PAGE
8
BACKPAGE
A
7
2013
Whitman goes green
Grateful Norovirus apologizes for what it did to Whitman baseball team
s the Whitman Missionaries baseball bus sped back from Caldwell, Idaho like a potato in a slingshot, catcher Mack Harden ‘15 looked behind him and laughed as yet another one of his teammates doubled over and began vomiting. “Back of the bus!” he jeered without mercy, pointing towards the quarantine area the baseball team had created in the back four rows. As expected, his 11 gastroenteritis-stricken teammates raised a salute of middle fingers. Seven minutes later, Harden joined their ranks, clutching his stomach in pain. “Back of the bus!” the back of the bus yelled, and Harden raised a middle-finger salute to the back of the bus. A visibly distressed, gaunt and pale Harden appeared the following morning in the Pioneer media room. No, actually he didn’t, and The Pioneer doesn’t have a media room. He appeared in the Welty Health Center. Well, maybe “appeared” isn’t the right word, because he was sleeping there. He sat up in bed and coughed moistly. “I’ve literally eaten nothing but chewing tobacco and yellow Vitamin Water for two days,” Harden groaned. The Pio asked a clarifying question, as this dietary habit is not unusual for Harden. “Well, usually I have some sunflower seeds too. But I can’t even keep the seeds down.” Harden, like much of the Missionaries baseball team, has suffered from a violent outbreak of the infamous Norovirus. Known also as the “winter vomiting bug,” the Norovirus proliferated without warning and without sympa-
MAR
thy, causing abdominal pain, loose stools, nausea, huge whiffs on hanging curveballs and a deluge of Norovirus-related Twitter posts. “It was chill, though, ‘cause we made a snowman and put all our chews in its mouth,” said French exchange student and third-baseman sophomore Francois Mathieu, speaking about the effects of the Norovirus on the team’s play. The Pioneer caught up with the Norovirus that afternoon in 2-West’s media room. That’s simply not true—2-West doesn’t have a media room either. The Pioneer caught up with the Norovirus that afternoon in the 2-West bathroom. Well, that’s not exactly right, because The Pio didn’t really intend to speak with the Norovirus. The Pioneer caught the Norovirus that afternoon in the 2-West bathroom. The single-stranded RNA non-enveloped member of the Caliciviridae virus family apologized, but expressed gratitude toward Whitman’s newly-thriving baseball program. “I feel really blessed,” said the recently-aerosolized virus from genogroup I, poised to start another outbreak of epidemic gastroenteritis. “That weekend was so much fun. Not every infectious agent gets the chance to build up inside members of Whitman’s baseball team—what an honor! The night I spent in Mack’s stomach was unforgettable. I mean, he’s the catcher on the baseball team!” The virus lamented, however, that its remarkable performance was overshadowed by the fact that Whitman’s baseball team won a game that weekend, ending its losing streak against the College of Idaho.
W
hitman College has been fighting for the environment for years. In the past month, however, environmental awareness has reached a new high. Students have been trying to help save the trees in every way possible. When asked if Whitman is green enough to compete with other liberal art colleges, President Bridges pointed out many “green” aspects of campus. “We’re definitely pretty green. Ankeny is green 11-anda-half months of the year. Most of the trees are green. The area of Mill Creek where we dump leftover Bon App soup and all of our garbage has a murky, greenish tint to it,” he said to a Pioneer reporter whose face grew progressively greener. As he continued, it became evident that Bridges may be colorblind. “We use a lot of green bricks to build buildings. The tennis courts are all green. Hell, we have green stop signs,” he said confidently. The school has a lot of recycling bins that are green, but “recycling” is a vague term that gets tossed around casually. “We recycle a lot of paper and stuff,” ranted Bridges. “It gets recycled into all sorts of things. Mostly trash, but also paper hats and spit wads. Sometimes if we have too much we burn it to heat Memorial Hall. Those gray stones are horrible insulation.” One of the campus’ most promising environmentally aware additions was the introduction of Dyson hand-dryers to the bathrooms in the library. The air-dryers save fuel
and paper, but are not the perfect substitute for paper towels. “I blew my nose in one once and it broke. The machine. Not my nose. But my nose still tickled. I still think paper towels are better,” said first-year Kim Nelson. Nelson is currently being investigated for destruction of school property after tearing an air-dryer off the wall to clean up a puddle of spilled latte. Even the Greek system has gotten the green bug, and that is not a reference to the plague of the Norovirus. Tau Kappa Epsilon signed a survey to divest in Greek yogurt because, well, we’ll let Chef Daniel Gerry explain. “Greek yogurt is from Greece. Greece is across the Atlantic. We don’t want to waste oil on our food,” said Gerry while double-frying some bacon in its own grease. “We instead invest-
ed in grapefruits. Think about it.” The Beta Theta Pi house has responded by using recycling water bottles as tobacco-spit receptacles. “I shower with this stuff,” said senior Eric Herst, not specifying whether he was referring to the dip spit or Fiji bottled water. Not all students are so certain that the environment is something worth their awareness. “Sometimes I sauna with the door open. It’s like, is that global warming? Maybe, but it is really funny when people walk by,” said Emma Logan, a junior Kappa Kappa Gamma. Other students have focused on positives when it comes to climate change. “I like it when it’s warm. Like summer all year. Global warming sounds awesome,” said junior John Zacharson.
