Another chain from south of the triple digits border is now accepting Flex: according to Student Services, the Whole Foods at 97th and Columbus will also be accepting Flex by the start of the fall, following close on the heels of CVS (yes, that’s a Chicago Whole Foods in the picture – blame Flickr). Now you can show your support for the country’s “most humane grocery store” with your parents’ cash. Yet be warned: the trek may be good exercise, but the food may not be any healthier.

- JCD

Sweet One/Flickr

Now that’s a rhyme. Really though, two items of interest to our Chosen friends have made it into the ol’ inbox (full disclosure: Bwog’s current editor is a Papist). First, the lost amongst you no longer have to rely on your wandering skills to find the nearest synagogue. Columbia students Ron Gejman and Jacob Andreas have created an app that tells you the nearest synagogue, and also lists other useful info like denomination, size, contact info, and so forth. On campus, they’re both CULPA admins, so you know the app will be quality.

On the other hand, if you’re just feeling peckish for some Flex-infused food, Student Services’s Michael Novielli announced earlier today that Cafe Nana (a Kosher restaurant on the second floor of the Hillel Kraft Center) will be accepting the world’s slowest credit card by the time students return in the fall. Ballin’.

- JCD

Columbia PhD graduate/ Google search engineer Sasha Blair-Goldensohn is making headlines all over the Big Apple as he recovers from being hit by a falling branch while in Central Park. Yesterday, according to the Daily News, “Blair-Goldensohn, 33, a Google engineer and father of two young children, was walking to work through the park Wednesday morning when a 100-pound limb broke off of a rotting tree and clubbed him on the head.” The tree limb had even punctured his lung, and Blair-Goldensohn was rushed to New York-Presbyterian in a coma.

Fortunately, after spending several hours, relatives (including J-School adjunct Gwenda Blair) say he is making a recovery, and responding to basic commands. We hope the story does have a happy ending.

The Journal of Philosophy, run and published by Columbia’s philosophy department, has been around in one form or another for more than a century, and it is certainly an important part of the university’s reputation: PrezBo’s a trustee of the journal. But the Internet Age is leading to criticism of the journal’s editorial process. 

Most recently, a posting by Huron University professor John Turri at a Baylor philosophy blog shared a “horror story” of two of his papers sitting for a full thirty-five months “sitting at this journal, waiting to be read … or, actually, waiting to not be read, as it turned out.” Repeated emails to the journal elicited little response as well. And Turri is apparently not alone in experiencing a response time that makes Verizon customer service look speedy. Other philosophy professors chimed in agreement in the comments, and even more added their stories at UChicago prof Brian Leiter’s popular philosophy blog.

This poor reputation for turnaround, combined with the unpopularity of its in-house editorial process (which some non-Columbia professors see as hurting its impartiality), has even led Leiter to suggest a boycott of the journal. Bwog believes in a different way to settle things.

- JCD

(photo: WallyG/Flickr)

Remodeled facade of soon-to-be-open Cafe Bagutta

Fashion designer Marc Bagutta is opening an eatery in the empty space once occupied by Cafe Fresh.

Serving its first customers this Saturday with brunch, the eponymous Cafe Bagutta will offer continental cuisine, coffee, and wine seven days a week, but the new owner also has a grander scheme in mind.

“I want to bring the flavor, the soul, and the music of old Spanish Harlem here,” says Bagutta. “But I’m bringing downtown uptown, too. I want this place to be Raoul’s meets the Apollo.”

Read more…

Last December, when the Blue and White interviewed Nobel laureate and Columbia professor Joseph Stiglitz, we entitled it “The Fortuneteller.” Now, according to Newsweek, though many economists also admire Stiglitz’s predictive abilities, he’s not getting any love in Washington.

Calling him “the most misunderstood man in America,” Newsweek contrasts Stiglitz’s reputation overseas, where “he is received like a superstar, a modern-day oracle,” with his unpopularity at home. Tellingly, Stiglitz did advise a world leader before this past spring’s G20 meetings, but it wasn’t Obama – it was Britain’s Gordon Brown. The possible explanations number several, including Stiglitz’s support for an international reserve currency, his distrust of unregulated markets (neither idea exactly popular in the United States), and his rivalry with Obama economic adviser/former Harvard president Larry Summers.

Then again, perhaps Obama just really wants to snub Columbia, and poor Joe’s just caught in the crossfire (photo: apesphere/Flickr).

Put down the wands – a wizard will not be joining the Columbia community in the fall. Multiple tipsters alerted us (with startling quickness) to Emma Watson finally going on the record about her Ivy destination. And yes, as predicted, Brown won this battle. Guess we’ll have to settle for the White House.

If the end of the weekend’s got you down, pick up those spirits with the following story from the Chicago Tribune. Last December, after being urged to get a neurological scan by his mother, the 23-year-old received the results: he had glioblastoma, the most aggressive form of brain tumor (median survival: just over a year), and exceedingly rare in the young.

Rather than resign himself, though, Lukac went back to Northwestern (where he had received the prognosis) and its Brain Tumor Research. Director Marcus Bredel took him on as an assistant researcher, and “for the last few months Lukac has helped conduct many of the experiments that one day could lead to breakthroughs in treating his disease.” And now, his lab has “identified 31 genes key to the formation of glioblastoma tumors,” a crucial advance in discovering treatments for the cancer.

