CHAPEL HILL, NC — Throwing multi-colored powder into the air and onto each other, thousands of UNC students gathered at Hooker Fields last Friday for an observance of Holi, the ancient Hindu springtime festival of love, forgiveness, and new profile pictures.

“We try to keep our event inclusive but also very true to the spirit of the Hindu holiday,” said senior Anna Ridge, “Holi Moli” event coordinator. “For thousands of years in India, everyone from common villagers to Brahman has gathered in public places on Holi to bid farewell to winter, open their arms joyfully to each other, and pose for, as it’s translated from the ancient Sanskrit, ‘the kind of no-filter selfies that can turn even a Pinterest pariah into a social media superstar.'”

“Of course, something is bound to be lost in translation, but we like to think our celebration pays respect to cultural tradition by keeping the same focus,” she said.

According to UNC religious studies professor Tark Matthews, Holi’s origin lies in the symbolic legend of Holika, the evil sister of demon king Hiranyakashipu, who launched a Twitter account so popular that she thought she might soon rival even Vishnu in her number of followers.

“Holika grew arrogant, instigating a Twitter feud with Vishnu the likes of which had never been seen by man or god,” said Matthews.

He continued, saying Holika’s good nephew, Prahlada, who retweeted only Vishnu, tricked the Holika into her demise by making an anonymous gmail account and sending pictures of Vishnu with his body covered in garish bright pigments, saying that “Vishnu was SUPER embarrassed of them and did NOT want them spread around.”

Blinded by avarice, Holika publicized the photos on all her social media platforms, and people everywhere immediately praised Vishnu for being “fun,” “artsy,” and “so down-to-earth for the Supreme God of Vaishnavism,” allowing Vishnu to win the feud and forever secure his social media dominance.

Ever since, people have celebrated the demise of Holika and the cunning of Prahlada with the Holi festival, adorning themselves as Vishnu did to take new profile pictures each spring.

Carrboro resident and ascetic Sadhu holy man Gautham Singh said that, in contemporary times, Holi celebrations like the one at UNC serve as a yearly marker of rebirth that can be profoundly meaningful for people from all walks of life.

“Holi is a time for reinvigoration,” he said, “it is a time to shed our winter sadnesses and our profile pictures from ski trips and basketball games, replacing them instead with colorful outlooks and profile pictures that can last the whole year round.”

“And get seriously, like one hundred likes,” he added, “#popular.”

Next week, many UNC students are expected to observe Easter, the Christian celebration of marshmallow Peeps and having dinner with your family.

CHAPEL HILL, NC–First-year German Studies major Ryan Poole has been going home every third weekend since the start of his first semester, according to his roommate, Tim Childress. Childress, like most of Poole’s acquaintances and friends, said that he is not sure exactly how to feel about the frequently homebound freshman.

“It’s not like there’s anything that weird about him, ya know? But, like, why does he go home that often? What is he doing there?” said Childress in an interview.

Childress met Poole on move-in day last semester, though Poole had moved into Craige residence hall 45 minutes earlier than Childress and had organized his half of the room before Childress’s arrival.

“All of his stuff was already laid out,” said Childress. “He told me to let him know if I didn’t like the arrangement of our room, but I wasn’t going to say anything, ya know?”

Poole and Childress have spoken little since that first encounter, especially because Poole goes home approximately every third weekend. 

“Most of the time I never even see him leaving,” said Childress. “He just comes back on Sunday nights, usually talking about something funny his dog did over the weekend. I laugh because it’s uncomfortable if I don’t.”

Childress was, at first, concerned that Poole wasn’t making friends at UNC, but he has since seen Poole socializing around campus.

“He’s always hanging out with this little Filipino guy,” said Childress. “They sit really close together and are always talking in hushed tones. I feel like they’re whispering about me.”

Like Childress, other students in Craige have started to feel, if not uncomfortable, at least uneasy around Poole.

