Demosthenian Literary Society

During elections I vowed, albeit not very clearly, to essentially defecate in the stream of consciousness.   Indeed I ran on a platform of mediocrity that, for whatever reason, appealed to the society, which has led us to the dreadful butchering of the English language I have before me.
When we last spoke, the year was two thousand naught five.  Back then the men were men, except of course for the women, who were not men but may well have wished they were, except for perhaps a slim majority, being man hating …

Minutes of the Demosthenian Literary Society, December 1
Hi.  I’m Jacob R. Martinson, and I specialize in saying disturbing things and smoking like a small freight train.  Now, you might think that smoking is bad for you, but the Chinese government begs to differ.  It gets ten percent of its revenue from its monopoly on tobacco, and this is what it says on its official tobacco information page: Many people ascribe the inability to quit smoking to a weak will. In reality, it is well known that many great men smoked, …

Click here to download a pdf of the Fall 2005 Beyond the Lectern.

When the listserv was first created in the mid 1990’s it was viewed as breakthrough in terms of intrasociety communication.
No longer did societal news need only be conveyed by word of mouth and printings in “Beyond the Lectern.”
At the end of the spring semester the Digital Media Committee was asked to create a forum, presidential weblog, and interactive calendar.
With the help of the forum, the judicial council was able to receive input from all members of the society in an organized manner about potential judges for the intersociety debate.
In addition, …

Ladies and gentlemen, hold onto your hats and be prepared for some wild news! The Demosthenian Literary Society thought they had it bad when Charles “T” Ballard resided in the spring semester of 1954, and now his grandson, David Ballard is pulling the reigns of the society, fall semester of 2005, fifty one years later.
Strangely enough there have been rumors about a “Ballard dynasty,” but may I repeat those are only rumors. Some have also commented saying that David was destined at birth to take his right of inheritance over …

So this is the part of the minutes where I am supposed to be funny.  Okay.  As part of his tour of Asia, President Bush just gave Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi a gift.  What was that gift?  It was a Segway scooter.  Wait, it gets better: Koizumi’s government had just banned riding Segways on public land.
That’s the best I can do today.  Here are the minutes.
The meeting was called to order at 7:10.  There were eight first-time guests, two second-time guests, and one alumnus.
Ms. Myers petitioned, giving a review …

Minutes of November 3, 2005
Minutes similar to these have been done before by other secretaries, but it They’re always worth doing whenever there is an all-male bench.
Ballard, Theiss, and I have talked it over, and decided it was best to let the society know.  Enough people have already begun to suspect the truth, and foul rumors have begun to spread. Now, the first rule of spin is always to get the worst news out first, and we hope that this admission will end the backstabbing in the society, and let …

Photos from the 2005 trip to the Robert Toombs house in Washington, Ga. from Alumnus Josh D. Weiss.

Minutes of the Demosthenian Literary Society, October 13
A dialogue, between Rhetor and Gathering
Rhetor: Sing, O Demosthenian, sing even with the songs of Vityakara, of the great events of seven days past.  How did it happen that you found yourself in that den of thieves and dunces across the way?
Gathering: Is it not the duty of those with great souls to enlighten those less fortunate?  Does not the sun in rising dispel even deepest darkness?  Even so, we might with our discourse enlighten even such benighted souls as those.
Rhetor: And what …

The minutes of October 6, 2005
Last week, the Society saw a glorious celebration of sadomasochism.  Before the meeting, each member surreptiously sidled up to the hat and, casting his eyes first to the left and then the right, slid from his pockets a steaming pile of malodorous excreta, handful upon handful of foul resolutions designed to torment the soul and test the mind of whatever Demosthenian should be so unlucky as to pull them forth from the reaksome pile upon the podium.  At the end of the meeting, many of …