defunct for the longest time. But these are the halcyon days of President Francesco Cesareo, they thought, An opportune time to bring America's bring the Knights back to the College of the Hound! Though his wise administration, scourge of relativism and succor of souls, is not so controversial in its third year as its first, Prez Ces always appreciates the support of the young scholars drawn to this illustrious institution, especially when refractory faculty heckle him for his respect for the Catholic intellectual tradition in liberal education (and there are many; just days ago I, Atobe, received an offer to take a "herstory" of biblical interpretation course). In short, the Knights will be--Crusader's words, not mine--Prez Ces's Shock Troopers! Funny; I always thought, as far as the Neo Geo goes, that he preferred Metal Slug (violent, yes, but well in line with Church teachings. You rescue refugees and prisoners as you go along, and besides, you're just fighting Nazis).

Even before he became Catholic, in fact ever since Leslie was in the 1st grade, he has aspired to knighthood. Though he shall not, I suspect, soon have the means to live in Yerup [sic] as he then desired, America is much in need of knights who won't expatriate to England, France, or Malta anytime soon.

*************

Oh, and I heard the most pathetically plebeian song ever last night! As soon as I heard Travie McCoy's new hit "Billionaire" (clean version) on the radio, I broke out into a rich laugh.

I wanna be a billionaire so freaking bad
buy all of the things I never had
uh, I wanna be on the cover of Forbes magazine
smiling next to Oprah and the Queen.


Ah, urchins. How does the other half live? Confession: I have never fronted Forbes, but the fashion magazines can't get enough of me. When I need to know, I ask Crusader. I wouldn't even be able to do my errands without my trusty sports stadium mounted on a jet. Given Mr. McCoy's lackluster aesthetic (or perhaps overlusterous, given the bling), I distinctly hope he does not become a billionaire.

Be awed at the sight of my prowess!

[Belmont Porch, by Sue Lynn Cotton. A fine place for an afternoon storytime.]

This poem I wrote some weeks ago, based on a true dream related to me by the subject, whose ventures indeed brought her among these dead. Creativity has, however, filled in all the details. Sit ye down, friend. Well received at the year's final poetry event, I hope you also garner pleasure from

The Descent of Emily Christina Dodge

The voice of Emily Christina Dodge
Wove word and word together in a quilt,
But told her story with a rapid tilt
Because of they with whom she was to lodge
That night, "When after prayers," she said, "I went
To sleep and saw the dead in their own house,
My Grandmother's. Old memories of us
Lay with the heavy must, but shared its scent,
Made me unhappy as I looked at those
Nicked cupboards and Scotch-taped pantry door,
The grain rubbed through the whitewash on the floor,
The TV nooked below tea curios.
But when I got to thinking I must leave,
A teen on tiptoes, full of energy,
Came near, clasped hands and bowed. I knew him, he
Made quite the ruckus when she made us grieve
For him so young. He beamed expectantly,
But asked why I was sad. I'm not, I said,
Disposed to see my Grandma, since she's dead.
Misgivings given, still he said she'd be
Upset unless I said hello to her."
Here, Emily's capitulated pace
Slowed down, and sounded passive on the face.
"He led me kitchenward. I would confer
My greetings, then inquire how she was.
When I saw Grandma, aproned, timer set,
The range was flaming, nothing on it yet.
I asked. She answered, Master's out. He does
Perpetually say he relishes
The breads I knead and bake and stews I stir
From the deposit of his provender.
I would have asked her who the Master is,
But she crept in the cellar unannounced.
I wondered who this meant was over her,
A sign it wasn't God, but Lucifer.
A pity that, if she had not renounced
Him when her parents did. Then Grandma came
Again, small sack of flour in her hand,
And four zucchinis in a rubber band.
She grabbed some olive oil, fancy name,
Then poured it, humming, in a shallow pan;
She lavished flour on with little care,
And white specks scored the black range here and there.
Some hit the flames; she had to use the fan.
This done, she pulled a lower drawer and drew
An old knife, dull, but fine for what she had
To do; carve, slice, and cut out what went bad.
I found my courage then. I asked her Who."
Ashamed because she had not understood,
Here Emily took pause in her regret.
"His name means nothing if you have not met,
Said Grandmother, Just know that he is good."

