EVANSTON – Northwestern English professor Shelby Anderson debuted a joint policy between the NU English Department and the Evanston Police Department last Thursday. Students who turn in essays they clearly wrote while intoxicated must now analyze their paper’s diction, syntax, structure, and tone in the context of their drinking.

The first person to be affected by the policy is Weinberg sophomore Daniel O’Connor, the author of a “totally incoherent” paper on the short story “Araby” from James Joyce’s Dubliners.

Anderson reportedly held O’Connor’s paper out at arms’ length and addressed the boy in front of a puzzled and amused class: “Distance yourself from authorship of this as far as possible. Let it go. This paper was now written by not you. By some other creature, perhaps not of this earth. The author’s gender is now neutral. You will refer to it in the third person, simply as… ‘O’Connor.’”

Alone on his musty bed, O’Connor concentrated on an empty beer mug, imagining a warm golden ale filling it to the brim. Eventually, this mental conjuring warmed his body, and he was able to comprehend a full 47% of his assignment.

He then belched very loudly and experienced a vivid flash of the true nature of his life: a cruelly repetitive series of slaps in the face. He seethed at the thought of next week being the same as the last: the alcohol no better, the people no warmer, the women no more attainable. And he saw himself as a pouchy-cheeked man-child, standing alone on a barren hilltop.

Shaking, he faced the blank word processing document. He refused to roll over and give up. Dammit, he had written fifteen college application essays. Moreover, nine or ten of them had been about alcohol. He knew he could pull this off.

O’Connor toiled all night, eventually producing a five-page response analysis. Some excerpts are included below:

—At this point in the paper, Grey Goose takes control of the keyboard, referring to the lovesick protagonist’s imagination as a ‘cabana,’ and giving the unfortunate impression that O’Connor couldn’t give half a shit.

—O’Connor expertly employs a host of misfiring synapses in this rambling discourse
on Irish paralysis. Specifically, massive alliteration of ‘s’ and an abrupt shift in tone halfway through to what feels like pleading convey a muddled sense of the protagonist’s disillusionment with the tawdry bazaar, while providing a surprisingly accurate account of O’Connor’s own Saturday night.

Upon reading the paper, Professor Anderson called it “insightful, in a harrowing, go-puke-your-guts-out-in-a-toilet kind of way.” He paused to reflect, before adding, “While he may not be the next Joyce, I think the boy’s come a long way in addressing his literary problems from an alcoholic perspective – something every great [BURP] um, scholar, must do.”

WASHINGTON – Days after his official appointment to the presidency of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim, the former president of Dartmouth College, was reportedly hazed by some high-ranking staff of the organization.

Several unconfirmed reports have surfaced over the alleged incident. Details of the hazing include Kim being forced to consume copious amounts of alcohol, run around the National Mall half naked while blindfolded, drink a gallon of milk mixed with water from the Potomac River, deny emergency loan requests from Angola, and be quizzed on facts of the founding of the institution.

In video footage acquired by The Flipside, the World Bank Senior Economist Justin Lin interrogates Kim about the Five Stated Purposes of the World Bank from Article I of the Articles of Agreement of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. When Kim fails to recite Clause (iv), Lin hands Kim a bottle of malt liquor, screaming “Wrong, you fucking numb-nut.”

Kim was formerly the president of Dartmouth College, the elite East Coast Ivory League school notorious for its hazing practices. Kim, who assumed the office in 2009, was noted for his refusal to put an end to the hazing, saying that as a trained anthropologist, “you don’t come in and change the culture.” When asked for comment, Gerald McPaddington, a Dartmouth junior, mumbled “that shit deserved it for abandoning us,” before vomiting all over the floor.

A spokesperson for World Bank refused to elaborate on the alleged incident, simply stating, “Don’t worry, everything is under control.”

RALEIGH, NC – President Obama is making the “Buffet Rule” a large part of his reelection campaign, but this proposal has met an unexpected challenger in Golden Corral, famous for its delicious buffets.

James H. Maynard, chairman of the corporation, released a statement protesting Obama’s plan of minimum payments from those who are able to consume the most. “Obama’s Buffet Rule is nothing but discrimination. We oppose the President in his work to place an unfair burden on our heaviest citizens.”

