Just beyond the confines of University City, there are people who couldn’t be further from the stereotypes that define the Penn student body. A people without UA, or SASgov, or even the oft-impersonated SPEC. They call no government their own, and don’t ask to be taken to their leader, because they don’t have one.
Who is this mysterious tribe? They are the anarchists of West Philadelphia, and there are more of them than you might think.
David Lei might not sound concerned that The DP missed the boat on who’s performing at Spring Fling… but secretly, all of us on the Spin are seething because — again! — we’ve been beaten to a huge scoop by other, unnamed “blogs of the Ivy League.” Or something sort of like that. Anyway, if only we’d stop writing about politics for a minute and start snooping instead, maybe we could actually break some real news.
Luckily, as I checked my e-mail today — desperate to find something to write about — I found the following press flyer, from some student group no doubt familiar with my hard-hitting work and hoping I’d be their Boswell. I could check this with Mask & Wig, but… nah. This PhotoShop looks pretty legitimate to me!
So I’m please to share that — and hold on to your hats… (more…)
A red-tailed hawk has been spotted on campus. And like every student except Jon, it hates squirrels. Here it is disemboweling one outside Van Pelt:
(Sorry for the low-res picture — it was taken on a cellphone camera. For a great picture of what could very well be the same bird, click here.)
The hawk was later seen devouring a pigeon at the doorstep of 4050 Irving, making me wonder if it has been employed by the University to rid our campus of every last uncute scavenger.
The race for the Democratic nomination has officially gotten ugly.
In neighboring Norristown, Pa. last Thursday, Jose Ortiz stabbed his brother-in-law, Sean Shurelds, after a political dispute while the two were watching the Democratic debate. Shurelds, an Obama supporter, complained that Clinton was “trashing” Barack unfairly. Ortiz, a staunch Clinton backer, took offense. Shurelds recalls the conversation as follows:
Shurelds: Obama is winning this thing!
Ortiz: He can’t win, be realistic.
Shurelds: Let’s see how realistic you are when he wins.
With that brilliant last retort, there’s no doubt that Shurelds won the war of words. But Ortiz, whose candidate proclaims she is a “fighter“, then took matters into his own hands by plunging a kitchen knife into his brother-in-law’s stomach. Shurelds sustained spleen, lung and diaphragm injuries. Ortiz is in county jail and if convicted of felony assault, could face a more serious injury: disenfranchisement.
Spring Break is just around the corner, and that means students have one thing on the mind: sex. At the University of Iowa, for example, sex classes are filling up like crazy. And here at Penn, this Thursday is yet another installment of Sex Camp on the Quad. (Also the unwritten theme of all my childhood Boy Scout retreats.)
But this season’s biggest sex star is John McCain, the 120-year-old presidential candidate who carried on an alleged affair with a lobbyist more than thirty years his junior. In that light, I’ve decided to ask Larry Craig — Idaho’s Republican sex scandal expert — for a few political sex tips, just to keep things fresh this spring. Below are some of his secrets (or at least what I’d expect him to say).
On Monday, I woke up at 10:45 a.m. Sometimes my loud roommate wakes me up earlier, but she slept through class and ruined my chances of seeing Bill Clinton. Girls can be so passive aggressive!
Bill’s coming to campus, and tickets for Thursday’s “performance” sold out in less than 40 minutes. That’s pretty impressive. Only pop culture favorites like the Super Bowl and Girl Power concerts sell out faster. (Note: Clinton is more sought after than Sporty Spice. It’s a fact from my childhood.)
Clinton has this paradox-mystique thing going on. He’s likable but suspect, popular yet polarizing. He’s the most charismatic Protestant to have ever step foot in the White House. Because honestly, would anybody want to “make love” to Karl Rove? Obviously not. He looks like Wilbur.
I’m quite annoyed that I can’t see Clinton because I have a really big crush on — I mean, I’m interested in what he has to say.
I was having dinner last weekend at a friend’s place and, being seniors, our conversation turned to what we would do after May. Government and finance came up, but one person declared she would be volunteering to conserve giant pandas in China for six months.
Pandas? I’m pretty sure pandas are a huge cosmic joke. I think the whatever high on top of the thing wanted to see how long it would take for a useless animal to become extinct.
Recently the BBC reported on the naming ceremony for a bumper crop of panda cubs at Wolong Nature Reserve, China. They are, I admit, unbelievably cute.
But they are totally useless. They only eat one type of bamboo and they have to eat about thirty pounds of the stuff every day just to stay alive.
What if something came to hunt it? Let’s go through its thought process…
I was always scared of homeless people.
The ragged clothes. The odor. The crazed expressions. As a child, I would stare at them and pick up my pace a little.
This attitude is easy to adopt and hard to shake. On your first few days as a Penn student, the mentality is reinforced. We all know the maxims and anecdotes: Don’t wander too far past 40th. Always travel in groups. Remember, a girl got shot a few years back.
This isn’t to say that Maureen Rush and the good people at the Department of Public Safety don’t have the best intentions. We don’t live in Ithaca or Hanover. It is no coincidence that Penn has the fourth largest private police force in the nation.
However, it is wrong to assume that homeless people are our enemies (especially when our “allies” seem indistinguishable).
We, as Penn students, should occasionally climb down from our Ivory Tower and take advantage of our unique environment. West Philadelphia should serve as a constant reminder of the harsh realities of the real world. There are an estimated 25,000 homeless people in Philadelphia, roughly half from West Philly.
When I was in eighth grade, my parents made me take a ballroom dancing class because everyone else was doing it. (For some reason, when I used that logic to defend many of my other adolescent actions, it didn’t fly.)
The class typically went as follows: 120 fourteen year-olds were crammed into a room built for 50; an underpaid, over-passionate instructor dressed like a Medieval balladeer yelled commands like “Swing your partner!” for two straight hours; and at the end of it all he played the “Cha Cha Slide” just to make us feel better (although I still have no idea how to do the Charlie Brown). Worse yet, there were slightly fewer girls than boys — so a few male stragglers were left dancing with each other (horrible) or one of the supervising moms (Oedipal).
Now, more than six years later, I barely know how to box step. So when I read stories about college students involved in ballroom dancing competitions, I get nostalgic and sad.
“You can lead me to college, but you can’t make me think,” proclaims a shirt reportedly popular at Duke.
How true — and how sad.
In a recent class of mine, one student would ask “will this be on the test?” all throughout the semester, nearly every time something especially complicated was discussed. If the answer was no, she fell silent. Only if the answer was yes did she feel like it was worth following up: “Could you explain that again?”
Grade-obsessed students like this one will surely graduate, but they’ll leave with an expensive piece of paper and some nice numbers, not an education.
In a society where competition is rewarded and “intellectual elitist” is a scathing slur, it’s no wonder that some treat college like a tollbooth: choose a lane, pick up your diploma, and drive off. E-Z Pass is available for everyone, of course.
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