Why Don't You Get A Job? The November jobs numbers are out, and unemployment is at its lowest rate since 2009! At 8.6. percent, everything sounds really good, until you remember that the boost is probably due to holiday hiring, and the fact that several hundred thousand more people simply just gave up on finding a job. -3

Traffic Is Getting Worse: You know that feeling like you're crawling along in traffic? Is it happening at the same place every day? A new report has identified the worst place for traffic in D.C.: "Northbound I-395 between Washington Boulevard and Route 110, from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. The average speed along that stretch during that time is five miles per hour."  -3

Warms The Cockles Of Our Liver: 20-month-year-old twins Maria and Teresa Tapia were born conjoined at the lower chest, and separated surgically at VCU's hospital. Read this and tell us you don't feel all sappy: "While they're getting accustomed to exploring their surroundings separately, they still stay near each other and hold hands when they walk." The girls are expected to go home to the Dominican Republic by Christmas. +5

Failure to Fire: Five students are suing Howard University for not firing a now-jailed employee after initial complaints that he sexually assaulted several young women he supervised.  "Howard University created a hostile and abusive working environment for all plaintiffs by continuing to employ [George] Bright-Abu after being made aware of his ongoing physical and verbal sexual assault," said attorney Christal Edwards. -5

Yesterday's Needle rating: 67 Today's score: -6 Friday bonus: +2 Today's Needle rating: 63

1. This year, four unrelated pairs of women were involved in arguments that ended in homicide; one pair of roommates at Howard University had a fight that culminated in one allegedly throwing a boiling pot of rice at the other.
2. More girls are getting arrested than ever before
3. Women are behaving like men because of "changing views of femininity"
4. There are videos of girls fighting on the internet
5. A U.S. parole board commissioner says: "This is a relatively new phenomenon, but you see it everywhere today."

At best, I think this story is trying to shoehorn two or three different issues into one "trend." There's A) the bullying that culminates in fisticuffs between angry, hormonal teenagers, B) the tensions that heat up between roommates and boil over into violence, and 3) domestic partner violence (one of the women was killed by her girlfriend, which is a completely different issue from angry roommates).

All of these points are of concern, but calling it a surge in girl fights sensationalizes some very real problems. And it makes it too easy to shake one's head and lament the behavior of young women today, rather than focusing on why these distinct issues keep cropping up.

The shooting happened around 12:02 a.m. Tuesday on Kaywood Drive, Mt. Ranier. "Located on the crime scene was a witness who reported seeing a blue van flee the area immediately after the shots were fired," Capt. Joe Hoffman of the Prince George's Co. Police Dept. told reporters. P.G. Police found a 7.62 mm shell casing at the murder site, as well as a magazine from a Bernadelli 9mm handgun.

Minutes later, D.C. police got a report that a blue van had been involved in an accident in Northeast Washington. P.G. detectives reported to the scene of that accident to alert D.C. officers that the van might be connected to the murder in Mt. Ranier. An inspection of the van turned up three key pieces of evidence: a Bernadelli 9mm handgun, a part to an SKS assault rifle (which uses 7.62mm bullets), and a handprint.

The handprint in the stolen van, according to police, was that of William Knight, who had been arrested in Maryland on several earlier occasions on charges ranging from carjacking to assault. Police obtained a search warrant for Knight's residence on Kennedy St., NE. Officials say — in that house — they discovered an SKS assault rifle. Police further say a ballistics test shows that gun was used to shoot the bullet (or bullets) that killed Alonzo Guyton.

Howard University, October 21

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Howard University, October 21

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Rankin Chapel at Howard

Oh dear. The Office of the Dean of the Chapel at Howard is warning students about cults on campus:

"With any group, there is a cycle of increase and decreased activity," said Rev. Kanika Magee, associate dean of Andrew Rankin Chapel. "Unfortunately, our campus is experiencing an increased cycle right now, so we have to make our students aware of what is going on."

Students are invited to Bible study group. Then, once they accept the group's invitation and attend the group's meetings—which convene at Starbucks and Potbelly—they can become deeply involved in the organization. They are ostracized from their friends and family and, in some cases, have to withdraw from the university because of their heavy involvement. Jamie Daniels*, an audio production major, can attest to this firsthand.

"I had a friend who became involved with a group on campus. So involved that his parents had to pull him from the university," she said.

Daniels's friend first came to her about the group after he was approached by a Caucasian male member of the International Church of Christ and asked if he wanted to join them in fellowship.

"He had been so excited about this group," she said. "They approached him in a friendly way, and I supported him at first, because he wanted to get closer to God."

After a while, her friend's actions began to change and he became distant, according to Daniels. "He is one of my best friends, so to see him go from being really enthusiastic and outgoing to withdrawn and unresponsive really bothered myself and his family," she said.

The Chapel put out a statement explaining how students can determine whether they've been approached by a cult. (No  word, though, on whether Potbelly sandwiches are, in and of themselves, a warning sign.)

