The cat must have gone through Jersey and across the GW Bridge.

Columbia’s National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse published a study that supports a link between childhood family dinners and substance free living. (ABC News)

NYC Police Commissioner, Ray Kelly, released a memo last Friday that instructed police officers to no longer arrest people for small-time pot possession. So long as you have less than 15 grams, the worst the man can slap you with is a $100 fine. (WNYC)

After being lost for 5 years, a Colorado cat turns up in Manhattan and is quickly reunited with its original family. (Huff Po)

The Atlantic cobbled together an ultimate guide to literary references in the Simpsons.

NYT has a full review of James Franco’s newest starring role as “Professor” down at NYU.

Maybe we're the center of the universe. Probably not, though. MetaBwog...

Drug busts don’t just happen at our school! These guys stepped it up a notch, and now they’re down $8 million and 8,000 marijuana plants. (NY Post)

And it looks like we’re not the only ones with new admissions stats—kindergarten hopefuls continue to wait for a spot at their elementary schools, but the lists just keep getting longer. (CityRoom)

Remember when James Franco went here? Now he plans to teach at NYU, and we plan to feel scorned. (NYU Daily News)

Plus, someone else who went here—Columbia Alum Kelley Gasper—just scored a New York Times blog post. (At War, NYT)

Image via WikiMedia Commons.

Inner city pressures

A mixed bag of news graces this morning’s bwoglines, but except for the announcement that Arianna Huffington will present the keynote address at the Columbia Spectator’s Annual Awards Dinner, it’s pretty much the worst of times.

A winter storm warning is in effect till Wednesday evening.  University weather related updates say, as we’d expect, school’s pretty much open, it’s just going to be a lot more difficult getting in. How this will bear on Groundhog Day tomorrow is to be seen, although we’d need it to actually get out of his hole to even try to see its own shadow.

James Franco is to teach a class-on himself.  At Columbia College. Before you run to the class directory to search for said class/unleash a roar of frustration, we should probably add it’s Columbia College Hollywood where he’s offering the film class—Editing James Franco…With James Franco.

Certainly not the best of times for Hosni Mubarak, not least in New York

Rounding it all up- the worst of the best?  New York City is number 50 on the list of top 50 cities for hospital care.

Freshmen and student athletes, rejoice! John Jay is still open.

Because of the snow, Dining has confirmed that a couple changes in the normal dining facility schedules will occur today. Take note:

• Ferris Booth is closed
• The cafe on the ground floor of Dodge is closed (though we only went there for James Franco sightings, anyway!)
• Cafe 212 is open
• The cafe in Butler is open
• John Jay opened at 9, and will remain open through 8 pm

Image via WikiCU.

It'll happen soon, Professor Bhagwati!

• Our own econ professor, Jagdish Bhagwati, won the Nobel Prize for Economics–on the season premiere of The Simpsons, that is. It’s in the first minute. (Fancast)
• Because we still care a tiny bit (even if we don’t want to admit it), James Franco says he wasn’t sleeping through class that one time he was sleeping through class. (Gawker)
• The MacArthur Foundation announced the 23 recipients of their “Genius” grants–among ‘em: a beekeeper, a high school science teacher, and David Simon, creator of “The Wire.” (Reuters)
• Mayor Mike: “TENURE BAD. MAYOR MIKE NO LIKE TENURE.” (New York Post)
• We seem to be getting along just fine without LeBron. Cavs fans, not so much. (New York; New York Times)

A profile of GS student John McClelland II, who was an Army medic in Afghanistan and Iraq, in Warrior Forge. He says that he’s working on his first novel, The War in Glorious Technicolor.

Reason 10,343 to be happy you don’t go to NYU: the Times takes a look at college life in the city, you know, the downtown-city, where you never (!) run into anyone.

A hecka long profile of James Franco in NYMag this week. Prepare to vom all over your keyboard!

Victor Suarez, CC’11 and Laura LaPerche, CC’10, shot a feature film in New York, Chicago and Las Vegas called “As Luck.” It will be released in Bangladesh next year. Congratulations, dudes! Watch scenes from the movie:

“As Luck” (t2i & 5D) from Victor Suarez on Vimeo.

Gulati, PrezBill and Landon in happier times. Photo via ohnotheydidnt

That means “a motley assortment of things.” Seatbelts, everyone!

Gulati says the U.S team was “capable of more” in the World Cup.

Columbia is a partner in a jargon-y, confusing government project called the “NYC Media Lab.”

Breaking: James Franco is self-important. He is also an artist.

Joseph Stiglitz makes $109,919 a year is the highest paid B-school professor in the country.

A look at how Columbia B School has changed (by not really changing!) post-crash.

