Junk Drawer

Talking points

And three things you can’t:
1. Spring
2. Pennsylvania’s primary
3. UCLA

Quotes of the week

“I just don’t want to be thought of as a monster.”

– Ashley Alexandra Dupre, a prostitute from New York known as Kristen, on the potential aftermath of her sexual relations with Eliot Spitzer, the former governor of New York. Spitzer resigned his post on Thursday, citing his need to make amends with his family and atone for his moral failings

“We didn’t know if a car had hit the building or what had happened. People were hitting the floor.”

– Brenton Young, a dentist from North Carolina, on the tornado that struck downtown Atlanta on Friday, shattering building windows and overturning cars. The tornado injured at least 27 people, while another tornado in Georgia killed two people

“We ate a few, but not many.”

-Joseph “Zigzag” Marzah, chief of operations for former Liberian President Charles
Taylor, attesting to the cannibalism that Taylor’s fighters engaged in during
the civil wars in West Africa. He said Taylor ordered the militiamen to eat their
enemies in order to frighten the comrades of their victims.

Theme party Suggestion

On strike – With the Graduate Employees’ Organization and the University still in a dispute over the group’s contract, protest is in the air. But why not follow in GEO’s footsteps and address any problems you have with University policy – like the hefty tuition you pay to come here? Be sure to amass a large and raucous crowd, and don’t rule out rioting. The effects of pot pale in comparison to what a good of tear gas will do to your nervous system.

Throwing this party? Let us know. TheStatement@umich.edu

YouTube vide of the week

Naked in the ’90s

Life at the University was different in 1999.

Lee Bollinger was president. Tuition was about 40 percent cheaper. And back then, police didn’t arrest participants in the Naked Mile.

Fox 2 News’s Fanchon Stinger covered the event that April, getting “up close and personal” with a crowd of students ready to streak across campus in celebration of the end of the school year.

A group of naked men stands behind her, including two wearing top hats, suspenders and bowties – and presumably, nothing else.

Stinger points out that it’s cold, or, as she puts it, “a little nippy.” She asks one student if it’ll affect him. “I just hope I don’t come up short,” he says.

Another student leans in toward the camera. “He’s talking about shrinkage,” he yells.

As the segment ends, the broadcast transitions to another segment with a title card that says “Conflict in Kosovo.” It was hardly a slow news day.

It’s a shame that this tradition is now banned.

There’s conflict in Kosovo again. Maybe the Naked Mile will come back too. And Bollinger.

After all, in these troubled times, who wouldn’t want to party like it’s 1999?

-Gabe nelson

See this and other YouTube videos of the week at youtube.com/user/michigandaily

Study of the week

Despite bans, hazing still prevalent on campuses

Although most colleges ban hazing, more than half of college students belonging to various organizations on campuses say they have been hazed, according to a study by the University of Maine’s College of Education and Human Development.

The professors surveyed 11,482 students at 53 institutions. Hazing was defined as humiliating skits, singing or chanting publicly, verbal abuse, wearing embarrassing clothing, drinking large quantities of alcohol and observing or participating in sex acts.

The study found that 31 percent of men and 23 percent of women said they had played drinking games. Hazing was most common among varsity athletes and fraternities and sororities. Seventy-four percent of athletes and 73 percent of Greek students said they’d been hazed, the study concluded.

The study also found that a quarter of students who were hazed thought their coach or adviser knew about it.

– Brian Tengel

By the numbers

20,000 – Mexican troops and federal officials engaged in fighting with drug lords and their gangs in Mexico

4,800 – Mexicans murdered in 2006 and 2007. The annual murder rate each year was twice the rate in 2005

$23 billion – Dollars tied up in Mexico’s drug trade each year