The imagery, if I have succeeded, probably classes me among those somber poets who hailed from my own region in its Protestant centuries. There are, similarly, many Grimm's fairy tales where Hell is a home where the youthful devil lives with his grandmother, and which much inspired me in the writing. Emily has, as I have alluded, a delicately metered voice, so my regret is that she cannot be with us now to relate this in the voice for which it was penned.

I, Atobe, am loath to be the bearer of bad news (which comes aplenty in Bay State politics), but I have yet another reason to feel ashamed of my home away from home. Crusader can barely keep his head above the surface of schoolwork, whilst I am busy with AC tennis (despite a few still-to-be-posted star performances by yours truly, 6 games to love as we say, the men's team hasn't been doing so hot. But there is always next year). But woe are we, for our candidate for governor, Christy Mihos, has been disqualified before we even got a primary vote! A paltry 11% of the Republican State Convention delegates voted for him; the minimum to appear on the primary ballot was 15%. Though I'm a rightist politico, I guess it shouldn't annoy me too much; Mihos was way down in the polls, and I can't vote here anyway (we have our own election in early July; while I'm glad that our liberal PM Hatoyama may go down in the polls for failing to accomplish the one things the Left is good for, opposing the US base in Okinawa, it's rather unlikely that my party will get a majority in the upper house). Crusader? He may end up voting for Baker, but the anti-family insurance CEO is certainly not worthy of even a blog endorsement.

Is it just I, Atobe, or does the world simply seem ruined en générale? Kinda makes me wish I were king; yep, that'd fix everything. As I was helping this blog's other writer with a reflection paper for his Rousseau class, I showed him an amusing passage from the Second Discourse. See, even though J. J. Rousseau is often made out to be no more than the inspirer of the French Revolution and the intellectual precursor to Marx, in many ways, he was even more reactionary than Les and I. Part II, ¶ 20, read it and weap:

For the Poet it is gold and silver; but for the Philosopher it is iron and wheat that civilized men, and ruined mankind.


No iron, no division of labor; no wheat, no serfdom. Naturally I, Atobe, am not a Rousseauian since I believe human inequality is natural, and agrarian life most salutary to virtue, but it is fun to think, maybe that was man's downfall. Think of that the next time you chow down a bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats!

Be awed at the sight of my prowess!

Just before the weekend began, I stopped by the office of a professor of Political Science for a chat, and got a complementary Solzhenitsyn Reader for the effort. Only at Assumption College! While my summer reading is already overbooked, there is always room for one more conservative anthology on my shelf.







As a bonus, I even got to tell him a surprisingly sophisticated revolution joke from the fine anime Maria†Holic, which he enjoyed as a scholar of revolutions. It may be seen here at 15:10 in. For the lazy, I will repeat its pure genius here:

Kiri has just received a bamboo scroll from a mystery man who keeps giving her love letters on a train. She unrolls it. "What's this? The word 'Revolution' is written on it so much that it seems as if he's going to stage a revolt..." There is an exhaustive list of revolutions with their dates:

1688 The Glorious Revolution
1775 The American Revolutionary War
1789 The French Revolution
1804 The Haitian Revolution
1830 The July Revolution
1848 The Revolution of 1848
1917 The February Revolution...

"A timeline?" Kiri says. "If you define revolutions as 'an act where the people rise up in revolt to change a country', there's none that appeared in Japanese history. Makes it seem more like he's planning a revolt."

"For some reason," her friend Ryuuken notes, "revolutions known only by a niche group are mixed in with the other revolutions on the list."

"'The difference in our age," Kiri breaks in, "is just a minor gap if you compare it to the world's history. We should follow in the footsteps of our predecessors and start a great revolution.' That's what he told me."

