Mixed bags, get it?

Why did the number of applicants to Columbia dwindle to a mere 32,000? Perhaps the kids realized  it’s “impossible” to get in so they’ve all stopped applying, or more likely, it’s because Harvard and Princeton brought back early action. (Business Week)

Mayor Bloomberg already takes Spanish lessons, but this year he wants to try a new language: Javascript. And he’s going to use Columbia alum/students’ Codecademy to learn it. (NYT, TPM)

In last night’s Republican debate, Rick Santorum claimed rivals Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich “were playing footsie with the left.” That’s not all Gingrich was playing footsie with; after the debate, his ex-wife claimed he asked her for an open marriage. (Youtube, ABC)

Yesterday morning, the Feds took down file-sharing sites MegaUpload and MegaVideo, arresting seven employees while sparing their CEO, Swizz Beats, who has worked with Jay-Z and as NYU’s producer-in-residence. No word on whether they’ll be back up in 72 minutes. (NYT, Rolling Stone)

A new Vietnamese sandwich shop just opened on 108th and Broadway, which means Columbians can finally try one of the hottest foods in the city: báhn bánh mì, a colonialist combination of traditional Vietnamese food served on a French baguette. The lens essay just writes itself! (Westside Rag)

Baker St, a band made up of Columbia alums and students (and one random Fordham kid), has sort of hit it big. Their new EP is dropping tonight and they’re headlining a show downtown at The Delancey. It’s not free, but who knows? Like every other Columbia band for the last five years, they could be next Vampire Weekend. (Baker St, the Delancey)

More like purses, via Wikimedia

Wearing your wig in public runs you the risk of getting called a dandy

President Bollinger recalls his younger (but not more youthful) days as a Wall Street protestor. Despite having served on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, he wasn’t reluctant to chime in with his own views regarding the current protest. (Spec)

Korilla’s brief stint in reality television ended last month after a cheating scandal. A recent series of tweets, however, seemed to have revealed a counterfeit bill as the culprit, only to be quickly discounted by the Korilla accountant. (Twitter)

Our colleagues down at NYU faced a dilemma after Fake NYU Local, a mock version of the school’s online newspaper, called for an occupation of its business school. Not surprisingly, this isn’t the first bogus protest to pop up since Occupy Wall Street. (NY Observer)

Wall Street investors felt the chagrin of their own fake news. Analysts conclude that stocks for one company fell 78 percent and kept falling after false reports claimed the company was filing for bankruptcy. (Bloomberg)

Bad hair day via Wikimedia Commons

Unexpected acts: On Thursday night, NYU held a “mystery concert” (featuring Flying Lotus, Gang Gang Dance, and Light Asylum) which got rave reviews. At Columbia, we still have to plan our concerts months in advance. (NYULocal)

Unexpected calendars: Forget firemen. Now you can check out hot New York City bus drivers and semi-famous Republican women. (NYDN, Clare Booth)

Unexpected places with animals: A pet cat waiting to be put on a flight with its owner escaped into JFK airport. Meanwhile, this bird in a crowded mall tried to go down an “up” escalator. (CityRoom, Jezebel)

Unexpected radio hosts: Former governor David Paterson now has his own radio talk-show on AM 710. Unsurprisingly, he likes his new job more than his old one.

Unexpected food: Weeds that grow downtown and taste like gasoline apparently make good guacamole. (CityRoom)

Unexpected Columbia roommates: Azar served in Iraq with his “battle buddy,” Alex, until Alex was badly wounded and taken out of the country for medical treatment. After a tour in Afghanistan, Azar enrolled in GS and encouraged Alex to do so as well. Now they’re roommates. (NYT)

Lucy from Google Images

The technical term is eyasses.

NYU’s adopted hawk family, Violet and Bobby, have been the subject of a lot of concern recently. Bird experts, and Bwog, claimed that the pair’s eggs past due earlier this week, but to the shock and surprise of live stream viewers, one chick has since emerged! College students aren’t the only people who procrastinate in/on Bobst Library. The NYTimes City Room is hosting a competition to name the new babies. Bwowk, anyone?

