EVANSTON – In a shocking turn of events, boxing icon Joe Frazier finally succumbed to his injuries sustained from liver cancer this past Monday. Although many know of his exploits on the canvas, few are aware that the 5’11” champ was hell-bent on “taking out cancer”. Shortly after he retired, and against the direct advice of many professionals, he began a campaign to “beat cancer the only way I know how: with my fists”. Frazier became notorious in certain hospital circles for attempting to destroy labs containing cancer samples. Occasionally this would include patients as well, usually without the consent of their families.

After his arrest in 2008 following the destruction of a wing of Johns Hopkins Medical Center, he turned his attention to other forms of cancer. In early 2009, he was photographed stomping on specimens belonging to the crab genus “Cancer”, and reports have surfaced from people who claim to have seen Frazier throwing rocks at the “Cancer” constellation. Whether he hit it or not remains unknown, but astrologists have claimed that “odds are slim, but knowing Smokin’ Joe, who knows.”

For three years, cancer would allow these assaults to continue, but no longer. Police details remain sketchy, but early reports indicate that one of cancer’s heavier hitters, liver cancer, broke into Frazier’s home on November 4th at around 6 in the evening. Wielding a heavy piece of pipe engraved with the words “Live[r] Let Die,” the tumor managed to destroy several of Frazier’s belongings before the fight broke out. As mentioned, the details of the confrontation are not fully known, but Frazier took several blows to the abdomen before the growth escaped. He was rushed to the hospital, but has just recently succumbed to his wounds. Doctors have described it as “cancer”, but from what this reporter has seen, the cause of Frazier’s death also includes blunt trauma, blood loss, and, for some reason, jaundice.

By Capt. David F. Xavier Rubino, M.D., Esq.

EVANSTON – Northwestern students will have a whole slew of new meal plans to choose from when they return in the fall. After nearly a decade, researchers seeking the least optimal plans for the student body have finally reached a consensus.

“It all started when students began voicing their complaints”, former ASG Student Life VP Matt Belassai told The Flipside. “They would fill out surveys denoting how dissatisfied they were with the overall services, and naturally this led us to the conclusion that students felt they weren’t being challenged enough in this aspect of their lives.” As it is ASG’s role to look out for the students as much as they can, they took the problem into their own hands.

The student government began tweaking the ways in which meals would be divvied up among students across campus. What began as something as preposterously easy as meal costs divisible by seven (“elementary mathematics,” says Belassai) has grown to trying out all manner of prime numbers. For a brief period of time, 11 meals a week were offered, until the government “struck gold” with the seemingly unlearnable 13 meal-a-week plan now typically offered. However, somehow students managed to work this into the rhythm of their schedules, and ASG was compelled to add even more confounding factors to the process.

For a few years following, students became accustomed to seeing new and inventive methods of getting fed up. First was “points”, exactly the same as actual dollars, simply mislabeled in an effort to create what was described as a “treasure hunt” mentality among the students as they struggled to keep track of this new fantasy currency. Then came Munch Money, which are also the exact same as dollars — but transferring funds between points and Munch Money is forbidden. As the years stretched on, however, more and more students became too savvy about finding workarounds, and the administration used a final tactic: equivalency. Arbitrary plans could be used for their “point” amount at select locations, while others couldn’t, often based on little to no reasoning. This managed to finally cause the mental gridlock that ASG was looking for, but recently, those dreaded complaint letters started to come back.

Fast-forward to the future, and it seems that Belassai and his successor have finally hit upon the secret formula for optimal confusion. The Flipside was able to get a small preview of the plans to be offered:

“Lunar” Plan

• Students may or may not be able to eat, as denoted by cross checking a moon phases and zodiac sign chart.
• 2.73 meals a week may be used at retail locations

“Globetrotter” Plan

• 1 point a day, non-rollover
• Students living on south campus will be required to eat at Elder, while students up north will be relegated to 1835.

“Spice o’ Life” Plan

• a student may not eat anything they have previously eaten that year, including relevant permutations.
• full equivalency at all retail locations.

“Thinker” Plan

• the number of meals a week is equal to the number of meals used the previous week, divided by the week of the quarter and multiplied by the average # used a week.

Senior Brothel Patron Rob Von Dud II

In a recent legal brouhaha, the City of Evanston decided to begin enforcing an arcane “brothel law,” with Northwestern declining to contest the law and instead just taking it without complaint. The students, on the other hand, are far from satisfied, and have decided not to take it lying down. The law, which makes it illegal for more than three unrelated people to live together, will significantly increase rates as students race to get housing. “To us, it’s a real money shot,” says sophomore Benjamin Jawitski. “I just wish they’d stop ramming it down our throats. I mean, this is a great place to live, and I love the community’s spunk, but this is nearly the 70th time we’ve had issues with them!” he continued.

