Per chi ci crede.
E pure ... per chi NON CI vuole credere !!!!!!
Ci sono confraternite sataniche, nelle cui LOGGE si praticano Riti e Misteri cannibaleschi, sadomaso, perversioni alla 120 Giorni di sodoma alla de Sade assassinati.
Il clan Bush fa' parte della ma$$oneria Skull and Bones.
Drink the blood? Sign me up!
By IAN SHAPIRA '00
t's hard work being the new fraternity on the block. For Princeton's recently-founded Phi Kappa Sigma chapter, which boasts that it abstains from alcohol abuse in its rush process, members will do just about anything to lure would-be brothers even resort to a marketing scheme clearly counter to their anti-alcohol abuse ideals. Tacked on campus trees and in college dining halls, red signs advertising for "PKS" rush suggest something dangerous, even life-risking.
"I Want You To Rush Phi Kappa Sigma, Call Arun at x7961 for information" a scary-looking skeleton demands, pointing his finger and gritting his teeth. (Who ever thought clip art could be so emotive?) The ad begs the question: Why such a discrepancy between their trademark boy-scout rush process and their grim self-promotion?
The skull is Phi Kappa Sigma's national symbol, according to fraternity officials. But doesn't a skull emit a false, if not controversial, image?
"Not really," said Arun Wiita '01, the chapter's vice president. "To me, the skeleton symbolizes sort of, uh, Halloween."
Yes, the skull can remind one of dressing up in a costume, but still. Isn't it risky to suggest death in light of recent college fraternity disasters at LSU and MIT?
"Honestly, I never thought of that."
Really?
"I didn't. If we were getting negative feedback yeah, I'd change it."
But why wait? With such gruesome signs, you become more suspect to an already-suspicious educational system, no?
"The skeleton," he says, "adds a sense of mystery."
The ad may suggest the grim reaper is on his way. More to the point, it may suggest, falsely, that the fraternity chapter hazes unabashedly with beer and hard liquor. But certainly one considers upon gazing at the red, bloody-looking sign, that alcohol, in excess of "Animal House" proportions, may possibly serve as a large component in their membership rituals.
Sure, fraternity officials might articulate their no-force drinking habits, but their ad only wipes that notion clean in the public eye. Phi Kappa Sigmas may be Puritans compared to their counterparts, but they are nonetheless part of a society of national organizations that has increasingly become more vulnerable to public scrutiny and inspection.
With their no-force drinking, no-pressure system, however, the fraternity has little to worry about except getting new members from a pool of rushees typically of the John Belushi stripe. Which may be a reason why Phi Kappa Sigma advertises as if they were a raucous, beer-swilling fraternity. So what if the 1997 deaths of MIT 18 year-old fraternity pledge Scott Kreuger and LSU Sigma Alpha Epsilon pledge Benjamin Wynne prompted increased scrutiny and anger at fraternities nationwide? Phi Kappa Sigma, like the rest of its brethren, believe in something even more powerful: an American love affair with defying cautionary tales.
With their rush signs hawking a somewhat false pretense and personality, Phi Kappa Sigma is subtly hoping to cash in on an American and a Princetonian cultural trait that thirsts for extreme, often alcoholic situations.
"It's kind of like those St. A's ads that say, 'Drink the Blood,' " Wiita said.
Good point. Why does a campus coed "fraternity," which also bills itself as a literary society, want to align itself with Waco-types? It doesn't take an English major to decipher this one. Wiita is dead-on: Ghastly and ghoulish advertising is "mysterious," indeed. For organizations that have largely non-hedonistic activities Phi Kappa Sigma's highly commendable community service ties with nearby elementary schools and leukemia drives and those St. A's book-club meetings using a marketing approach that relies on something seemingly unsavory, such as blood, is as fruitful as the recent, multi-million dollar spate of horror movies. People will come in droves because truth is, people love violence fiction or non-fiction.
For Phi Kappa Sigma, whose membership is at a paltry 22, they are probably not trying to attract a more rambunctious demographic but simply enough members of any demographic. The competition to lure Princeton's annual crop of would-be brothers high school varsity athletes, New England boarding school cliques and "suthun" gentlemen weaned on "Jack" and "Beam" is intense, especially with so much at stake. Princeton fraternities, depending on which one, can promise a cool lifestyle, replete with alcohol abuse, vomit and good-looking women.
And make no mistake about it drinking excessively is considered cool, men think, especially male first-years. For men, there's no better barometer than the number of women who, for some reason, accept invitations to freshman facebook parties or babe-and-a-bottle night.
So, if Phi Kappa Sigma brothers don't haze with alcohol the P.R. line is that not a single fraternity hazes how do they initiate their members? Mum's the word, but you can bet it's pretty scary. Pretty cool, too.
(Ian Shapira, an English major from Louisville, Ky., is an editorial page editor. He can be reached at ishapira@princeton.edu.)
www.dailyprincetonian.com/Content/1999/09/22/edits/column1.html
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