Entries for October 2006

Members of the LaRouche Youth Movement interrupted a speech hosted by the University of Southern California's Objectivist Club Friday. The LaRouche protesters threw condoms and meat at the speaker, who was giving a lecture called "Global Capitalism: the Solution to World Poverty and Oppression." The condoms were decorated with pictures of the faces of political leaders. The meat was raw. One witness told the Daily Trojan: "I believe he said, 'On behalf of the LaRouche campaign, we dedicate this raw meat to you for supporting a philosophy that results in the death of millions of children." Local police called the protest peaceful.

Yankees owner George Steinbrenner's chest pain led a UNC-Chapel Hill student theater group to cancel its performance of Cabaret this weekend. The appearance of public safety officials who came to help Steinbrenner ended the show abruptly before it was over. Steinbrenner's granddaughter, a junior, played the lead, the Daily Tarheel reports.

The second exotic dancer who worked at a party attended by Duke lacrosse team members last spring yesterday told ABC's Good Morning America that her memory of the night varies widely from the accounts of the first dancer, who says she was raped, the Duke Chronicle reports.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is appealing a gag order that would inhibit coverage of the sexual assault trial of three former athletes at Texas Christian University, the Daily Skiff reports. The order says the Fort Worth paper cannot talk to any involved parties and prohibits coverage of pretrial hearings--but the Star-Telegram says those regulations are "vague and overbroad."

Great minds think alike, and sometimes young minds make mistakes, a national cartoonist tells the Crimson. Therefore, argues Daryl Cagle, who maintains the archive from which Kathleen Breeden is accused of borrowing, the Crimson should not have dropped her. Stephen Breen, whose cartoons Breeden is accused of stealing, agreed that the measure by President William C. Marra was excessive.

A group of Penn State students sat in the basement of an abandoned building with no lights on and listened for ghosts this weekend, using an electronic device to help them detect "spirit voices," the Daily Collegian reports. They did not hear anything.

An Oklahoma University police officer didn't just advise the "Students for a Better Society" student group. He also allegedly embezzled from them and is now charged with stealing over $1,000 from the group's account, says a local district attorney. The officer is no longer employed by OUPD, the Oklahoma Daily reports.

After Zeta Beta Tau's University of Pennsylvania chapter got kicked off campus, the old members did not disappear. They live on in the form of an underground unofficial club; the national organization, meanwhile, is trying to "recolonize" the campus with an officially recognized chapter. But both are using the ZBT name, the Daily Pennsylvanian reports.

• Western Kentucky is getting closer to making a final decision on whether to switch to Division IA football, the WKU Herald reports.
• The Washington State University mascot made a small child dressed as a turtle smile Friday, and the Daily Evergreen took an adorable photo.
• The University of Texas's president has been cleared of racial discrimination charges, says the Daily Texan.
• A biocontainment facility at the University of Nebraska is the country's largest site for quarantining people with infectious diseases, the Daily Nebraskan reports.

A homecoming weekend that began with allegations of racism ended in bloodshed at the University of Alabama. An 8-year-old girl who was chasing after a piece of candy was run over by an 18-wheeler carrying a float during Saturday morning's parade, and the night before, a freshman and Iraq war veteran was shot and killed on his way back from the homecoming concert. That concert had already come under fire after administrators decided to split it into two venues: one for the country artist Neal McCoy and another for the rappers the Ying Yang Twins, the Crimson White reports .

Jane Fernandes will not head Gallaudet University, the school's board announced yesterday, in a decision it called "a necessity at this point." Fernandes's appointment had caused weeks of protests that put regular university operations on hold, the Daily Colonial reports. The board's announcement has led those protesters to start partying, reports one blogger who advocated against Fernandes.

Thirty-three percent of 2006 grads took jobs in either finance or consulting, up from just 19 percent two years ago, the MIT Tech reports. A cool chart shows exactly which firms are to blame. Goldman Sachs is high on the list of most improved players--but so is another suspect: MIT.

Democratic candidate Phil Angelides visited the University of California-Los Angeles's campus for the second time in just over two weeks last Thursday, hammering a point he's been focusing on since he took on the famous California governor: college affordability. Angelides advocates lowering state fees, the Daily Bruin reports.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Kenyon College President S. Georgia Nugent told a parent at a town hall meeting last week, after the man said he subscribes to the Kenyon Collegian. Nugent, the Collegian dutifully reports, "said the Collegian has taken a particularly negative stance toward the Kenyon administration this year and has not sufficiently reflected positive events on campus."

After a petition stoked controversy, Auburn's student government association held two open forums and created one committee. Eleven months later, the ceremony formerly known as the "Holiday Tree Lighting" will now be called the "Holiday Celebration Featuring the Lighting of the Christmas Tree," the Plainsman reports.