A diamond to the plan to install a "Digital Scholarship Lab," essentially a 16-by-7-foot, super-high-resolution television, in the Rockefeller Library by next fall. Administrators have also announced plans for an "Aquatic Studies Space" hot tub in the Sciences Library and a five-foot "Mind Expansion Accelerator" bong in the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts.
A cubic zirconium to the 1 percent of student respondents to the Herald poll who expressed an interest in participating in an off-campus Reserve Officers' Training Corps program. Apparently the 1 percent has started a movement of its own: Occupy Afghanistan.
Coal to the Brown study abroad program at the University of Cantabria, which was designed specifically for engineering concentrators and initially failed to attract a single applicant. If a program is created in the middle of Spain, and no one is around to attend it, does it really exist? Sorry, this is why no one designs programs specifically for philosophy concentrators.
A diamond to the team of undergraduates who have set out to crack the shorthand cipher allegedly written by Rhode Island founder Roger Williams in the margins of a 17th-century book in the holdings of the John Carter Brown Library. A word of advice to the sleuths: The crow flies at midnight — if you know what we mean.
A cubic zirconium to Gina Silverstein '09.5, who in the course of her recent study inspired by the Contemplative Studies Initiative, found women reporting that during sex, "I start thinking about other things. … And then I'm like, ‘Oh my god, my room is a mess.'" That's what she thought.
A diamond to Adjunct Assistant Professor of Modern Culture and Media David Bering-Porter, who told The Herald, "Zombies are the proletarian monster." Yeah, werewolves are so bourgeois.
Coal to "The Virgin Suicides" and "Middlesex" author Jeffrey Eugenides '83, who set his latest work, "The Marriage Plot," on Brown's campus in the 1980s. He told The Herald, "Brown really hadn't had that many novels. … I decided I would try to rectify that." By that, Eugenides of course means he will be donating all proceeds from sales of his book to the Library's acquisition fund.
Coal to former star quarterback Joe Paterno '50, who was fired by Pennsylvania State University Wednesday night amid a sexual abuse scandal seizing his football program. Paterno admitted that what his former defensive coordinator did was bad but said it was nothing compared to what Brown football is going to do to Dartmouth tomorrow.
Coal to the car masturbator, who was caught by police late last night at the corner of Hope Street and Young Orchard Avenue. Though the naked John Street masturbator — who has rocked the East Side with a months-long masturbation spree — remains at large, early signs indicate that the car masturbator won't beat the rap: He was caught wet-handed.
