Mark your calendars, Princetonians: it's poverty simulating time. A tipster forwarded us an email to the class of 2011 that included this upcoming event:

"Experience" the frustrations and obstacles of living in poverty in a Poverty Simulation cosponsored by the Student Volunteers Council (SVC) and the Crisis Ministry of Princeton and Trenton. Participants will "experience" poverty for a month (four 15-minute weeks), and then a discussion about community service, public policy, and the myths of poverty will follow. Free lunch will be provided.

Hey! You don't get free food in poverty! 100 people have signed up so far to go to "Realville," where they will roleplay welfare recipients, people with disabilities and old folks living on Social Security, and go to jail and the pawnbroker.

If you'll recall, Dartmouth just hosted a similar event, the Two Dollar-a-Day Challenge. And that Dartian from Zimbabwe said, "As a person who lives and sees poverty at home, I think it’s sort of a stupid exercise. I mean, fasting for a day isn’t going to tell you what hunger is like," remember? I miss college. Read the rest of this entry »

Oh yes, this just in: the Daily Princetonian is (allegedly!) being audited by the New Jersey Department of Labor.  According to our anonymous source, an incriminating and highly contraband email from the Prince’s tax guy, and our nose for scandal, it is SO on.  DOL vs. the Daily Princetonian.  And we’re taking bets.

Intrepid journalists that we are, Ivygate decided to contact the Prince for their side of the story. After a week of emails unanswered, phone calls dodged, futile attempts to leave a voice mail in their filled capacity box, and a bevy of confused business office lackeys who promised to “pass on our message,” Ivygate finally heard back from the Business Manager at the Prince. What he said: “no comment”. What we heard: “damn you, Ivygate, how did you guess?”

Don't concern yourselves with our seeming omniscience, Daily Princetonian. Just make sure that all of you who were issued a 1099 from the paper for 2007 have your stories straight, and your contraband hidden in your hollowed out textbooks.

And as for you, readers, we'll let you know how this scandal plays out.

• Columbia: "'Rooster’s breakfast' is Slovenian slang for 'early morning sex.'"
• Columbia: Madonna Constantine demonstrates inability to cut losses.
• Harvard: Oh Harvard kids, so goddamn worldly.
• Yale: Would you believe these kids and their hats?
• Princeton: Construction workers go overboard trying to take Princeton's gobs of money.
• Dartmouth: "An officer assigned to detail a Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority event at Everything But Anchovies arrested an underage male who brought liquor in a cup to the event." Gin and anchovies -- busted.
• Penn: Hillary Clinton owes everyone money.

Yes, Princeton is being investigated on charges of discriminating against Jian Li in its admissions process.  The Daily Princetonian reported a couple weeks ago that the investigation has broadened, but the best part about the article is the unmoderated melee going on in the comments!

Since the article went up on the website one commenter "Yale College Dad" or, as the cool kids have begun to call him, "YCD," has posted the overwhelming majority of the 200 comments, responding to everyone else with a rapid fire of enraged fury oh so common to the internet.

One of his better posts:

To the pimple popping Princeton brats...Jian Li has more than a strong argument. At the Ivies, especially at HYP, the evidence is overwhelming and compelling, and it is clear and convincing that for decades, there has been a racial basis, conscience or non-conscience, directed against Asian American applicants. Regardless of the outcome of the decision on Jian Li's complaint from the OCR, since it also consists of biased politically correct appointees, who will undoubtedly rule against Jian anyway, Princeton's admissions files will be OPENED, and this could bolster Jian's claims when viewd by an impartial party. This case has put Princeton and the Ivies on notice for more future complaints and federal law suits based racial discrimination by Asian Americans. They won't be ignored, mocked and ridiculed and be treated as frivolous anymore, especially by the Daily Princetonian....090909 has yet to post a credible reponse. Laugh it up, Princetonians, because the joke will be on YOU!!! BTW, some of my relatives and best friends are graduates of Princeton. Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!

But what isn't so common is his encyclopedic knowledge of the case! From my super-scientific estimation, YCD has quoted extensively from at least a handful of articles and legal texts regarding this case, all in his valiant efforts to defend an innocent student from the Princeton's discrimination and its students' ridicule.

After the jump, the plot thickens!
Read the rest of this entry »

Proving that it can print a puff-piece about anything in the world, no matter how insane, today's Daily Princetonian brings us into the lives of several married students. Some of their stories are incredibly strange. But like, no judgments! Right, Prince?

Whenever Celene Lizzio '08 isn't doing coursework, her mind isn't focused on partying, but on being a wife and a mother. Lizzio met her husband "by complete chance" when she was wandering through an unfamiliar part of Cairo, Egypt, where she was traveling a few years ago. Noticing that she looked lost, a young Egyptian man stopped and asked her if she needed directions. The two started talking, and a few weeks later they were married."

Lizzio, who is a practicing Muslim, said that traditional Islamic religious views frown upon dating before marriage, which is why the two were married so quickly. Lizzio emphasized the value that Islam places on "inter-human bonds that arise from the family unit," adding that such a mentality contributed to her decision to get married and continues to shape the way she envisions herself as a wife and a mother."