“This one night, we were drinking a few beers and hanging out in Tim’s room,” said first-year Jared Gorman. “Ryan was just lying on his bed the whole time, throwing a tennis ball at the ceiling and humming to the tune of ‘Pump It’ by the Black Eyed Peas. Then he left to go finish writing a paper because it was Thursday, and he said that he was going to drive home after his classes in the morning.”

“I don’t know about that guy,” he added. 

When asked about Poole’s frequent trips home and his relationship with his dog, Poole’s mother, Karen Poole, seemed confused.

“Ryan told you we have a dog?” she said. “We don’t have a dog.”

It’s almost exam time again (UH OH!) and that means everyone needs to work productively. Here are 4 GREAT ways to make sure you don’t end up on Facebook (lol we’ve been there) and stay studying.

1. Look at a picture of everyone who has ever believed in you and know you would be letting them down.

If you are getting bogged down in work, just remember that you would be letting down every single person who has ever believed in you. From your parents, who are paying for your education, to the teachers in high school that wrote your letter of recommendations, you’d be letting all of those people down. Every moment you don’t spend working would result in their immediate and long lasting disappointment. ROFLCOPTER! That should help you focus and do well!

2. Never forget that failure is a slippery slope leading to a lonely death.

Always keep at the top of your mind that one failure only leads to another, and if you fail once–at anything–you will end up in a ditch, unidentifiable to any of those who love you. Studies have shown that if you are not perfect that you will die earlier, more horrifically and feel the pain of loneliness as your eternal spirit walks in the ethereal plane. HAHA! That’ll keep your head in those textbooks!

3. Be aware that your life trajectory can fundamentally change.

It can be extremely important to realize that any small mistake can lead to a completely different life. In one world you ace the test and get a good paying job, you golf on the weekends and the kids play out back. Your daughter, Becky, does gymnastics and your son, Sam, has a good right arm for a kid his age. You and your wife make passionate love each night and each morning you are awakened by a sun that seems to never stop shining. In another world you fail the test and you live among the bums that are rumored to haunt Howell Hall. You slowly try to survive under the rule of the Bum King Urzecash, Lord of Howell Hall. One morning, waking around 6:00 am to scatter the old building before workers arive, Urzecash strides with his entourage towards you. Pointing and laughing, he instructs them to kill you for morning entertainment. After your death, they throw your body atop the hall, where no soul has been in 20 years, to rot with the sun. LAWL! I know a story like that will keep you working!

4. Don’t stress!

Studies have shown that stress can lead to poor test results, so make sure to keep calm, cool and collected.

CHAPEL HILL, NC—Ascribing himself to an etiquette of open scholastic dialogue, the man sporting a maroon turtleneck is not about to raise his hand before offering his thoughts in your 20-person philosophy class.

“Um, well I think,” began the warm-necked man, apparently not noticing his classmate who had started to raise her hand, “that we are seeing a difference in definitions of morality. We really must distinguish between categorical and hypothetical imperatives if we hope to appeal to anything beyond sui generis constructs.”

The man let his argument unfold slowly and contemplatively over the next 90 seconds, pausing, at points, to puzzle over interesting questions implied in his discourse and nodding toward your professor each of the many times he mentioned an assigned reading.

As all other students persisted in raising their hands before speaking, the man intermittently looked up from his Moleskine notebook and heavily annotated text to articulate his views without warning several times more. Occasionally, he followed classmates’ comments by trying to engage them in direct dialogue, an effort which was not reciprocated.

Even so, many in the class were impressed, if not also intimidated, by the man whose neck was almost completely covered by a birthday gift from his mother.

“When he jumps right into speaking without raising his hand, you can see he understands the concepts so fully,” said classmate Gill Sanders. “I hope he won’t mind if I ask him to study with me.”

On the tail end of his fourth consecutive response to the professor’s questions, the man quipped that he “knew he was dominating the discussion a little bit” and that he was “interested to hear what the others have to say.”