Bredel commented, “I don’t know, if I had this disease, if I could be around it on a daily basis in a setting like this,” but Lukac is maintaining high spirits. “The last two or three months,” he told the Tribune, “being here and doing what I’ve been able to do, it just feels great.” Good luck to him. (Photo: Nancy Stone – Chicago Tribune)

During summer, students may be slaving away at an unpaid resume bullet point internship, scrambling to find something after said internship failed to materialize, or lounging around on the couch (lucky…). Professors and fortunate grad students, though, are still releasing their reports in hopes of gaining a tiny bit of recognition from a conference, providing a useful link for future users of JSTOR, or building their resume to get a better job/their precious tenure. Mostly the last one. And while the newswires are mostly dead in the middle of July, most of Columbia’s headlines are coming from these projects.

• Sleeping light? According to Medical Center researchers, that makes you more likely to be fat.
• Researchers find that a coronary calcium scan might cause cancer in itself.
• Thought art history majors would be left out? Of course not:  a sociology doctoral student claims French modernists who bloomed later were also productive for longer.
• There’s no conclusion yet, but Columbia is partnering with the University of Michigan and Harvard (among others) to study suicide and mental health in the military.
• This last study is more than a month old, but there’s no time like the present for the obvious: abstinence-only education will stop contraceptives, but kids’ll keep on having sex.
  

Now go outside and feel enlightened!

- Photo by JYH

The “will-she-or-won’t-she?” over Emma Watson’s possible matriculation at Columbia continues, much to our tipsters’ agony. Last week, co-star Daniel Radcliffe appeared to let the secret out when he told the Guardian “she’s going to Brown!” However, other gossip blogs, despite access to Google News, continue to assert that she will be coming to New York rather than Providence, including WENN.com and, uh, Perez Hilton. Since an official announcement has to come soon (and since her co-star is a bit more reliable than a doodling hack), this might be our only chance to use our special logo (which is purposefully in no way over-the-top).

Some alumni are registering their displeasure over Joseph Massad’s new tenure appointment…to the New York Post, of course.

The man arrested for defrauding Columbia of almost $200,000 — and later tried to claim sexual harassment as an excuse — was sentenced to fifteen months in prison.

Finally, the Wall Street Journal shares the heartwarming tale of a journalism school student/Iraq War veteran, Luis Montalvan, and his psychiatric help dog. Save it for a rainy day.

- Logo by JYH

Having heard that a soup company is muscling in on their filming territory, Law & Order SVU returned to Morningside last night to film at 111th and Broadway.

No word on which characters were involved, but we kinda hope it was Munch.

During the school year, filming on campus is Law & Order and HBO pilots. During the summer, it’s Campbell’s Soup filming a commercial at Sezz Medi. Poor summer students.

It’s two of the best-known rites-of-passage for any Columbian: the first time that you forgot to switch to the 1 train at 96th, and the first time someone who was staying with you forgot to switch. The latter, of course, is the funnier, especially if you tell your visitor the wrong directions back, but the former is annoying, and could even cost you a full two dollars $2.25 (still a full hot dog at some local stands!) if you don’t realize your mistake until you’re outside.

Yes, subways can be deceiving. Fear not, though, subway novices, for if you have enough money to spend on an iPhone/Blackberry/Android/Kindle, then you can buy the new iPhone subway app from an start-up company called Exit Strategy NYC. While it admittedly won’t prevent such boneheadedness as missing your stop, it will save you time: the app – created by ten weeks of riding the entire subway system – tells users which car will be the closest to another line or an exit.

Still, this is just an smartphone app – why mention it here? Because the app, which was blurbed in CityRoom and amNY, was conceived/programmed by two former Columbia students – Jonathan Wegener, CC ’07 and Benny Wong, SEAS ’07. Though CityRoom says Wegener had no experience in developing a mobile application, neither alum was a web neophyte while on campus – Wong’s LinkedIn profile says he worked for CUIT (and is now at Morgan Stanley), while Wegener used to run the original Columbia-specific website, CULPA. That’s using your education.

UPDATE: Wegener got in touch with us to stress that the application does not have a map of the subway system, an impression the first version of this post mistakenly gave (Google’s handled much of the actual mapping). He also provided us with a sample image, and said the program will be getting some TV coverage soon.

An eagle-eyed member of Columbia’s secret safety patrol has spotted what appears to be a violation of OSHA regulations and New York fire codes in the Butler 213 computer lab.

Labels on a fire extinguisher in the lab indicate the fire-fighting device is 10 years overdue for its routine servicing—the series of tests that ensure the extinguisher will work when you pull the handle.

Seeking to draw attention to the problem, the safety-minded do-gooder left behind an indignant sign splashed with various font weights and sizes, which is shown at right.

After the jump is a close-up of the extinguisher’s service tag, but before you look, just think: the last time someone checked on this extinguisher, PrezBo lived in Michigan. Cargo pants were still popular, and this thing called an “MP3 player” had just hit the market.

But seriously, folks, if your fire extinguisher has outlived ‘N Sync, it’s time to change it.

Read more…