Of course, the Prince - focused as it is on the "perfect" Valentine's Day story - fails to ask the normal follow-up question: how on Earth did your parents allow this to happen? What could possess you to convert to Islam and marry an Egyptian man in the course of three weeks? WE WANT TO KNOW MORE!

The Prince concludes the story with a tear-jerker: "From the streets of Cairo, to a high school football game in Dallas, to a Caribbean cruise, Princeton students find love in all kinds of places." As for me? From the pages of the Prince, to the pages of the Prince, to Prince articles I find online, I find reckless banality in all kinds of places. Happy Valentine's Day, readers.

The hucksters over at the Daily Princetonian have proven yet again that despite the fact that they are a multi-ethnic cult of pseudo-journalists, they still don’t understand just how this whole politically correct thing works (remember last year’s racist op-ed?). Today’s issue featured an article on the take-over of the newspaper’s 132nd Board. The headline? “Americans finally take back reins of 'Prince'.”

After three years of shamelessly outsourcing their administration to India and China, terrified staff members at The Daily Princetonian have finally thrown off the tyrannical shackles of foreign rule in an attempt to revitalize the U.S. newspaper industry. Breaking with recent trends, ‘Prince’ staffers elected an American male this year as editor-in-chief of their 132nd managing board.”
It also seems that these new Prince editors have proven that like every Prince editor before them, they don’t know how the humor thing works either.

Here’s a little play I’ve written about how this article came to be:

Prince staffer 1: How is this board different from all other boards?

Prince staffer 2: There’s an unfunny Jewish guy at the helm instead of an unfunny Chinese girl or unfunny Indian guy. It’s like, revolutionary.

After the jump: some of the article’s “nicknames” for the rising stars of the 132nd Board, including  Jennifer “cuddles” Hart ’09, Jake “High Life” Miller ’09, and Jason “Frist cookie monster” Wu ’09. Trust me, it’s totally worth it.

Read the rest of this entry »

We were willing to overlook the Prince's decision to publish an exegetical piece on copraphagic viral video phenom "2 Girls 1 Cup," but then yesterday's article on violations of "no pet" dorm policies contained this:

Emily said her kittens have also created odor-related woes, especially when they had digestive infections that caused them to defecate often....

"A little known fact about young kittens [is that] until [they are] about three to four weeks [old], they are incapable of stimulating their own waste-passing," she said. "In order for them to urinate or have a bowel movement, the mother usually licks their rear ends. When they are orphaned, a human has to rub their tushies to get them to go to the bathroom, or they will literally explode because of their own waste."

Congratulations to newly-anointed editors Jonathan Zebrowski and Yao Wang. You just ruined kittens for an entire generation of Princetonians.

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.

Either Princeton kids are really prude, or the Daily Princetonian "Ask a Sexpert" column is a little out of touch.  This week, Sexpert-penned by the safe-sex stalwarts over at the University Health Center's peer education program-moves beyond the standard condoms-and-consent partyline and enters the parallel universe where horny co-eds stash "finger cots" and "surgical gloves" in their bedside tables:

When engaging in anal-oral stimulation or oral sex with a woman, a dental dam is a great tool to protect against STIs. ... You can also cut a square out of a latex glove or use a piece of non-microwaveable Saran Wrap. The microwaveable kind has pores that allow STIs to be transmitted.

If you're engaging in manual stimulation with a partner and you have a cut on your finger or just want some extra protection, finger cots are like little condoms for your fingers. These can also be made from surgical gloves.

It would be easy to slam the Sexpert for its latex-coated irrelevance (does UHS provide surgical gloves, or do I just ask my doctor for an extra pair?). Instead, let us trace Sexpert's topos shift from bedroom to kitchen, a creative reimagining of sexual spaces, and a sadly unused pun on the word "eat." Which reminds us of this Sexpert gem, from last spring:

As with any sex toy, glass and silicone [anal] beads are best because they can be cleaned easily by boiling them or popping them in the dishwasher. 

Forget the free condoms at UHS and the LGBT center. Sexually-active Princetonians ask, Where are the sextoy-friendly dishwashers on campus? And the shared kitchen cooperative enough to let its users keep their anal beads in the silverware drawer?

Answer: Dartmouth.

If you read Ragtime, you may have noticed a rather long article in today's Prince about a rise in arrests for public urination at Princeton. If you were an inquisitive sort, you may  have wondered: how exactly does a hard-hitting journalist/reporter go about finding sources for a piece on public urination? Does he catch people en flagrante? Or does he just send an email around, hoping for something/someone to bite?

Well, now we know: he sends an email out. In this email, he includes gem-like questions such as "Have you ahd [sic] any personal experiences with public urination?"

Um, yes, I have. And usually it involves peeing directly on Prince reporters. 

After the jump: the email in full. It will blow your mind and make you extremely happy that you never joined your college daily.

Read the rest of this entry »