ILLUSTRATION BY JONES
Ten things that will get you weird looks or cause people to question your convictions
1 2
If you think your degree will help you have a career in the field you studied.
If you wear high heels, fur coats, spray-tans and bronzer. Caveat: The fur coat was your grandmother’s or you bought it from a thrift store. If you are in heels and you aren’t going to a function, people will be thinking, “Oh, poor her, she’s succumbed to the pressures of the gender binary and constructions and is subjecting herself because she’s been told it’s beautiful by the media.”
3
ILLUSTRATION BY LUND
If you supported Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan with pin, poster, shirt and other paraphernalia. If you supported Romney/Ryan here, you are in the minority at Whitman. You may be blamed for perpetuating sexism, stealing rights away from women and ignoring global climate change. We all have the rights to our own opinions, but if you go around displaying your Republicanism, you might have to explain yourself (and you might get tarred and feathered). As the “token Republican” in any given class, you may get asked for the “Republican opinion” on matters.
4 5
If you have purple, blue, green, pink, yellow, orange hair: “Are you doing a gender studies project? Are you in ‘The Tempest?’”
If you admit that you don’t go to the gym, don’t work out, don’t play a sport, don’t do yoga, meditate, climb or any other physical activity and don’t want to and you aren’t Kyle Seasly. Prepare for judgment. I’d suggest you start a coalition to protect each other.
6
If you love Bon App. We all like to think we could cook more healthy meals with vegetables we picked from our own gardens and eggs from our own chickens, but college students who live off campus eat eggs and quesadillas. No salad bar. No POG.
7
If you talk about the hefty price of your Patagonia. We like to think we are super utilitarian. We are under the delusion that our clothes are the best because they are comfortable, warm and good for running, scaling mountains and camping. But what the average Whittie owns is not cheap and sometimes
comparably priced with office wear. Birkenstocks, at least one hundred bucks; the fleece, rain shell, polypropylene shirts, running shoes— even more money. It would be stupid to wear Carhartts to an interview at Morgan Stanley, even if you think that they may have you doing hard labor carrying file cabinets. Don’t make the excuse that your office building will be the first attacked during the zombie apocalypse. It won’t.
8
If you sport Prada, Gucci, Burberry, Juicy, people will wonder why you paid so much for a brand that “means nothing,” that you are trying to display your wealth because that is what will get you more popular: status. At least that is what we have been taught.
9 10
If you don’t like thrift shopping. (And you don’t like Macklemore either!)
If you say that you identify with the capitalist system and intend to make a lot of money when you leave Whitman. “Why would you want to make money when you could live an honest life in the wilderness with those whom you love?”
Canada Crossword ACROSS 1- last name of the current prime minister 3- the only official bilingual province 5- Canada’s biggest trading partner 7- the 2nd major ethnicity behind English 9- the main symbol of Canada, it’s on their flag 10- derogatory name, “America’s ____” DOWN 2- Canada’s national sport 4- the nickname for a major western chain of mountains that goes through both the U.S. and Canada 6- the province known affectionately as the bread basket 8- the continent that explorers were aiming for but found Canada instead
ILLUSTRATION BY SCHUH