Gadfly: The Week in Buzz

SCALIA: LOVE THY NEIGHBOR

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who argued against legalizing sodomy, is apparently a bigger fan of getting ass than we thought.

The arch-conservative justice defiled a usually-staid Institute of Politics forum last week, saying for the sake of argument that perhaps “sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged.”

Scalia —who usually prefers the Socratic method to the rhythm method—stopped short of proposing a ménage-a-trois with Ruth Bader Ginsberg and the newly single Nancy Reagan, but we have to wonder: Does Scalia use any of those ‘judicial restraints’ he’s always yapping about?

—Michael M. Grynbaum and Zachary M. Seward

LAME GAME

Watching shitty football teams play each other isn’t exactly our idea of a weekend well-spent. That’s why the Ivy League gods created the Harvard-Yale tailgate—a chance for socially awkward and sexually repressed poindexters to trade glasses for beer goggles and sloppy problem sets for attempts at sloppy sex.

Unfortunately, this year Harvard’s bigwigs are running some blocking against its students’ efforts for a great, err, play. With The Game back in Boston—the pub capital of the country, natch—strict ID enforcement and bloated alcohol fees will hinder Crimson efforts to score on Eli tight ends. Alas, the most action we’ll be seeing that weekend is the homoerotic tackling on the field.

—MMG and ZMS

FLY ON THE WALL

A slew of Harvard College Democrats heeded Antonin Scalia’s advice at last weekend’s ‘Early ’90s’ dance in Eliot House, sponsored by The Harvard Independent. The Dems drank away their sorrows after a disappointing week for the Kerry campaign—and made out like Al and Tipper. . . .Notably absent from the Indy party: Rivers Cuomo, who provided much of the evening’s soundtrack but did not reply to the organizers’ invitation. . . . Florida retirees got for free what Harvard Law School students pay 30 grand a year for: Alan Dershowitz promoting his political views. Dershie joined Senator Chuck Schumer ’67 to kibitz for Kerry at a Florida synagogue last Sunday. Doesn’t he have classes to teach? . . . Hey, anyone seen Elvis Mitchell around here lately?

—MMG and ZMS

OVERHEARD ON NPR

Af-Am and VES Visiting Lecturer Elvis Mitchell—a pillar of academic gravitas—on public radio’s Weekend Edition:

“Be quiet, baby. I got somebody on the phone. Put down that whip. No, some guy, Scott somebody or something. I don’t know.”

—MMG and ZMS

FROM THE GADFLY ARCHIVES: OCTOBER 7, 1909

The gentlemen of the Fly Club have noted with suspicion a recent reversion to hut-based dwelling among the Hebrews occupying the space between their Mt. Auburn St. palace and Plympton St. President Lowell may have to be informed, members of the club’s Purity Committee indicated.

—Simon W. Vozick-Levinson

CONSULT THIS, RECRUIT THAT

A flurry of Banana Republic-clad youngsters, elbows sticking out at lethal angles, and palm pilots chock full of recruitment meetings spent the last week jockeying for cog-dom in the consulting wheel. Note to certain seniors: years of consulting with your roommates on whether chartreuse clashes with magenta (and that’s just the guys) doesn’t make you a top-tier candidate. McKinsey, bring it on.

Also, we would like to take this moment to contradict bloatedly liberal filmmaker Michael Moore: in his movie Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore seemed to imply that recruiting drives only targeted poor neighborhoods. One only need to look at the posh would-be-recruiteds at Fair Harvard to see that that’s simply not the case. Sure poor people are recruited into, like, the army and Harvardians into the army of finance, but both of these armies require “hard work,” in the words of our president.

—Sarah M. Seltzer and SWVL

MARSHAL PLAN

Damn we seniors are feeling popular! Seventeen people asked us to vote for them for Class Marshal this year. But one of these candidates—you know who you are—who saw us at that Canaday Bash and never said hi, or pointedly ignored us when sitting at the same table in Adams that Tuesday sophomore year, better not be expecting this vote. This is what democracy looks like, you asshole.

—SMS

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