Around the Globe, Yale Index

Around the Globe

Alfred Hitchcock's timeless horror film The Birds is now showing in the Netherlands. At The Hague, killer magpies have wreaked havoc by throwing stones and pelting cars and pedestrians from high above the administrative capital of the country. The birds pick up polished stones, which often lie on flat rooftops, and carry them away to use in their nests. Along the way, they "apparently lose interest in their booty and shower the city with stones," one city council member noted.

Because the city does not know how best to deal with the problem, it has developed a mainly preventative approach. For instance, large signs now line city streets reading, "Watch Out. Stone Throwing Magpies. Park at your own risk." As of now, several cars have been dented and two windscreens have been cracked. There have been no known casualties...yet.

Won't you be my neighbor?

And you thought your housing situation next year was bad. In Singapore, fierce feuds between neighbors culminating in violence and fatalities are on the rise in numerous high-rise buildings. Late night showers, smelly socks, and coughing too loudly have instigated these nasty altercations between families. The increased tension has led to fist fights, stealing of shoes, hammering on the walls at night, and the ever-popular smearing of feces on each other's faces (all common occurrences on Old Campus). In one tragic story, an old woman attacked her neighbor with a broom, at which point he killed her by throwing her down the stairs.

Officials are alarmed at the sudden outbreak of violence. "Five years ago, we received complaints about once or twice a week and sometimes none at all," remarked a police seargeant who now receives multiple calls each day. Some attribute the rise in violence to the increase in affluence in the buildings--citizens care less about one another. This apathy combined with the fact that 86 percent of the population lives in these dwellings makes for a very difficult situation.

Maybe Singapore should try annex housing?

--Compiled by Mike Buckstein

from The Arab News

YALE INDEX
1. Number of prefrosh who attended Bulldog Days this week	760
2. Percentage of said prefrosh who think they're all that because they were accepted to Yale	99.8
3. Percentage of said prefrosh who fail to realize that everyone they've met this week was also accepted to Yale	99.8
4. Number of prefrosh who showed up at Bulldog Days just to go around telling people that they got in here but they're going to Harvard	5
5. Number of said prefrosh who are only reinforcing the stereotype of loser Cantabs who go around thinking they are important	5
6. Number of said prefrosh who fail to realize that they are bragging about making the worst mistake of their pathetic little "lives" by choosing Harvard over Yale	5
7. Vegas odds that Naples will actually get some business again, now that 50 prefrosh with siblings in the Class of '93 will be on campus who mistakingly believe that Naples is still the place to be on Thursday nights	5-2
8. Upperclassmen still under the impression that Naples is the place to be on Thursday nights	3
9. Number of Index readers	3
10. Number of said readers who are those upperclassmen at Naples on Thursday nights getting drunk and eating flex pizza while they anxiously await the arrival of the Index and Around the Globe on Friday afternoons	3
11. Number of seniors who will graduate from Yale next month	1,300
12. Number of seniors who wish they were prefrosh	1,000

--Compiled by Kevin Irwin and Jeremy Rissi

Sources: 1) Catherine Hinsdale, SY '99, Bulldog Days co-coordinator; 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) Daniel Wilderman, MC '00, Rat's Ass Days Coordinator; 7) b.U.G. Vegas Odds;
8, 9, 10, 12) b.U.G. polling services; 11) Office of the Secretary of Yale College

LIZ OLINER/YH Prefrosh were given the red carpet treatment following speeches by President Richard Levin, GRD '74, and Yale College Dean Richard Brodhead, BR '68, GRD '72, on Wed., Apr.15

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