Maybe the whole "British Empire" thing wasn't such a bad idea

A while back WR and I were watching Pirates of the Caribbean, and during the part where the troops are all lined up and stuff during Norrington's promotion WR said, "See, you can say what you want about the British Empire, but that looks so cool. I mean, they were organized." I probably said something bratty about men dressed like giant targets, and that was the end of it.

Only this past week I've found myself waxing nostalgic for the days of the Empire, too. You may remember that at the beginning of the semester, all the British professors warned us about the death and carnage that would result from mobile phones which dared to go off in class. And I was all excited about the new Reign of Justice and Death.

Sadly, however, it turns out that those were idle soft and fluffy Commonwealth threats. Because we just had two days full of lectures about Research Methods for our dissertation (thesis) and on the first day I heard FOUR different cell phones go off. And not a single person was killed or flayed or even reprimanded. At the beginning of the lectures I noticed one girl carrying a conversation on her mobile. Also, people kept wandering in late. But it was mostly the mobiles that stunned me. In fact, one phone went off on both Day 1 and Day 2 of lectures. I mean really, these kids have already been here an entire semester--how have they not been picked off by eagles yet???

Also it appeared to me that all the mobiles that rang belonged to East Asian students. But this may just be the law of percentages: If a phone rings it's just more likely that it belongs to an East Asian student (50 percent of the department's postgraduate student population) than an American student (2 percent) or a Russian student (1 percent). So it's not that I'm racist, so don't write in to tell me that I am. (If you do choose to write in, please tell me your ethnicity and I will be sure to look up some racist terms on Wikipedia to call you to prove how not racist I am.)

A professor was telling us about how early in his career he was researching in the Trinity Library at Cambridge and came across an old unopened box containing eight letters from some famous theorist to another famous theorist, and how those letters had never before been published and actually answered some of the unanswered questions about this theorist. It was like something out of Possession by A.S. Byatt. Right as the instructor is telling us how exciting all this was, and how things like this never happen, a mobile phone went off. And it wasn't the one and one-half rings that you're used to hearing, which is how long it usually takes for the embarassed idiot to turn off their flipping phone. Oh no, this phone rang no less than 5 times. The student just took it out of her bag and then held it as it rang, as though she had absolutely no idea how to make the sound stop.

I tell you what: let's bring back the British Empire. Sure, it may have been oppressive and culturally insensitive and full of stupid outfits. But when the British Empire promised floggings, they delivered. Captain Sir Edward Pellew would never have put up with this mess.

You break the rules; you get flogged. That is all.