In a move that would have made Bob Woodward weep, The Chronicle placed a name on the by-line of last week's Monday, Monday column. We would like to begin by clarifying that we are not, in fact, Jonathan Pattillo. His column runs every third Friday and clearly he could not be two people. It appears that The Chronicle's editorial editor joined Mike Corey for a drink or two last Sunday night. Only at the end of the semester will our identities be revealed, in case you are a freshman and don't know such things. In that case, however, you probably thought our last column was indeed full of sage advice. Nay, young 007s, we get our crack at everyone on campus under a cloak of anonymity. You will have to withhold your beatings until December.
In the meantime we can strut confidently amongst those we ridicule. And strut we did on the first day of classes, only to happen upon a peculiar sight. No, we're not referring to the tents that have seemingly become a permanent fixture of the Duke landscape (though Duke is certainly covered in the event of a Christian faith revival rolling into town unexpectedly). UNCLE EBENEZER and DJ RIDDLE watched with baited breath as the ancient rituals of one of Duke's very own secret societies unfolded before our eyes.
Taking a page from the playbooks of more talked-about secret societies such as Skull and Bones, Book and Snake, and Scroll and Key, this society (known to those within the inner circle as Koch and Bols) had taken every necessary precaution to ensure the anonymity of its members. With members wearing backwards hats, sunglasses, khaki shorts, and flip-flops, it was essentially impossible to distinguish the identities of the Koch and Bols members from the hundreds of other fraternity members wandering the campus each day.
Brilliant! UNCLE EBENEZER and DJ RIDDLE thought that topping the outfits off with the traditional, ancient, and secret graduation robes from the Duke Surplus store was a nice touch, though it must have gotten awfully hot with the sun beating down on those black gowns.
Apparently that was why one of the members was permitted to carry with him the traditional, ancient, and secret bottle of Dr. Pepper.
It was the strange actions of the Koch and Bols that really sent UNCLE EBENEZER and DJ RIDDLE scrambling for our field notebooks. The use of two-thirds of the school motto as a call and response chant was certainly unusual, but our guess is that no one took the time to mention to the guys that Eruditio Et is not, in fact, Latin for Beer Pong. And with the Koch and Bols' arms flailing about, we were nearly certain that they were directing aircraft, sans the orange flashlights.
We immediately looked to the sky with the expectation of seeing the Nan-copter coming in for a landing, but quickly realized that Larry Moneta had converted the helipad into multicultural space.
Continuing towards our class, UNCLE EBENEZER and DJ RIDDLE picked up a Chronicle and learned that the Duke University Police have been granted jurisdiction over off-campus areas near East Campus. Junior Jessica Ward praised this move because, as she puts it, "that area is so much closer to the actual city of Durham." Perhaps this explains the recent anonymous suggestion in Nan's box that Duke be moved to an island utopia far away from "actual people." In the meantime, UNCLE EBENEZER is trying to figure out where exactly Jessica thinks Duke is located.
Reading further, DJ RIDDLE was shocked to learn that students are attending parties at--gasp--off-campus locations! By all accounts this caught the school officials completely off-guard. Apparently the administration thinks that the combination of former fraternity members and disenfranchised seniors living off-campus, a campus-wide ban on parties, and 6000 students with no homework is a recipe for quiet games of checkers in the new McClendon Tower game room. UNCLE EBENEZER and DJ RIDDLE think the solution is obvious: we should simply require each off-campus house to have an RA. Despite the blatant illegality of this move, we're pretty sure we could convince the North Carolina legislature to go along with it. Hell, we could require that these RAs be African-American to promote multiculturalism off-campus too. After such an out of control weekend, Police Captain Ed Sarvis struck back with the maturity of a five-year old, threatening not only students' abilities to get jobs after graduation but also to "call your mommy." We can't say that we blame him after the barrage of e-mails and phone calls he received from non-student residents complaining of noise, litter, and lowered property values. UNCLE EBENEZER and DJ RIDDLE think that instead of being concerned about property values, perhaps residents should just be thankful that they are not living in the actual city of Durham
UNCLE EBENEZER AND DJ RIDDLE plan on using the self-checkout at Kroger to avoid contact with actual people.
Monday, Monday appears--you guessed it--every Monday.
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