"That's quite creative," remarks Ryuuken. "He might be surprisingly fun to be with if you date him."

A Berlin Wall joke follows, but you'll just have to see it for yourself. Were I an Assumption professor of Political Science (hint hint), that'd be my excuse for watching Maria†Holic in class!

The awesome ending theme, "Kimi ni Mune Kyun".


[On the cover to the Maria†Holic OP, the protagonist Kanako rockets off in a perverted nosebleed as she admires Mariya~ best album art all time]

This is too bad; I lost. Hopefully the college will still prosper with the SGA under the leadership of Miss Carleigh Baldwin. The warm support I have received over the past few days has nonetheless heartened me, though I am certainly depressed to think that now, almost certainly: 1. The SGA will have to suffer through another motivational speaker this fall, and 2. Trays are really probably gone for good. For these reasons, the failure is all mine: I will be fine, but I have failed those who wanted me or someone like-minded elected. Sorry for that.

At least my esteemed ally and colleague, John Guinan, has won the VP for Academic Affairs position, as I expected. As I told him recently, he rather resembles Desi Arnaz, which he took as a complement.

The lyrics you've all been waiting for are in! Leslie Higgins, candidate for SGA President, delivered his rousing speech in Kennedy Hall this evening. While filled with pure gags, finely told examples of his public service, and amusingly told promises for the future, his speech ran on for a few minutes, and he saw fit to lighten the mood at the end. Just after his speech reached its crescendo--he called for bringing trays to Taylor Dining Hall--he continued,

"Moreover, folks, at the end of the academic day, I'm a jovial person, and with me as SGA President, we'll have a lot of fun. To kick off the fun right now," he said as a segue,

Ladies and gentlemen, this is 'Mambo SGA'

One fine autumn day
I ran and won a spot on the SGA
Boys said, Let's go to Leitrim's on the corner
But man, I said,
I really don't wanna!
No man must stay busy like I was last week
Since I'm on Senate boys, I've gotta keep
Work with Andrea, Jacqueline, Julie, and Carleigh
On top as Sunday's getting nearer
But things are so much sweeter
When I work with them! So I'm beggin' you my Lord!
To me the SGA's a sport, and I think I
As Prez would really pump it
But first I've gotta stump it!

Makin' Student Senate my whole life
Still gotta do some homework on the side
As I'm stealin' some tea from the ASC
Or hangin' out in Charlie's it's the place to be
Checkin' out the ladies in Campus Min
Then I'm waiting for the voting to come in
Before I take the posters down in Des
When a little bit of you makes me your Prez!

Scroll up and down! Now move the mouse around
Shake your head till you've found
You're at the College of the Hound!
Go S-G-A
E-lect-ons site
Look for the box with ma name on the side
Click my name once,
And click my name twice,
And if it looks like this



Leslie Higgins




Then you're doin' it right.

Makin' Student Senate my whole life
Still gotta do some homework on the side
As I'm stealin' some tea from the ASC
Or hangin' out in Charlie's it's the place to be
Checkin' out the ladies in Campus Min
Then I'm waiting for the voting to come in
Before I take the posters down in Des
When a little bit of you makes me your Prez!

I really think we'd do
With a Prez like me and a school like you
So please don't run and please don't hide
Cos you and me gonna touch the sky.

A round of cheers swept the room as his index finger touched the sky. He is indebted to Mr. Lou Bega for the inspiration for his spoof song which demonstrates, if proof were ever necessary, that his drive for fun and is just as powerful as is love of academics or his joy in serving fellow students. If you missed the stirring melody last evening, you can catch it on ACTV throughout the week.

Help unite Assumption greyhounds of all political persuasions, and vote Leslie Higgins, an upbeat, daring, and decisive leader for SGA President next Tuesday, the 13th of April, from 10:00AM-7:00PM online. You'll be glad you did, and I, your dear foreign observor Atobe, will personally shake your hand and thank you for it! Though
the spotlight may be on Leslie this evening, as always,


Be awed at the sight of my prowess!