If it is Not a Recognized HU Student Organization, It May be a Cult – All recognized organizations on our campus have been reviewed by the Office of the Dean of the Chapel, Office of Student Activities, and the student-led Religious Fellowship Council to be sure their purpose and practices are not potentially harmful to students. If an organization isnot recognized, this review has not occurred and their practices may be harmful.

I called Rev. Magee, who she says she can't give a specific number of students who have been caught up in cults. But, she says, "college campuses are often targeted with cults—I would say that across the U.S. and in this area you would find a number of them." She adds that the office was prompted to post the message out of "the concern for the safety of our students."

And as for the student response? It's been "very positive," Magee says. "Students have definitely demonstrated that they are keeping an eye out."

Photo by mkuhnert via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution Generic 2.0 License

The Hilltop

"This stuff happens. It's happened before, and it will happen again. But the good news is that we're gonna get out of it. There's reason for optimism," Forbes told the audience of b-school students.

Schlifske's advice to the students was to build wealth by putting away five dollars from every paycheck. Which would certainly be useful advice...if we weren't living in an time where students are graduating with more debt than ever and hoping to pay off that debt with salaries from jobs that are no longer available. Savings go pretty quickly when loans come due and they can't be charged off with bankruptcy (something Megan McArdle recently argued for).

Plus, black families—and by extension black students—have 1/20 of the wealth and are far closer to poverty than their white counterparts. Even middle class black folks are more likely than whites to have relatives in poverty who need financial assistance. So even if savings are accrued, they can dissolve pretty quickly.

But hey, thank you, multi-millionaires, for the advice.

Photo by AMagill via Flickr / Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License

Howard University's a capella jazz ensemble Afro Blue performed "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" and sounded excellent last night on NBC's The Sing Off. I preferred their first-round performance, Corinne Bailey Rae's "Put Your Records On" slightly, but this was still really enjoyable. I think one of the judges who said that they "overthought" the arrangement of the "Grapevine" was correct—it got a little too modern toward the end. Still, good job, Bison!

Unfortunately, the announcement about the end of purging was made after some students had left or were preparing to leave campus:

While the announcement hit the Howard community via Twitter Saturday evening, not every student knew of the University's change of plans. "They canceled the purge date?!," said Taylor Greene, a junior international business major. "I thought I was about to be purged and got no hearing of this cancellation. I think it's truly rude for them not to tell people in advance because students were already packing up their belongs and sad to go," said Greene.

"Us [Howard Student Trustees and HUSA] getting the purge date removed literally changed the course of some people's lives," said Undergraduate Trustee Erin Rigsby. Rigsby, who says the feedback from their decision has been "positive and supportive," wants students to realize that this monumental moment at Howard would not have been possible without the support from the Board of Trustees.

The reprieve, especially in an economy where black families have lost wealth at disproportionately high rates, is certainly welcome.

Eh, who am I kidding? I'm not sorry. Here's a look at how Saturday's Howard-Morehouse game shook out: With a 30-27 for the Bison.

And on Friday, Washington City Paper alum Ta-Nehisi Coates explained why, thanks to a certain GOP presidential candidate, Howard will be forever superior to the 'House.

Photo by Kevin Coles via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License

Good golly, it's an odd history.

There have been at least two major campus strikes at Howard over the years incited by athletes who didn't get enough food.

In 1936, for instance, the football team refused to show up for a home game against Virginia Union to protest the lack of breakfast that morning. The players said the lack of meals was nothing new, and that school officials were, well, serial offenders on that score.

Students then boycotted classes the following school week and marched with the team down Georgia Avenue shouting slogans about better meals and (“Food! Food! Food!" among them) and carrying signs saying things like “We Want Ham and Cabbage for the Team!”

All this activism was without irony: The kids really weren't getting fed.

I'd love for an anthropologist or sociologist to look for a link between the 1936 players' strike and march for breakfast rights, which became a national news story, and subsequent strikes and marches for civil rights. I could see a relationship. You've gotta have food in the belly to fuel the fire there.

Howard's reputation for not feeding athletes made the news again in the early 1980s, when a star football player went to the Washington Post saying he had to play hungry because the school refused to put him on a meal plan. That complaint was written up by a young reporter named Michael Wilbon, who left the Post this week after three decades.

When the player was tossed out of school for making the complaints to the newspaper, Wilbon then produced a series of stories about the mistreatment of Howard athletes, with many of the complaints concerning poor feedings.

Wilbon's stories helped lead to a large-scale boycott of the Howard athletic banquet by its athletes in 1981.

I enjoyed reading all the old stories about young folks' activism on behalf of athletes. That stuff doesn't happen anymore, does it? But perhaps the coolest nugget came when I saw that one of the guys behind the 1981 banquet boycott was Ewart Brown, who headed up a group of alumni in support of the push to get better food for the athletes.

Brown just resigned as premier of Bermuda. He'd been in trouble with his constituents for a couple years now, ever since it came out that he made a secret deal with the U.S. government to take in Uigher detainees who were released from Guantanamo.

