Halloween is the first day of our Election Day holiday.  Enough said.

Friday

NYC Village Halloween Parade

7pm , 6th Ave between Spring and 23rd Street

To participate: Line up in costume at 6pm, 6th Ave between Spring and Broome Streets

Last year 45,000 people participated and over 2 million people came to watch, and for good reason.  It’s been rated as one of the top 1,000 experiences you must have before you die, and honestly, there’s nothing like it anywhere else.  Go get your New Yorker cred.

Price: Free! 

St. John’s Halloween Extravaganza

7pm and 10pm, St. John the Divine

A Halloween treat literally in our backyard!  The 1925 version of the Phantom of the Opera, complete with accompaniment by their world-famous church organ, will be playing.  Afterwards, ghoulish forms and figures (i.e., giant puppets) parade through the church.  It’s a lot more low-key than the village, but certainly worth its weight in spookiness.

Price: $15 Read more…

Bwog White House Bureau Chief Jim Downie’s Political Weekly returns for a special end-of-times/beginning-of-times look at the Democratic nomination and a wrap-up of last month’s campaign trail happenings.

And then there were two. One year, three months and twenty-four days after declaring his campaign for the Democratic nomination, Senator Barack Obama finally crossed the elusive delegate threshold and declared victory. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer (normally as blase as his first name is silly) was heard to declare time and again “people are seeing history being made.” His soothing voice and Helfand-esque beard made this blogger want to be a ridiculously small part of that “history,” and so Political Weekly returns for its first of several irregular summer appearances. Whether this post will live up to that history is another story — probably a story of complete failure.

And now, the news:

IT’S OVER! SWEET LORD, IT’S OVER: As of writing, Senator Obama looks set to end the night with around 2150 delegates — about 32 above the 2118 needed to numerically clinch the nomination. Fortunately for his campaign, this allowed him to declare victory on the last primary night, when the networks were all ready to cover his victory. His speech, at a packed arena in St. Paul, Minnesota, can be found here, and video of the start of the speech can be found here.

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Bwog’s coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign continues with Jim Downie’s Political Weekly, now back to its regularly scheduled Monday broadcast. 

This week in politics is like the eye of a hurricane (or at least a tropical depression): stuck in between two supposedly significant weeks. Life on the campaign trail continues incessantly: campaign strategists will scheme for votes, blogs will comb ever deeper for “news,” newspapers will ignore their impending doom as a mass media, and America will eagerly await the coming summer vacation for the next semi-attractive white girl to be kidnapped so they finally get some enjoyable news again. Political Weekly also soldiers on, bringing you the news you might have already found while procrastinating.

(Also, in honor of the Ron Paul fans who did not realize I was not comparing him to “former mayor” Rudy, but rather “Samwise Gamgee” Rudy, all introductory taglines will reference Lord of the Rings. Whether I’m proud that I can do this is something I’d rather not confront.)

And now, the news:

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Here are the vote counts for every (contested) CCSC election. Uncontested races include 2010 and 2011 Class Councils and Pre-Professional Rep. A total number of 1921 votes were cast (including paper ballots), which is about 42% of the 4500 Columbia College students. Note: There are two spots for 1-Year Senate and Student Services Rep. 

-JJV Read more…

Bwog spent the first hour of George Krebs’ presidency with the man of the hour and the rest of his camp in Krebs’ Watt Studio. 

Krebs bounded down the Watt stairs and greeted us. “Thank you!” he yelled. He ran back up the stairs and slammed the door to his studio open. “WOOOOO!” he yelled. His party and their drunken cohorts yelled affirmatively, and responded with similar “WOOOOs.” 

A random drunken cohort held up a pinata shaped like a donkey. Krebs grabbed a broom out of absolutely nowhere and pounded the pinata. More “WOOOOs.” Six Coors Lights fell out of the pinata and they were snatched up within seconds. 

“I was pleasantly surprised,” Krebs said of his win. He described the soundtrack to his mood right now as the musical stylings of DJ Tanner. He then pointed to his left and introduced us to DJ Tanner. DJ Tanner was not surprised at the Krebs win.

“I’m going to put on a record!” Krebs yelled. “WOOOO!” He puts on a record and starts to dance. Other join.

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Screw CCSC elections. Last night, the real election everyone on campus was talking about went down: the election for Director of Technology of ESC!

But apparently, not everyone was as excited as me. About ten people on the council were missing�enjoying SEAS NY trips, returning Homeward Bound at Kim’s, etc. I snuck listens to the various coercing cell phone conversations that were happening: “Yo, can you just come for like twenty minutes? Then you can peace.” I hope to someday sound that cool on the phone.

The competition was between Daniel Gundrum and Kenny Rivera�both SEAS ’10, both into computers, both very nerdy. Daniel, whose oratory skills have impressed me before, again began working the crowd with an undeniable smoothness: “I think you wanna see some of the things I’ve done.” Without even waiting for our validation (that’s part of his smoothness), he proceeded to present several games he had programmed in his free time. One of them tested how many times he could click the mouse in thirty seconds, for which Daniel racked up an inspiring 134 clicks, perhaps symbolizing the 134 things I would rather do than play that game.

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In a very special [ed. note: and very sic] edition of Bwog Personals, we invite you to meet your eligible and handsome CCSC Presidential candidates. All interested parties should email bwog@columbia.edu and we’ll arrange and pay for a date with one of these fine gentleman.

