Combat Zone

Seated in towers of inscrutable power, the RAs of the University of  Puget Sound seem above all authority, almost transcending the political discourse of the Puget Sound campus. These so-called “resident advisors” have, for some time, been an elusive organization, independent from Security Services, even the police. They report to no one and nothing but their own grossly exaggerated sense of justice. Yet they are tolerated by the administration, even publicly admired by many students. The controversy surrounding their hazy beginnings has divided the student body. “I think they’re heroes!”...

Earlier this week, a professor accused the University’s Tenure Review Board of hazing its incoming faculty members.  The scandal has evoked several strong responses from the general University population, as well as president Ronald Thomas. “It seems as though we were living with another Greek house without realizing it,” Thomas said earlier today. One professor who agreed with the hazing said, “It really brings the department together and creates a stronger bond between colleagues. After all, it’s about putting the students first.” Professors up for tenure were allegedly paddled with...

Deposed Tunisian dictator Mahmahbod Abudablahblah is coming to Puget Sound and will be speaking in Schneebeck Concert Hall this coming Wednesday at 7 p.m. Abudablahblah is best remembered as the leader of the first regime to be deposed by the Arab Spring, setting off a chain of revolutions that continue in the region today. The Abudablahblah regime was responsible for the death of hundreds of political dissidents and members of rival tribes. Yet the former dictator’s message to the campus is one of hope. In an exclusive interview with The...

NASA scientists were stunned to discover that Curiosity, the new rover recently landed on Mars, made contact of a kind they never could have expected. “It was pretty much a typical post-landing rager,” Bill Ingall, one of the Curiosity team leaders, said. “A few guys doing blow off a hooker’s stomach rolls, that kind of thing, you know basic NASA stuff. I was showing this chick the landing footage again when I first saw it: a kind of black shape, right under the rover before it landed.” He called over...

It’s everyone’s favorite scent, and soon it’s going to be available in a department store near you! I’m talking, of course, about the sweet, chemical breeze that warms lungs all around the Greater Tacoma area: the Tacoma Aroma. Students and T-Locs alike agree that there is nothing quite like stepping outside on a cool, misty autumn morning and taking a deep breath of sulfur and ammonium zirconium plutonium paper pulp. That’s why former paper-millers-turned-entrepreneurs, Chuck Gastro and Ralph Hurley have teamed up to capture the beauty of this scent in...

During this past weekend, Puget Sound security services faced perhaps their biggest internal crisis to date. At approximately 11 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 14, University of Washington: Tacoma security forces were contacted by University of Puget Sound Security because of extreme “paranormal activity” reported around campus. Shortly after being called, UWT security arrived on the scene to find four Puget Sound campus security officers huddled, shivering in the front seat of a white security truck.  After making it clear that the rescuing officers were not, in fact, ghosts, even going...

My name is Yewfrond Goldberg and I am the leader of an environmental action group known as Transfer Students for a Sustainable Earth, or TSSE. It has come to my attention that our recent action against the University has gone unnoticed. We of TSSE share a commitment to a back-to-basics lifestyle and the preservation of Mother Earth. Based in the canopy of the Arboretum, we live and work amongst the trees, descending only to feed, excrete and fornicate. Our organization was recently alerted to the wholesale destruction of the environment...

NASA scientists were stunned to discover that Curiosity, the new rover recently landed on Mars, made contact of a kind they never could have expected. “It was pretty much a typical post-landing rager,” Bill Ingall, one of the Curiosity team leaders, said. “A few guys doing blow off a hooker’s stomach rolls, that kind of thing, you know basic NASA stuff. I was showing this chick the landing footage again when I first saw it: a kind of black shape, right under the rover before it landed.” He called over...

On one shimmering, glorious summer night not long ago, this unworthy soul made the request of a lifetime, hoping against hope for an unlikely acquiescence. To my shock and ecstasy, I was informed that, indeed, Rodd Badman, Puget Sound’s Director of Security Services, would allow me to spend a day as his shadow. The following is the account of my time spent with Puget Sound’s Badman-est man. I was told to meet him at dawn, in the parking lot outside the Student Union Building. Heart aflutter, I made my way...

It has been made official: actor Clint Eastwood has accepted an invitation from President Ronald Thomas to address a panel of chairs right here at Puget Sound. Eastwood, 82, accepted the invitation after receiving numerous complaints from chairs all over the country concerning his speech at the Republican National Convention in Florida three weeks ago. The outraged chairs claimed that Eastwood treated the chair representative at the RNC unfairly, accusing Eastwood of slander, mud-slinging and consistent interruption of the chair when asked a question. Chairs around the country were shocked...

So here it comes. So close, finally, to the end of my freshman year. It’s been a hell of a ride: I didn’t really party, I got pretty good grades, and I think I touched a girl’s butt once without her even noticing. I’m beginning to gain some different perspectives. Wisdom, as they say, comes with experience. For the first time since I arrived at college, I feel comfortable hitting on freshman girls. It was weird at first. For the last two years, getting with freshmen has been a huge...