Forget Fenty, Write In Ahmadinejad: Turns out the University of Michigan wasn't the only place hacking into D.C. elections computers recently. Iranian and Chinese hackers also managed to access a test site set up by the Board of Elections and Ethics to demonstrate online voting for overseas Washingtonians. This doesn't explain the long delays in counting ballots that plagued the BOEE on primary night. But it does explain the unusual number of write-in votes for "Death to Zionist Swine" the system reported. -2

Scared Yet?: The endless announcements and warnings that terrorists might KILL YOU DEAD while you ride Metro apparently haven't had the desired effect. So in a bid to completely terrify passengers, officials have turned to a guest announcer: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. The message will be re-recorded for other municipalities, too. Of course, terrorists aren't anywhere near the biggest threat to people riding Metro; Metro is. -3

Not a Snack: Authorities arrest Nicole Corbett and Fernando Booker in Manassas for child endangerment after Corbett's 2-year-old daughter ate their marijuana. If Law & Order hadn't been canceled, you could expect to see this as the plot of an upcoming episode; instead, you'll have to settle for watching it as a public service announcement. Just say no. -2

Extracurricular Activities: College kids learn a lot of life lessons while they're in school—how to handle independence, how to drink beer directly from a keg while hanging upside down, just how many Advil they need to recover from a hangover. One thing Howard University undergrads won't need to learn anymore: How to sneak their overnight guests past hall monitors. Howard will allow some upperclassmen to entertain visitors past the 2 a.m. curfew enforced up to now. And while the Washington Post story reporting this detail didn't say it, we will: Yes, by "entertain," we mean "pass out from drinking too much before actually having sex with." +3

Yesterday's Needle rating: 50 Today's score: -4 Friday bonus: +2 Today's Needle rating: 48

This summer, Howard University's Dr. Edward Jones fielded a lot of phone calls and e-mails. People wanted to discuss why black people run faster than white people, and why white people swim better than black people. One particularly strange caller, he says, wanted to talk about this subject in connection with bellybuttons, as he had a theory that the majority of black people have outies, and that the protruding flesh helps them run faster.

"It was obviously quite a bit of attention," says Jones.

The attention came after Jones published a paper with fellow academic Adrian Bejan, a teacher of mechanical engineering at Duke University. The paper, called "The Evolution of Speed in Athletics: Why the Fastest Runners are Black and Swimmers are White," inspired numerous articles and an NPR story.

It seeks to explain why there's such a high concentration of successful Olympic sprinters of West African descent, and Olympic swimmers of European descent. The answer, in the paper's opinion, is due to body differences that allow the two groups to excel in their respective categories. "Body differences [are] related to structural density," says Jones.  Many black runners, for instance, have a higher center of balance.

The hypothesis is both interesting and problematic. Theories that suggest racial determinism have almost always been a way to legitimize racist beliefs; it doesn't take much to imagine Jones' paper being used to justify skull measurements. But Jones says there are nuances to his work that put it in a completely different category than bigoted pseudo-science. For one thing, he offers that it's possible that his paper isn't actually, well, true: "It presents a logical explanation. But there could be alternative explanations."

Jones also makes clear that the taxonomy of race is inherently flawed. Not all black people, or even all Africans, for that matter, have the build to be excellent sprinters. The body type he and his colleague believe may provide an advantage for short distance running is found in West Africa, specifically. "The risk  in over-interpreting the results is that there are so many factors," he says. Which could lead to inaccurate stereotyping. Jones himself, who is African American, is an excellent swimmer and former lifeguard.

But nuanced or not, some are bound to have problems with his assertions. And Jones would seem to be in a position to learn firsthand what some of those problems are. He's a relatively new teacher on a historically black campus that was once considered an epicenter of the black power movement. Decades ago, the election of a homecoming queen with an Afro inspired Howard students to break into the spontaneous chant: "Ungawa, Black Power," and there have been plenty of rallies, sit-ins and building take-overs since then.

Jones isn't worried, however, so far his colleagues have done nothing but congratulate him for writing something noteworthy. He knows he isn't out of the woods yet, though. Once the students hear about the paper, "I anticipate there will be some future discussion."

*Photo courtesy of Edward Jones

For my money, the way grittier Howard video is better: "5.0 behind us!"

While Yale's vid is an elaborately planned musical with slick production values and cameo by NBC News anchor Brian Williams, " Welcome to HU 101" is a no-frills, seemingly improvised tribute whose most remarkable walk-on is campus security. Still, starring Jae Murphy and Chase Benjamin, the Howard video is sprinkled with humor ("If you ain't never been to Howard, there's something called a protest," says Murphy, alluding to the school's activist rep) and has cooler music.

The Yale score is purposefully cheesy, but that doesn't make it any less grating. On the other hand, Murphy and Benjamin end up running into HU band Rising Suns and get frontman King Zimm to spit freestyle while the band's drummer wails on what seems to be a Djembe.

Way better. Watch here: