Deluge is a word that bears its Norman ancestry proudly. You would never find it in a Winston Churchill speech. Okay, that last statement was a lie. Churchill spoke of a deluge of violence in Ireland, but nonetheless, it is not an Anglo-Saxon word like the Prime Minister famously preferred. What has happened on campus, and off I suppose, these past few weeks has been a deluge, not of violence, but of rain. The long, wet days have made me think of my freshman year when New Hampshire was going through something of a drought. The campus ran sprinklers every afternoon, and most of us got hit at some point. At the time, we thought the college sprinkler crazy. Now, as I pick my way through the muddy detritus of erosion behind Alumni Hall, I notice the sprinklers’ absence. Most especially, the silence where once was their noise. Rain itself carries different associations here. My home state of Delaware is a sandbar speckled by brackish wetlands. When it rains too hard in Delaware, I begin to fear that everything will be washed away. That the creeks will rise, the sandy soil will be washed from underneath the concrete and asphalt, and that there will soon be nothing left. This fear never surfaced during last week’s deluge. Perhaps it’s the solidity of the rocks. We don’t have those in Delaware.

The United States Senate has axed its dress code. Like a yeoman farmer confronted with Chat GPT, I simply lack the language to describe this development. However, instinct tells me that the proper response is venomous. No, our representatives have never been as they ought to be, better than us. In recent weeks, we have been reminded of the human failings of the men and women we send to Washington: the R-CO’s extramarital fondling and the D-NJ’s acceptance of bribes in gold bars (senators should only take their bribes in stock tips). But this transgression against standards differs from a catfight on the house floor or an illicit PDA because it has been extended to apply to every American senator—one man’s aversion to buttons brought down a centuries-long tradition. The Capitol Building is where slavery was abolished, where the 19th Amendment was passed, and where we maintain the republican promise of rule by and for the people. It is a living, functioning monument to American history, and to dress indecorously on the Senate Floor is to declare that one’s own personal comfort supersedes a visual demonstration of fealty to that monument.

The dress code change has been made to accommodate the junior senator from Pennsylvania, John Fetterman. The circumstances of Senator Fetterman’s health and election were unusual, but his sloppiness predates his stroke, so it is fair game. Intentionally poor dress is a sign of personal weakness. I do not know if Fetterman is stricken by laziness, the obvious explanation for his appearance, or pride. He is well known for his casual attire and little else. Perhaps maintaining his campaign trail sweats is a way to maintain a public image, where otherwise he would fade into obscurity. Nonetheless, his moral failings (laziness or pride) are unwelcome in a senator. I acknowledge that a suit is no guarantee that a politician is not corrupted, but I expect that they at least pretend to be upright. I want my politicians to chafe under a starched collar, force a grin when they meet constituents, and pretend to give a hoot about the institution in which they serve. Fetterman seems unwilling or unable to fulfill these requirements.

The annual library book sale is a highlight of my year. I tend to buy two things: books that I’ve been meaning to read (or know I should read) and books that are interesting as material objects (be that because they are signed, have a cool binding, or are just plain weird). Some of my favorite purchases this year are St. Anselm: Basic Writings, The Three Greatest Prayers by St. Thomas Aquinas, Gulag Archipelago, and a signed Scott Brown autobiography. One of my favorite parts of the event is the competitiveness of it; some finds are desirable, and there is often only one copy of each. One of my roommates went in looking for Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, but another friend got it. It’s a dog-eat-dog world.