Last Tuesday, Bwogger Alex Jones hopped over to the law school to hear Michael Steele speak at an event hosted by the Columbia Political Union.

As the former chairman of the GOP, Michael Steele has a past defined by partisanship. But the message he conveyed on Tuesday was one of post-partisan idealism.

The speech was odd in that it had no stated goal. CPU didn’t bill the event as “Michael Steele on the 2010 Election,” or “Michael Steele, Redefining Conservativism.” It was just… a talk, perhaps more suitable as a commencement address than as a talk to 125 interested poli sci majors.

Steele’s remarks can be reduced to three basic arguments:

• Embrace interesting times: “Times that aren’t structured, times that are a little more chaotic,” [a CPU banner falls down from the chalkboard behind him] “like that!” Our times are interesting times, according to Steele. The world is changing and not many people know exactly how. It is unclear if he meant simply that we shouldn’t be afraid of turbulent change, or that we should strive to create our own noise and confusion. Perhaps his argument is that only through times of uncertainty, real change is achieved.
• Reject political labels: Steele made it clear that he abhors political labels: liberal, conservative, Republican, Democrat. That’s a strange position considering that it was explicitly his job to development a consistent and convincing Republican brand over the last two years.
• Find and adhere to principles: Steele described the development of his principles: “My daddy was an alcoholic, he beat my mama. That’s my story. They shaped my philosophy, they shaped my politics.” Steele’s principles are undoubtably conservative, but shaped by his experience in the poor inner-city of Washington, D.C.

Read more after the jump!

IT IS COLUMBIA. Roar, Lion, roar!

Today on Daily Intel, we learned that there is a new website that makes the last 3,981 wedding announcements in the Times and made them into a database. Columbia has been mentioned 615 times. Browse and see if your TA married your other TA! Harvard had only 466 and Yale- Yale!- only 278! MIT is mentioned 663 times (shhh).

That means that a huge chunk of the important/rich/highly-aggressive people who get their wedding announcements in the Sunday Times are your fellow Columbians. Perhaps we spoke too soon against Floorcest.

Update: A commenter points out that “Columbia” also overlaps with British Columbia, and probably some other things mentioned in wedding announcements that aren’t actually about Columbia the school. Bwog remains certain that we beat Harvard, however.

Hoot Magazine, Columbia’s newest—and only?—fashion publication, has readied their premiere issue for publication: it’s online now, and will hit newstands in full glossy glory shortly. As with other campus publications, we’re here to reduce it to a few sentences. This is Two-Minute Hoot.

• A look at unorthodox Orthodox fashion.
• A glance at stylish English professor Sarah Cole.
• The cover story profiles “Real Housewife” Kelly Killoren Bensimon, GS ’98.
• How to finagle a fashion internship. (We can’t promise it’ll be legal, though!)

Photo via amazon.com

The Bridge, New Yorker Editor David Remnick‘s much-anticipated, 672-page biography on our favorite reluctant alum, Barack Obama, hit stores today. Bwog chatted with Remnick this afternoon about Obama’s years in Morningside. His takeaway: “I think his Columbia years were decisive. In fact, he says so himself at one point: it is the place where he got serious about himself and the world. He led a fairly solitary life in a range of not-great apartments. Not many people remember him because of that…”

Beyond his 2005 interview with Columbia College Today, and his 1983 student magazine article, The Bridge includes a fair amount of previously untold information about Obama’s time at Columbia. Here’s what we learned:

