With a talk by Charles Simic

“Il Premio Napoli a New York”

Free and open to the public; reservations required:
nb2413@columbia.edu or 212-854-8562

Two of America’s finest and most widely-acclaimed poets will make a rare
joint appearance to celebrate this prestigious international prize at
Columbia University’s Italian Academy.

Poet John Ashbery is the winner of the Special “Premio Napoli” 2009
Prize for career achievement; poet Charles Simic is the winner of the
“Premio Napoli” Prize for Non-Italian Literature, for the book “Club
Midnight.”

Speakers: Silvio Perrella, (President, Premio Napoli Foundation); Nelson
Moe (Columbia University and Barnard College); Barbara Faedda (Italian
Academy); Anthony Tamburri (Calandra Institute).

The latest from the world of student government:

• As part of the push to open more rooms for student use (after the giant disappointment that was the opening of Lerner 6), the four councils have secured space in Broadway and Schapiro for future student group use. To help determine the best use of the space, students from all four undergraduate colleges are being asked to fill out a “Campus Space Survey.”
• University Senate sources tell Bwog that any Senate action on the smoking ban is “a long way off,” and the ban is not popular with many Senators. As for the survey, student government members tell Bwog that the release of students’ UNIs requires signoff from a dean in each school, which has slowed the release of the survey.
• After last week’s passage of the resolution on “gender-neutral housing,” the various Deans are now “in conversation,” and said conversation should finish before Winter Break.
• Both ESC and CCSC passed a resolution creating a Varsity Show Technical Fund; the show ended last year with a large surplus, and hopes to use the money to help other arts groups. The fund will be administrated by CCSC, ESC, and GSSC (which is voting on the resolution tonight).
• In today’s most ironic development, CUIT has told CCSC that it is open to switching to a Google App for that mail system you forward to Gmail Cubmail. Ever better: CUIT claims it’s always been open to switching, but students just forwarded their email to Gmail instead of complaining.

- MMT, photo via Flickr

David Hu sent in this picture, showing the newly-decorated trees already illuminated, quite a bit earlier than the proposed date for the tree-lighting ceremony, reported to be 6pm on December 1st. Avoid College Walk if you don’t want the surprise to be ruined!

Once again, many of us will be making the pilgrimage from Morningside to a home, whether it’s yours, your grandparents, significant other’s. There will be queues at the airport, train stations and bus terminals. It will be stressful. To help ease the pain, Bwog has once again compiled advice from the most experienced travelers on how best to brave the pre-Thanksgiving exodus. Bear in mind that some readers may have preferred routes or differing past experiences. We are only trying to help! Bwog wishes everyone a safe, cheap, and relatively painless journey home. And have a happy Thanksgiving!

Some simple tips

• Leave TODAY.
• Take Xanax.
• Charge your iPod.
• Invest in a neck pillow.
• THINK AHEAD. Double-check your departure times and locations, any baggage restrictions, and especially how to get to and from your area of departure/arrival.
• If you are thinking about taking a cab, sign up for Carsplit, Columbia’s cabshare service that organizes taxis to LGA, JFK and Newark.

Planning on driving?

• Remember, Wednesday November 25th is the worst traffic day of the year. So be prepared.
• If you’re going to Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, Ithaca, or anywhere that makes you pass through those places, don’t be conned by your GPS into taking I80/I380/I81 out of New York: it’s a guaranteed way to be stuck in traffic/construction hell. Take I87 North, then take NYS Route 17- it splits, one way going to Albany, the other going to Binghamton, where it meets up with 81 again. It’ll shave a cool 45 minutes off your trip, and Route 17 is really scenic. – Really specific, but it changed my life.
• If you are crazy enough to go down I-95, at least try to leave in the early afternoon (1-2 P.M.) or else you will be caught in the Great New York Exodus.
• Check metrocommute for up-to-date traffic alerts in the area.
  

Okay, maybe take the bus.

