EVANSTON – Evanston Mayor Elizabeth Tisdahl announced Monday that she is permanently closing local iconic bar, The Keg of Evanston, due to repeated charges of underage drinking.

Tisdahl explained, “When an establishment breaks the law, it must be warned, and then punished. When it continues to break the law, it must be shut down.”

The announcement did not come as a surprise to Evanston residents, as Mayor Tisdahl has previously supported efforts to enforce Evanston’s “brothel law” and denied a liquor license to “The Tilted Kilt,” another local restaurant, last spring.

What was surprising was the lack of opposition from the voice of the Northwestern student body, known party fanatic Morton Owen Schapiro. He declined to comment on Mayor Tisdahl’s announcement, but his secretary reported that “Morty has been extraordinarily depressed by his failures to keep Tisdahl in check and fears she may yet succeed in returning Evanston to the nineteenth-century dream of Frances Willard, a world of pure sobriety.”

President Schapiro was seen in his office, wearing a “Keg of Evanston” T-shirt and nursing a can of Bud Light.

Tisdahl also announced that she was ordering the Northwestern Panhellenic Association and Interfraternity Council to disband. “I understand that underage drinking is not confined to The Keg. That is why I am eliminating the Northwestern Greek system and reinstating Prohibition in our fair city.”

McCormick junior Alan Kaponé reacted to Tisdahl’s decree, “I don’t see the big deal. We’re Northwestern students; we can do anything we set our minds to. We’ll find a way to get alcohol. Some of us may even make a profit on it.”

Tom Migon, owner of the Keg, said he will be converting his bar into a pet store, called The geK-o. “No alcohol will be served there,” he promised.

Later Monday afternoon, The geK-o released the following advertisement: “Students who speak easily will be granted access to special discounts and offers in the back of the store.”

EVANSTON—A controversial new initiative sponsored by the Gender Studies department intends to revive customs long thought by intellectual heavyweights to be part and parcel of outmoded gender concepts. Though it may be difficult to imagine now, there was once a time when women had to fend off the attentions of men on campus, who would approach them, signal their interest, begin a conversation, and finally ask them out to some form of social gathering. The women, it was reported, would say yes or no, depending on if they liked the guy. This endured until seventies-era student cohorts began to realize that was all structured gender oppression and the tyranny of the male gaze.

Yet thanks to a generation of virtual reality, declining public life, increased social isolation, and a general slowing-down of American childhood development, those dark days are long over, leading many to question why Gender Studies wants to reverse all that.

“Um, well, nobody was getting any—on any kind of regular basis,” said Gender Studies archivist Sybelline Peters-Garcia. “And we were contacted because of our award-winning work on gendered interactions, and, well, we, um, had a frank conversation about the last time we saw somebody get hit on.”

“We date the definitive end of these practices back to what I call Late Grunge, roughly 1995,” recalls History Professor Jordan Severinsen.

Since then the prevalence of secondary means of achieving intercourse—namely, getting drunk and falling on top of someone—have virtually replaced the archaic custom of the “hit-on.” Remnants of these ancient practices, however, still plague present-day college students. “You had clueless women thinking they were ‘sending signals’ no guy could hear, and clueless guys wondering what they had to do to ‘get a piece of that pie,’ with both parties locked in absolute silence and terror, glancing at each other over the computers in the library,” Peters-Garcia continued. Interestingly, queer students will not benefit from the initiative, as same-sex interactions seem to have preserved the rudimentary elements of how to cruise.

“Once we realized that we had a backlog of research here, mostly written by angry feminist undergrads in the seventies and eighties, it was a no-brainer,” she said. “We know what hitting on people used to look like. Now, they desperately need to figure out how to get the goods. We are just putting the two together.”

The commentary on these male displays of interest, frozen in countless densely worded papers, will be interpreted with the help of Performance Studies students into skits, interpretive dances, and a series of ultra-realistic, step-by-step examples. Workshops have already begun.

“I—like—you,” says one male participant, who wished to remain anonymous, during a recent roleplay.

“Good,” enthused doctoral student Antoine Sellers, “Now tell her something nice about her.”

After an agonizing ten second delay, the participant continued, “You—are—funny.”

“We might…get along?” said his female counterpart, who also wished to remain anonymous, unless he wanted her name, which he should have asked for, unless he didn’t want it—did he?—as both looked away, and then at their group leader for confirmation.

“The teaching goes both ways,” said workshop coordinators Lisa Gerards, “You have no idea how many of these girls have no clue when they are being hit on. By the same token, we need to teach these valuable ‘hitting-on’ skills to women as well, as it becomes apparent that the species could die out waiting on these dweeby studs to get a move on.”

Though higher level activities, such as sharing dinner, dancing more or less facing each other, and mutual offers of back rubs, are scheduled in the series, the program is still in its tentative stages. “We don’t want to scare them away,” said Sellers. “No one should have to think that full engagement with another human being is the ultimate goal. None of us is ready for that world.”

