At best, they suspect that women would insist on being called "Boneswomen," but they suspect the worst to wit, that women would denounce both "Bonesmen" and "Boneswomen" as oppressively sexist words and demand that everyone - even Bonesmen! - be called "Bonespersons." They fear the answer is that women will balk at being called Bones men. Bonesmen capable of thinking things through have asked, "After we admit women, what will they want next?" In America nothing dies easier than tradition. Why the opposition to admitting women? No, it is not because tradition dies hard. These include Dink Stover's skull fitted into his high-school football helmet and the secret pornographic letters of Frank Merriwell, for which the late Nizam of Hyderabad is said to have offered his own considerable weight in rubies and pearls.Ĭontrary to rumor, the Bonestomb contains neither the calcified body of John Wilkes Booth nor the Scroll of Thoth with its terrifying power to recall Boris Karloff to life every 3,000 years if slipped under an Egyptian pyramid with a few tanner leaves. This has so flustered old-timer members ("Bonesfogeys") that they locked the doors of their historic old windowless meeting hall (the "Bonestomb"), thus shutting off access to their astonishing museum of relics. What has made Skull and Bones newsworthy in the Eastern Establishment press is the attempt by Yale's undergraduate members ("Bones kids") to admit women. This produces a hollow-drum sound known in Bonestalk as a "Bonescram alert," since it alerts all Bonesmen within range of its lugubrious echo to "scram," which is Bonestalk meaning, "Stop whatever you are doing and walk out of the room in which you are doing it." When a Bonesman hears either of these proscribed terms applied to members of the society, he must immediately form his lips into an "O" and rap the top of his skull five times with the knuckle of the middle finger on his right hand. Note, for instance, that they are always called "Bonesmen." Never "Skull-and-Bonesmen." Never "Skullmen." This is but one of the many Spartan rules Bonesmen must live by. In the highly unlikely event that President Bush, for example, had started reading this column over breakfast at the White House, he would already have dropped his toast and jam without a word to Barbara and marched out of the room, since I am not a member of Skull and Bones. If, however, the compliment is paid by anyone not a member of Skull and Bones, the complimented member must immediately leave the room. This is one of the highest compliments a member of Skull and Bones can pay another. A typical member is George Bush, of whom it is often said, "He is Skull and Bones to the marrow." It is composed of men who are expected to do very well in life and sometimes do. The Eastern Establishment press, also known as the press for people who think they're better than everybody else, has been filled lately with news about Skull and Bones.
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