CC alum create the Salsabol, which provides a new and revolutionary way to scoop salsa.

Procrastination o’clock? Watch this footage of Columbia going crazy in 1969 1968, even though it says 1969 for some reason.

James Franco: current Columbian, NYUer… and future Yalie? (Yale Daily News)

Mystery surrounds an early morning stabbing on the 2 train. (NYT)

Is CUNY full of the city’s ignominious? (NYP)

Will pulling up your pants help fight crack? (Gothamist)

Still not much is known about the future of GSAPP associate professor Lionel McIntyre. (Spec)

Update: There’s a police investigation at the 116th Station, and Manhattan-bound 1 trains are running express from 137th Street to 96th Street. Updates to follow.

Sexiness via Wikimedia Commons

If Valentine’s Day is slipping away and you’re starting to fret about not being with your crush, well, fret no longer! Following its successful stint at the College of William and Mary, GoodCrush.com (formerly the CrushFinder) has expanded and hit Columbia/Barnard and wants YOU to sign up and start crushin’!

According to Josh Weinstein, Princeton ’09, who started the site in 2007 to be a “Valentine’s Day student government intiative,” the site has a number of special capacities, including room for making, browsing, and crushing profiles; alerts for missed connections; and a new “periodic crushing” feature. In many ways it’s the same as LoveatCU, though Weinstein notes that periodic crushing does not factor as centrally on LoveatCU as on GoodCrush. He also expresses (feigns?) surprise at the Columbia-as-a-sex-free-zone stereotype, sharing that “[the website] is designed to help and I hope it does.

Weinstein singles out specific students – those “sitting in Butler or a class exchanging glances with another across the room,” for instance – as those who would benefit most from regular use of GoodCrush. However, given that most crushes and sideward glances at Butler in recent memory have been directed towards James Franco, Bwog remains skeptical.

The snowstorm blanketing much of the Mid-Atlantic kept a lot of your high school friends from flying home this weekend. (Times)

The Parks Department officially invites you to go sledding in city parks; unfortunately, they will not be officially providing post-sledding hot chocolate with marshmallows. (Gothamist)

While hosting last night’s episode SNL, James Franco french-kissed a few men during a sketch. Sadly, that’s enough for a news story. (Daily News)

In the wide world of sports, the Dallas Cowboys defeated the New Orleans Saints 24-17, ending their chances for an undefeated season, and in soccer, Fulham beat Manchester United 3-0. (Times and Guardian)

- Photo by HEH

Columbia Film has snagged another star — Bwog tipster Margaret Herman spotted Kirsten Dunst lounging on one of leather benches outside 511 Dodge.  According to Film Dept TA Chanelle Elaine, Dunst is set to star in a film directed by a Columbia faculty member.  Now that he’s got some competition, maybe James Franco won’t hide quite so conspicuously behind that Giants cap.

And we’re gonna let you finish, but…

New York City has some of the highest unemployment of all time. (NYT)

We’ve also got some of the lowest homicide rates of all time. (AP)

Columbia’s Joseph Massad has one of the most protested tenures of all time. (Manhattan Institute)

The new swine flu nasal spray is one of the speediest vaccinations of all time. (NYT)

Street food vendors have some of the scariest beef of all time. (Gothamist)

Columbia’s old Rembrandt is one of the most expensive paintings of all time. (TimesOnline)

Butler’s own James Franco wields one of the biggest flamethrowers of all time. (BestWeekEver)

An incoming 2013er whose father is incarcerated writes about her path to Columbia.

James Franco drops out of speaking at UCLA’s commencement.

Jeff Sachs wants the US to send water, not money.

Will cities of the future need “vertical farming?” Two Columbia professors say “yes.”

David Helfand has said that a meteor could bring down a plane. Did it bring down Air France 447?

Hamid Dabashi: “The first 100 days over, Obama is looking more and more like Bush”

We haven’t heard from our favorite 209-haunting uber-dashing favorite grad student in a while. This week, James Franco resurfaced in New York Magazine in a feature about New Yorkers old and new. Franco discusses the joys of riding the subway and being able to actually read in transit instead of listening to audiobooks on the Pacific Coast Highway. The brief interview includes a few lines about Butler, about which Franco muses: “I go to the Columbia library all the time…Everybody used to come up to me in the library. Then I realized I was in the one room people are free to talk in. Now I go to the quiet room.”

Plus, the cafe has lousy wireless.

Photo by JPMB

Fresh from signing a book deal, Columbia’s most famous Butler denizen seems to have found another unharnessed niche–men’s loungewear.  A commenter’s tip sent Bwog skipping down to the corner of 111th and Broadway, where a vendor has been (and still is) offering these gems. And since they’re being offered by a street vendor, you know they’re legit.