The Wednesday, 2009 w w w. lomr- - low WdedyFeray42009I G aL ", ' 1 ; s v, +ax:e. >;xvrc ac+, : .aa«ssa : ;;. sa e.,a z r .c . ABOUT CAMPUS .,.01[3I INI QUOTES OF THE WEEK Needless to say, the eighth was a surprise to us all, but a blessing as well."' - KAREN MAPLES, a doctor at the Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center in Cali- fornia, delivering a statement from the uniden- tified mother who gave birth to octuplets last week. According to the woman's mother, she already has six children aged 2 to 7 years old "Perhaps after 34 years, it's time for us to confess we invented 'cello scrotum.'" - ELAINE MURPHY, a prominent British doctor, admitting in a letter to the British Medical Journal that she and her husband lied about the existence of 'cello scrotum,' which they claimed was an ail- ment that could result from cellists repeatedly rubbing the instrument against their genitals. They wrote the original letter in 1974, and decided to confess after a recent article discussed the ailment M ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOHN OQUIST Back to school charcoal editorial cartoons, ink-pen Th elwhpthat lets pro renderings of journalism bigwigs Theafellowship and atableholdingeverymajorpub- journalists attend classes lication you can think of, Wallace House radiates journalism. It's sort of like a movie about a The work of Pulitzer Prize-win- successful, career-oriented person ning political cartoonist Patrick who, stuck in a rut and tired of rou- Oliphant cover the walls on the first tine, gets the chance to go back to floor. Caricatures of a big-toothed school and start all over again. Sarah Palin and a curvaceous Hil- You mighthave seenthem in your lary Clinton hang above the couch. psychology lecture or your sports Over the fireplace is a big-eared ren- management class. They sit near dering of President Obama on the the front and chat jokingly with the face of a nickel, and in the corner is professors as if they know a secret an image of Henry Kissinger's head we could only figure out with time on a plated fish. and experience. ThehouseisnamedforMikeWal- * They're the Knight-Wallace lace, a University alum who worked Fellows - a group of mid-career as a correspondent on "60 Minutes". journalists who take off one aca- Wallace and the Knight Foundation, demic year to attend classes and do which gives grants to foster the field research at the University - and if of journalism, founded the fellow- you listen, they could teach you a ship about 30 years ago. thing or two. Along with the posh hangout, Each year, about two dozen jour- the Fellows enjoy the company nalists from around the world are of colleagues hailing from major accepted into the fellowship, which publications across the world. It's allows them to audit University just like the social dynamic of the classes and go to school for the sake dorms, except no one has to sneak of learning and growing rather to buy alcohol and everyone has than the grade. more totalk about than high school "(It has) given me a chance to memories. take a step back from journalism, "There's sort of like a "Real and get back to the day to day, use World" or"Survivor" dynamic to it," my brain in different ways," said said Knight-Wallace Fellow Rona Knight-Wallace Fellow Richard Kobell, a reporter for The Baltimore Deitsch, who is a special projects Sun. "You put 12 people from differ- editor at Sports Illustrated. ent backgrounds together and see if The Fellows are able to audit any they can get along." class- some take the chance to actu- Knight-Wallace Director Charles ally study rocket science without Eisendrath has seen many a Fellow the risk of failing - but the official come and go, but said what always reason for their stays are individual remains is the family-like chem- research projects. istry of the house, including the Having covered the 2008 Beijing funny moments. Olympics, Deitsch is now stepping "When we first got the grand back to analyze the dynamics of piano donated, (we) went to pick it the games. But for many of the Fel- up at a little recording studio with lows, anything they could see here a U-Haul and a case of beer, just a must pale in comparison to some of bunch of Fellows," he said. "When their experiences on the job - like we got it into the house, no one being inside the hole that Saddam really thought about how much a Hussein was found in, which Robin piano weighed, and it went right Pomeroy experienced as a corre- through the floor," spondent for Reuters. It might seem like a dozen glo- Fellows generally take up private betrotting journalists would tire of sublets around Ann.Arbor, but when life in a college town, but many of they're not rubbing elbows with stu- the Fellows said they've taken to dents, they meet up at the historic Ann Arbor. Wallace House on Oxford Road. "I've just been impressed by it," Adorned with decades-old pho- Deitsch said. "It's just less sleepy tographs of past Fellows, large than I thought it would be. Reminds f1 r IL5TAI5 YLUA5AA/5I TALKING POINTS. Three things you can talk about this week: 1. Unpaid taxes 2. Iraqi elections 3. Stimulus packages And three things you can't: 1. Obama sans suit jacket 2. Rod Blagojevich 3. Bong-hitting Phelps "Ah, fundamentally true. The specifics aren't quite right." - TED HAGGARD, founder of New Life Church, responding to Larry King about allegations made by Grant Haas, a 25-year-old man who said that Haggard masturbated next to him in a hotel bed in 2006. Haggard resigned from New Life in 2006 after admitting to having sex with a male prostitute me a little bit of New York in that whatever you're passionate about, you can find it here. "But the weather