Adam May, CC '11

After graduating from Columbia last year, Adam May, CC ’11, headed to Israel to volunteer in the Israel Defense Forces. On his blog, he chronicled his journey through basic training and assignment into Dover Tzahal, the Army’s media division. Now, he works as a military journalist, writing articles about the IDF for an international audience.

Bwog: Are you an Israeli citizen?

I am, actually, because if you’re the son of a first-generation emigrant, then you have citizenship. My mom’s Israeli. I would go almost every year to Israel to visit family, my grandparents, aunts and uncles.

My dad’s family is like 4th or 5th generation American Jews. So the way my dad met my mom is he went to medical school in Israel. He was there for four years, they met and fell in love, got married, dragged her back to America kicking and screaming.

Do you consider yourself Israeli or an American?

That’s a good question. I don’t know. I think dual-citizenship is pretty right, because I’m very much both. I come to Israel and I don’t quite fit in there. I’m still an American.

Did you go to public school?

Actually, I went to religious yeshiva, which I hated very much. For the start of high school, I moved to public school. It was a great change. The town [Livingston, NJ] was like 40% Jewish, one of the densest Jewish populations anywhere. My mom has a lot of Israeli friends who live in the area, and there are a lot of Israeli expats who live in the same area, and a lot of their kids end up going into the Army.

Has anyone from Columbia ever joined the IDF?

I actually know a bunch of veterans. GS has a bunch of Israeli Army veterans. And there’s another kid from Columbia who also went to Israel after Columbia. So I don’t think I’m the first, but it definitely isn’t a common thing that people do.

Why didn’t you decide to go into the IDF for a few years after high school and then go to GS?

To be honest, I didn’t really know that much about GS at the time. When I deferred [my Columbia College acceptance], they offered it to me and I didn’t know what it was. I just knew it wasn’t Columbia College. My parents really thought it was a good idea for me to get an education first. After a lot of discussions with them—it was a big decision, probably the biggest decision I’d ever made up until that point.

I think in the end, now that I’m there now, it was a good one. Because while I’m having difficulty adjusting to dealing with 18-year old kids while I’m in the Army, I think it would have been harder if I was in a college setting, where it’s less rigid, it’s more actually having to integrate yourself into a social setting.

How long is your tour of duty?

[If you're an Israeli citizen,] there’s a three-year commitment for men and two-year for women, unless you do certain jobs. My tour is only 14 months because I volunteered. I enlisted in October, so I’ll be done at the end of this year.

(more…)

The typical nine-to-five for Ramon Diaz, CC ’12, takes “hands on” to a new level. While his numerous photo ops really speak for themselves, Bwog couldn’t help but pose a few follow-up questions. Join us as we get the quick-and-dirty.

Diaz contemplates Aristotle's concept of "natural slavery."

Bwog: How’d you get the job? We’re guessing not through CCE…?

Ramon Diaz, CC ’12: Unfortunatley not [laughs]. I wanted to work in a racy industry and CCE does not cater to jobs focusing on sex and entertainment. Initially I applied for Playboy but their NY office no longer existed and the only internship I could get with them was in Chicago. Maxim had an ad on their website about interns so I sent in my resume and got the jobs shortly after.

Bwog: Was the Dominatrix shoot your first gig? How did they approach you about it?

Diaz: Yes. The associate editor thought it would be a good idea to have me in the shoot since I was the only male intern in the office. Basically they have a section called “Maxim Office Assistant” and they get a model for the magazine every month to pose at our office in lingerie pretending to do “intern stuff.” Someone had the idea to incorporate a dominatrix for the February issue so it was only right to make me a slave for the shoot. I made my presence known in the office early and they thought I would be a good fit.

Bwog: Is the photoshoot “just another day at the office” for you?

Diaz: Like any other. I was an editorial intern so I had to transcribe interviews and do research about topics before an issue released but I was given the opportunity to voice my ideas for future issues. I never had a monotonous day; one day I might see J-Woww at the office or the next day I could be hosting a model shoot for the magazine.

Bwog: Advice to other CU students who have similar aspirations?

Diaz: All I have to say is this: If you had to speak at a career day would people genuinely be interested in your job? We are given the opportunity to attend a university where we could pursue ANYTHING so find a passion that you have and do it! Even if it’s selling sex.

If you’re still looking for a way to make yourself useful this summer, check out LionShare for hands-on opportunities clearly relating to your academic pursuits that totally won’t require extra explanation in future interviews:

"Applicants must be competent and confident in a wild environment"—does Campo count?