While each of the next several questions was followed by longer-than-usual silence, the man looked in anticipation at his classmates before pursing his lips and giving a knowing look to the professor.

He then, without raising his hand, said that he would “venture out onto the ice, if need be,” and spoke virtually uninterrupted for the last three minutes of class.

Speaking to reporters afterward, your professor said that he took notice.

“From practically the first day of class, James dispensed entirely with raising his hand,” he said. “It’s clear that he’s here for a serious academic discussion. If only the other students were so mature! Alas, it is as if James and I are engaging in a Socratic tutelage or conversing in a Parisian salon amidst a sea of hand-raising plebeians.”

“Hand raising. What a laugh,” he said. “I never did it myself.”

During March Madness, North Korean college basketball analyst Jin Mee Kim is following the UNC men’s team in the NCAA tournament. Working on special assignment for The Minor, Jin Mee is a veteran Pyongyang journalist and recipient of the 2007 Kim Jong-Il Award for Transcendent Writing in the Glorification of the Workers’ Party of Korea. He will offer his insights and perspectives on the Tar Heels as the team looks to advance through the bracket.

Jin Mee Kim | The Minor

The Glorified and Ferocious Tar Heel Basketball Team will take the court in the NCAA World Championship Game to-night, where they will defeat the Kentucky Wildcats in consummation of a homogeneously victorious post-season. As the Team, by the direction of Precious and Illustrious Leader Roy Williams, prepares for a stainless thrashing of its unseemly rival, already the hearts and loins of the Fatherland’s faithful citizens quake in splendid anticipation of Ultimate Victory.

Can there be any doubt of the Leader’s wisdom and virility? Glory to the Leader!

UNC arrives in the Championship on a succession of sterling tournament games, from it’s 499-24 defeat of Connecticut in the Sweet Sixteen–in which the Leader, with his perfect Mind alone, guided the ball through the hoop for 78 of the Tar Heels’ 119 fourth-quarter points–to the Team’s 387-87 Final Four humiliation of first-seeded Florida, which prompted denizens to that inferior university to such  unharmonious displeasure that rioters fed coach Billy Donnovan to an actual Alligator the same night.

As for the Tar Heels’ Championship opponent, it is a great question mark why Kentucky, whose players and coach show talent only in the capitalization of basketball, is hell-bent on subjecting itself to certain and searing defeat, and does not instead retreat at once to it’s native commonwealth of filth and perversion.

In preparation for the match-up, UNC players voiced perfect confidence. “We are of one mind and we are the justified hands of The Leader,” said Power forward James Michael McAdoo, who is projected to be first pick in the professional draft after he returns to UNC for his fourth season next year. “What sublime and unparagoned visions the Leader has inspired!”

Any rumors of McAdoo’s disloyalty or of UNC’s previous NCAA defeat are entirely false. Believe not the foul-smelling vituperation spread by the University’s vindictive enemies. All who stand united with the University, the People, and the Team do not heed disparaging and insolent lies. Any who are tempted otherwise shall be at once purged from the harmonious order. No misdeed escapes the Leader’s gaze and fist.

With the hour of Basketball Triumph so nearly at hand, perfectly synchronized carousing has already begun in the public squares of Chapel Hill.

“Death to the enemy and ideal wishes upon the Tar Heels” shouted Student Barbara Smith, PID 643344988, as she marched in jovial procession. “What gaiety and elation I find in The Leader!”

What a deserved and impeccable victory the Basketball Team shall have! Yes, we should all give full mind to basketball, and not to testing of North Korean mid-range ballistic missiles that shall soon deliver unsuspected demise upon our extravagant and corrupted Western life. The coming Korean dominion is no worry to our slothful selves, sated as we are with distraction!

Basketball indeed. Go Heels!

by Three Weeks from Now | The Minor

I see you ‘dere. Getting ready to go out, gonna have a hot time on a Friday night.

Ummmm, I can smell it on ya.

I can smell it on ya clothes, boy.

