We got a rather cryptic email here at IvyGate HQ: “This blog was just started at Penn,” wrote a tipster, providing a link to Against the DP (Agains the DP? Against he DP? The URL provides no answers.)

The disillusionment evinced by our anonymous blogger is neither new nor exciting — a lot of it has to do more with institutional complaints that any college student feels when he realizes his college paper expects more time than the Springfield High Gazette.

But then you get here, and maybe most of us who vaguely consider writing important went to a DP meeting, and were like, Wait, what the fuck? I have to do this like, every week? Or every day? In this nasty window-less building? And I have to write about like, some state senator no one cares about talking to a room of 15 about why pet healthcare is totally vital right now? In the words of my personal deity [sic] Shania Twain, that don’t impress-a me much.

It’s kind of funny that they go on to complain about a copy-editing error in the DP! But there are bigger changes afoot at the Pennsylvanian. Says one Twitterer: “did i miss a post on the death of the dp banquet’s open bar? news of the century! it’s like, ivygate material. (to me.)” Indeed, college newspapers like the DP, once the toast of the journalism industry, are beginning to cut back in ever-more-significant ways; the era of sending reporters around the nation has, if not ended, begun to end. While it’s still winning awards, the complaint that the DP is no fun might be more substantive even than the complainer knows. More hard work for fewer perks affects morale — this maybe doesn’t explain Against the DP, but it’s a start.

We agree with the Twitterer; this IS IvyGate material! And we want to hear from you. Got any scoop on the decline and fall (or not at all) of the DP? tips@ivygateblog.com, kids.

I was all set to write an update on the Princeton USG election (Weinberg/AEPi triumphs, nobody really cares) but then, wandering the Prince’s website, I found this glorious gem, scans from a 1958 Princeton pamphlet entitled “Answers to Your Questions About the Admission of Princeton Sons.”

At a time when desegregation was the all the rage and Stanford neared a 2:1 male-to-female ratio, Old Nassau whispered sweet nothings into nepotistic alumni’s age-spotted ears: Worry not, ye rich and backwards-minded old people. Princeton holds your Y-chromosomed offspring to the absolute lowest of standards, now and forever!

And when it comes to low standards, boy, do those Princeton sons deliver:

Basically, this is a guide to George W. Bush’s life.

“Princeton Sons” goes on to answer such troubling questions as “Why don’t Princeton undergraduates look as glossy as they used to?” and “What about this business of ‘geographical spread’?” the latter of which defends Lawrenceville grads against uncivilized cowboys from uncouth and farflung territories like (shudder) Texas. In a weird way, this too seems to be about George W. Bush’s life.

The Prox has the whole pamphlet in its post, but we’ve got a very special IvyGate’s Guide to Princeton’s Legacy Admissions Guide, complete with PUSG tie-in, after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Look, just look, at these people “embracing their cultural differences.” Literally. The picture comes from an article in yesterday’s “Street” section of the Prince which describes an “an unconventional kind of celebration.” organized by an enterprising Londoner and his “close multicultural friends.” The article explains:

With a small group of other international students who had stayed behind for the holiday, [the Londoner] decided to create a new tradition. For an unconventional Thanksgiving dinner at a local student’s house, students embraced their cultural differences by dressing in the traditional formalwear of their respective countries.

OK, Prince, my only question is this, “In what possible universe would international students actually do this?” You mean they were so broken-up about “missing out” on Thanksgiving that they decided to stage their own multi-cult version? Really? To be perfectly frank, I don’t  think I want to attend a university where these sorts of brochure-able celebrations of diversity spontaneously take place.

Many of them also prepared a native dish to bring along.

Really?

It was great. We had people from Germany, Argentina, Nigeria and a bunch of other places,

A bunch of other places, huh?

the nontraditional Thanksgiving dinner gave him and his friends an outlet to discuss the traditions of their countries and learn about the customs of others. The dinner was such a hit that it is now a ritual among [the Londoner] and his close multicultural friends.

Really? really?

Let’s take a closer look at that picture. Why is the “Scotsman” rocking a blazer with his kilt? Who is the fellow wearing what appears to be an inside-out Burberry jacket? Is this the rarely-glimpsed British “native dress”? What kind of cross-cultural embrace exactly is going down between the Slav and the Arab, the latter of whom, I see, has brought his culturally-emblematic hookah to this postmodern T-giving.  Finally, why does every single person in this parody of a candid appear to be trying desperately not to laugh?

In case it’s not obvious at this point, the picture is staged, and the event in question never took place (so our tipster informs). But maybe the real travesty is that the Prince chose to devote its entire “Street” section, which is ostensibly a register of cultural life at Princeton, to Thanksgiving recipes (“This week, ‘Street’ brings you the dish on Turkey Day at Princeton.”) That’s like the 3rd food-themed “Street” this year.

It’s a slow news day here at IvyGate. And on slow news days, we like to make fun of college dailies and the hilarious ways that they cope with slow news days.

The Daily Princetonian – apparently enthralled by the sensationalism of “To Catch a Predator” – has published an expose that might be better entitled “To Catch a Pizza.”

The Prince goes into hysterical detail about the fact that students, armed with nothing more than a computer and a telephone, can order and charge food to other students’ accounts:

“Elaine Bigelow ‘10 was studying in her room in 1915 Hall at 10:30 on Monday night. A few hundred yards away in Cuyler Hall, a large cheese pizza from Iano’s Rosticceria was delivered to a room where four sophomores scarfed it down. None of them paid for the pie; they just charged it to Bigelow.”

The Prince, which, for the record, might be the Worst Newspaper in the World, wrote this article without finding a single student who had actually been victimized by the supposed recklessness of Tiger Foods. They received permission in advance from both the people whose accounts were charged and those who charged them – the only victim in this entire escapade is the reader. I can only imagine the next article in this series: the Prince sends hookers to students’ dorm rooms – with their permission, of course – and tells us that they simply charged them to Tiger Foods. Now that would be a story.