A Burgeoning Trend

I dare somebody to tell me this one is intentional.

M. Hoops | Insert Yale Headline [DP]
Feb. 11: FILL IN HEADLINE

Penn Kid Offended By Mad Mex Menu

It’s been a pathetically long-sounding time since I graduated college (4 years). A year before even that, I edited 34th Street. Fortunately, I was the managing editor, and was therefore only responsible for the content in the magazine; the editor-in-chief dealt with all the people offended by the content I had allowed to run. Technically, he was responsible for it, too, but it was kind of a nice scam for me in some ways. Still, I think the situation was useful, in that it left one editor being overly cautious and one not being cautious enough.

Even though I think we struck a pretty good balance eventually, we still got frequent complaints from Penn students offended at a joke we had made or some photo we had taken without permission or some lead singer of AFI we had told to get a new PR person. (I actually answered the phone when that PR person called back. Also, ha ha: AFI? Really?)

All of this was really good preparation for running a blog, obviously.

It seems like things haven’t changed much since I left. For some evidence, let’s turn to a recent offering from The Spin, the DP’s blog:

Of all the restaurants on Penn’s campus, Mad 4 Mex is the by far the nicest. Craig Laban gave it, like, five bells. The restaurant is famous among local drunks for its Big-Azz Margarita, which is not only absolutely big ass but also contains roughly 99 percent alcohol, so no one remembers how it tastes.

Apparently our friendly DP opinion blogger here is a little upset at the menu, which stereotypes several groups:

Okay, I understand that Mad 4 isn’t the most family-orientated establishment, and that humor probably plays a role in catering to a predominantly college crowd. So I can look over the stereotypes they play up about hippies while describing their vegetarian “Angry Hippie Burrito”

Have your Birken stocks dropped? Your hacky been sacked? … Smell?

… and I can ignore the fact that they poke fun and exploit the celebrity culture while pitching something like their “Winehouse Fajita”…

Eat it quick - this crazy dish is set to self-destruct.

Yes, how dare they stereotype hippies and Amy Winehouse. Who ever would have expected it from a restaurant called Mad Mex???

More »

A Perspective-Changing Event

Your lead of the day, courtesy of the Daily Pennsylvanian:

Meg Ryan closed her eyes, tilted her head back and moaned, “Oh god, oh god.” She appeared to be experiencing an orgasm - but unknown to most men, she was faking it.

Just think, men, how far we’ve come since 1989.

This article also contains the following sentence: “For example, masturbation does not cause deformities.” I kind of miss covering events that would allow me to write awesome leads and sentences like these.

Also: “‘It totally changed my perspective on the vagina,’ College freshman Mathew Lazarus said.”

Sex Educators Demystify Orgasms [DP]

The Rewards Of An Ivy League Education

Actual first sentence of a post on the opinion blog of the Daily Pennsylvanian, Penn’s student newspaper:

A lot of people think that porn is only great because it gives people boners.

The rest of the post makes far less sense than that first sentence, which is more or less true. But more “pr0n” — He really did that. He really called it “pr0n.” — posts are on the way, and I am psyched.

A novel use for pr0n [The Buzz]

Hot¹ Penn Columnist Fired For Plagiarism

Ahh, college columnists. You guys crack me up with your righteousness, your fluffy column topics, your ridiculous headshots (note: a link to my old headshot was supposed to go here, but I couldn’t find it), your wordiness and your plagiarism.

Aww, yeah! That last one isn’t the usual for college columnists, but the Daily Pennsylvanian’s Jamie France was fired from the paper for copying portions of her column “All-nighters: A survival guide” from “9 Top Caffeine Fixes,” found on Yahoo! Food in March.

Apparently, “copying” parts of your article is verboten in journalism, even collegiate journalism. (The correct way is to blockquote your “copied” text it and then add spiteful comments afterward.) Both articles cite nine different drinks to keep yourself awake, and the column and the charticle are exactly the same.

But maybe the DP’s editors should have noticed something was a bit off with France’s column. To wit, number eight:

8. Spike Shooter: Desperate times call for desperate measures. I’ve personally never heard of it, but any 8.4-oz .can that can house 300 mg of caffeine without a single calorie has my approval. Note the label that reads, “Don’t drink if under 18,” and “Drink only half a can at a time.”

I’ve “personally never heard” of this drink, which is why I recommend it. Thanks, Yahoo! Food!

¹ Unlike other media outlets, Philadelphia Will Do gets to the meat of the issue right away — often in the first word of the headline. And, so, judging from her column photo, Jamie France is indeed what they call “hot.”

Daily Pennsylvanian Orders Venti No-Foam Chai Plagiarism Latte [IvyGate]
Jamie France | All-nighters: A survival guide [Daily Pennsylvanian]
9 Top Caffeine Fixes [Yahoo! Food]

Penn Kids Discover ‘Freedom Of Speech,’ Plan To Notify Us That We Don’t Have To Quarter Troops In Our Houses Tomorrow

The lead to a Daily Pennsylvanian report today on the Amy Guttman Halloween costume snafu:

Engineering senior Saad Saadi may have offended a lot of people with his suicide-bomber costume last week- but that’s his prerogative, free speech experts say.

I want to be a free speech expert so I can make such bold statements as that.

Experts say critics ignore the obvious: Free speech [DP]
Archives: Amy Guttman

Giants Fans Continue To Prove They’re Stupidest In Nation

Today’s Daily Pennsylvanian contains the easiest of all opinion columns: Fans of [x] are worse than any other fan! The [x] in this case is none other than fans of the Philadelphia Eagles, who are by far the most popular [x] in America, leading “all Philadelphia sports fans” and “soccer hooligans” by slim margins.

