I. So Chapel meeting doesn't actually mean, "meeting that occurs in the University Chapel," because the Washington Society is too smart for you... or because another group for the past several semesters has reserved the Chapel every Thursday night. But we assembled in lovely Clark 108 and spent 10-15 minutes exposing the president's (Ben's, not George W.'s) scandalous past through thefacebook.com before we actually came to order, and Gene recited the motto, "Quam Fluctus Diversi, Quam Mare Conjuncti."

II. Although Ben has specifically requested a funny roll call response from members, mostly it was just "here." Get on that--I'm looking at you! And provies-to-be, don't worry, you'll be part of roll call after Signing of the Roll. Gene also read his minutes here. You may have noticed that they were typed and funny--this is not typical secretary behavior (usually they're scrawled on the back of homework), so don't expect it next semester.

III. Ben gave a mercifully short Presidental Address, for the second time this semester. He talked about where we've come from, and why we weren't actually in the Chapel. Funny, but the President's chapel address I remember best (which is the one I'm going to talk about for the rest of this section), was the one I heard my provie semester (actually in the Chapel, actually), when Chris Zirpoli told interested folks that we were a society of storytellers. I thought it was an excellent message; at any rate it convinced me to join (a mixed blessing for the Society, I know).

IV. Announcements: Charlie and Katie got up and welcomed the Provies-to-be and outlined requirements (go to the Provie home page for the details). Patrick Lee says the Banquet is February 25 in the Special Collections Library, and you can throw the money ($50 for vegetarian/chicken, $55 for beef) at basically any elected officer, who will then embezzle it and run to Rio. Or you could give it to Lauren Maloche, the Banquet chair, and actually go to dinner. Anna Katz made an APDA (American Parliamentary Debate Association--you get to go to other schools and crash on debate kids' floors, but the parties make it totally worth it) announcement. Go to meetings, Monday nights.

V. Three Events of the Week--When I joined the society, the illustrious Meghan Sullivan held this esteemed and heredity position. She was funny, often grouping her events around a particular theme. When she became less active, she passed the position onto Keith White, who founded WashPUB rather than actually presenting the three events. From there it temporarily went to Jim Kim, but now it's safe in the hands of Mike Bartosch, who actually has gone back to the themed approach (alcohol stories last week, basketball stories this week). Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray! Hip hip hooray!

VI. Literary Presentations
A. Mary Butcher--A passive-agressive, social awkward, whiny, needy woman wonders why the world doesn't roll over and die for her.
B. Caitlin Stapleton--In another installment of her wacky and wonderful adventure stories, Ms. Stapleton told how the Wash saved the world from the Olsen twins, with the help of Mr. Rogers and Angelina Jolie.
C. Nicole Eickhoff--A story--perhaps original?
D. Andrew Morgan--"The Tell-Tale Heart," Edgar Allen Poe--a nervous, very nervous, young man tells how he killed the old man with the evil eye.
E. Trevor Dobson--Trevor closed out the program with a selection from the Cato letters. Carefully edited as to not make us die from 'excitement', Trevor read a old but still surprising relevent passage on the ills of party politics.

VII. Break. The sign up sheet for Provies-to-be was circulated since apparently no one in the Society knows how to write and pass.

VIII. Debate: Yogi Surendranath and Anna Katz take on Emmett Snyder and Doug O'Reagan in "You are the United States. An unstable regime in a volatile region is about to conduct their first atomic test and you have the ability to prevent the test through air strikes. Resolved: Don't stop the test." Yogi and Anna think nuclear proliferation is good and will help stabilize the world and bring it to peace. Doug and Emmett pointed out that it's easy to have peace if everyone's dead. The society voted 5-20-14 to stop the tests, but, on the merits of the debaters, voted 16-16-2. Ben (the chair) broke the tie in favor of side government.

IX. It's only midnight! Let's go to the College Inn.

Topics Meeting-- January 19, 2006

I. And so it begins...

Washington Society Meetings, like all social gathers, have unofficial and official start times. The unofficial time starts with dinner, and lingers into the bodies that come walking into the hall from 7:45-8:10. This meeting followed that general template. People milled in the hall, sat on the stoop and, for those covert fellows, squeezing in through the side door.

Looking upwards, I was happy to see that the roof, as was reported earlier, was no longer suffering from a growing breach.


