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NO SWEAT.
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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

