North Wind Publishes Prank Prose

A r t i c l e  b y  E t a n  S h o r t z

MARQUETTE, MI -- Many were offended this week when Northern Michigan University's respected student newspaper printed a false story without any warning. Even though it was intended to be "all in good fun," many people felt betrayed and violated.

    "What if people trust this to be the truth?" demanded freshman Sandy Warhall. "People could be hurt with this sort of blatant disregard of the truth! They're supposed to be where we get our information from, where we keep up on campus events. How are we ever going to trust their articles again?"

    The North Wind also pushed previously accepted boundaries by allowing the repeated use of the "F" word to show up in print, forgetting that false or fake information could really fudge up somebody's day. There were even words that started with "S" and "C".

    Paul Korzenko stood outside of the University Center the day after the story was printed, yelling about how the controversial story was the work of Satan. He even had printed signs that backed up his claims.

    "If you add up all the letters in that story, including spaces (which comes out to 2460), and divide by 3.6936936936, you get the number 666, the number of the beast!" said Korzenko. "And the number 69 shows up many times after the decimal point, which shows the sexual impurity. On top of that, by adding all the letters of the staff of the North Wind together you get anagrams for 'I Love Satan,' and 'Proud To Be A Slut.' Is this a godly story? Is this what God wants from us in these last days? We should print only scripture."

    School administrators were outraged when they saw the story during their lunch break. Some couldn't even finish their coffee, and had to go home early.

    N.M.U. President Judge Judy Bailif has promised that the incident will be investigated. "This cannot be allowed to continue, if we are to become the sensitive and caring institution that we were meant to be," Bailif said. "We will get to the bottom of this, even if it means raising tuition to cover the cost of the committee's salaries in charge of uncovering the motive."

    Editors of the North Wind were defensive when questioned about the controversial story. "It was all Jeff Koval's idea," Managing Editor Jason "hockey mask" Lauren, said. "You know how those cartoonists get. He came up with it and got us all drunk and we just went with it. Next time we'll just stick to the sports crap. You happy now?"

    Jeremy Picknose, North Wind Sports Editor added, "...about time."

    The Health Center in conjuction with Public Safety has set up an emergency station in the University Center for those who were injured by the story. The $385 fee can be charged to your student account.

    The North Wind has promised to publish a public apology sometime in the near future, according to Editor in Chief Lucas Sponsler. "If we had known all these up-tight conservative jerks would blow a nut about this, we'd never have done the stupid thing and wasted all this time. But we'll do the apology thing so we don't have to worry about funding debates in the near future."

    "Da cats." added Picknose.