The new university president, Morton Schapiro, at first pledged financial support and commended the initiative, thinking it was intended to curb gender-related violence or increase equity in leadership support for women students. Finally cognizant of the actual nature of the workshops far too late, Schapiro was reticent: “Are you serious? They don’t know how to what?”

Defending the use of funds, Gerards had this to say: “Think of the children. Or, rather, not any. Ever.”

EVANSTON—Northwestern President Morton Schapiro unveiled plans to supplement the Evanston campus’ lake fill with a private archipelago across Lake Michigan at his inauguration on Friday, Oct. 9. The plan will raise awareness about sustainability by using organic material from old-growth rainforests to fill the archipelago’s islands, Schapiro said.

Citing the cramped conditions of the Sept. 19 ‘Rock the Beach’ dance party thrown for freshmen during Wildcat Welcome Week, Shapiro noted in his inaugural address that “the time is now” for Northwestern to expand its beachfront acreage.

“It’s no secret that with the job market out the window, kids aren’t applying to school with hopes of future employment anymore,” he said. “The Northwestern student of the future is a student who wants to take full advantage of the temperate campus climate.”

According to Schapiro, the use of sustainable materials to build the archipelago islands was “fundamental” to the plan. Environmentalist and author Thomas Friedman, who gave opening remarks at the inauguration, praised Shapiro for balancing plans to improve the “hot, flat, and crowded” beaches with promoting environmental awareness.

“By collecting all this sustainable material and dumping it in Lake Michigan, Morty is showing that he’s aware of the environmental problems plaguing earth,” Friedman said. “Awareness is pretty much the same thing as taking action.”

Weinberg junior Sam ‘Earthpeace’ Johnson reflected on Friedman’s statements when interviewed after the inauguration.

“I’m aware of a number of troubling events taking place in this country and abroad,” Johnson said. “It’s comforting to see that our President shares our level of awareness.”

Many students who are less aware supported the plan as well. Varsity golf captain Neil Claymore said that the team will attempt to adopt the archipelago as its home course. Senior marijuana user Fred Parker added that the islands will be a great place to “relax, man.”

Environmentalists and residents of South America were glad to see that awareness was instrumental to the archipelago project. However, some expressed doubts about the project.

“Where did our rainforest go?” one resident asked.

EVANSTON—Northwestern President Morton Schapiro’s convocation address to incoming freshmen was rudely interrupted when Kanye West barged onto the stage and interrupted the speech. The well-known rapper grabbed the microphone from Schapiro’s grip and spoke to the shocked group of freshmen. “I’ve seen crazy things before, but nothing quite like this,” commented freshman John Rennault, “Who would believe that someone as fly as Morton Schapiro would be interrupted in the middle of an address?”

After grabbing the mic, West did not waste time. “Morton,” he said, “I’m happy for you, and I’mma let you finish, but Henry Bienen had one of the best convocation addresses of ALL TIME!” He then repeated “OF ALL TIME” once more before returning the mic to a speechless Schapiro and taking his seat once again.

Pick-Staiger employees are not sure how West was able to get a seat at an event reserved for Northwestern freshmen. One usher believes he used the pseudonym ‘Pronea East’ to hide his true identity, waiting until the right time to upstage Schapiro. Others became suspicious when they noticed West’s entire entourage parked on Arts Circle Drive. Shapiro commented afterward, “We’ll have to take steps in the future to ensure that security is tighter than it was today.”

President Obama had a much uncharacteristic reaction, calling West a “punk-ass bitch.” The rapper was quick to comment on this barb, saying, “I don’t care about Barack Obama. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: Barack Obama doesn’t care about black people.”

EVANSTON—In a breaking story just reported by Fox News and confirmed by Flipside investigative journalists, Northwestern University president-elect Morton O. Schapiro has been exposed as having attended an extremist Muslim Madrasah as a child.

Schapiro attended the Conway, New Hampshire-based East Parkway Elementary Madrasah from 1958 to 1963. The Madrasah’s administrators could not be reached for comment.

The blogging community, on the other hand, had much to say about this latest development. “[H]es a closet [epithet deleted]!” said SecndAmendmntRulz_218 of the blog jihadwatch.com. “[T]hey r gonna tak over America.”

Other public figures were far more open to this development. “I think this is a great step forward for us as a country . . . to have the president of one of our elite research universities be a Muslim. I see the dawning of a new day in American culture. And hey, maybe he’ll be more open to my ‘anti-whitey’ initiatives,” said Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam.

Other rumors casting a shroud over Schapiro’s selection include allegations of “palling around” with a rabbi who eats non-kosher meats, not wearing a Northwestern lapel pin during public appearances, and an amateur video showing the president-elect not standing and clapping along to NU’s fight song, “Go U Northwestern.”

When asked to comment on these charges, Schapiro’s administrative assistant, Carol Neilson, responded, “What the fuck?”