We're pretty sure he'll be in color when he comes to speak

John “Rick” MacArthur, CC ’78, will return to Morningside May 15 for CC Class Day. A longtime journalist and current president of Harper’s Magazine, MacArthur graduated from Columbia with a B.A. in History and has worked at The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Star, and The Chicago Sun-Times during his illustrious career. He was also described as a “Maverick Journalist” in a 2003 issue of Columbia College Today, so maybe his speech will be, like, edgy.

Portrait of A Maverick via Wikipedia

Not THAT type of agent...

On Tuesday night in the Barnard Hall James Room, Barnard Career Development hosted a panel with figures from the entertainment industry hosted by UTA Co-head of the Television Talent Department Nancy Mendelson Gates. Dodge Cafe King and Queen Bijan Samareh and Alexandra Svokos were there.

When it comes to centering your career plan around making it in Hollywood, William Goldman’s famous epigram that “nobody know anything” can be a bit daunting. While the nature of climbing the ranks in entertainment is far more arbitrary than say following the course it takes to become a doctor or an engineer, certain principles do exist that can push one in the right direction. These principles are exactly what Tuesday night’s Careers in Entertainment panel wished to discuss.

Organized in Barnard Hall by Barnard Career Development, the panel consisted of NYC-based talent agents, a PR manager, and an entertainment lawyer. Nancy Mendelson Gates (Barnard ’89), kicked off the discussion relaying how career with the United Talent Agency as Co-head of the Television Talent Department wasn’t always fated. After graduating college, she received at MBA from UT Austin and worked with non-profits in NYC. Deciding that such work didn’t suit her, she moved to LA in 1996 and climbed the ranks at UTA as one of their fasted promoted agents. Her life journey was echoed in her sentiments to the audience, as she repeatedly discussed how it is okay for college students to be uncertain as to what they want to do in the future.

Hailing from a different side of the industry, Ira Schreck (Columbia Law ’80) took Gates’ sentiments a step further. Before working for Columbia Pictures as an entertainment lawyer and going on to start a boutique entertainment Law firm in LA, he worked all over the place. From a job at a casino in Reno to working as a cabbie in New York, he reminisced on his adventures as some of the best years of his life. A period of such personal discovery gave him the life experience to one day represent playwright Tony Kushner (Columbia ’78, Class Day Speaker ’04), the oft-spotted Sarah Jessica Parker, and other big names in entertainment. His desire to defend artists arose from his dissatisfaction representing big businesses, which he found too impersonal. (more…)

Everybody has to object sometimes

On many Ivy-League campuses where banks recruit heavily, OWS vitriol is being channeled towards the I-banking recruitment process. Those protesting wonder whether the slick recruiting creates a brain-drain away from other industries. (NYTimes)

On the other end of the career spectrum: The New York Times Style section profiled The New Inquiry, a blog staffed largely by recent Columbia and Barnard graduates that hosts a veritable 21st century literary salon. (NYTimes)

Some say that New York state’s proposed rules against fracking will not be strong enough to protect NYC’s water supply. (Bloomberg)

HP officials are firing back at the Columbia Study that claimed hackers could remotely ignite HP printers. According to officials, a security problem does exist, but hackers cannot circumvent the cooling devices in place. Let’s hope the argument doesn’t heat up too much. (Bloomberg)

Last night the Rockefeller center lit the Rockefeller Tree Dankest of Pines. It’s reassuring to know that despite the debate we can still all get together and erect a massive evergreen covered in tinsel and five miles of lights. (AP)

Healthy debater via wikimedia.

The Greenmarket is here every Thursday and Sunday. Every Thursday, Bwog brings you the weekly highlights.

Support your body with vegetables

• Meet the newest members of the Greenmarket family, Wood Homestead and Tundra Brewery. They’ll be selling maple syrup, maple cotton candy, and beer from all-local grains and hops this Sunday. Bonus points if you can mix all three together.
• Also facilitating your becoming a localcoholicavor, King Ferry Winery will be at the market both Thursday and Sunday selling some of New York State’s best wines.
• While they may not be fermented (yet), Wagner’s Cider Mill brings concord grapes and grape juice this Thursday and Sunday.
• Roaming Acres ambles back to the Thursday market with their ostrich meat and jerky.
• Madura Farm’s mushrooms are back. Head over to the stand for mushroom recipes.
• Just in time for Rosh Hashanah, Samascott Orchards and Stannard Farms are selling apples dipped in Ballard’s honey (and giving away free samples at the info table!).

In case you’re not sure what to do with your produce, stop by the info table and chat with Georgia (a recent Culinary Institute of America grad) or Kristina (a recent Columbia anthro grad) to get brainstorm how to eat all those fruits, veggies and suggestively-shaped gourds.

Menacing veggie lover via wikimedia.

