Bury Lady Liberty in a lake? Sneak frat jokes onto the Voyager? If there's one thing the smartest college kids throughout history take seriously, it's their pranks
Posted 12.08.2020 at 8:36 am
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Many American universities have proud traditions based around excellence in sports or the matriculation of future presidents. This is not that story. While success on the grid iron measures the worth of jocks at big state schools, for the students at America’s most intellectual colleges, the means of glory is the prank. In schools like Cal Tech, MIT and the University of Chicago, showing off who’s smarter has become the nerd version of Michigan vs. Ohio State. Popular Science has a run down of schools of some of the brainiest pranks in the college history. Launch the gallery here.
It is rare that I would take the time to register to a website just to make a comment about an article ... but there was something about the story in this month's subscription that really stuck in my side. This article pertained to the prank of suspending of a car body over the Vancouver bridge.
I found it interesting that though the writer, Bob Parks, did mention the fact that some 70,000 cars travel over that bridge every day... and traffic had been greatly effected for several hours... and workers had to take unnecessary risks to get the car pulled back up onto the bridge... that it was the children that "engineered" the prank that were interviewed and the main focus of the article.
I take more the point of view of the several thousand people who were severely inconvenienced, and who would more quickly vilify rather than raise to hero status those children who pulled this adolescent stunt.
Mr. Parks, in the future, could you be a little more careful in who you choose to put center stage in an article that is read by millions. The last thing that this country needs is less maturity.