 


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Well dressed and well rehearsed, CCSC E-board candidates strut their stuff for the final time this evening in Wien Lounge, as they debated for the second time, trying to wrangle every last vote before the moratorium on campaigning Tuesday morning.  Alidad and George, both looking dapper with slightly loosened ties, recited their stumps as a meager crowd shuffled around trays of chicken wings and curly fries, clearly more interested in gastronomy than governance.  A few interesting facts emerged, such as Donna Desilus’s revelation that “Alidad is a critical thinker.”

Mostly press and current CCSC members, the very brief question and answer period was devoted mostly to answering pragmatic problems posed by current VP Campus Life Lindsey Lazopoulos and Student Services Molly Conley. 

Stay tuned tomorrow for Bwog Personals for Alidad and George as well as final endorsements counts.

-JJV

With only a week more of campaigning left, both CCSC E-Board candidates are starting to gather up endorsements. While Spec, Christian groups and other heavyweights have yet to back a candidate, Camp Krebs got a big boost with a CU College Dems endorsement. Alidad countered with BSO’s first ever endorsement and is currently leading Krebs in Greek endorsements 2-1 (Alidad is a member of Beta). 

The Arab and Muslim student groups are following former MSA President Adil Ahmed in supporting George while Korean student groups are doing the same for Jen Choi and Alidad. More endorsement gossip to come later in the week–so fret you not. Full endorsement list to date are after the jump.

 -JJV

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Satow Room Bureau Chief  Martha Turewicz reports back from last night’s CCSC meetings. Spoiler alert: Calvin Sun and Lindsey Lazopoulos hotly debate a theoretical photograph of Michelle Diamond theoretically shotgunning a beer. 

The first thing I noticed at the meeting last night was that the audience was packed, since all the CCSC candidates were obligated to be there. Last time so many showed up was for the Great Juicy Campus Detente. Would tonight be just as interesting?

No, no it wouldn’t. The bulk of the meeting entailed providing an example for the candidates of the progression of a typical meeting—while  this was all very meta, a free speech debate it was not. This was not helped by the descent, during the last 20 minutes, into the bureaucratic depths of the constitutional review.

To be fair, there were a few bright points. For one, it was interesting to note the presence of previously unseen council reps, namely Max the Webmaster.

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This just in: Colin Drummond’s CC ’09 Campaign will use 10% fewer posters after promising a poster-less campaign.  This is coming after Mark Johnson, current CC ’09 Vice President, submitted a rules violation due to early publication of this website.  The Elections Board felt that the violation was “not malicious, intentional, or fundamentally unfair,” so they did not reduce web content.  They may however, in a second violation, reduce web content instead of a further reduction in the 0 posters distributed by Drummond’s party.  Bwog fancies the ideas of negative posters.  Email is after the jump

 -JJV

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Today we saw our share of CCSC election controversy, but the E-board race has not been stirred too much. 

Now that policy can be discussed, however, more substance has emerged from the Krebs and Damooei camps.  Damooei seems to have taken the lead in the multimedia department, already having released five videos on Youtube.  Expect a Krebs video later in the week.  There is a quick breakdown of some of the party priorities after the jump.  Read more…

Fu Foundation Bureau Chief Tony Gong stayed up all hours to report on the biggest night of the ESC calendar year, with the possible exception of Mole Day.

 

After seven grueling hours, twelve speeches, and far too many handfuls of complimentary grapes and cheese, ESC finally finished up electing next year’s Executive Board last night, while everyone I have ever known in my life was sleeping—barring my grandma in China. (What’s up Grandma?)

The winners and their opponents are as follows:

President: Peter Valeiras ’09

(vs. Prish Dunstan ’09)

VP Student Life: Huei Ong ’09

(vs. Angela Blackwell ’11, Daniel Gundrum ’10, Esther Zuckerman ’09)

VP Intergroup: Lauren Minces ’09 (vs. Gunnar Aasen ’10, Krissie Zambrano ’09)

VP Policy: Prish Dunstan ’09 (vs. Boris Mindzak ’09, Ken Yearwood ’09)

Secretary: Whitney Green ’10 (vs. Jiaying Xu ’11)

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Experience Columbia will experience a 10% decline in the number of available posters because of the now infamous letter of Adil Ahmed.  The Elections Board ruled in their favor.  Full letter after the jump.

The Official Bwog Poster Count:

Alidad Damooei: 1000

George Krebs: 900

-JJV

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A tipster forwarded Bwog editors an email sent at 2:48 AM last night by George Krebs’ prospective VP of Policy Adil Ahmed. Apparently, Ahmed had sent an email to various student leaders describing his plan for CCSC: “When a bold vision is combined with concrete plans, I know that we can put aside any doubts and believe in and work together towards a more united, connected, opportunity-filled, and comfortable Columbia.” Titillating!

This isn’t technically campaigning, because that would be breaking the rules of the CCSC elections’ timeline, and Ahmed addresses this issue, explaining: “I am not stumping, and I truly mean what I say.” Then again, if saying that “We all have common struggles, but it’s beautiful when we fight through them together” isn’t stumping, Bwog really isn’t sure what is– though we have heard the email circulated around a limited number of readers.

The email is posted in full after the jump. Read more…