NOLO FREE concludes I'm comparing 'apples to oranges' with the two molds of Leadership thing, and concludes my praise of the secretive, insular 'civic activist' set is overblown.

Hm, probably true! But I don't think the insularity is all that extreme. Contrary to Nolo's claim, it seems to me that Rally Committee tries pretty hard to recruit. They have a large informal recruiting crowd of RAs and just general members, plus they table during CalSo and sometimes on Sproul. Frats and Sororities recruit hard. Oski Committee is secretive mainly because its controlled by a single Fraternity, with all the secret ceremonies and rituals that entails. And I doubt students want Oski to be unmasked: Cal takes a certain pride in the fact their mascot is the only secret one left in the US.

Anyway, the way these two groups are so close to each other and yet have so little in common continues to interest me. Lets not forget the large ethnic dimension to this: Rally Comm, and football crowds in general, are significantly whiter than average. Probably because football continues to be of interest mainly to Caucasians, but it creates another divide. Especially in view of how political groups are composed mostly of minorities.

Another question: which of these two is the 'wave of the future?' Rally Comm and co. have been around since the early days, but have remained inherently static. They have their duties; they stick to them. The Political crowd is only some 35-odd years old, but already dominates news coverage of Cal and control of its finances and operations. Yet they've been unable to build any significant movements in years. Seems like we've reached equilibrium.



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