Did anyone else see that documentary about the University of Iowa's 'Greek system' of sonority and fraternity houses. It was quite the weirdest thing I have ever seen. Apparently a fifth of all new students arrive a week early to go through a sick selection procedure ('Rush') for all these 'secret' single-sex societies with names like 'Alpha Kai Kai' and 'Gamma Beta Sigma'. If they get in the girls get to be all prissy and live without alcohol and the boys get to boast about collecting more sonority girls' knickers than those pussies over at Beta Pi Eater. And they have to pay up to $11000 over their time at university for the privilege.
From what I've seen, there's a similar system in most western countries:
I didn't see the documentary due to financially imposed lack of TV but that sounds exactly like what my friends described it as (in the bar where I was pissing away the cash that I could buy a TV with). Our conclusion was that frats are probably so prominent in the US political and industry system since they involve living with and getting along with people who you can't possibly like for years on end. I'd say there's something in that... principal in my mind is the public-schools-originated "old boys' network" in Britain. I'm at uni in Cambridge and there's still societies there that are definitely remnants of the class divide in that respect: the Union Society and Pitt Society are the main ones. Still, I suppose that if you're going to get that sort of thing hanging on anywhere then Oxbridge is exactly the place it's going to happen... even if 95% of the university think that the 'prestigious' old boys' societies are full of arrogant, spoon-fed tossers. Anyway, if I had an extra 10 grand to get through at university then I'd find much better things to spend it on than living with a bunch of lard-arsed homophobes. A copy of Tigermilk would be the first addition to my soon-to-be-rapidly-growing record collection, for instance... Andy Andy Andy Buckley agb31@cam.ac.uk http://i.am/andy_b +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the reborn Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". WWW: http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "jelly-filled danishes" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+