• According to Phil Boerner, Obama’s roommate, friend and fellow transfer, Obama transferred from Occidental to CU because: “we [Boerner and Obama] felt like we were in a groove and we wanted life to be more difficult…Obama used to tell his friends that he wanted to go somewhere where the weather was cold and miserable so that he would be forced to spend his days indoors reading.”
• Obama took a a course on modern fiction with the late fabled Edward Said. He was underwhelmed. Remnick writes, “And yet Said’s theoretical approach left Obama cold. ‘My whole thing, and Barack had a similar view, was that we would rather read Shakespeare’s plays than the criticism,’ Boerner said. ‘Said was more interested in the literary theory, which didn’t appeal to Barack or me.’ Obama referred to Said as a ‘flake.’”
• “In his spare time,” Remnick relates, “Obama wandered around the city, taking in Sunday services at Abyssinian Baptist Church, a socialist conference at Cooper Union, African cultural affairs in Brooklyn and Harlem, jazz at the West End. He took long walks and runs in Riverside Park and Central Park. He shopped at the Strand downtown and Papyrus and the other bookstores around the Columbia campus.”
• Obama lived at 142 West 109th and Amsterdam with Boerner. Their monthly rent was $360. Remnick writes that, “the apartment’s charms included spotty heat, irregular hot water, and a railroad-flat layout. They adjusted, using the showers at the Columbia gym and camping out for long hours in Butler library.” Um, POTUS…they’re just like us!
• Obama “…I will tell you that I think I had a hunger to shape the world in some way, to make the world a better place, that was triggered around the time I transferred from Occidental to Columbia…And so there’s this period of time where I move to New York and go to Columbia, where I pull in and wrestle with that stuff, and do a lot of writing and a lot of reading and a lot of thinking and a lot of walking through Central Park. And somehow I emerge on the other side of that ready and eager to take a chance in what is a pretty unlikely venture: moving to Chicago and becoming an organizer. So I would say that’s a moment in which I gain a seriousness of purpose that I had lacked before…” So, what’s up class day speaker 2011?

Braving a long line, cold rain, and French grammar, Bwog’s Ambassador to France Contessa Gayles reports from President Sarkozy’s speech today:

After waiting in a line that stretched from the main entrance of Low Memorial Library down onto rainy College Walk, members of the Columbia community joined the scores of press to hear Nicolas Sarkozy, President of the French Republic, speak at the World Leaders Forum at Columbia University.

After acknowledging the event co-sponsors and First Lady Carla Bruni, President Bollinger applauded President Sarkozy’s oratory skill and fearless outspokenness while expressing his views on major contemporary issues including economic recovery, climate change, the war in Afghanistan and a rise in censorship at a time when open communication is most necessary. Bollinger expressed his pride in the strength of both Columbia University’s and the United States’ relationships with France.

President Sarkozy then stepped up and proceeded to deliver his charismatic and unscripted speech entirely in French. While there were translating headset devices sat on every seat, most were not used, as the majority of the audience was Francophone. Sarkozy opened by echoing Bollinger’s pride in the strong alliance between the United States and France, expressing the importance of open communication between the U.S. and Europe while working together to solve the global crises.

Read more…

There’s a line of black SUVs spanning College Walk. Which one do you think he’ll choose?

Photo by DH

Photo via NAACP

The youngest-ever president of the NAACP, Ben Jealous, CC ’94, will be speaking at Columbia College’s Class Day. At a celebration tonight in Havana Central’s back room, Class Council 2010 President Cliff Massey revealed Jealous’s selection after weeks of speculation that saw names floated including Bill Clinton and Kofi Annan

Jealous, who was involved with the BSO and several other student groups while on campus, got his B.A. in political science at Columbia before heading to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar for his Master’s in comparative social research. He has worked at the Rosenberg Foundation, Amnesty International, and the National Newspaper Publishing Association. He was among the 2009 honorees for the John Jay Award, given every year to an alum of the College for his or her distinguished professional career.

Massey expressed excitement over the choice, telling Bwog, “Since he graduated sixteen years ago, he’s faced similar challenges to the ones the Class of 2010 will face soon,” citing Jealous’s work in health care litigation and social justice issues. CC Dean Michele Moody-Adams wrote in a press release, “Benjamin Todd Jealous wonderfully personifies the value that Columbians have long placed on active engagement in the world and in finding the solutions to society’s challenges. We will be proud to welcome him back to Morningside Heights.”

Massey also told Bwog that the Class Day committee’s original shortlist also included actress Anna Paquin (who studied at Columbia for a year) and President Barack Obama. Though Obama was the most popular choice among students, the security measures required for a presidential visit (such as the Secret Service securing several Res Halls while students were still living in them) made an invite impossible. SEAS and GS, the ball’s in your court. Full Columbia press release after the jump.

- JCD

Read more…

Photo by Google Images

Breaking news from the Diana Event Oval! Meryl Streep has just been announced as Barnard’s Class Day Speaker. Bwog is hoping she’ll deliver the speech in a medley of her most famous characters– a Miranda Priestly drawl, a Julia Child shrill, whoever she played in 2006′s under-the-radar film “The Ant Bully”. Make way for Meryl, 2010!

