In the D: In a news article describing how a dorm-room intruder entered a student’s room, tapped her on the shoulder, and then fled, the Daily Dartmouth paraphrases a student who lives nearby: “Parma suggested that the planned door locking mechanisms for the entrances into residence halls — which have yet to be activated — might have prevented such an incident.”

First of all, if Parma suggested such, why not simply quote her? Could she have been so verbose as to overpower, say, an ellipsis?

But, second and more importantly, where’s the “incident”? In my time living in Dartmouth’s dorms, many pranks far more invasive than a tap on the shoulder were undertaken, from rolling students out of bed and onto the floor to actually relocating sound sleepers as they slept. There are any number of reasons why one student might have sought to wake another before simply deciding against it and leaving: as a prank, to see if the sleeper was “really asleep,” to ask for a homework assignment, etc. As the “victim” is unable to say even whether the intruder was male or female–let alone, then, whether a student or not–none of these mundane possibilities can be ruled out. Nor should they be, as they present the most likely explanation for now.

The Dartmouth describes a climate of fear and a remedy–dorm locking– but fails to note a single necessarily preventable incident. The two other “recent events” noted in the story, for example, both occurred outside. Does this mean we need “campus locking?”

Also: Stop the inanity! Please.