People are talking about things. Using these.

Steve Jobs released a second version of the iPad yesterday. Other tablets cower. The highlights: two cameras (front/back), FaceTime, up to 9 times faster, and a 10-hour battery life. Plus, just in time for Spring Break, it’s now 33 percent thinner! (WSJ, Apple, Gizmodo, PC World)

In a Supreme Court battle between funeral protesters and a father who had to endure their bearing of “America is Doomed” and “God Hates Fags” signs at his son’s funeral, the ruling went to the former—the First Amendment protects such protests. (NYT)

French prosecutors have decided that former Dior designer John Galliano—following his widely publicized anti-Semitic remarks—will be put on trial, and faces possible prison time. His apology yesterday seems to have been too little, too late. (NYMag)

Apparently ROTC is talking about us, too—DNA Info reports that they have no plans to establish a program at Columbia, even if we decide to host one. (DNA Info)

The Northwestern campus is teeming with controversy about a demonstration in a Human Sexuality class last week. Said demo involved a non-student being penetrated by a sex toy on stage. The Professor who arranged it released a statement saying, “Student feedback for this event (I routinely feedback collect for all events) was uniformly positive.” We feel very one-upped. (The Daily Northwestern)

Speaking of other colleges, Columbia might be following NYU to Shanghai, perhaps with Cornell also in tow. If this means soup dumplings instead of John Jay mystery burgers, we are so in. (NYU News)

Bonus item: something not controversial at all is happening! Levain Bakery opened a Harlem location yesterday. For those who don’t know the gravity of this statement, here are a few descriptive sentence fragments about the LB cookies: giant, undercooked in the middle in the best possible way, so delicious that sources have reported offering to trade family members to bakery staffers for “just one bite,” the best $4 you will ever spend… (Spectator)

Lips via Wikimedia commons.

In April, we reported that rumors both on campus and in print were suggesting that Professor Joseph Massad would soon be granted tenure. Now, everyone’s favorite tabloid/monitor-of-all-Columbia-controversies, the New York Post, reports (via HuffPo) that Massad has been granted tenure.  In an article neutrally-entitled “Columbia Tenures An Israel Basher,” columnist Jacob Gershman writes that Columbia “officially — if quietly — awarded Massad tenure earlier this month.”

Gershman then runs through the many controversies that Massad has been involved in in his time in Morningside, before adding two new plot points. First, he calls Dean of Arts and Sciences Nicholas Dirks a “key ally” for Massad in getting an uncommon–though not unheard of–second tenure review. Second, Gershman alleges that “President Lee Bollinger and Provost Alan Brinkley took extraordinary measures to protect the secrecy of Massad’s tenure case and guard against an outcry from Jewish alumni and donors,” including shielding the names of tenure committee members from the Board of Trustees.

University spokesman Robert Hornsby did not comment to Bwog, citing the “longstanding policy” of no comment on tenure cases. While no complaints at the faculty level have made their way back to Bwog’s ears (yet), several MEALAC students told Bwog in April that, contrary to Massad’s first tenure review, far fewer details were leaking about the tenure process, and there appear to be fewer leaks to the media as well. Whatever makes the faculty happy.

- JCD

And by The Boss we mean Bwog-fave Bruce Robbins, whose ruminations on Columbia’s dearth of academic freedom made it into this week’s edition of The Nation. Esther Kaplan’s penetrating investigation of Fair Alma revealed a brewing crisis in contemporary academia: fringe right-wing groups holding controversial events on campuses. And dear God does the future look bleak.

Elsewhere, David Horowitz wrapped up this week’s anti-Islamofascist carnival by offering America’s complacent masses one final, terrifying anecdote:

“The Vice President of the Muslim Students Association at Columbia protested my use of the word ‘jihad’ during my speech, which she said meant spiritual ‘struggle’ rather than ‘holy war’ The only problem was that I hadn’t used the word ‘jihad’ in my speech at all. It was just one of the talking points she had been given in advance of the event. When I asked her whether she would denounce the terrorist group Hamas, which along with the Muslim Brotherhood created her organization, she evaded the question.”

UPDATE, 2:06 AM: Amreen Vora, Vice President of Columbia MSA, wrote to Bwog to say that she never made such a comment, and in fact was not present at the Horowitz event at all. 

Also in unholy league with the Islamists is the Columbia Coalition Against the War, a group so dangerous that Horowitz surrounds its name with quotation marks, as if to suggest that they only kinda-sorta exist, but not really, because if they actually existed they wouldn’t have quotation marks around their name, right?

Next controversy, please.

UPDATE: Letter from VP Dirks, Dean Quigley and Navratil included after jump.

Bwog just got a copy of this blast email that went out to GS students.

From: Mary McGee

Date: Oct 11, 2007 4:29 PM

Subject: **Vandalism in Lewisohn Hall

To all GS students:

 It is very distressing to report that anti-semitic graffiti was found

in a bathroom stall in Lewisohn Hall.   These kinds of hateful crimes

directed against the Jewish community or any other individuals or groups will not be tolerated.  I have been a member of the Columbia faculty for thirty years and know that we as a community stand for values that are completely antithetical to such vile and hate-filled images.  Let us seize this occasion to renew our commitment to the values of inclusiveness, respect, and toleration that we all cherish. And let us make clear to one another that we will not allow such cowardly hate-mongering to divide our community.  I can assure you that the Office of Public Safety and the New York Police Department are conducting a full investigation of this incident .

Peter J. Awn

Dean”

And, after the jump, PrezBo’s cumulative response to what we shall heretofore dub (the Great) Racism Rash. Read more…

Two female first-years were overheard bringing new meaning to “innocent until proven guilty” near the John Jay elevators:

Girl 1: “My dad works with one of the Duke lacrosse players who got in trouble.”

Girl 2: “Really? Which one?”

Girl 1: “The really hot one.”

The internets are afire with talk of this weekend’s “Modern Love” column in the NY Times, authored by one Ashley Cross, a reputed student at our very own university. The mysterious Ms. Cross, who could not be located by Facebook, Columbia directory, or truly thorough Googling (unless she happens to own this site), has come under attack for defending her relationship with a Harvard student suspended from the institution after being accused of rape. In her piece, Cross divulges the two are no longer together, her ex-lover’s apparently attractive assertiveness having been suppressed by the re-education programs he was ordered to attend as part of the plea bargain he worked out after criminal charges were filed (which also included house arrest). Still, she is now seen by many as having severely downplayed the allegations against him– and helping to cast doubt on future rape accusations.

A tour of the controversy so far: a thread on the topic at liberal politics blog Daily Kos, where some seem confused by the fact the story has not run as a straightforward news item and others link the social implications of Cross’ piece to the Duke rape case, has run to 340 responses; Gawker questioned Cross’ reasoning…twice, Harvard’s Gadfly ran lots of Crimson documentation on the question of the rape case, and IvyGate wants Cross’ number.

This being the sixth anniversary of the Al-Aqsa intifada, a bunch of Palestinian sympathizers have gathered on the sundial, wearing kaffiyehs and angrily puffing on cigarettes.

Socialists, Palestinian nationals, and Mealac majors/TA’s are all in full force.

Also, overhead, the sweet sounds of political/cultural hatred:

“Your prime minister is a war criminal!”

“You’re a fucking racist!”

After the jump, some blurry photos.

Read more…