What does our fearless leader do when he’s not, um, doing whatever he does everyday? He watches Dean Quigley buy soup and he appears on public television. Last night, Bwog stayed up past our bedtime to catch PrezBo on Charlie Rose.

Bollinger and the nearly equally dapper Mr. Rose spent most of El Presidente’s half hour cameo talking about PrezBo’s new book, Uninhibited, Robust and Wide-Open (sexy!), about the role and future of the free press. Bollinger expressed his concern about the “contraction of coverage of foreign news” that the economic crisis has wrought on the American press. He also agreed with Rose that the “blogosphere is not a sufficient substitute” for the major journalistic institutions in the U.S, though PrezBo praised the influx of voice and opinion that teh Internetz allows.

The conversation then veered into more Columbia-specific territory: the endowment and Manhattanville. PrezBo spoke to the Columbia tradition of “academic freedom and the pursuit of curiosity,” and went on to talk about how we actually need money to allow that to continue. On Columbia’s endowment: “we proudly say that we lost only 16%, which was actually terrific in the context…” Now, what could PrezBo be referring to when he said: “one of the things we know about our great universities is that they have to grow.” Ohh, right, that! Bollinger briefly laid out the plan for Manhattanville, spoke about the “years of working with the community” that CU has done and referred to eminent domain as the “one remaining issue.”

Read more…

The world’s best known former Ruggles inhabitants, Vampire Weekend, released their new album Contra yesterday. The album has received positive reviews so far, including a shockingly high 8.6 from notoriously picky Pitchfork Media. The band was recently interviewed for a Wall Street Journal music blog, Speakeasy. The band talked about books and wore cardigans.

VW also discussed their temporary move to California, and about Columbia’s reputation. Said frontman Ezra Koenig: “I feel like Columbia is a very different place than Princeton or Harvard, but to a lot of people writing about our band it might as well be George W. Bush at Yale in the ’60s. So it doesn’t always pay to be nuanced.”

Koenig even held forth on on Murakami’s Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: “I felt like the central theme was identity.” Uh huh…maybe he took Interpretation of Culture, too!

1980′s New Wave correspondent Jeff Illouian reports–that as we type these very words–Sting is rehearsing with a full live orchestra in St. John the Divine. You don’t have to pay, you just have to swoon!

Photo by David Hu

Generative grammar devotees, be warned! The 5th Annual Edward Said Memorial Lecture, featuring Noam Chomsky, is packed to the brim in IAB’s Altschul Auditorium. Bwog’s Webmaster and Official Chomskyan Political Correspondent Hans Hyttinen reports that, as of 6:30 PM, students are being asked to leave IAB and no one else is being allowed in. Hyttinen still managed a shot of the huddled masses, some of whom were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of Chomsky’s hair.

Along with the rest of the cast from Law and Order Special Victims Unit. Amanda Cormier caught Detective Tutuola and Medical Examiner Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie) walking past 1020 just before noon, perhaps choosing to take their lunch at the Hungarian instead. 

More pictures of the pair, the scene of the crime, and what looks like Chris Maloney after the jump. Read more…

We’ve got it straight from the horse’s mouth; according to Bacchanal co-President Alex Kirk, Bob Saget will perform at Miller Theater on November 11th, just for you! Other tipsters say that the performance will be for students only, meaning you might actually get a seat at this one. The cost (if any) of tickets has yet to be decided. 

Who’s Bob Saget, you ask? Former host of America’s Funniest Home Videos, cast member of Full House, dirty stand-up extraordinaire, and, most importantly, the subject of this song:

Strange homages aside, we’re down, as long as there’s more to the routine than show business acts.

In a decision lacking much of the fanfare of the College’s Class Day speaker announcement, SEAS deans chose their own speaker over the weekend: James Albaugh, SEAS M.S. ’74.

Albaugh earned his B.A. in Math and Physics from Willamette University and is now executive vice president of the Boeing Company and chief executive officer of Boeing Integrated Defense Systems. According to his Wikipedia page, he supervises a $30.8 billion budget, and is one of Boeing’s “best paid managers.” See you May 18, Jim!

Photo via boeing.com