We’ve seen this past week our stalwart Hack Attack close its doors due to “complaints of harassment received”, although we all know that the beloved Gossip Queen is on for greener pastures. Still, as anybody who is actually out there still hitting refresh on this blog can plainly see, your faithful LSE Observer has itself been quiet over the past weeks and months. What will come of this??

Nothing good, I’m afraid, but I must admit that it was quite a pleasure writing this blog over the length of the Lent Term, particularly as a total outsider to the whole London School of Economics community and its Students Union. A lot of people were guessing around back and forth as to who was behind the Observer, and I have no doubt that at least some people now know – to most unsatisfactory ends. Anybody who was hoping for a surprising revelation was instead left scratching their heads and wondering “who is that bloke?”

All that said, at this point there is little of consequence going on that I feel interested or able to keep up with. As we all head into (or continue making headway into) the exam period, I truly wish there were juicy tidbits I had to feed you lot whilst you avoid your studies. Sadly, I’ve nothing of nourishment for my readers, and I don’t suspect there will be any more to come. So, having made some small mark on the mental maps of SU insiders and other curious onlookers, I’ll close up shop here at the LSE Observer and thank you all for reading.

Cheers,

The LSE Observer

Featuring what one can only imagine is the eponymous sanctuary on the cover, looking like something out of Tolkien, it may also be a tweak on the Ivory Tower, from which it rains derision upon any establishment within the school. Not the least is our motto, which has been adjusted to become rerum causas ridere (to know the funny causes of things). Other targets are the Students Union (obviously), The Houghton Group, various blowhards within student societies and even British society itself.

This Observer’s favourite bit would have to be the Facebook spoof on page 18. Featuring faux-profiles for Britney Spears, Prince Philip and Fabio Capello, among others, it hits the sweet spot in terms of the greater visibility these types of website provide, along with the false sense of interaction that said sites provide and even a few cheap shots like Britney’s profile pic showing her gleefully shaving her head and excoriating the reader to ‘GIVE ME MY FUCKING KIDS BACK YOU BASTARDS!!!’

There’s a lot more contained within issue 2 of the Sanctuary (not the least being the five full-page ads for higher education and, more oddly, skiing), and if it hasn’t already been shoved into your hand as you walk down Houghton Street (looks like the staff is taking a page out of the London Lite’s handbook there), you shouldn’t have too hard of a time finding a copy – they were far more prevalent than the Beaver during a walk through of Houghton Street this morning. Although the paper will be folding up for the summer, it promises to be back next fall, and perhaps it will have sharpened some of its wits to a bit more subtle of a point by then.

Just looking down the road, the term is rapidly coming to a close. Your faithful Observer will be taking a much-needed vacation after tomorrow’s Annual General Meeting. Given that there is going to be some activity in the Summer Term you can expect the Observer to return then, and there are likely to be some errant posts now and again over the break, but it could well be that things will quiet down around here after tomorrow until May. Don’t despair, you’ll be able to survive without me, I’m sure.

Taking a break from the usual diet of Indian and Chinese economic growth contrasted with American and European recession, why not have a look at the economy of Turkey? In a lecture entitled ‘Future Prospects of the Turkish Economy‘, Turkish Minister of State Mehmet Simsek will evaluate the challenges and opportunities facing Turkey.

When, Where: Tuesday at 5:15pm in the Old Theater

As some of you may recall, there was a bit of hands-wringing in parliament last year about what exactly constituted ‘Britishness’. Well as the amusing proposed mottos showed, it may well be there there is no such thing as a unified British identity – and probably not the least at the LSE where some postgrads may spend their entire year in Britain seemingly without meeting any Brits. Well if you disagree, let your voice be heard at this week’s debate on Britishness.

When, Where: Tuesday at 6:30pm in the Old Theater

The LSE Orchestra and Choir Spring Concert will be taking place this week at the St. Clement Danes Church. The event, sponsored by the LSESU Music Society and featuring students, staff and alumni, will play several pieces including Faure’s Requiem and Brahms’ Symphony No.2. Tickets are available at the SU reception and at the booth on Houghton Street.

