The Cavalier Daily
Serving the University Community Since 1890

Open letter from the Twelve Society

PEOPLE of the University:

It pleases us to announce the formation of a new secret society at the University, the 12 Society.

You see, the way it happened was this--we (there were 12 of us, of course) were sitting around on Monday (July 12th), and we figured it would be really cool to form a secret society. But we knew it wouldn't be enough to just have a society: we had to have a purpose. Otherwise, it would just be lame, like those clubs you had in grade school where you met in the treehouse and had secret handshakes. So we tried to think of a good one.

We had a tough time, because all of the really good purposes were already taken. Honor, tradition and giving large sums of money with repeating digits had already been used for other societies. Besides, we didn't have all that much cash with us. We each put a dollar into the treasury to make 12, though. We would have put in $12 apiece, but B*b and Edg*r only had three bucks between them.

Anyway, we were trying to think of a purpose, and we got sidetracked until Ol*f said, "You know what this University needs? More political activism from students!"

It's true! In the past 12 months the University has seen plenty of challenges to its system of student self-governance. You know, that stuff Brit Hume talked about in the video? I mean, we've seen Student Council fail in its duties to CIOs, and the judiciary system get beaten up by the whole Kory thing.

Well, we had the march on the Lawn for that, but what about the most basic forms of activism? Did anybody vote in the Council elections this spring? F*rnando said he didn't know anyone outside of the Greek system that voted. As for me, I didn't even know when elections began.

Anyway, while we were talking about this, it suddenly dawned on me. This was our purpose! I blurted it out, and everyone thought that would be an awesome purpose for our society. R*land, however, was a little skeptical at first. After all, he pointed out, isn't the very concept of a secret society completely at odds with that of public political activism?

We were a little worried about that for a while, but then Barth*lomew, who's been reading all these conspiracy books this summer, pointed out that we could easily set up a web of intermediaries to create political activism without having to show ourselves. Students would go around, being politically active, thinking that they had come up with ideas themselves. All the while, however, they would be dancing on strings pulled by we 12 illuminati!

We all agreed that idea was totally cool. If we can be secret masters of the University, we can control everyone and push our own agenda! Of course, we don't have an agenda yet, but I'm sure we'll come up with something.

We planned all sorts of activities, though. First, of course, we decided to send this letter to those guys who run the paper. We figure they'll print it, and that way everyone can learn about us. Because a secret society isn't any fun if nobody knows about it. Also, we thought we'd dress up some of the statues on the Lawn in anachronistic clothing. I have a couple of old MTV "Rock the Vote!" baseball caps, which we were going to put on the statues of Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. I think we're going to let the sides out of an old "Politics is a good thing" T-shirt Tam*kwa got from Sabato and put it on Homer. Publicity is everything, you know?

Lest*r pointed out that someone did that just the other day, the 21's or something, but we figure competition's good for business.

We also intend to do more normal secret society stuff--congratulate the people we like, and show our disapproval towards the people we don't like. T*rone suggested that we do something like leave 12 pumpkins on the doorsteps of people we want to congratulate. I don't know, though. Pumpkins are pretty expensive. Besides, I think somebody else already does that.

Mostly, however, we intend to build up our secretness (secretion?) and power until we get noticed by the Man, at which point we'll invite him over for cocktails and discuss ruling the world via secret societies. Because, like I said, you can't have true freedom and political power unless some secret organization is pulling the strings--it might as well be us.


The Twelve Society

R*cky W. C*bell, Pres*dent

(Sparky Clarkson is the sarcastic Opinion Editor for the Cavalier Daily.)