II. Meeting Opens

Ben openned the meeting; Gene knocked off the roll (without the roll book) and gave minutes of the following meeting.

a. Some of the Annoucments:
-Banquet is on Feb. 25th, costing $50/$55 dollars a peice
-Evan Monez's tall tale of how she got her arm-cast: high-speed police change; passenger pain; her amazing abilities of avoiding poles; the tradegy of malfunctioning automated doors.

III. Ben's Address

Ben gave an address to the Society (excerising his Constitutional duty to address the Society at any time). Note, this was not his inaugural address-- that was saved for the Chapel Meeting.

IV. Three Events

Mike Bartosch continued his role of the three events speaker (following in the steps of Meghan Sullivan, Keith White and Jim Kim, among others)

V. Literary Presentations Start Up

a. Tracey Grimm:
i. "College Finals from Hell"
This peice off the internet documented the horrors of finals by college major.
ii. "The Secret Life of a Squirrel" by Sam Howell
This peice documented, with an excellent dilivery, the hidden life of a member of the
memory-challenged squirrel family. Some lines:
"I am a stupid squirrel." (Envinced after becoming trapped in an empty trash can; failing to get food)
"I really need to get some nuts today." (Remember that he is, indeed, hungry and must
remember to eat.)
Fortunately the story was hilarious without it ending with the sorry fate of so many rodents: road-kill.

b. Chen Song

Chen read from the "Politically Correct Bedtime Stories" book. He showed the society a new take on "The Three Pigs." Some of the provocative lines Chen read with a smooth and rich voice were the following:

"A big bad wolf with expanionist ideas."
"Got to hell you carnivorous opressor."
"they sang songs of solidarity and wrote letters to the U.N."

The story ended happily, with the expanionist wolf getting his just desserts for all that heavy breathing and eating: sudden heart failure. But remember everyone, no real animals were hurt in this story. They were just merely "metaphorical constructs."

c. Jamie Trowbridge

Jamie read an one of his own works, "Choose your Own Language"

In it he provided the Society with an interesting introduction to Linguistic Theory. He discussed the role language plays in both framing and articulating thought. He utlized many oratorical techniques to keep the audience engaged and ready to hear more: from shout outs to Italians, smallpox, and Native Americans, linguistic terms and definitions, and a very unorthodox experiment using Gwen Kirk. I must say, Gwen responded with deadly force. Jamie, indeed, left the hall both enlightened and in stitches.

d. Vadim Elenev -- Bill Maher "New Rules"

Vadim ended the night by giving some recent words from Bill Maher. Some of the more protocative points were as followings:

i. "Massachusetes: Where the nation was born, but not your baby."
ii. New Rule: I'm not impressed by what college your kid is going to. George Bush went to Yale. The End. Besides, these days, kids only learn about two things in college: drugs and bisexuality. And you don't need to send them to college for that. You can send them to my house.

You can find them all at: http://www.hbo.com/billmaher/new_rules/

VI. Topics Debate: There is too much ice in the World

Government: Charlie Mason (PM) and Michelle Uterbrink (MG)
Opposition: Meg Olson (LO) and Trevor Dobson (MO)

Charlie openned the debate bemoaning his lot in life, arguing for a lost cause. This gambit paid off well: with Charlie disguising devasting points in the imprentrable guise of weakness. The lynch pin: Ice in alocholic drinks = less party.

Meg, though, was ready for any such mechination. She blasted the gov't points with her own: the growth of beach front property, the safety of Santa Claus from polar bears, and iced drinks.

Michelle delivered a cynical rejoiner, asking: who wants a Santa Clause that can't take on some polar bears? Furthermore, she reconstructed Charlie's case with devasting precision. And she closed: "You can't eat cake and have your ice too."

Trevor Dobson took Michelle on arguing: "What about icecream cake!" And then blasted through the points, arguing persuasively that beach front propery was in need.

Closings:
Meg gave a mathemtical demonstration point out that when circle expand area that their circumference expands too. This simple tactic took a harash floor speech to the ground.

Charlie came up, again arguing for the sancticy of parties and sanity to vote for his side.

The result: Opposition won.

VII. Closing and College Inn

Welcome

Dear any and all readers,

This blog is a very late attempt to accomplish a small goal: have an on-line hub for all the Washington Society meetings of Spring 2006.

Why? Because I was Vice President, and thought people might want look back one day.

This site builds on the work of Charlie Mason and Katie Bray (my two provie chairs), and a past web-site. The first five meetings are taken verbatim from the old site, with the remaining meets filled in from my records.