• Try to get a bus that has guaranteed seating (Vamoose, Bolt, etc.)
• Bolt Bus sold out? There are still tickets left on Greyhound. Alternatively, you can always try Craig’s list. Occasionally people post tickets they can no longer use.

Read more…

Last night the Muslim Students Association put on their annual Eid al-Adha dinner – one of the largest and most diverse gatherings of Muslims on campus. Mark Hay happily sampled the food, music and entertainment on offer.

Thanks to the vigorous push of outreach, this year’s celebration was one of the largest in memory and also saw a large attendance of non-Muslims. Not that it would have mattered if your correspondent had been the only non-Muslim in the room. As noted by guest-speaker, author and expert on Muslim diversity Haroon Moghul, Eid al-Adha is the perfect observance of the Muslim faith to remember and reinforce the point of unity despite magnificent diversity within the Islamic community and beyond. Memorializing Ibrahim (Abraham)’s near-sacrifice of his only son to Allah and observed in conjunction with a portion of the Hajj, Moghul notes, Eid al-Adha utilizes the common rituals, collective memories and holy geographies to stress the points of connection between not just Muslims, but all adherents to Abrahamic faiths.

Moghul drove home this point – the unifying power of common rituals and spaces – with the story of his family’s temporary adoption of a group of Kosovar Muslim refugees in 1999. Sharing no points of language or external culture in common with these white, blonde, blue-eyed guests, and hampered by a significant language barrier, Moghul took to referring to one of the children as “Baklava,” as, he believes, that is the one word all cultures have in common. And the one food item every nation believes itself to have invented.

Read more…

You may want to be wary when ordering sushi. Luckily, Columbia scientists have the low-down. (Wired)

Not looking forward to the wrath of irascible travelers Wednesday afternoon? Not to worry, apparently we’re chemically programmed to be kind. (NYT)

“Things are moving extraordinarily fast” (finally…) at the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. (National Geographic)

There’s a vaccine for swine flu — and you don’t live IN CANADA. (Gothamist)

Barack Obama thinks it’s cool. (Wired)

IDAYA Magazine is still seeking your submissions for our Fall 2009 issue! Our theme this fall is “Afropolitan” and we would love for your submissions to incorporate the dynamic nature of the African city. It is not too late to submit your articles! Our new deadline is November 27th 2009. Our categories for submissions are entertainment, business, lifestyle, politics, humor, education, tradition and culture, and sports etc. We also accept photos as well as other creative materials. All materials should be submitted to idayamagazine@gmail.com.
We look forward to seeing your interpretation of what it means to be Afropolitan!!

Online

Virtual Internship Program- deadline extended to December 6! Positions are available in marketing, content management, web development, research and others. Learn more about the VIP here and apply today!

Contact email: Syeda Lewis at sl3067@columbia.edu

Everyone’s favorite anti-Columbia tabloid, the New York Post, is back with another swipe at Alma Mater. In an article entitled “Schools’ Iran $$ Pipeline,” the Post reports that “anti-Israel, pro-Iran university professors are being funded by a shadowy multimillion-dollar Islamic charity based in Manhattan that the feds charge is an illegal front for the repressive Iranian regime.” More specifically, the article claims that the Alavi Foundation, which recently had several of its properties seized by the US government under allegations of being controlled by Iran, “donated $100,000 to Columbia University after the Ivy League school agreed to host Iranian leader and Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.”

So far, so provocative…except university officials told Bwog today that the Post‘s implication of a quid pro quo for Ahmadinejad’s appearance was false. In fact, the Alavi Foundation’s grant was awarded to Columbia prior to the invitation of Ahmadinejad, rather than after. University spokesman Robert Hornsby also told the Post that the university was surprised to learn of the foundation’s direct ties to the Iranian government.

