Why I’m Still Loyal to the King of Spain

This is just a quick blurb, ladies and gentlemen, and I apologize in advance to the non-Spanish speakers. At the Iberoamerican Conference in Chile today, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero of Spain got into a little scuffle after Chavez continually interrupted Zapatero to make the point that his predecessor, President Jose Maria Aznar, was a “fascist” and several other derogatory, imperialist names. After Zapatero (a left-wing leader who denounced Aznar’s administration publicly many times) demanded respect for his predecessor and the Spanish people, quipping with formidable attitude that Aznar was a “democratic choice” and “some of the countries represented here are, actually, democracies”, for about a minute to no avail (Chavez continues to speak over him), Spanish King Juan Carlos I interrupts both of them, turns to Chavez vehemently, and yells “why don’t you just shut up?!” Chaos ensued until the relevant authorities simmered down the tempers of those involved.

This is just one of the many reasons why Juan Carlos I wins the award for “Best Monarch Ever”. He is a no-nonsense, straightforward kind of guy that has no problem reciprocating ill will to his enemies or putting anyone, even a sovereign leader, in their place. Here are two videos of Juan Carlos at his best: the first, the aforementioned incident with Chavez (sorry to non-Spanish speakers again), and the second, a jovial greeting to Basque separatists that came to boo the King at Vitoria-Gasteiz:

Area Man Would Rather Attend Harvard

Now, I’m no sports nut, but I have found it suprisingly easy to scream insults at those blustering Bulldogs every year at the Game. A little scouring of the Onion’s archives proves that even America’s Finest News Source agrees: Yale sucks.

First of all, a search for Yale yields only 44 results. Harvard? 95. We’re frequently the subject of American Voices, the Onion’s hilarious parody poll. (Here are the thoughts of David Niles, portrait photographer, on Kaavya Viswanathan: “This just goes to show there are many things a Harvard education can’t teach you, like how to use a thesaurus to cover up your plagiarism.”)

Let’s do a close reading of the following text:

NEW HAVEN, CT— A heated dispute over the relative merits of Harvard and Yale erupted into fisticuffs Monday, when Yalie William Vanderploeg, 20, struck Randolph Stephenson, a strapping Harvard lad of 19, about the face and neck in a most brutish manner. “The vainglorious braggart dared suggest that his Crimson squad could out-row us nine times of ten,” said Vanderploeg, captain of the Yale crew team. “I knew they raised them as barbarians over Harvard way, but the very gall.” Stephenson, his hair mussed from the attack, vowed that the dispute is far from settled.

The *Yalie* Vanderploeg strikes the “strapping Harvard lad” in a “brutish manner.” While the article quotes Vanderploeg’s justification for his uncouth actions, it’s pretty clear that the author’s sympathies lie with Stephenson (who, on top of his other virtues, has hair nice enough to suffer from being mussed). In fact, the article subtly invokes the dichotomy between an agrarian society and an industrial one. Observe how the arm of industry — of Yale — strikes the “barbarian” Harvard student. While “barbarian” has a negative connotation to the Yalie, it ironically underscores the ancient nobility of Harvard against a crude, modern age which prizes uncultured violence above the older nobility of the barbarian savage — the nobility of the “strapping” Harvardian.

(yeah… that was total BS. Thanks, Hist and Lit!)

Harvard students might come across as wacky overly-intellectual loons in this one. But at least we’re smart enough to deconstruct Mexican food take-out menus — and we don’t have one-sided friendships with homeless men, a la Yale.

In this article about choosing a college, Harvard sounds a bit pretentious…

Find a college that will nurture your talents. For example, if you have an aptitude for dressing up in drag, penning witty quatrains, and awarding celebrities prizes as a way to draw attention to yourself, you may want to consider Harvard.

Nevertheless, at least we get our own paragraph, unlike Yale. And the Onion shares another bit of priceless wisdom: you can never go wrong with a college advertised on public transportation.