The ornithological relief was short lived, however, as bird-watchers noticed a blue plastic band tightly wrapped around one of Violet’s (the mother) legs. Her leg has since swollen, and hawk experts suggest that if it is not quickly removed, Violet will lose her leg, her life, and thus her babies. A daring rescue plan is being formulated by University officials and hawk rehabilitation experts. Supposedly, it will involve an 18ft long pole-net and some poor sucker climbing out onto the roof. Best of luck!

In other hawk-related news, Hawkma might be dead. Until there is certain evidence, Bwog refuses to speculate about the loss of a campus legend.

NYT City Room, Taylor Siedel.“>

Goodnight, sweet prince.

Photos via NYT City Room, Taylor Siedel.

Ellen Morris, Academic Director of the semester abroad program, confirmed the Columbia students studying at NYU’s Amheida archeology program were safely evacuated from Egypt yesterday evening. After stopping in Dubai, they are due back in New York City today. “For the rest of the semester,” Morris writes, the CU & BC students will be studying abroad in the Village (in NYU housing).” All the way downtown!

We’re very happy to hear you’re all safe!

What even is a line, anyway?

PoliticalLine: Our very own Jeffrey Sachs (director of Columbia’s Earth Institute) did not approve of Obama’s State of the Union Address. Media caught up with him on a bus from Zurich to Davos. That’s usually where Bwog goes, too, to express disapproval. (WSJ)

HawkLine: Apparently we’re not the only news outlet with a thing for hawks. While comforted by this recent outburst of hawk-news, we’d like to think that Hawkma could take either one of these guys in a pigeon-eating contest, or whatever it is that hawk drama consists of. [Warning: Some of these are graphic!] (CityRoom, NPR)

EconomyLine: Columbia’s $6.5 billion endowment performed the best out of all Ivy League endowments last year. Yale’s was the worst. Ha. (Bloomberg)

JealousyLine: Speaking of other schools, we thought we should break it to you early that NYU has a snow day, while we do not. Blerg! (NYU)

StressedFreshmenLine: An annual survey of college freshmen reveals today’s record levels of stress, compared to the past 25 years. We feel that this excess of stress can be attributed to lack of snow days. And, also, because school officials don’t use Columbia’s (best performing!) endowment to buy a lot of snacks, and then keep them in accessible places around campus, all the time, though we try to compensate for this. (NYT)

Image via Wikimedia.

Why do I look so fancy? I'm a wizard!

What do we do up here? (NYU Local)

MTA faked inspections. Safety first? (Gothamist)

What’s so great about gold, anyway? (NPR)

How much cash money can Harry Potter make in one day? A lot. (NY Daily News)

JG-L

The staff of the Harvard Crimson is concerned our Social Experiment will backfire, causing vicious competitive tension which will destroy any existing social cohesion at Columbia. (Harvard Crimson)

NYU’s neighbors are concerned that its plans to add an additional 3 million square feet of space in Greenwich Village are not a good thing. NYU’s president John Sexton readily defends the plans. (NY Mag)

Steadfastly refusing to acknowledge which side of the magical apartheid they fall on, over a thousand people showed up for the Quidditch World Cup this weekend. The cup was won by the team from Middlebury College. (NY Mag)

The Feds are looking into a Four Loko ban. Connecticut Senator elect Richard Blumenthal, caught up in PotterFever, describes it as “witch’s brew”. The New York Times prints the phrase “Edward Four Loko Hands.” Good times are had all around. (NYT)

Also tickets for your opportunity to meet Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Roone on Friday are almost sold out!

photo via Facebook

Just in case you needed another reason to hate hipsters.

The new issue of The Blue and White can be found around campus. Today, Claire Sabel reviews the a book on how the global reach of universities is changing the world.

Coming in fourth nationally, Columbia University achieved its highest ranking ever in this year’s U.S. News and World Report list of the nation’s best colleges and universities. The August publication of the list gave students, faculty, and administrators plenty of reason to celebrate, but the race to the top of these rankings is only one leg of a much larger, global race that is increasingly pitting American colleges and universities against their international peers.