Sharon Udasin, a Giants (who else) fan, writes about how “when I arrived at Penn and absorbed the local football atmosphere, I saw the reality of the violence that is notorious among Eagles fans. Such crimes and misconduct are childish and dangerous and certainly do not belong among responsible, working adults.” Indeed!

Udasin doesn’t touch on (thankfully) the throwing-snowballs-at-Santa-Claus at Franklin Field, but she does interview her friends and a police officer as well as write about Michael Irvin:

Both [Jim] Goldblum and College senior Mike Zubrow attended the infamous Eagles vs. Cowboys game in 1999, in which Dallas wide receiver Michael Irvin suffered a career-ending injury. Although Irvin was clearly immobilized, Eagles fans continued to cheer rowdily - Zubrow’s season tickets have been passed down for generations, yet he noted that he was “ashamed” of his fellow fans’ reactions and decided not to partake in this blatant disrespect. [...]

Both Goldblum and Zubrow witnessed several fights at last weekend’s game against the Giants, and, in one instance, two Eagles fans were actually hitting each other. At stadiums across the country, I’ve seen fans that are just as passionate for their teams, but I rarely see them funnel that passion into violence.

Oh, man, I know, just when have any fans gotten into fights in places other than Philadelphia? I sure can’t think of any. Perhaps Arlen Specter (of course) can:

“It is not hard to find incidents of unruly fans which are not representative of the people of the cities in which they live,” Specter continues. “For example, there is the famous ’snowball game’ of December 23, 1995 in which Giants fans threw both snow and ice balls at San Diego Charger fans and players, one of which knocked the San Diego equipment manager unconscious. More than 200 fans were ejected and over 75 season tickets revoked. The New York Giants then ran an ad in San Diego papers apologizing.”

But, hey, a few fans booed Michael Irvin, people! It’s so much worse than knocking out an equipment manager!

Ugh. Columns like this make me want to put on a Donovan McNabb jersey and throw footballs at Giants fans like Udasin’s head. (Or, more likely, her feet. Bada-bing!)

Sharon Udasin | Eagles and violence: a pair for life [Daily Pennsylvanian]
Violence in sports - Fan violence [Wikipedia]
Specter Defends Philadelphia And The Eagles [Specter.Senate.gov]

If Shitty Bands Can’t Stop Genocide, Who Can?

Penn student and online Daily Pennsylvanian columnist Stephen Morse went to a rally against the Darfur genocide recently and posted about it on the DP’s blog.

Morse was shocked — shocked! — that the rally was mainly attended by rich priviliged people who had the time to attend the rally. And he blasts American blacks for not attending.

My problem was the sea of white faces who were rallying in Central Park against the injustices of the Sudan. In every corner of the field I counted no more than 20 minorities among the tens of thousands of people who were packed into the park. ¶ I also observed (not scientifically, I must admit) that the majority of the crowd were Jews.

We can only assume that he went around Central Park checking to see if the males were circumsized to confirm this not scientific (he must admit!) hypothesis.

I approached each black person I saw throughout the day. The scary thing was that I saw but one person the entire day who was African-American, rather than an immigrant from Africa.

This event was a disgrace. It was not a unified America. It was a majority of Jews and some Catholics from their faith-based organizations, and a contingent of hippie liberals from Amnesty International. There were no Muslims there.

Ahh, see, he approached every black person and assumedly asked them why there weren’t more black people at the event. Way to make them feel welcome! Not sure how he checked to see if there weren’t any Muslims there, though. Maybe there was an anti-Pope rally across the street or something.

American Jews stepped up to the plate this summer to help their brothers and sisters in Israel. When will African-Americans do the same for their brothers and sisters in Darfur?

Well, at least he didn’t write “brothas and sistas.”

After an imam gave a speech Morse didn’t like, it appeared that he’d get some salvation for the rest of the afternoon. Unfortunately…

Not even a performance by OAR to end the event could help the crowd overcome such harsh and dismal words.

You see, people? OAR is against genocide! Why didn’t you get your free $15 bus from your Ivy League university’s Hillel to attend?

Barely a dark face in the crowd [The Spin]
Editor’s Note: This is headline is approaching “He lost a toe, but gained a thumb” status.
Update, 10:00 a.m.: Fixed (1) the bus cost $15 and (2) Morse’s first name.

A V-Day Special: Return of the hit parade

Way back in October I took note of one writer for Phillyist who happened to always mention in her weekly rants how some guy was hitting on her. Here’s what I wrote at the time:

Quickly becoming my favorite game on the Internet: reading Jill Ivey’s Phillyist rants against vague or inanimate entities, and try to guess how long it takes her to make a reference to a guy hitting on her. The record is, like, 2 paragraphs.

And it went on like that for, uhm, two weeks or so. But like many things on this site, I eventually grew tired of it. And I forgot about it. (Also, she stopped writing about how she was hit on.) But PW intern James Houston has eagle eyes, apparently, and noticed this in a Daily Pennsylvanian column:

College senior Jill Ivey uses the escort service often, but she has had experiences with security guards who took friendly conversation a step too far.

Ivey told him, “I’m going to meet up with some girlfriends.”

“Girlfriends or girlfriends?” the guard asked.

When she responded, “A bunch of female friends,” the guard replied, “So, you’re straight?”

If you’re playing at home, it took five paragraphs in a column by someone else for Ms. Ivey to mention being hit on. If only my life was full of such admiration from the opposite sex.

Friday. [Trader] Joe Friday. [Phillyist]
Sexual comments need attention [Daily Pennsylvanian]