sucks," he added. Some of the Fellows said it could be a little jarring to don a book bag for the first time in decades and walk into a classroom where even the lecturer seems to be younger than you. Kobell was not surprised that the presence ofther and the Fellows on campus confuses some Univer- sity students. "When I went to school here, the fellowship wasn't very known," she said. Deitsch, who has written for Sports Illustrated for 12 years, said the introductory creative writ- ing workshop he took was a novel experience. "We had to write and get our work workshopped around the room," he said. "What's more fun than get- ting ten 20-year-old girls telling you what's wrong with your writing?" Pomeroy, a Rome correspondent for Reuters, took a screenwriting class and realized just how differ- ent his life experiences have been compared to the average University student. "I've heard a couple oftheirscript ideas, and it's very interesting to see what they write about," he said. "I'm not American. I'm not 20 years old. And there's just such a huge differ- ence. They write about kids in high school or kids in high school who've just come to University." The fellows attend a seminar at Wallace House twice per week. Such notable speakers as Madeleine Albright, Bill Cosby, Ira Glass, Steve Forbes, Michael Moore and Gloria Steinem have given talks beside the house fireplace. There are similar programs as this at Stanford and Harvard, but the University of Michigan's fellow- ship stands out for its emphasis on travel. Each class of Fellows takes two domestic and two international trips. Already this year, the Fellows ILLUSTRATION BY LAURA GARAVOGLIA have been to Buenos Aires and sat down to talk with Argentinean Vice President Julio Cobos. Later this month, they'll be in Moscow and chat with Mikhail Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet Union. One thing to be noted of the Fellows is their cultural and jour- nalistic. Former Fellows include journalists like Jill Abramson, a managing editor The New York Times, and ABC News anchor Charles Gibson. This year's Fellows hail from publications like the BBC and The Washington Post and from as far away as Madrid, Moscow, Prague, Buenos Aires, London, Seoul and Israel. It might confuse the typical University student who's itching to study abroad in Italy, but Pome- roy said he has enjoyed the change. from his normal post in Rome. "Already it is life-changing, and I've only been here three weeks," he said. -ZENAIDA RIVERA BY THE NUMBERS Number of people in Zimbabwe who have been infected with cholera Number of people in Zimbabwe who have died from cholera since August 2008 Amount of time, in months, that foreign doctors and nurses in Zimbabwe have been on strike due to salary complaints Source: CNN YOUTUBE VIDEO OF THE WEEK A vegetable orgy For some people, half the fun of watching the Super Bowl last Sunday was seeing the new commercials that companies paid millions of dollars to roll out. This adtthough, wasn't among them. And that may or may not be a bad thing. This video presents a commercial sponsoredbyPETA,the animalrights organization, that NBC banned from airing on Sunday. Let's just say that it may encourage all those carnivo- rous football fans to reconsider their views of vegetarianism. With a heavy metal guitar riff slowly building in the background, the video starts by showing three different scantily-clad women seduc- tively undressing themselves. Once they're wearing nothing but lacy bras and panties, the music climaxes and the debauchery begins. The women each start caressing and fondling different vegetables. One woman rubs a stalk of broccoli up her leg, another provocatively licks the curvaceous side ofa pump- kin. The third woman pretends she's thrustingasparagusintoherself.Dur- ing this vegetable orgy, the women are illuminated by the soft glow of candles. And halfway through the video, a message appears: "Studies show vegetarians have better sex." Pamela Anderson is a PETA activ- ist, so perhaps this ad isn't so odd. -BRIAN TENGEL See this and other YouTube videos of the week at youtube.com/user/michigandaily THEME PARTY SUGGESTION Welcome back, Kwame! - Kwame Kilpatrick, Detroit's favorite felon and former mayor, was released from the clinker Tuesday after 99 days in an isolated cell. Kilpatrick has already high-tailed it to Dallas, but you can still celebrate with a Kwame- style party of your own. Get out the champagne and the motorcycles. Make a stripper disappear. Then claim the expense on your income tax. Remember, it's not a party unless it's on the taxpayers' dime. Throwing this party? Let us know. TheStatement@umich.edu STUDY OF THE WEEK Boys with unpopular names more likely to be felons Boys in the United States with less popular names' like Ernest or Ivan are more likely to commit crimes than boys with popular names like Michael or David, according to a study recently published in the Social Science Quarterly by researchers from Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. In the study, the researchers examined the first names of male juveniles compared with the first names of male juvenile delinquents. Then, they generated a popularity-name index (PNI) for certain names. Michael, for example, has a PNI of 100, meaning that it was the most popular name during the time of the study. David has a PNI of50. Names like Alec, Earnest, Ivan, Kareem and Malcolm all have a PNI of one. The researchers concluded that juveniles with unpopular names are more likely to engage in crime, regardless oftheir race.While unpopular names obviously don't cause crime, researchers said, they often result in social isolation that canlead to crime. - BRIAN TENGEL