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I got back from camping with Kappa today. It was a good trip, I think everyone had a good time except maybe those who got sick. A few thoughts:

- Jim Thorpe, PA is completely infested with zombies. If you believe otherwise then you’re just being tricked by zombie propaganda. The only people who aren’t zombies are either camping or running for judge. They also have an insane asylum that they claim is an “old jail”, but last I checked old jails don’t have electroshock treatment, ghosts of insane people, and Chief Bromden, so that’s obviously a lie.

- About half of us had a legitimate discussion and debate about politics around the fire. I really enjoyed this because it was something I used to do a fair amount with my friends in high school, but have done much more rarely at Lehigh. There were certainly disagreements about things, as there should be, but the conversation stayed civil. I know that it got me to consider some issues from a different perspective (maybe I’ll have time to read that book this summer, Kym). If you think that intelligent political debate with peers who don’t agree with you is infeasible and not worthwhile, I think you’re just not trying hard enough. Debate isn’t deceptive word manipulation, it’s discourse and it’s important. Not talking about issues contributes to polarization, in my opinion. Usually you’ll realize that you agree with more people than you expect.

- We went to the Asa Packer mansion before leaving town, it was really interesting (more than I expected, actually). His son Harry went to Lehigh but died of cirrhosis of the liver… go figure.

- The Boss Bar is an effective tool against zombies. It may also be used for roofing.