There’s trouble afoot on the internet today, namely over at right-wing web blog/apparent Matthew Arnold fanzine Sweetness & Light. It seems they’ve taken none too kindly to a certain magazine’s Controversial cover image — and it’s not the cover image (or the magazine) you’re thinking of!

No, their bone to pick is with the Jester, specifically the cover of its “Tragedy” issue, which memorably features the Titanic crashing into the World Trade Center. Says S&L: “Granted college humor is normally juvenile and often in bad taste. But this is somewhat beyond that.”

Commenters chime in with hilarious noose jokes, while others point out that the cover is obviously a reflection of Columbia’s “socialist” and “pro-Islam” bias.

UPDATE 6:32 PM: We receive an exclusive statement from Jester‘s press attaché: “The staff of the Jester would like to issue our sincerest apologies. We have no idea how this offensive image was not caught by our art staff, layout editors, publisher, editor in chief, printer, or distribution staff. As a token of our true regret, please accept one free humor magazine.”

A bunch of you have sent us this Jezebel-by-way-of-other-blog post about how old-timey folks conducted surveys that assumed Barnard was full of hussies — just like you kids today joke about!

The newspaper clipping tells the story of how one time, probably in the 20s, the Jester published a “Purity Survey”, in which the gals of Barnard were asked sordid, old-timey things like if they’ve “soul kissed” and “Have you ever been tight?” With respect to that latter question, there were 38 nays and 32 yeas, and “of those answering in the affirmative, 14 said they had been tight once, 14 said they had been tight often, and four said that they were ‘usually tight.’”

Eww. Wait, what?

Anyway, it was apparently “too hot to print” and was banned and then unbanned, and afterwards no one ever implied anything about the promiscuity of Barnard students ever again.

This year’s final issue of the Jester hit the internet a few days ago and will hit newsstands Thursday — you may have received an email from Jesterbot informing you of such. The theme of the issue, as you might have immediately noticed from the front cover, is Tragedy. Editor in Chief David Iscoe explains, “We made an issue of a humor magazine devoted to Tragedy, and we believe that the cover is appropriate for such an issue.”

On to the Quick-ing:

The defining question of the post-(Civil) War era (page 6)

A dream, not deferred, but flat-out rejected (page 7)

Isn’t the real tragedy the absence of Gmail? (page 11)

Come not between Bertrand Russell and his wrath (page 12)

Confess your sins, brought to you by the US Postal Service (page 14)

A veritable brawl between the houses of Armstrong and Armstrong (page 15)

The anguish of the human condition, all a’twitter (page 25)

Up Late with Jeff Julian is now on the great aggregator of human creativity.  So the genius of the Jester’s master comedian is now available for all to love.  They even have the commercials for the more market-driven audiences.  The intro sequence, in its swinging glory, is below.

Because they’re sooooo similar, not in terms of theme and content mind you, but because we so love them both. Hugs all around.

Firstly, Jester (with a cool new website!):

“Constant, murderous raping” (page 8)

Children: they’re not that special! (page 9)

The most useful thing Jester has ever published (page 14)

National stereotyping, with guns! (page 20)

Morton Williams ad not very funny (page 25)

Y’know, I was wondering that myself. I mean, they really shouldn’t be able to, should they? But then again, they wouldn’t really be exploiting or causing pain to another living creature–quite the opposite, in most situations. What say you, vegans? (page 26)

And lastly:

It’s the OxyClean that does it for me

White people: a field guide

The most useful thing the Fed has ever published

Guns!

Escorts!

And enough general hilarity to brighten up a morbidly gray, late November afternoon!

The 2006-07 school year has contained multitudes. In fact, it may just be the most eventful year Columbia’s had since… well, the year before. Remember Matthew Fox? The Chung-Diamond “scandal”? “Don’t Be a Pussy”? “Epilogue to Our Crime & Punishment: A Petition“? Bwog certainly does, so step into the Wayback machine – you’re about to relive nine months of Columbia in a single post.

August

First-years move in. Orientation yields a legendary (to Bwog’s mind, at least) week-long burst of posting. Addison Anderson went to a bunch of bars in the name of “journalism.” Most literary post: “And now for some disorientation,” which reads like early Bret Easton Ellis, if he knew about Koronet’s. Orientation week was the best.

 

September

Facebook went literally insane. Then calmed down somewhat. Harvard abandoned ED; Columbia did not. Columbia Football had as-yet uncrushed high hopes, later crushed. Seth Flaxman declared victory. Best villains: Zuckerberg! Murphy! Ahmadinejad! You know, one of those.

October

Everything was coming up roses for Mark Modesitt. 1968 spirit was invoked by Jim Gilchrist. The fallout was immense – shady disciplinary letters, “news” coverage of all sorts (Jon Stewart, Fox News). Even Bwog had an opinion. But October wasn’t all about relevant television coverage of Columbia issues with high production values – we also had “The Gates”!

Best correspondence to Bwog: “Subject: terrorists. your worse then the mooselums who flew the planes into the buildings” Read more…

The Columbia Undergraduate Science Journal has fired another salvo in their ongoing feud against Jester, claiming responsibility for the recent disappearance of 700 issues of the most recent Jester issue. They’ve placed the once-missing issues all over campus, and attached a message: “Jester Promotes Scientific Fallacies.” The full-page manifesto contains many of the CUSJ grievances, a sampling of which can be found on the (truly crazy, and we’re not sure if it’s in a good or bad way) website the CUSJ missive directs readers to.

First among them: “The ‘Liquid Issue’ is clearly not made of LIQUID at all but rather PAPER, which is SOLID. Jester should be ashamed for misleading readers regarding states of matter.”

Too far, or not far enough? Catelyn Liu reproduced CUSJ‘s damning allegations in full, featured after the jump.

Read more…

Jester is not happy. All of Jester‘s remaining new issues–at least 700 of them–have disappeared from the Student Government Office, where they were waiting patiently for distribution on Monday. If anyone has seen Jester‘s issues, please let them know, and if you yourself are the culprit, well then shame on you. 

What are you going to do with them anyway? 

Remember Project Athena, the promised Columbia wiki that was supposed to revolutionize campus life? Right, “barely” was our response, too. That is, until a mysterious i-banker IMed Bwog with the tantalizing info: Project Athena was online, and hosted off campus. We were quickly directed to wikicu.com, the slightly less sonorous realization of the project. While most of the site appears to remain in development, much already seems handy, including endless important links, an events calendar to rival ours (well, in all but wit, of course), and…by Zeus! That’s where all the lavish photos from the old housing website went! Other miscellany includes a swim test schedule and a guide to Spanish verbs.

What to expect? Where is this going? This Spec column from back in September makes one notable suggestion: documenting the horrors that await unsuspecting future residents of Wien.

Meanwhile, over on real-world Wikipedia…

Someone’s been messing with Jester‘s entry. This morning, it read:

“The magazine is known on campus for its completely inept coverage of the scientific community and generally poor quality paper stock.”

As of this evening, it reads:

“The magazine is known on campus for its lackluster understanding of particle physics, frequent misrepresentations of string theory, and fervent hatred toward America.”

One tipster blames the Columbia Undergraduate Science Journal. Let the wiki-war begin.

-CJS