9 9 .9 9 9
-W
M .!
0 0
6B The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Wednesday, October 10, 2007 - The Michigan Dady -:,-4-C3
'S for 11acabre
Sure Yale has produced a record number of Supreme Court justices, Princeton and
Harvard a multitude of senators and governors. But when I'm showing off, who do
I point to among the University's alumni? Besides Darth Vader and O-Ren Ishii, the
answer is Dr. Death and the Unabomber. That's right, there have been a lot of crazy peo-
pte who have stepped on the "M" over the past 100 years or so. This legacy of bloodshed
is mostly glossed over, as you won't see anything renamed the Kevorkian School of Med-
icine anytime soon, but the University has to acknowledge its offspring nonetheless.
By Paul Tassi I Daily Staff Writer
Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb;
The first truly sensationalized mass media
murder, these two teens killed 14-year-old
boy in what became one of the most famous
crimes of the 1920s.nHaving read far too
much Dostoyevsky, the two brilliant men
(Leopold spoke five languages; Loeb was
Michigan'ssyoungest graduate ever) thought
themselves Nietzschean supermen, above
the moral codes of man and able to commit
perfect crimes after which they would feel no
remorse. Subsequently, the two broke down
immediately when questioned and blamed
each other for the killing, not realizing the
irony of the situation, because they appar-
ently had only read the first three-quarters
of "Crime and Punishment."
Jack Kevorkian
Dr. Death, or as he probably likes to think of him-
self, Dr. Angel of Sweet Mercy and Relief, gradu-
ated from the University's Medical School in 1952.
He began a practice so unusual it was granted its
own term, medicide, in which he would physically
assist chronically ill patients with their deaths. At
one point in 1998, he even showed a lethal injection
on "60 Minutes," daring his critics to arrest him.
They were more than happy to oblige, and he was
imprisoned for second-degree homicide up until
June of this year. Now released, Kevorkian plans
to move to Mexico, relax on the beach and maybe
open up a little surf shop.
Igs
You might not have heard of the man
who assassinated President James
Garfield in 1881. Although Guiteau
didn't actually attend the University
he's worth including because he lived
with his uncle, the mayor of Ann
Arbor, for a while and applied to the
University multiple times, only to be
rejected. A blatant plagiarist, half-ass
lawyer and all-around insane person,'
Guiteau shot Garfield twice because
he felt the commander in chief hadn't
properly recognized his contribu-
tions to his campaign. Garfield died
11 weeks later as a result of the infec-
tions that developed when the doctors
treated his wounds with unwashed
hands and unsterilized instruments.
Oh Teddy, couldn't you have just gone to
MIT? Perhaps the most notorious char-
acter on the list, Ted Kaczynski, more
commonly known as the- Unabomber,
received a Ph.D. in mathematics from the
University back in 1967. A decade later, he
began to soil the names of eccentric lon-
ers in the woods everywhere by mailing
bombs across the country for 15 years. He
killed three people and injured 23, leaving
the world to wonder why he couldn't have
just channeled his tormented brilliance
into something more typical, like wear-
ing tinfoil clothes or having an unnatural
affinity for cats.
BilAyers
The ultimate Diag protester, Ayers
attended the University in the six-
ties. But he wasn't content with
holding signs and handing out
pamphlets; he blew things up. He
bombed the Capitol building, the
Pentagon and the State Department.
He also killed two of his friends and
his girlfriend when a future liberty-
dispensing device exploded in his
hideout. He continues to preach his
message of progressive education
through non-detonating books and
a website, www.billayers.org.
-Jr
PHOTO