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NO SWEAT.
puzzle
by
sudokusyndication.com
2A — Friday, September 8, 2017
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
CAMPUS EVENTS & NOTES
Butler, Bernstein & The
Hot 9 Performance
WHAT: Join retro-futurist
brass man Steven Bernstein
and New Orleans piano vitruso
Henry Butler for UMS’s season
opening event. Tickets on sale at
UMS’s website.
WHO: UMS
WHEN: 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.
WHERE: Downtown Home &
Garden and Bill’s Beer Garden
ESPN UMix
WHAT: The first official UMix
of the year for those looking
for a sober way to have fun on
Friday nights. Free food, prizes,
activities, film screening and
more. MCard required for entry.
WHO: Center for Campus
Involvement
WHEN: 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.
WHERE: Michigan Union
UMMA After Hours
WHAT: A free community event
to browse this season’s special
exhibitions, listen to curators talk
about the art, and swing to the
beats of an award-winning Cuban
jazz band.
WHO: UMMA
WHEN: 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
WHERE: UMMA
Festifall
WHAT: Excited to join a student
organization but don’t know
which one to? Festifall brings
together more than 500 student
orgs and departments so you’ll
be sure to find one that’s right
for you.
WHO: Center for Campus
Involvement
WHEN: 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
WHERE: Diag
Tweets
Follow @michigandaily
Univ. of Michigan
@UMich
Women students created the
Quadrantic Circle in 1872,
first W-M women’s orga-
nization and forerunner of
#MLeague and sororities.
Ari
@AarelCalhoun
@ UMich: it would be so
nice if my classrooms were
warmer than 15 degrees.
Please adjust temps thank
you.
Stuart Campbell
@RhizAbovelt
Amazon HQ2 prediction:
DETROIT - Lower overhead,
big airport, LOTS of open
space, regrowth, VC, @
UMich 7th ranked for startup
grads, etc.
Claire
@theonly_clairem
in other news I just touched
a book that was sold at teh
original borders book store in
ann arbor, MI???? this week
just gets weirder
FRIDAY’S BICENTENNIAL FEATURE: GOIN’ NUTS
University
of
Michigan
paleontologists
are
investigating a construction
site
in
Byron
Township,
Michigan,
after
workers
excavated
the
fossils
of
what appeared to be a giant
prehistoric mammal Aug. 31.
According to the Associated
Press, University researchers
identified
the
remains
as
bones from a mastodon. Eagle
Creek
Homes,
the
home-
building company developing
the site where the bones
were found, contacted Prof.
Dan Fisher, director of the
Museum of Paleontology.
Fisher wrote in an interview
the
bones
are
relatively
well preserved, and appear
to be from an adult female
specimen. At this moment,
University researchers have
excavated part of the lower
jaw, part of the skull, some
limb bones, part of the pelvis
and some neck vertebrae.
Mastodons
roamed
throughout
the
North
American
landmass
until
their extinction 10,000 to
11,000 years ago. Mastodon
and mammoth discoveries are
not uncommon in the state of
Michigan; Fisher estimates
two to three discoveries are
made in the state each year.
In October 2015, another
mastodon
fossil
was
discovered in Chelsea, Mich.
in
a
soybean
field.
The
skeleton was later donated
to the University to be
studied and later put on
display.
Eagle
Creek
Homes
currently holds five large
pieces of the mastodon
skeleton, as well as a few
smaller pieces.
Fisher
said
the
fossil’s fate is currently
unknown. He explained
the fossil first needs to
be
preserved,
cleaned
and dried. The owner
may then choose to keep
it local or donate it to
the University. However,
it may be a while before
students can view the
bones.
“The
Museum
of
Paleontology,
as
organized
currently,
does not itself have a
public exhibit area for
recent
finds,”
Fisher
wrote. “This may work
differently when we move
into the new Biological
Science Building during
the course of next year.”
Mastadon skeleton unearthed at
Grand Rapids construction site
University paleontologists investigate fossils which were first discovered in August
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The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by students at the
University OF Michigan. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the Daily’s office
for $2. Subscriptions for September-April are $225 and year long subscriptions are $250. University affiliates are subject to a
reduced subscription rate. On-campus subscriptions for fall term are $35. Subscriptions must be prepaid. The Michigan Daily is a
member of The Associated Press and The Associated Collegiate Press.
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Every Friday, the Michigan Daily will be
republishing an article from the Daily’s
archives from a moment in University
history. This week’s is from September
23, 1979 by Maynard Slezgo.
SEPT 23, 1979— “NEVER ARE
PEOPLE so tall as when they stoop to
feed a squirrel.”
Ambrose Fleming is proud of that
motto, which graces the doorway of
his treetop condominium near the
East Engineering building. It took
Fleming two years to chew each letter
into the bark with his own pointy
teeth.