Paradoxically enough, the long-ignored law will have next to no effect on existing brothels in the Evanston community. A clause to the rule, which allows related persons to live together free of limits, seems to have been the loophole that these establishments have penetrated. Most brothels, in fact, are a family business and as such contain only related persons. When The Flipside visited one such brothel, the residents were in the process of producing even more related persons, a trend which will only be exacerbated. It is thought that as few as 14 brothels will be affected in total; a mere drop in the bucket. What’s more, extrapolation of the current market indicates that the decline of house parties, brought on by larger groups living together, will in fact lead to a sharp rise in the clientele of these existing brothels. Presumably, this will lead to an influx of even more interrelated groups, creating a “snowball” effect on the market.

Although it can be far from surprising that Evanston is unwilling to help the campus, having already made such unpopular ruling as “the one which closes every store in town by 10”, this might be one scare too many. Hopefully, someone will rise and help the students get the service they so deserve, and stop lawmakers from limiting students to threesomes.

**UPDATE** Seemingly due to statements made by University President Morton Schapiro, the City of Evanston has backed down on their aggressive stance. Schapiro was last seen walking from the conference room, muttering Notorious B.I.G. lyrics under his breath.

EVANSTON—Winston “Chet” Moscowitz was arrested shortly past noon on Friday for riding a longboard, when campus managed to tackle and subsequently subdue him, but not before fracturing two ribs.

Police officer Daniel Lucerin commented on the incident: “When we see those kids on their skateboards, it’s not so much an issue of public safety. No, this is much more about knowing one’s place. There’s a hierarchy in place here. If chess-clubbers like Moscowitz thinks he’s cool, what next? Aspirations? Dreams? Hope? When you’ve been on the beat long enough, you come to realize what all of those point towards: false confidence, and of course, guns. Always guns.”

At this point, Officer Lucerin clubbed Moscowitz in the back of the head, possibly to make a point. Luckily, no one of actual importance was injured as the officers apprehended the technically-slower-than-walking vehicle during passing time.

EVANSTON—After his defeat in Wednesday’s vital ASG election, certain facts about Claire’s opponent have come to light concerning his true agenda. Alessio Manti, long thought to be striving for a piece of the political pie, is in actuality a simple vendor of incandescent lights, as evidenced by his most prominent campaign icon, an “A” inside one of the devices.

However, thanks to an overeager student body and his deep, sonorous voice easily confusable with that of a politician, he was all-too-swiftly placed along the pedestal of “candidate”. This can also be attributed to the long-standing tradition of keeping the voters as unaware as possible about the actual campaign issues at hand; preferring instead the “tactic” of plastering the candidates names everywhere with the hope that people would make a non-existent connection.

Sadly, most people only saw the light bulb and thought it was a metaphor. In fact, the logo’s message was intended to be much more blunt: he only wanted to increase sales. Perhaps if Alessio cast some light on where he really stood about how many sales he wanted to make, the types of lighting he could have provided, and how his new AllesiBulbs can eliminate the beer-goggle effect, he would have won over the hearts and minds of more students. As it stands, however, when The Flipside tried to question him on the issues, Alessio declined to comment. Upon further irritating him with light bulb puns, this reporter was forcibly launched from the audience. Perhaps Claire can clear up the question about why my current lighting situation also doubles as a “fire hazard”, but at the moment, we are all, as a student body, left in the dark without Alessio’s bright, shining future.

FORT KENT, ME—In a stunning turn of events from the White House this past week, the president has been partially pulled back to the border debates of yesteryear with the latest in the shocking development that yet another Canadian had made it past the notorious 5 foot stretch between Canada and the US known in some circles as “The Maple Express.”

This is the first time in this millennium that one of our “snowy brethren” from the north has made it past the treacherous pass, a fault blamed largely on their genetically predisposed inability to make it 2 yards without free medication. Since Canadians were invented in 1972, American scientists have been hard at work on methods to both keep out and at the same time steal from the people of “Americas Hat.”

Policy makers on both sides of the gap have sought to come up with explanations for this recent surge, but so far the motives remain unclear. One possible example might be national outrage at the Canadian showing in the curling event at the recent Winter Games.

A loss of such magnitude may very well provoke the Canadian supporters to jump ship onto the country with the winning sweepers. Said sub sweeper Gordon Lepepin of the showing: “We let our country down a bit, eh. I’m sure both of the viewers back home will be at least a little disappointed”. The government has tried to gauge the effects of the loss on these viewers. This may prove a little difficult; however, seeing as 50% of that number has since crossed the border and is therefore out of Canadian legal jurisdiction.  

This development is frightening, and it may even prompt the president to appoint another guard to the entirety of America’s northern border. Such an addition would bring number up to an unprecedented one and a half, cutting the workload of that cripple with a gun in Maine in half.