BATTLE OF THE BINGE

A FATAL NIGHT OF BOOZING AT A LOUISIANA UNIVERSITY STIRS UP THE DEBATE OVER THE DRINKING CULTURE IN AMERICA'S COLLEGES. ARE THEY DOING ENOUGH TO CHANGE IT?

Benjamin Wynne, 20, underwent two of the most time-honored rites of passage at Louisiana State University last week. He received a pledge pin from the fraternity that voted him into the brotherhood, and he got rip-roaring drunk to celebrate. Wynne and his fellow Sigma Alpha Epsilon brothers began their bacchanalia with an off-campus keg party featuring "funneling," in which beer is shot through a rubber hose into the drinker's mouth. Next came a communal bender at Murphy's bar, a frat hangout a few hundred yards from L.S.U. There, the libation of choice was "Three Wise Men," a high-octane mix of 151-proof...

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