We were going to launch a campaign to round up all you summer readers and bring this urgent question to the President’s attention. Then the heat got the better of us or something, but it’s the thought that counts right?

Critics called the purchase "Andrew Johnson's Polar Bear Garden"

Approaching its $4 Billion capital campaign goal, Columbia is raking in the dough (Spec).

Learn to bike like a champ. The cycling master who taught Joseph Gordon-Levitt to barrel down Broadway demonstrates how to “be a fish in the coral.” (City Room).

Obama hits the road. (NYTimes)

Way back when on October 18th, the United States bought Alaska (History Channel).

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

On the Low Steps? Could be.

Columbia College 2011 President Sean Udell and Vice President Alexandra Coromilas have founded the CUPOTUS Project. As you might guess, its goal is to secure President Barack Obama CC ’83 as speaker for university-wide Commencement. But wait! Before you shake your heads and dismiss it as a pipe dream, listen up–their strategy is different. In the words of Udell himself:

Here’s the deal: President Obama has been sent the official invitation by President Bollinger and the Class of 2011. But he’s been sent invitations before. What we think will do the trick, however, is to demonstrate a grassroots movement made up of a united student body. That’s a tall order, but I have a feeling that we can pull this off.

Here’s what you can do to help:

• Check our their first press release.
• Read all about it on their website.
• Sign up to help.
• Like them on Facebook.
• Follow them on Twitter.
• Email them with suggestions or a letter for the President which they’ll pass on.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

People taking cars that don’t belong to them. (NY Daily News)

People taking children that don’t belong to them. (Yahoo! News)

Strange people doing strange things. (Gothamist)

“Jobs and industries of tomorrow taking root beyond our borders.” (NYT)

Colors you’ve never heard of before. (Jezebel)

Reality stars who just won’t go away. (Entertainment Weekly)

Columbia on TV. (C-SPAN)

Barack Obama CC ’83 accepts the Nobel Peace Prize, tells the “hard truth” about war, annoys the entire population of Norway, departs with lingonberry jam and a bag of frozen Swedish meatballs; all in a day’s work.

Florida judges and lawyers shouldn’t be Facebook friends; courtroom attorneys are, of course, always entitled to “Like” the verdict.

There’s plenty of swine flu vaccine to go ’round.

NYC homeless shelters may not be keeping up their end.

And Barnard’s War on Fun is just as pertinent as all of the other Wars on Fun.

The October issue of the Columbia Political Review is out.

The tongues of former commies and renegade colonists are back in style,

Young idealists are still hopping on the bandwagon,

Barack Obama spreads hope and change,

 San Francisco finally puts its money where its (progressive) mouth is,

and Conservatives pretend its 1773.

President Barack Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize, basically for existing. (Times)

Harvard students lose the “right” to a hot breakfast. (Times)

Harlem braces for trouble with getting an accurate census. (Spec)

NASA “slams” two probes into the moon to look for hidden ice. No launch date yet for the follow-up mission, which will look for “hidden cheese.” (AP) 

Most student veterans are still waiting for their GI Bill benefits. (Denver Post)

- Photo: Leo Reynolds/Flickr

Sometimes you just have to call it quits, pull up stakes, and head home to greener pastures. A number of people are doing just that this weekend, and Bwoglines brings you their stories.

You know you must not be wanted when even Gov. David Paterson is worried you’ll make him unpopular. (Gothamist) 

Speaking of the governor, Paterson just got an “It’s not me, it’s you” letter from Obama. Guess our favorite be-bearded, Senate-stymied, cocaine-use-admitting gubernatorial alumnus won’t be sticking around Albany much longer. Class Day speaker, anyone? (NY Times)

Among other politicans you won’t be seeing again for a long, long time: John Edwards. (Daily Intelligencer)

The one guy not leaving the scene any time soon? NYU President John Sexton—at least, not until 2016, by which point PrezBo will have already retired to a 10 p.m. primetime talkshow slot. (NYULocal)

But, for everyone else who managed to survive this week in New York: stay safe, work hard, and keep plucking that chicken. (City Room)

- An eager crowd awaits the band’s entrance

If you missed Orgo Night, fret not – the show was recorded and will be available tomorrow on CUMB’s blog. Now, the Bwog review:

After entering to the usual “Roar Lion Roar,” the Columbia University Marching Band noted that, due to the recession, this year’s show would be sponsored by the Columbia University Show. “We also thank the Varsity Show,” a band member opined, “for lowering expectations for the past 35 years.” As the Hillel-distributed stress balls flew in the air over the spectators (one eventually landing in a tuba sousaphone), many were still looking for seats, but the band told them not to worry: “if you can’t hear the jokes, there’ll be plenty seats open by intermission.”