Ted Fowler, President and CEO of Golden Corral, also commented on the rule. “It’s not fair to require businesses to charge weightier customers more. We offer one service, an all-you-can-eat buffet, and so there should be one price. It does not matter how much they are able to eat – everyone ought to pay the same thing.”

Some Golden Corral customers, on the other hand, welcomed the rule. “Look at that fatty over there,” said Robert Jennings, who was eating dinner with his family at a Golden Corral in Durham. “He’s eating just as much as me, my wife, and my three kids combined, but we paid five times as much as him! Why shouldn’t he pay more to get in here?”

The “fatty” in question, Avery Porcili, disagreed with Jennings. “Do you know what they call people like me? The ‘34%’. That’s an unfair characterization of obese Americans. It’s not right to separate us into these divisive categories.”

Porcili said there were better ways to redistribute the fat of Americans, such as encouraging healthy eating habits, where the fattest Americans would eat fruits and vegetables by their own choice, leaving richer foods for skinner people. “I don’t see why the Obama administration isn’t taking this track,” mused Porcili. “Michelle should be all over something like that.”

Fowler, meanwhile, retracted his statement upon learning that Obama is not proposing a “Buffet Rule,” but rather the “Buffett Rule,” which would tax the wealthiest Americans at a minimum of 30%.

“The rule was just about tax rates?” asked Maynard. “Well, that’s okay then. Why shouldn’t people who earn more pay more?”

PALO ALTO, CA – Following a billion-dollar acquisition of popular photo-sharing app Instagram, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has announced a complete overhaul of Facebook’s user interface featuring Instagram’s characteristic “vintage” filters. The new interface will be launched without any warning to users within the next week.

“This may be the biggest re-design we’ve ever done,” Zuckerberg declared from Facebook’s Palo Alto headquarters. “Expect some major Instagram integration in the coming days. Like pictures of lakes at sunset? There’s gonna be a metric fuck-ton of those.” Other highlights include an anticipated glut of black-and-white cat photos, baby photos, and half-assed “studios” put together by that kid you knew in middle school who’s now begging you to like his “beats.”

Facebook also unveiled a new suite of tools aimed at the less tech-minded. Users inexperienced with Instagram will be able to easily customize their profile pictures with preset options “Emo,” “Swagggg,” or “Smug Douche Who Wants You to Know He Has an iPhone.”

“These new tools allow users to ‘bare their souls’ through photos staged and edited to within an inch of their lives,” Zuckerberg claimed. “Widespread Instagram uptake will ensure that the next time your friend stops for a picture of a scenic bridge, you throw either his smartphone or him over the railing rather than indulge the narcissistic tendencies of a self-professed ‘photographer’ who’s never made it all the way through a proper photo gallery.”

Instagram’s acquisition has so far been welcomed by the online community, except for the 40 million current Instagram members who will never again use the service now that their favorite “indie” app (that requires an Apple- or Google-branded smartphone) is associated with a major corporation.

Legal Disclaimer: By reading this or any other news report mentioning the Instagram buy-out, you hereby allow Facebook to smother your photos with so much contrast and sepia that they look like shitty ads for Levi’s jeans.

MIAMI, FL – Miami Marlins ownership was shocked this week to learn not only does Ozzie Guillen speak English, but that people can actually understand what he is saying. It was only after this already shocking revelation that Marlins Owner Jeffery Loria realized that Guillen praised one of the world’s worst dictators.

“We specifically hired a manager who could speak the language of our players,” Loria said. “We did not realize he also spoke English.”

“It’s pretty disappointing,” Loria added.

Before becoming manager for the Marlins, Guillen managed the Chicago White Sox. However, translations of his seemingly incomprehensible speech revealed that his mouth spouted nothing but stupidity.

Nevertheless, Guillen was largely able to get out of trouble as manager of the White Sox because people could not understand the stupid shit he was saying. He also happened to win a World Series.

The Marlins suspended Guillen for five games, thereby limiting the foul mouthed, communist praiser to coaching only 157 games.