When, Where: Wednesday at 7:30pm, St. Clement Danes Church (The Strand)

Given the LSE’s tendency to heckle this year, it probably is not a bad idea to forgo the speech, although McCain has a history of taking his generally conservative agenda to hostile left wing audiences. Arch-conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia also spoke at the LSE this term before a respectful audience of students who mostly disagreed entirely with him, so it can be done. Given that the visit will take place during the upcoming holiday, McCain might have a hard time getting an audience, although that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.

[EDIT: If you were crestfallen to hear that Senator McCain was likely not going to bring his Republican credentials to the LSE, fear not! Care of the Houghton Street Review, we can tell you that you will be able to scream your derision at a bona fide intolerant right wing (former) senator, Rick "That's Latin for Asshole" Santorum at an upcoming LSESU Tocqueville Society lecture. Sure, he's no Presidential candidate, but he did inspire a new word to add to your lexicon. Email su.soc.tocquevilleisi@lse.ac.uk for tickets.]

The establishment student newspaper the Beaver let loose at the newly elected Sabbs and fleshed out its election coverage with pretty graphs and statistics.

London mayoral candidates (and their emissaries) attended the UGM this week to plead their case for student votes. They focused especially on top up fees, transportation (including a new double decker bus designed by students, for students) and costs of living.

The Sabbs deserve points for being good sports, but those trash bags and shower caps seem to lessen the blow, don’t they?

It’s also worth noting that the deliverer of the gunking got soiled himself, when Fadhil and Libby charged him and gave him a sloppy hug.

The speakers were given five minutes to make their case, before the meeting moved along to a question-and-answer session. Berry, speaking first, hammered away at her Green (both G and g) credentials and plans. She promised to cut fares on mass transit by 20p across the board, and continue to press for greater use of bicycles in the capital. She also pledged to shut down London City Airport, calling it unnecessary and a waste of public land, proposing instead to build a green industrial center in the area. Giving a nod to GenSec elect Aled Fisher, she also referred to the work that he has helped to lead on the Living Wage campaign and also informed students of Fisher’s standing for a seat on the London Assembly.

John Biggs, speaking for Ken Livingstone, did his best to steal the thunder from Berry. Broadly speaking, he said, his candidate agreed with most of her proposals. The sense that was given was that Ken is as Green as the Greens, but is also in a better position to win. Biggs pointed to Livingstone’s “record of success” in crime, transport, the economy, the environment and even for students. It was this last category that elicited the most interest from the audience, and Biggs said that “Ken has always opposed tuition fees.” He also promised to extend student discounts on mass transit to all forms of ticketing, which students have been clamoring for.

Coming out swinging, Ed Vaizhey attacked Ken Livingstone, suggesting that the mayor was reneging on a promise to bow out of the office after serving two terms. With the Olympics coming in 2012, Vaizhey said, he expected that Livingstone would want to hang on for two more terms to remain in office until after they had passed. “What Ken really wants,” he said, “is another eight years.” Extolling the virtues of his candidate, Boris Johnson, he went down the candidates CV and capped it off with what was apparently meant to be one of his strongest qualities: “he is the motoring correspondent for GQ.” Bringing this automotive expertise to bear, he said that Boris wanted to scrap the dreaded bendy buses and “bring back the Routemaster“. He even suggested that LSE students (and our non-existent engineering department) could have a hand in designing a Routemaster for the 21st century.

Last but not least Lindsey German, who began immediately by reminding the audience that she is an LSE alum (class of 1975) and an honorary lifetime member of the Students Union, earning her friendly applause. German then went into her policies, particularly her opposition to the third runway at Heathrow, the lack of affordable housing in London and the tragedy of the London mass transit system (“the worst and most expensive public transit system in the world”). Carrying on with this last theme, German earned the biggest round of cheers yet when she declared that students should be able to travel on the buses and tube for free. As a matter of strategy, she also asked voters to put her first on the ballot, and to choose Ken Livingstone as their second candidate.

So far, so staid. But in the Q+A things opened up significantly. On the question of crime, which had received conflicting answers from the Labour and Conservative representatives, Vaizhey took the opportunity to lay into Aled Fisher who had posed a question, inveighing: “the student convener is a Green stooge – typical!” The audience granted Boris’ representative credit for his audacity, if not his answer. Questions on cycling and the safety thereof were directed to the Green candidate, Berry. She said that London needed to reach a critical mass of cyclists, and set as a target Copenhagen’s 30% ridership. “We can do better than that”, she said.

