Lord What Fools.

It's the beginning of the quarter. And you know what that means?
It's fraternity rush week.

During this most festive of weeks, all the frat houses throw parties and have dinners in hopes of having a lot of manly young men pounding on the door, begging to be a part of their Brotherhood. As I walked back from Westwood this evening, I passed by one of the houses and had to stop and stare at the absurdity.

The brothers had parked an old, beat-up car on the sidewalk in front of their house and the prospective pledges were being given sledgehammers and pickaxes and told to go to town. I stood across Gayley and watched as each gentleman pounded away, smashing out the windows, knocking the doors off their hinges, and collapsing the roof. And not once or twice, but three times did one guy get the sharp end of the pickax stuck in the top of the trunk. I watched in amazement at this act which seemed to appeal to the very bottom level of human behavior, playing on the male stereotype and some insane animalistic urge to attack, to destroy, and to effuse testosterone in copious amounts. They all looked so excited, so thrilled, so in love with what they were doing. It was disturbing and frightening to think that this is some desire that society has repressed in order to prevent torture and murder, but whichever member of the frat had thought of allowing the pledges to tear apart this car had, albeit probably inadvertently, created a surefire way to illicit attention by appealing to something so base and primal in the human male's subconscious. I mean - who wouldn't want to stand on the street and beat the shit out of something?

I swear to God, there are times when I am really happy I know better.