Students have been back in town only a few weeks, but already there’s noise about curtailing their bad habits. Here’s a list of what those pesky kids have been up to.
Swearing at Boston University. Yep, you heard it right. BU has cracked down on profanity at all major sporting events. Saying anything obscene, racist, or sexist is now grounds for game expulsion. Ushers will patrol the stands, listening for people who are violating the new policy. But don’t think of it as a punishment — this is your chance to insult creatively. At hockey games, when the referee makes a bunk call, try yelling “meat tube” instead of “dick.” Or, when the opposing team gets a penalty, substitute “cotton-pony-head” for “douchebag.” The former jeer may not pack the same punch as the latter, but it still has that same you’re-a-feminine-product sting. It could be considered sexist, though, so use sparingly. The big question: is it still okay to say that BC sucks? BU officials did not get back to us as of press time.
Stealing music at Boston College. In an effort to curb illegal downloading, BC has joined the Ruckus Network, the “premier digital entertainment service for universities” that grants affiliated users free and legal access to 1.5 million songs and an extensive catalogue of feature-length movies. Founded by two MIT grad students, Vince Han and David Galper, Ruckus has fewer songs than Napster (currently at 2 million). Unlike the big Nap, though, there’s no limit on how many times a song can be played for free. Ruckus already has rights to brand-new records like Justin Timberlake’s FutureSex/LoveSounds and Beyoncé’s B’Day. But the network still has some huge caveats: songs and/or video files can’t be transferred to iPods and personal collections don’t hold up after graduation (yet). Hey, in the long run, it shouldn’t matter anyway: by then you’ll have outgrown James Blunt.
Hiring strippers at an MIT residence hall with house cash. Call it a joke or a clever exercise in exploiting voter apathy. A handful of residents in MIT’s Simmons Hall managed to get $3000 of house money approved for adult-entertainment purposes by drafting a proposal while no one was looking. According to the school’s campus newspaper, the Tech:
Authored primarily by Simmons residents [Lawrence] Bronk and J. Matt Long ’08, the recreation proposal contains sexual puns [like] the name of the fund “SEX-C Fund,” which stands for “Simmons Entertainment Xecutive Committee” and the chairperson of this committee, Matthew J. Caballero ’08 [whose] title [is] “Head.” Also, there are “one to three supporting SHAFT members,” with SHAFT standing for “Supporting-Head-Assistants-For-Transactions.”
The pitch was approved last spring at a meeting where about 30 of 350 Simmons residents showed up. The turnout was lower than usual; the dorm’s annual budget of $20,000 to $30,000 usually goes toward intramural-sports equipment and formal dances. As Bronk told the Tech, the SEX-C Fund serves as a reminder of what can happen when people don’t participate.
This fall, MIT junior and Simmons residence exploration chair Agustya Mehta attempted to repeal the spend-our-house-tax-on-naked-men-and-women allotment by offering a counter proposal. His fellow Simmons residents voted the retraction down, 40-32, so thus far, the money’s still available for a naked party.
“I don’t think it’s right everyone wants to pay for something that not everyone would feel comfortable attending,” says Mehta. “The way it was phrased, there were a lot of double entendres and sexual innuendos — it was really quite funny. . . . but the end result is that this is actually happening, which is a problem.”