Not content with playing around with timelines, the Post then finishes the article with a list of three professors it calls “apologists for the Iranian government.” Obviously, such serious charges merit a check on the ol’ Google machine, right? Or, you know, not. In fact, the first Columbia professor on the list, Hamid Dabashi, wrote in July a long article including such laudatory sentences as “[Ahmadinejad] is so patently transparent that all you have to do is sit through 10 minutes of his charlatanism during the televised presidential debates to see through the rampant lumpenism with which he operates.” Even more irresponsible is the inclusion of a second Columbia professor, Gary Sick. In the real world, Tehran has named Sick “an agent of the CIA,” and the fabricated charges against Columbia grad/professor Kian Tajbakhsh are in part based on Sick’s contact with Tajbakhsh.

Somehow, we doubt there’s an apology forthcoming.

- JCD

The Columbia EcoReps want to remind you to save energy over break by taking the “Go Cold Turkey” Pledge:

To reduce my energy use over break, I promise to…

· Unplug all of my appliances including computers, TVs, and lamps

· Recycle all my recyclables while throwing out the trash

· Turn off the lights

· Unplug my refrigerator after removing food inside

· Close my windows to prevent unnecessary loss of heat

· Unplug all chargers

ecoreps@columbia.edu
http://ecoreps.environment.columbia.edu/ecoreps-index.htm

The Columbia University Dance Marathon crew will be holding an information session tonight at 7pm in 568 Lerner where you can learn more about their HIV-fighting benefit event and, of course, snag some free pizza. Hooray for organizations that accomplish a lot in 28 hours!

In the latest edition of Bwog’s profiles of Columbia’s unsung heroes, B&W/Bwog contributor and professional Butler denizen Brian Donahoe sat down and got to know Raj Ramachandran, the altruistic man of Butler Café.

It was a rainy mid-July afternoon when I first met Raj Ramachandran. My roommate had just met someone on the internet and invited her to move in; I was switching rooms. I was pushing an overstuffed blue bin down 114^th when, out of nowhere, Raj, still in his Butler Café uniform, tapped me on the shoulder and took charge. Just off work and with his wife waiting in the car, Raj got my boxes up the Broadway/Hogan front entry steps in five minutes, then shook my hand and left.

When’s he’s not saving the day, Raj mans Butler Café. He’s been working in Columbia Housing & Dining now for 6 years, originally in the School of Social Works before switching to Butler full-time. Over the years he’s reached the conclusion that “99.999% of the time, Columbia students are the best.” Raj does, however, find it amusing when “kids paying $50,000 for school argue over the price of muffins.”

Read more…

The last part of Bwog Poultry Pundit David Hu’s hunt for the ultimate Thanksgiving sandwich.

Meal Three: Saturday, November 21, 2009. 12:02pm
Cajun Roasted Turkey from Milano
In a twist, I went to Milano for lunch, where, once again, they did not have any special Thanksgiving sandwiches. So I settle on something a little unexpected for the season, the Cajun Roasted Turkey sandwich with turkey, French Brie, and honey mustard.

I have to admit, before I ate the sandwich, I was already a little tired of all the turkey I’ve been having. But the sandwich reminded me why there’s a whole season dedicated to the meat. The sandwich features a good balance of an appreciable amount of turkey with lettuce, tomato, and French Brie. If you want to have a sampling of Thanksgiving in just one bite of a sandwich, this is a great choice.

Still, it’s a lot of turkey. Although I’m personally not complaining, but if you’re sick of turkey already, perhaps you may consider the Capri Panini for a little spice in your pre-Thanksgiving life. Read more…

Neighborhood Watchdog Mark Hay sent in this creepy picture of a notice that appeared overnight:

Below are the names of the people who will provide you with nonstop humor and campus punditry… while singing! On stage! Congratulations to all.

Here’s the 116th Varsity Show cast:

Alex Hare CC ’13
Ben Russell CC ’12
David Offit GS/JTS ’13
Emily Feinstein BC ’13
Hannah Kloepfer CC ’13
Hillary Kritt BC ’12
**Jenny Vallancourt BC ’11
*John Goodwin CC ’12
*Pat Blute CC ’12
Spencer Oberman GS ’12
Tessa Slovis BC ’13
*Yonatan Gebeyehu CC ’11

* Previously appeared in The 115th Annual Varsity Show
** Previously appeared in The 114th Annual Varsity Show