Another Happy Day at Columbia...

I awoke this morning with only the greatest reluctance; rousing my sleepy body out of bed and into my "gymwear", I journeyed onto campus to be greeted by yet another of those cheery, upbeat visual spectacles that the "radical" undergraduates of Columbia seem to specialise in. Just beyond the tent-village erected by the hunger-striking Ethnic Studies protestors (5 days in and, apparently, still subsisting on nothing more than water, Gatorade, and a steady diet of Spivak) loomed the sight of around 200 mock gravestones. The nature of protest quickly became apparent: the gravestones were variously adorned with statistics regarding the numbers of immigrants who had died or been detained whilst crossing the Mexican-US border; personal anecdotes; and photographs of the deceased, complete with descriptions of the manner in which they died. It's hard to know what to make of all of this: on the one hand, one has to admire the dedication of those (presumably) students who spent their time organising this protest. On the other hand, and even leaving aside the complexities of the actual issue (and, moreover, what the protestors hoped to achieve by protesting against such matters on a non-government affiliated university campus), a field of graves is not necessarily the sight that one wishes to be greeted by on a cold, gloomy November morning. And let us not forget - for those organizing the protest certainly didn't - that today was Veterans' Day, the day on which America remembers its war dead and, above all, the young dead of World War I.

On a slightly different note, today I went to the Union Theological Seminary for the first time. I needed a copy of Hayden White's rather painful Metahistory from their library, so I dutifully plodded up to 121st St in order to retrieve it. What a beautiful building, especially the large quad/courtyard around which the whole structure is oriented. I look forward to eating my lunch and reading out there come Spring. Even better still, I entered the library to find out that they were holding my most beloved of events, a book sale! I picked up a copy of Jaokim Garff's recent biography of Kierkegaard in perfect hardback condition (not even a library mark on it) for a mere $6. At 867 pages I'm not entirely sure that I'll make it all the way through, but such a bargain made for a happy Simon indeed.

But lest we forget...


"Albert put it into words. 'The war has ruined us for everything.'

He is right. We're no longer young men. We've lost any desire to conquer the world. We are refugees. We are fleeing from ourselves. From our lives. We were eighteen years old, and we had just begun to love the world and to love being in it; but we had to shoot at it. The first shell to land went straight for our hearts. We've been cut off from real action, from getting on, from progress. We don't believe in those things any more; we believe in the war."
- Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front


I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

. . .

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

- Sassoon, 'Suicide in the Trenches'