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Funny pages
The deadline poet and author of "The Tummy Trilogy" picks five books that made him laugh.
By Calvin Trillin
[11/01/99]

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"Silent Stars" by Jeanine Basinger
A massive tome on the silent era's greatest performers fails to come up with much that's fresh.
By Steve Vineberg
[11/01/99]

The female dick
How three hard-boiled writers have retooled the mystery novel for women.
By Jacqueline Carey
[10/29/99]

Ivory Tower
After the apocalypse
Returning to the philosophy class that I had canceled, I wasn't sure who or what I would find.
By David Alford
[10/29/99]

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"All Tomorrow's Parties" by William Gibson
In his newest novel, the cyberspace visionary stays one step ahead of the future.
By Frank Houston
[10/29/99]

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Ten months and several protests later, Dartmouth is still trying to live down the now-infamous "ghetto party" with promises of greater cultural sensitivity and more aggressive outreach programs. Fraternities and school officials offered heartfelt apologies and promises to do better. Everyone agreed on Step 1: no more ghetto parties. From now on, only happy, non-offensive theme parties -- a festive Hawaiian luau, for instance.

That's precisely what the brothers of Alpha Chi Alpha and the sisters of Delta Delta Delta thought they were co-hosting in August -- a harmless end-of-summer bash. But hours after the e-mail invitation went out, the Dartmouth campus was again in an uproar.

Aaron -Aina Akamu, the president of the school's Hawaii club, had e-mailed out a note of protest, saying that calling the party a "luau" was offensive to him as a native Hawaiian. A traditional Hawaiian luau, he later argued, is a ceremony with a long history and deep cultural and religious significance. Alpha Chi's "luau," on the other hand -- with its promises of Jello shots and scorpion bowls aplenty -- had nothing at all to do with Hawaii, and everything to do with a bunch of frat guys getting together to get drunk.

Ordinarily, a few complaints about an offensive frat party would have barely raised an eyebrow on campus. This was, after all, Dartmouth, the inspiration for the film "Animal House" -- a campus where stories of fraternity brothers receiving oral sex from dogs and fondling a fellow pledge dressed as a bloody, post-mastectomy woman have become an integral part of Greek lore. What's more, these so-called luaus have been thrown at schools across the country for years.

"I thought someone was joking with us," said Alpha Chi summer president Eric Kelley about Akamu's e-mail. It was no joke -- the presidents from both the fraternity and the sorority met with Akamu later that night and agreed to cancel the party. Two hours after that, the presidents sent out a formal apology campuswide for "any disrespect and harm our actions caused."

The speedy response, many claim, had little to do with concerns over cultural sensitivity. Following Dartmouth president James Wright's announcement last February of plans to reform the Greek system -- a plan which includes making all the houses coed -- many houses on campus are doing everything in their power to avoid anything that smells even remotely of trouble. While many fraternity and sorority members worry about the future of Dartmouth's Greek system, others at Dartmouth are seizing this opportunity to reform what many describe as a racially hostile environment.

Dartmouth's recent history suggests the fraternity and sorority members have plenty to worry about. In November, the ghetto-party incident drew more than 400 protesters to the university commons. In December, a fraternity-hosted "Miami" party -- which invited guests to dress as Cubans -- angered members of the Latino fraternity, Lambda Upsilon Lambda. On Columbus Day, Native Americans protesting the holiday were heckled by rowdy, drunk onlookers. And at homecoming, a fraternity sold "Yale sucks" T-shirts that depicted a bulldog performing oral sex on an Indian.

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