Thus began one of the best Orgo Nights in recent memory, though, in typical marching band fashion, some of the jokes skirted the edge of tastefulness. Surprisingly, the end of the election and the departure did not dampen the band’s taste for political humor- the first two segments focused on Ann Coulter (simply described as “fucking crazy” and Fox News respectively (with “Beat It” and “More Than A Feeling” mixed in), and mostly had fun at “Coultergeist’s” expense, including asking “If she thinks kindergartners are being taught fisting in kindergarten, what are they being taught in high school? Read more…

Loyalty is not something ingrained in students at this spirit-deprived school.  Even with all the excitement, we knew deep inside that Barack Obama (CC ’83, now some kind of important person) would never speak at Class Day.

After all, what with saving the world, how could he possibly have time to visit his Alma Mater?

As it turned out, our intuition was correct – Obama won’t be our Class Day speaker.  He’ll be the commencement speaker for other schools.

That’s right, schools, pluralized.  Two days ago, the White House issued a little-noticed press release announcing that Barack Obama would serve as commencement speaker at three colleges: Arizona State, Notre Dame, and the US Naval Academy.

Bwog’s analysis would suggest that he’ll touch on themes such as “the economy,” “the future,” and “you unemployable history majors.”

The press release promises “more details” at a later date, but we’re not holding our breath.  We’re too bitter.

-  Image by Joe Schumacher

Want to sightsee, but worried about finishing that paper on time? Why not visit an alley?

Well, more specifically, the alley where Barack Obama spent his first night in New York, as he mentioned in Dreams from My Father. Arriving at his new apartment only to find no one to let him in, Obama enjoyed the alley’s fine hospitality, and in the morning availed himself of the local shower (a.k.a the hydrant).

And it’s not hard to access – Gothamist tipped us off yesterday to a Harlem blogger’s fine photos of the locale. You can also check out his photos of Obama’s various former residences on West 109th, East 94th, and West 114th Streets. Hurry, before they’re commercialized!

Despite the cold, Columbians have turned out in force for the inauguration viewing on Low Plaza. If you were hoping to see Obama’s speech outside, prepare to stand at the back.

Whether you’re in DC, around New York, or on campus, send in your Inauguration Day photos to bwgossip@columbia.edu. For those of you staying in to watch the speech, there are a plethora of options, including C-SPAN and CNN.

Two pieces of (somewhat) Obama-related media: first, one of his first college roommates writes about their time together in the fall of 1981. Phil Boerner ’84, who transferred with Obama from Occidental, remembers Obama that, “as a host and roommate, he sometimes did the shopping and cooked the chicken curry.” Oh, and Obama may have spent so much time in the library because “our apartment had irregular heat, and we didn’t enjoy hanging out there once the weather got cold.” The pair also hit up establishments that Columbia students still haunt, including Tom’s (“for breakfast”), the Met, and the Central Park jogging loop.

Meanwhile, in the New York Times, author Kevin Baker ’80 decides that, because he “came to New York, and to Columbia University, just a few years before Barack Obama arrived in 1981,” he should remind us what New York was like in the early 80s. “It was a dirtier city then, more violent, more interesting,” he writes, “more accessible to poor, eager young people.” Still, “everything seemed like a revelation, right from the first day at Columbia, when my art humanities professor took us to St. John the Divine and explained what a Gothic cathedral was.” Some things never change.

Better late than never: one week before his inauguration, an article Barack Obama wrote for the now-defunct campus magazine The Sundial has finally surfaced in full on Politico. The article had first been excerpted in the class notes section of Columbia College’s alumni magazine’s November/December issue.

Written in the spring of 1983, just months before Obama’s graduation, the article lauds two campus groups – Arms Race Alternatives and Students Against Militarism – for their anti-war efforts. Declaring that “the more sensitive among us struggle to extrapolate experiences of war from our everyday experience,” Obama compliments the two groups on bringing “the words of that formidable roster on the face of Butler Library, names like Thoreau, Jefferson, and Whitman, to bear on the twisted logic of which we are today a part.” Oh, and he quotes Peter Tosh, which Bwog considers nothing less than awesome.

As Politico puts it, “this is not exactly his best work, but it offers a new glimpse of his very conventional campus liberalism of the time.” Somehow, though, Bwog doubts this would’ve changed anyone’s vote.

A quick roundup of some of headlines that appeared in our inbox in the past few days:

For all those who have resolved to go to get fit in the new year, there may be no better example of the benefits than Barack Obama – he began his now-famous commitment to fitness as a senior at Columbia.

Cut out the sugar cubes: Medical Center researchers have linked blood sugar spikes to memory loss.

Women’s basketball star Judie Lomax was named to the Naismith Trophy Early Season watch list, the only player from the Ivy League on the list.

Finally, Bwog salutes former Rhode Island Senator Claiborne Pell, architect of the Pell Grant program, who died yesterday at the age of 90. Pell recieved a master’s in history from Columbia in 1946, and Columbia ranks 1st among private universities in percentage of students recieving Pell Grants.