Scott Green
From U of I Wiki
Scott Green (born Sep. 28, 1983) is a weekly humor columnist for the Daily Illini whose work appears on Thursdays. Dozens of student newspapers across the country have run his pieces through UWire syndication. He is known for doing actual research for his stories, including a visit to a Playboy casting call and a trip to Hardee's to eat a 920-calorie breakfast burrito.
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[edit] Biography
Green attended Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois, where he founded "The Statesmean," an underground newspaper in the style of "The Onion." In 2000, he was hired by the Pioneer Press to write sports features, mostly high school boys' and girls' basketball and football.
He majored in Political Science as an undergraduate at the University of Illinois, and is currently a second year student at the University's College of Law, a subject he frequently mentions in his columns.
[edit] Reader Response
Reception to Green's columns has been generally positive. "Law school Q&A," a parody FAQ about life as a law student, led to 13 comments on the Daily Illini comment board, three of which called the piece "brilliant." However, other posters to the comment board strongly disliked the piece (as one poster put it, "Only a undergrad would find this column to be brillant. As a law student, I find it stupid and lacking in humor"). His column "Surgery? Piece of cake" was chided as something that "belong[s] on a facebook blog or something."
[edit] Controversies
[edit] Sorority rush
On August 30, 2007, Green wrote sorority rush on campus was a flawed system (Equality for Greeks begins with rushing). This provoked two letters to the editor of the Daily Illini, which ran in the paper on August 31, and caused Panhellenic Council to request all sorority members wear Greek pride t-shirts that same day. Green also referred to two sororities, Alpha Epsilon Phi and Sigma Delta Tau, as "Jewish." While both houses are comprised of a majority of Jewish members, women from each house, as well as Hillel, objected to the characterization.
[edit] "This column is totally gay"
Green's column of November 8, 2007, "This column is totally gay", focused on parts of the gay community he hadn't known about. It included commentary on the Gay World Cup of soccer, the Village People, and Senator Larry Craig. Green was accused of being "snarky and dismissive" of gay people on the Daily Illini web site by posters to the comment board.
[edit] Quotes
- On gender: "'Boys and girls are different,' she told me, probably referring to the emotional chasm that divides the sexes beyond that whole "penis/no penis" dichotomy."
- On O.J. Simpson's robbery charge: "This story is so juicy it will probably give Geraldo Rivera a nocturnal emission."
- On science: "True, monkeys and chimpanzees are not the same thing, but they are close enough for me and I will use the terms interchangeably, just as I generally refer to Kevin Federline and Vanilla Ice as the same person."
- On potential Playboy models: "Eventually I worked up the nerve to ask them whether they are into the overweight, Jewish humor columnist type and they said (I swear I am not making this up): 'No.'"
- On Halloween costumes: "No amount of drag would make you 'Slutty J. Edgar Hoover.' You would just be 'Regular J. Edgar Hoover.'"
[edit] Notable Columns
- This column contains no nudity
- Good gravy, a breakfast burrito
- Law school Q&A
- Time to abort curent debate about abortion (non-humor)