Author Ben Wildavsky chronicles this growing globalized competition within higher education in his new book, The Great Brain Race: How Global Universities are Reshaping the World. Tracing key trends in education since World War II, Wildavsky argues that undergraduate and graduate institutions at home and abroad are escalating the same kind of consumer-driven race for global dominance that has characterized the corporate world for decades. Students are the new consumers, and academia is the latest commodity to be had.

The U.S. education sector is at the head of this Great Brain Race, in many ways, according to Wildavsky. Elite American research universities are the most desired destination among international students, and the U.S. attracts up to two-thirds of all the world’s graduate students. The U.S. also pumps more money into higher learning than any other country in the world, spending more than double the percentage of its GDP on post-secondary education that China, India, the European Union, and Japan do.

Columbia ought to come in near the head of the class by these measures—of the more than 2,000 U.S. colleges and universities reporting international student enrollment, Columbia ranks third in attracting the most students from abroad, and its sizable endowment enables it to finance one of the biggest annual university budgets in the nation.

But when it comes to naming the leaders of the Great Brain Race, Wildavsky skips Columbia and instead heads downtown to Washington Square Park. There, under the leadership of President John Sexton, New York University is pioneering the development of “satellite campuses,” off-shoot schools that seek to mirror in other countries the presence of the main university.

Read more…

It’s finally time to buy an apartment in Manhattan! (NY Mag)

MTV is letting people like you choose where to send season 2 of Jersey Shore.

Giants Stadium is being demolished. (Daily News)

Strippers (including an NYU student) pick the Saints to win the Super Bowl. (Post)

It’s been in the top stories box for weeks now, but the score is 45% to 55%, and the golden hour is now upon us. It’s true; Our Big Purple Neighbor is currently winning NBC’s Best University in NYC poll, and if we don’t fight back now NYU will take both the bragging rights and the beer-bellied “local” dressed in gold as trophies.




In light of what’s at stake, Bwog implores you to vote (now!) for Columbia if you haven’t already. Even if you have, Bwog’s Online Poll Cheating experts say you may be able to vote twice or more if your IP address changes depending on where you hook up to the internet on or around campus. You may also be able to vote twice if your great great aunt was from Chicago. So go on, vote!

Polls close at 2pm today.

Sorry, Class of 2010, guess you’ll never know when the next 1 train is arriving. (NYT)

Sorry, David Paterson, CC’77, but come on- can’t you just take the hint?  (Daily Intel)

Sorry, New York school kids… all that zucchini bread is going straight to your hips. You can thank us later. (NYT)

Sorry to break it to you, rich uncle Bloomberg, but all your money still can’t buy me love. (City Room)

Sorry, geese, that you’re all being rounded up and exterminated, but you keep messing up our planes and your poop gets everywhere! (NYT)

Sorry NYU, quantity does not equal quality. And you still don’t have a campus. (NYP)

Image via emory.edu

The baby blue of Columbia versus the flamboyant purple of NYU. Or, if you’re NBC New York, the forest green of Columbia vs. the baby blue of NYU.  Color issues aside, the station is hosting a collegiate version of its “Golden Local” series. The results of the poll decide which school will theoretically receive the honor of “the world’s first human trophy” (NBC’s version of a local, as seen above wearing a golden blazer and matching golden Converse sneakers).

Columbia is currently in the lead, but there’s no time to waste, folks. Past polls have dethroned such institutions as Grey’s Papaya (loser in the “best hot dogs” category) and McSorely’s (“best old bars”), so the inherent obviousness of the decision may not survive the internet.  Get voting, make sure to find the “Skip this ad” button in the upper left corner afterward, and bring some of that local, authentic, ski-hat-with-aviators flavor up to Morningside. He’s sure to be the hottest thing on campus since Sir Michael’s mixtapes.

This update from NYU Local suggests that James Franco may not return to 209 for awhile — he’s too busy taking classes on topics like “You Don’t Know Dick: The Courageous Hearts of Transsexual Men.”  That’s right: Franco is ostensibly down at Tisch taking Queer Cinema 101, just hoping and praying that Milk gets on the syllabus.