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Our friends at the Daily Princetonian provided an update on the Tony Kadyhrob saga: after incidents at several Mercer County campuses, the 68-year-old has been indicted on one count of second-degree attempted kidnapping and one count of third-degree luring. While many students might recognize the face, fewer are familiar with the peculiar tragedy of Mr. Kadyhrob, who suffers from schizophrenia and was overheard telling himself that he was a 21-year-old graduate of Princeton. No date has been set for the trial.

In an overzealous post-admission shopping spree, this was purchased

We’ll turn now to a less serious, much broader kind of identity crisis, one that has seized many students (or at least the internet-list-reading subset). The past week has given me pause, has forced a more careful interrogation of Princeton’s essence. What are the defining values of this school?* A year ago, you might have looked around and unwaveringly answered: our douchebaggery and our preppiness,  celebrated both as discrete virtues, and also in their sublime union (see left; see also Lawnparties, the general phenomenon of).

This year, you might answer exactly the same way, because neither of those two values appears to have waned in the last year. But the public recognition of them has. Despite our prominent #3 ranking on GQ’s last “Douchiest Colleges” list, we are conspicuously absent from the 2011 edition. Ivy-wise, Princeton and Harvard have been supplanted by Cornell and Yale — which might itself call for some intra-Ivy douchiness, but I’ll let you fill those punchlines in yourself. Princeton did manage a tangential mention on Yale’s page, serving as the “robot” foil to their “passion.” (Incidentally this entire list is excerpted from the “groundbreaking new book” The Rogers & Littleton Guide to America’s Douchiest Colleges. It doesn’t take a Princeton douche to gawk at the fact that this book exists —  maybe we lurk somewhere in its 176[!] pages.)

This news arrives just weeks after another surprising omission: Princeton was left out of The Huffington Post’s “Preppiest Schools” list. Last time we were represented by this somewhat cryptic tableau of not-particularly-preppy-looking silhouettes in a random Whitman arch, but this time, nothing. This is very unfortunate because I was looking forward to an even more confusingly irrelevant photo this year.

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image source: huffingtonpost.com

image source: huffingtonpost.com

The Huffington Post recently created a list entitled “If Rappers Were Colleges: Analogies You WON’T Find on the SAT,” which pairs universities with famous rappers. Comparing Princeton to Eminem, the rankings say that he (or we) are “The whitest of the truly elite.”

Our friends at PrincetonFML are ambivalent about the comparison.

One student writes, “If rappers were colleges, Eminem would be Princeton. OLAG?” Another says that “Jay-Z should be Princeton.” Unfortunately, the year Princeton loses its #1 spot on the U.S. News & World Report rankings is also the year that the HuffPo gives Jay-Z to Harvard.

But we think the analogy is apt beyond our pigment challenges. In 1896 our school changed its name from the College of New Jersey to Princeton University. Born Marshall Mathers, Eminem similarly assumed his rap name because it sounds cooler (M and M are his initials. Get it?). The first five Presidents of Princeton had untimely health issues and died within 20 years of one another. Eminem was abandoned by his father when he was 18 months old. Despite these tragic beginnings of contested nominal identities, both Princeton and Eminem have stood up as the real Slim Shadys.

So here’s some advice from our rapper/school (Princeton even has its research hands in #3).

Image via unigo.com.

Image via unigo.com.

This weekend, while you hop from tent to tent in the bizarre time machine that is Princeton Reunions, think about this: Probably everyone, at some point, rode the Dinky, or at least knows about it. Pretty crazy to think.

Which is why some of the reactions to the train’s possible replacement have been so vocal. You may know about the “Save the Princeton Dinky” Facebook group, or discussed the Dinky over dinner.

The Huffington Post ran a story yesterday on the debate and the discussion it’s sparked. Read it here.

[UPDATED BELOW] The Princeton Tiger, our resident humor rag, has been absolutely tearing up the internets lately. Their latest video, “Discussions in Contemporary Poetry: A conversation with Paul Muldoon,” features some erudite commentary from our beloved Professor of Creative Writing. The unlikely subject: Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok.” See the deep poetic genius in action:

Juxtaposition of high and low culture! (Especially enjoyed the Lear reference.) It’s funny! Apparently, it’s this funny. And this funny. And this funny. They throw up an adorable shoutout to their poetry editor: “Oh Paul, you totally make it pop.”

So, Tiger Mag, a tip of the hat — for making this video, for making waves. And for enriching the vocabulary of a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet. (Notable additions: “crunk,” “junk.”)

UPDATE: These guys picked up on it too. Viral status is imminent.

UPDATE II: And also the Village Voice and the New York Times (!).

You may remember a few weeks back that a controversial op-ed in the Prince got quite a stir started both on campus and around the country, especially on the Internet.

Some students are wondering what happened to that debate and whatever became of the conversation:

As quickly as things got heated in Princeton, they cooled down. Following the controversy that erupted after The Daily Princetonian published an op-ed about sexual assault, the buzz fizzled, and many students think the charged debate over rape hasn’t changed campus culture.

Read the full story at the Huffington Post.