Clarifying her earlier remarks on City Airport, Berry said that only small planes can use the short runway there, and that it ought to be scrapped. Ken’s man chimed in and said that the mayor had the same policy, however his allows City to disappear after its capacity is taken up by the controversial third runway at Heathrow. Finally, German suggested that London could do with fewer airports overall, and encouraged greater rail links to the continent to discourage short haul flights to France, Germany and Spain.

British, EU and Commonwealth citizens can register to vote in the Mayoral elections at LondonElects.org, but must do so by April 16. The election takes place on March 1st.

When, Where: Today at 4pm in D502 (Clement House)

Professor Nassim Nicholas Taleb will be giving a talk about his recent book, The Black Swan. According to Taleb, a black swan is a high impact and hard to predict event (see Wikipedia’s take). These transformative events are not believed to be possible, until the are – thus the black swan, which was not believed to exist until it was discovered in Australia. Despite the fact that these events are rare and unexpected, Taleb claims that they have a dominant role in shaping society.

When, Where: Thursday at 6:30pm in the Hong Kong Theater

Given recent events involving Colombia and the rising rhetoric between the South American nation and its neighbors Ecuador and Venezuela, you can expect that the upcoming lecture “The Cocaine Curse: Colombia’s War With No End?” might attract some interesting comments. Among the speakers are former defence minister Rafael Pardo who one can only imagine will toe the party line (that is, if the abstract of this essay for Foreign Affairs is any indication), as well as Dr. Francisco Thoumi (formerly of the World Bank, and now a professor at Universidad del Rosario) and Colombia specialist Malcolm Deas of Oxford University.

When, Where: Friday at 10am in the Hong Kong Theater

Obviously it is up to the editors to determine what letters to publish, and it’s an open secret among student newspaper editors that you publish whatever letters come in for lack of alternatives. Still, this week’s Letters section of the Beaver contains an incredibly low number of letters that refer to specific stories or coverage by the Beaver, and far more that are pontificating or announcing whatever they please – and let’s be honest in acknowledging that ‘whatever they please’ in this term has tended to mean back-and-forth arguments about Israel and Palestine. Snore.

So let’s just go through it quickly here. First we have a bizarre letter referring to the recent revelations of Prince Harry’s service in Afghanistan that presumably is meant to goad students into abandoning talk for action. However the assumption on the part of the author that students would consider Harry’s service in the military to be ‘protecting freedom and justice’ reflects a level of naivete and would fully derail the letter were it not for the hilariously worded suggestion at the end that LSE students ‘put their mouths where their arse is’. Mmm, that sounds tasty.

The most interesting letter is also the most infuriatingly vague. Some anonymous writer seems to make serious allegations about racism in the Beaver’s coverage but unfortunately writes a lot of words that fail to coherently enumerate a specific offense, instead referring to the way that ‘some reporters’ unprofessionally direct ‘petty, unfair and personal attacks’ only at ‘certain individuals’ or ‘selected … minority groups’, possibly on the basis of ‘racial origins’. The suggestion of a ‘hidden agenda’ at the Beaver is quite an explosive one, but unfortunately no specific agenda is described nor instance identified (the one specific article referred to in the letter fails to close the circle or explain how this represents the supposed hidden agenda of the Beaver’s reporters or editors), so we are left unfulfilled. If only the author had signed their letter, then perhaps we could receive some clarification, but alas, the name and identity of the author has been ‘withheld’ by the editors – possibly at the writers request? Who knows.

With the exception of one perfectly relevant letter on Cuba and socialism (referring to last weeks Blue is True/Red Isn’t Dead columns that this Observer has lamentably ignored all these months), the rest of the letters either repeat the same old arguments about Israel and Palestine that we’ve heard ad nauseum, or peculiarly simply serve to advertise the Catholic societies campaign to raise money for a school in Tanzania. What is this doing in the Letters? Maybe it was just there to demonstrate the Beaver’s willingness to print letters from Christians as well as Muslims and Jews. See? And you thought that they were prejudiced.