Benjamin Franklin’s Bald Head Covered In Piss: Funny?

The Daily Pennsylvanian has an article about a Penn tradition today: Pissing on the Benjamin Franklin statue.

There’s a Ben Franklin statue on a bench near 36th Street and Locust Walk, and sometimes, late at night, kids piss on the statue for good luck. Or to say they did it. There are similar stupid Penn traditions, most of them pretty recent — having sex under the button, not walking over a compass on the ground or you fail your first midterm, lines of coke — but the pissing on the Franklin statue is the one that’s actually pretty fucking boss.

So, why are students so eager to mark their territory? “There’s a fascination with leaving your urine on different objects that represent power,” [Penn's senior class president] said.

“It’s more symbolic,” added the anonymous sophomore shortly after he urinated on Ben’s head. “You’re peeing on two hundred years of history.”

Another part of the appeal, the perpetrators say, is that students know, but outsiders don’t - and they often take a seat next to Ben, or on his lap. In fact, Desmond Tutu, Bill Cosby, Hillary Clinton and Vanna White have all sat next to Ben for photo ops while on campus.

Of course, people get angry at this, including the artist who originally made the statue and people in the comments who don’t understand that college students are, um, college students. Also, pissing on the statue could be a third-degree felony!

Red, blue — and yellow [DP]