Before the Campus Burned

No matter what your politics, it's hard to find fault with such an event, just so long as you can manage to wiggle your way free of the lingering atmosphere of smug hopelessness that so often permeates such affairs. It's an us-vs.-them world, and they (and us)--both sides, all sides--wouldn't have it any other way. Why not revel in the sure knowledge that you're a part of a small (and dwindling) tribe of the truly righteous, and that you're surrounded? Who can argue that what these people (or those people) want is for the world to be a better place? All right, yes, better for them and for people like them, and who believe as they believe. But that's something, isn't it? After all, what did you do with your Friday night, the night before Dinkytown burned?