Oh, I’m gonna get ya. You feel like you don’t haves no work now, but in two weeks, it’ll be me. And I’m gonna beat you down like you stole something, boy. I’m gonna beat you down. You think it won’t be that bad this time.

You spinnin’ tales, boy. I’m gonna get ya.

Jesus rise day before I come, you think that gonna help? It ain’t gonna help none, just get you in a place where you think you safe. I’m still there.

You gonna be in the library so long you think books is your friends. I’m ’bout to runs up behind ya and get ya.

You’re looking at your calendar in your room right now, just starting to see all those finals coming up. Realzin’ dat paper due soon. You think you can do it. You can’t, boy.

That’s me. I’mma stop you from gettin’ dem grades, boy. You gonna fail, boy.

I’M ‘BOUT TO GET YA!

And when I come around, you gonna finally realize maybe you shouldn’t have just been sittin’ on that quad right there this week. Maybe you should’ve been studying, boy—‘cause I’m coming for you and you gonna wish you studied then, boy, YOU GONNA WISH YOU STUDIED!

Look me in da eye, boy.

You look like fresh meat, boy, you look tasty.

I’mma have you for breakfast, lunch and dinner all week—because you ain’t gonna be eating with ‘dem friends of yours. You gonna eat with a textbook and me. I’m ‘bout to get ya. I’m gonna get ya, ‘till the UL seems like a nice break because it’s not as sad as Davis.

MMMMMMM, I can’t wait. I can’t wait.

Even if you did work ahead, you know I’d still get ya right? You know you can’t plan around me being there, right behind you, getting ya.

I’m comin’ and I’m ’bout to get ya.

Woods near UNC-Chapel Hill

James Michael McAdoo

CHAPEL HILL, NC–According to a press release issued by the Office of the Chancellor, the smoke that clouded campus earlier this afternoon was “in no way related to James Michael McAdoo announcing he will enter the NBA draft.”

The press release took pains to clarify that “the smoke was part of a controlled burn taking place at Jordan Lake,” and that “any rumors that McAdoo sought to perform the art of ‘Rua Céilidh’ to raise his draft stock are ill-founded and not factual.”

An official notice from the North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation about the burn was only published thirty minutes after the smoke first appeared on campus.

Joel Curran, Vice Chancellor for Communications and Public Affairs, said that the delayed notice was just a logistical error and the controlled burn had been planned for weeks.

“Someone just forgot to put out the press release,” he said. “There’s a lot of talk without a lot of facts going on around here. People should be careful at whom they point fingers…it will be remembered.”

Despite the university’s official stance, some have raised questions about this afternoon’s events.

“We all know that McAdoo needs to raise his draft stock and that there are certain ways for a player to do that–ways that we don’t talk about,” said a source close to the UNC men’s basketball team. “Boys go into the woods and come out different. Harrison Barnes didn’t play like a 7th overall pick, but he was picked 7th. Things don’t just happen by accident.”

The first suggestion of association between the burn and McAdoo appeared on the blog “Truth Cannot Hide.” The blog’s anonymous publisher,  “HillsboroughMom27,” posted that, “it is no coincidence we saw these same fires when Marvin Williams left in 2005. It is no coincidence that McAdoo could not be found on campus when the fire began.”

The post continued, saying, “long time readers of this blog KNOW that there are direct links to the other realm that can imbue men with occult powers. The foolish will believe propaganda that McAdoo was not attempting the ‘Rua Céilidh’ in the darkened woods off-campus. They will sheepishly take the overt distraction of Chancellor Folt’s new twitter account. They are trying to shield themselves from the truth right under their noses.”

Asked for his take, McAdoo rubbed his arm, partially covering what appeared to be a fresh wound, and said, “fire purifies all,” his eyes dark and expressionless.

“Belisama sees all,” he added.

At press time, a report issued by Duke University said a controlled burn is scheduled in Durham County next week, and that any smoke on Duke’s campus will have nothing to do with Jabari Parker.