the libertine

the whip sheet of the liberal party

issue one / 20.01.2002

zero	a message from the secretary Welcome to the inaugural issue of The Libertine, the all-new-for-’02 whip sheet of your favorite party at Yale. This sheet—now exclusively electronic, to save on photocopying costs—is the witty, stylish, sometimes catty voice of the Liberal Party, a voice which you will note sounds eerily similar to the secretary’s own. Each Sunday, The Libertine will tell you everything that the Libs have planned for the week ahead, inform you of upcoming activism opportunities, and present a host of leftist ideas to chew on. Read it, enjoy it, make suggestions for its improvement, and, above all, come to one of our events! You’re not on this mailing list for nothing, you know. And a quick note about the title: a libertine is a licentious man, a slut, as you already know. But as a second definition the Oxford English Dictionary includes the following: “One who follows his own inclinations or goes his own way; one who is not restricted or confined.” Free-thinking and sexually insatiable: a fitting description if ever there was one. —j.s.f.
one	goings on in the liberal party 21.01.2002 / Monday / all day / Martin Luther King Day celebrations Take advantage of your day off from classes and celebrate Dr. King’s dream and legacy with Yale. Today’s events include a poetry slam, several film screenings, symposia on the civil rights movements, an interfaith service, and a vigil. You can obtain the complete schedule from the Af-Am House’s website. 21.01.2002 / Monday / 05.30 / Lib dinner Since Commons is closed in honor of Martin Luther King Day, we’ll have our weekly dinner across the street in Silliman. 22.01.2002 / Tuesday / 07.30 / Lib debate Tonight’s debate topic is “The enemies of the American government are the enemies of the American people.” Join us in the Branford Common Room. 23.01.2002 / Wednesday / 07.00 to 9.00 / Dwight Hall open house If you’d like to get involved in the New Haven community, come to the open house at Dwight Hall on Old Campus tonight to learn about opportunities for the spring semester. More than 100 student organizations and community groups will be present, and (according to the bulletin we got from the people running the event) refreshments will be served. Several Libs will be working the booths tonight—we hope you’ll come down. 24.01.2002 / Thursday / 07.30 / YPU debate No guest has been scheduled for this week, so the YPU will host a student debate. The resolution this week reads, “Inalienable human rights are a fiction.” Come out to Linsly-Chittenden 211 and silence the boys of the right. 26.01.2002 / Saturday / 10.00 / Liberal Party party As the only party in the Union that is truly socially functional, the Liberal Party knows how to have a good time. Show up at Gisèle’s room, Silliman 1877 in entryway L, and enjoy both the company of the Libs and one of Jason’s caipirinhas.
two	the liberal party’s new e-board At the end of last semester those who attended Lib Caucus elected a new group of six officers, and two Libs were elected to the offices of the YPU. The executive board comprises these eight dashing individuals, who are: Jonathan Khoury, chair Carey Seal, vice-chair Raina Lipsitz, president of The Jonathan Brewster Bingham Forum Gregory Ablavsky, community secretary Clayton Critcher, chief whip Jason Farago, secretary/treasurer Steven Prohaska, president of the YPU Gisèle Roget, secretary of the YPU
three	the new website Like a great episode of Ricki Lake, the preferred talk show of three of this party’s e-board members, this is a makeover that will bring tears to your eyes. In the last few days your resonant secretary and treasurer has taken on a third role, that of webmaster, and has overhauled the party’s e-presence. With a design ripped off from my favorite design firm and augmented by my almost complete lack of programming knowledge, the Liberal Party website is intelligent, hip and fashion-forward—just like you-know-who. In a few days, the whole project will be finished, and I’ll send you all a link to it. You’re just salivating in anticipation, aren’t you?
four	artist of the left: david hare, playwright [A quick note to begin: Each week this segment of The Libertine, inspired by former secretary Senwung’s Capretzishly titled “Liberalism in Action,” will feature one artist whose body of work demonstrates an engagement with liberalism and an embrace or investigation of leftist doctrine.] The plays that David Hare has written over the past thirty-five years range from a quasi-rock-musical about drug addicts to a chamber play delving into the minds of Anglican priests, but the common element in all of his work is a decidedly leftist streak. His greatest early play is Plenty, which investigates the repercussions of idealism among liberals in his native England after World War II; later, in The Secret Rapture, considered by Frank Rich to be the seminal play of the eighties, he delivered a caustic indictment of the Thatcher government’s rampant greed and emotionlessness. His early-nineties trilogy of plays about British institutions—the Church, the Law and the Labour Party—began his latest phase of quiet, probing dramas that nevertheless work as universal political statements. Hare is also the screenwriter and director of several films, including the brilliant Strapless, and has written his autobiography, wittily entitled Writing Left-Handed.
five	a final thought Mention the word poetry, and you’ll get a gun stuck up your ass. That’s the way America is. Whereas even guys who work in the street collecting garbage in Paris love 19th-century painting. —Jim Jarmusch