If this new-fangled Twitter thing is to be believed, there’s some big things a-poppin’ in Iran, and the world media has been calling up Columbia professors for their reactions. The man with the most screen time this time around has probably been Professor Gary Sick (at right), which is not surprising given that he was the “the principal White House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis.” That’s the kind of bullet point that gets attention, and Sick has been quoted all over the media, including the BBC, The Daily Beast, the Washington Post, and Politico. Plus, somewhat fittingly, you can follow him on his Tumblr account.

Other professors are getting in on the act as well, including Hamid Dabashi, Phillip Bobbit, and Richard Bulliet. The most creative commentary, though, has come from Ph.D. candidates Alexandra Scacco and Bernd Beber, who argued in Saturday’s Post that the election results were likely rigged because the numbers did not look random enough. Trust us, it makes sense.

In non-Iran news, one group of Columbia professors have discovered two brain systems used to accurately predict others’ emotions, and another group has found that the subway is 15 decibels quieter than it was three years ago. Also, Meghan McCain appears to have dedicated her post-election career to one proposition only: embarassing herself as much as possible. 

In the wake of yesterday’s historic election, your President has reached out to CU alums. Ha, oh no, not that President.

PrezBo has just emailed the alumni listserv in celebration of last night’s victory. “All of us who have graduated from Columbia have special reason for excitement,” he wrote.

Undergrads, of course, have received no such email, as unlike PrezBo and Barack Obama and every member of the alumni listserv, they have not actually graduated and therefore have no “special reason for excitement.”

PrezBo directs the alums to the University’s official press release about the election. In the brief article, PrezBo also gives a gracious shoutout to McCain, who is “part of the Columbia family,” via his daughter, erstwhile blogger Meghan McCain, CC ’07.

Full secret alumni-only PrezBo communique after the jump.

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In the midst all this heart-breaking excitement about John McCain, we were reminded to check in (as we do from time to time) with his daughter Meghan, CC ’07. Today Meghan answered 11 questions for MSNBC, in which she revealed her love for HamDel and her father’s love for Tom’s. Tom’s.

“Q: Your dad is coming to Columbia this week to appear with Barack Obama for a Service Nation event. Since you went to Columbia, where are you looking forward to taking your dad around your old stomping ground?

A: The Hamilton Deli, it’s where I used to eat every meal. I also really love Tom’s. That was my dad’s favorite thing about Columbia — that it was by Tom’s Restaurant. He used to tell everyone, ‘Meghan and I ate at the Seinfeld restaurant!’ He could have taken me to Nobu, but we went to the Seinfeld restaurant (laughs).”

Oh and then she makes some joke about wanting to drink with Obama at the Heights, but Obama not wanting to. In conclusion, none of this will make you feel any better about being denied entrance to The Non-Partisan Service Spectacular of 2008.

This week’s Newsweek cover story is a piece on Barack Obama, CC ’83. Usually reticent to discuss his years at Alma Mater, Obama talks about his reasoning for transferring from Occidental College to Columbia, “By the end of that year at Occidental, I think I was starting to work it through, and I think part of the attraction of transferring was, it’s hard to remake yourself around people who have known you for a long time.”

The article also offers up positively juicy details on Obama’s life as a CCer: “He stopped drinking and partying, leading what he calls ‘a hermetic existence’ for two years. ‘When I look back on it, it was a pretty grim and humorless time that I went through.’”

Also featured prominently in the news this week is young Meghan McCain, fresh off a oddly discomforting GQ write-up. McCain, CC, ’07, is the subject of a long, equally odd Washington Post profile in which a fellow McCain Blogette writer calls her “really articulate.” That comment is followed mere paragraphs later by McCain’s admission that her dad’s campaign bus is “pimped out” and her concerns that”The blog is trying to keep it real, and trying to show how it really is, and I look like crap!”

And finally, The Blue and White’s very own former editor-in-chief and current Politico reporter Avi Zenilman, CC ’07, was mentioned in David Brooks’ latest New York Times Op-Ed.

A month after GQ featured Vampire Weekend, once again a Columbia alum is profiled in the men’s mag. This time, it’s blonde blogger and prospective first-daughter Meghan McCain, CC ’07.

It’s an odd interview, as even the writer—who happens to be the deputy online editor at The New Republic—admits. Initially, McCain treats the readers to an insider’s look at her refrigerator, revealing two types of beer and twelve cups of Jell-O. The conversation then turns to her time at Columbia (“I loved it!”) to her film and television recommendations: “It’s a bisexual-dating show!” McCain says of A Shot of Love with Tila Tequila. “It’s hilarious!”

Talk soon turns to politics, as that is (ostensibly, at least) the reason she’s being profiled in the first place. Meghan on Obama: “I think universally women find him attractive. Whatever.” Meghan on the early days of her father’s campaign: “Over the summer, it was like we were uncool.” 

Anyway, you can read the entire profile for yourself if you’re interested in what type of guys Meghan is into and not into.  (Hint: bad boys who wear Converse sneakers and investment bankers, respectively.)