“A lot of squirrels these days think
we older squirrels sell out when we
accept hand-outs from students on
the Diag. It’s just not true,” explains
Fleming, beating his tiny forpaws
on the ground. “We entertain the
students by being cute and furry, and
they pay us with food. It’s simply a
question of free enterprise. It’s been
going on for years, and now we are a
stronger species than ever.”
The statistics bear out Fleming’s
words. More than 400 of the brown
and gray rodents are expected to
inhabit the Diag this fall. Scurrying
over sidewalks, scampering down
trees, dodging cars on. E. University
Ave., squirrels are as important a part
of Ann Arbor lore as Shakey Jake
and his famous rasp. And yet, who
are the squirrels, these funny, furry
freeloaders who would take a walnut
right from your hand, and maybe
your index finger with it? And what,
exactly, do they want?
“Housing and education, that’s
what,” snaps Dorothy Jakuboski,
leader of the Squirrels Unite Now
(SUN). “Sure, they talk about walnuts
and acorns, but they won’t let us into
the libraries. They say we’ll chew up
the books and leave droppings in the
carrels, but is that so much different
than what humans do?”
Ann Arbor’s squirrel population
has swelled along with increasing
student numbers during the past
15 years. Growth has been slow but
steady, and has put
the Diag housing market on the
endangered species list. Most Diag
trees house 20 squirrels per year, with
a turnover rate that would make any
landlord shudder. Moreover, the trees
must be shared with birds – nearby
nests lower property values by an
estimated 20 per cent – and bugs.
“The housing is atrocious on
the Diag,” complains Jakuboski.
“While the Diag is near the student
and restaurant garbage bins, it’s a
ghetto – the Squirrel Ghetto. The
older squirrels are established on the
top limbs, but we younger ones have
to suffer next to those birds.” Many
younger squirrels, however, claim
they neither need nor want human
assistance, and that conservative
elders such as Fleming would be
better off as “jelly beneath someone’s
radials.”’
BEYOND THE LIBERAL SUN
members are terrorist squirrels,
including Lance Frye and a de-tailed
radical who would be identified only
as Frank. “Homo sapiens are morons,”
Frank states flatly. “Especially first
year students. They never realize
they’re taking their lives into their
hands when they offer one of us food.”
He pulls back his, whiskers and bares
his shiny incisors. “These babies will
liberate us,” he seethes, clacking his
teeth rapidly up and down.
“My plan is to steal one of those
frisbees someday and take it up to a
tree and tear it to shreds,” Frye boasts.
“That’ll get those humans – and their
little dogs, too!”
Squirrels complain that their
cancer rate has skyrocketed since they
started accepting hand-outs of white
bread, Fritos, and Jujubes. But hunger
is an oppression not easily reckoned
with,. and the majority of squirrels
will eat whatever they can find.
“Oh, yes, we eat hand-outs,” says
Hedda Buttrey, a delicate mother of 30
who describes herself as “remarkably
normal.” She adds, “We’ll take a
few chips or something from those
people carrying books, or even bits of
sandwhiches from those dirty teen-
agers who always drink that cooking
wine. But we’re not afraid to dig for
acorns when we have to. We’re proud,
but practical.”
Buttrey claims that the worst
aspect of campus life is the annual
spring Hash Bash. “I lost three sons
last year,” she sniffles, her nose
a-quiver. “One was trampled by a
greasy high school boy in a leather
jacket, another was hit by a van, and
the youngest was mauled by a dog
someone shoved onto our tree.”
Dog attacks, in fact, are the
leading cause of death
among
squirrels, second only to automobile
tires. “The day they forgot about
leash laws was the day I had to
give up my freedom,” Buttrey
says bitterly. “There was a brief
protest with the ‘Kill the Canines’
movement in the late sixties, but
most of the protestors ended up
torn to shreds, buried in some dog’s
backyard storage hole.”
Another squirrel, who refused
to be identified, asked about the
current digs of Ann Arbor’s garbage
can preacher, Dr. Diag. “That guy
was the voice of the squirrels,” says
the squirrel. “We learned the Greek
alphabet, some Shakespeare, and a lot
about politics. Now we hear he’s gone.
Shakey Jakes? Shakey Jake! We can’t
even understand the dude!”
With winter creeping ever closer,
the Diag squirrels are anticipating
a rough season. “It’s a good time to
mate,” Ambrose Fleming observes
philosophically. “Otherwise, we just
hibernate.”
“And tell all those people they
can feed me anytime they
want,” Fleming implores. “I
won’t bite. How could
someone as cute as
me bite anyone?”
The Museum of
Paleontology, as
organized currently,
does not itself have
a public exhibit area
for recent finds.
This may work
differently when we
move into the new
Biological Science
Building