Yesterday, while you were skipping class and sleeping in, the MacArthur Foundation announced this year’s 22 Genius Grant recipients, and Columbia graduate Alisa Weilerstein is one of them. A member of the Class of 2004, Weilerstein started playing the cello when she was four years old and debuted with the Cleveland Orchestra at just 13. The Foundation describes her as “a young cellist whose emotionally resonant performances of both traditional and contemporary music have earned her international recognition.” In other words, you are a complete failure in comparison to Alisa.

The MacArthur Genius Grants are awarded based upon anonymous nominations, and when Weilerstein heard the news, she was taken completely by surprise.

“I wrote kind of a rude email back because I really thought it was spam,” she says. Finally she contacted the MacArthur official, who had to explain to her exactly what the award was and told her that someone she knew “very well” has won the grant.

“Like a total idiot, I said, ‘who?’ And he said, ‘Well, you.’ I was in complete shock. I screamed and everything. I think they were highly amused.”

[NPR]

Along with the luxury of being called a genius, all Genius Grant recipients receive $500,000 in cold, hard cash.

Image from MacArthur Foundation

Though Mill neither serves exclusively lunch nor combines various schools of thought, a framed article on Mill’s wall boasts this bizarre accolade:

Nice try, Mill.

Sadly, Mill snatched this prestigious title in ’93. Those looking for the current Best Example of Cultural Syncretism in a Luncheonette are going to have to look elsewhere. Though, word on the street is that Mill’s kimchi is still one of the finest examples of Post-Cabbage Vegetable Medley in a Bowl.

Image via Wikimedia Commons

Bwog’s intrepid lecturehopper Peter Sterne presents to you the second installment from Friday’s event organized by the Committee to Protect Journalists, in which he considers the role of the internet and social media in revolutions around the world…

The second panel, moderated by Slate editor-in-chief Jacob Weisberg, considered the nuanced role of the internet, both positive and negative, in the recent revolutions in the Middle East. Rebecca MacKinnon, the co-founder of Global Voices Online, argued that the debate over whether the internet is more useful for the “good guys” or “bad guys” misses the point; the internet’s effectiveness varies across countries and across time. Danny O’Brien, the coordinator of CPJ’s Internet Advocacy Center, agreed, explaining that journalists in Tunisia, where the government stole reporters’ and protesters’ Facebook passwords, need very different forms of support than those working in Egypt or Libya, where governments have tried to shut down all internet access. Shutting down the internet, though, does not mean shutting down the revolution. Nazila Fathi, a Nieman Fellow at Harvard who has covered Iran for the New York Times, recalled that a month after the Iranian government shut down texting services in an attempt to stop protesters from organizing demonstrations against the regime, they decided to turn it back on because they were losing so much money and thousands of protesters were still taking to the streets every day.

(more…)

Yesterday, dozens of journalists gathered in the Kellogg Center for Journalism on the 15th floor of IAB for two panels organized by the Committee to Protect Journalists, an organization that has defended journalists around the world for the last 30 years. Bwog’s intrepid lecturehopper Zach Kagan presents to you the first of a two-panel lecture. It examines how war reporting has changed over time. Stay tuned until tomorrow to read about the second panel, which considers the role of the internet and social media in revolutions around the world, now and in the future. The panels were also livetweeted and filmed; footage of them will eventually be posted on CPJ’s multimedia site.

The first panel, moderated by Dan Rather, consisted of four distinguished journalists: The Washington Post senior correspondent Rajiv Chandrasekaran, prominent Colombian journalist Maria Teresa Ronderos, award-winning photojournalist Michael Kramber, and Terry Anderson, an ex-marine and journalist who was kidnapped by Hezbollah militants in 1985 and held hostage for seven years. According to Josh Friedman, director of the CPJ, the Committee was formed partially in response to Anderson’s capture, with a goal to protect journalists from similar threats.

Rather opened discussion with a statement on the difficulties of war reporting: “There is nothing glorious about war. It may seem sophomoric to say that, but there’s a tendency for TV to flatten things out, and I know as someone who started in print, went to radio, and ended up on TV. The best thing it does is literally take you there on the proverbial magic carpet, but it loses its context. No one that has been on the battlefield considers themselves heroes, and I think while TV glorifies war, we shouldn’t forget that that is real mud and real blood.” By the end of this statement, Rather was overwhelmed with emotion. Terry Anderson shared Rather’s sentiments, arguing that the 24-hour news cycle doesn’t faithfully portray the battleground as well as we think. Ronderos has a unique perspective on this, having covered the guerilla wars within her own country and watched while people in the city commented on the War in Afghanistan they only saw on television, completely oblivious to the fighting that was going on within their own borders. (more…)