• Another college ranking! CU ranks #2 on Forbes’ list (of America’s Most Expensive Colleges)! Cause for celebration? You decide! (Forbes)
• Wireless carriers have formed a deal with the city to bring cell phone service to the subway, maybe. (NYT)
• The enterprising performer known as the Naked Cowboy, a.k.a. Robert John Burck, is expected to announce his 2012 presidential bid at noon today. We’re not joking. (NYP)
• Former Governor Eliot Spitzer’s debut on CNN’s “Parker Spitzer” last night was only slightly less awkward than his sex scandal, the Times writes. (NYT)

Bogaevsky, Morning (1910), via Wikimedia

The appearance of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi at the WLF today has drawn some protest online. Will we see political activism on campus? (Various)

Why you skip class (kind of) and what to do about “anxiety-related school refusal”. (WSJ)

Not that this affects the vast majority of you campus-loving college students, but it looks like the unlimited MetroCard will stay unlimited, though it will jump to $104 from $89 per month. (NYT)

In slightly more exciting subway news, the MTA will add television screens to the shuttle train between Times Square and Grand Central. The screens will apparently exclusively show baseball highlights, so you’ll be able to pretend to watch Jeter & Co in the playoffs while trying to ignore homeless people. (WSJ)

Bloomberg is taking steps to attract and retain young artists in New York, the dirty art-grubbing plutocrat. (Capital NY)

The MTA has no money, but is using its no-money to make these little robot machines called subway indicators all along the 1 line (that’s the “red line” to you, Class of 2014) this summer.

Until they actually take away Unlimited Metrocards, we’re not complaining, because this is a fantastic device that allows you to stop asking “When is the train going to come?” and other questions no one knows the answer to. Existentialism: c’est fini.

A gloomy Saturday morning is upon us. Stay in side, stay in your pajamas, and regress back to childhood with Saturday Morning Cartoons.

Cartoons by Abigail Santner

The Mets win opener 7-1.

The 96th St subway station’s new entrance has been opened.

Thanks to Columbia, retro vending machines no longer have a home.

Gothamist loves Bwog! They’ve introduced an etiquette guide.

Subway riders have tea parties and pretend its the Great Depression, sans breadlines (HuffPo).

Al Gore is to would-be Bloomberg assassin as Holden Caulfield is to Mark David Chapman (Gothamist).

Cue the orchestral backdrop — Phil Spector has made it into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, among greats like Abba, Jimmy Cliff, the Hollies, and the Stooges (NYT).

The Philippines suffers their Vesuvius (Gawker).

The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene targets another kind of Coke (Cityroom).

 Our porcine problem persists as experts question the vaccine’s use (NY1).

Evangelists may have vanquished Route 66, but Atheists are now converting subway riders (Gothamist).

With Manhattanville secured, Columbia plots to conquer Europe and South Asia (Spec).

The rich and famous enter Purgatorio without Virgil’s help (Gawker). 

Teachers College descends from the ivory tower (Spec).

In the Bronx, capitalists capture the castle (HuffPost).

Good news–it’s Monday and the city’s subway system is returning to normal operations after the MTA decided it was a good idea to repair 18 of its 20 lines at once this past weekend. (NYT)

More shocking news as a new study released by the American Mustache Institute reveals that men with mustaches earn more than ones with beards or no facial hair. (NBCNY)

In not-so-shocking news, mothers don’t want their daughters to be “slutty” on Halloween. (NYP)

And at last good news for the fashionable: there is finally a club that wants to “unite the fashion force on campus.” (Spec)

Image via Flickr

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

Dying from a heart attack, seizing up, or miscarrying from the swine flu vaccine? The Feds say not to worry, this kind of stuff happens all the time, vaccine or no vaccine. (NYT)

Support or disagree with a University Senate-imposed Smoking ban? Hold your horses! In their first meeting of the year, PrezBo reminded them that the Senate only advises and doesn’t “have the power to implement” these kinds policies. (Spec)

Thinking the 96th Street transfer after hours on the 1 is the worst subway experience in New York? An MTA survey reveals otherwise; the worst station in the system is actually in Queens, where weeds have even sprouted. (NY1)

Happen to be in Brooklyn on Sunday? Don’t worry, you aren’t crazy if you saw 2,000 people walking invisible dogs. (improveverywhere.com)

Would you defend to the grave that Chicken and Rice is the best cart vendor in the city? Sorry, but the 5th annual Vendy Awards give this distinction to a taco stand in Brooklyn. You know, right next to the invisible dogs. (NY1)

 Image via Flickr

It’s two of the best-known rites-of-passage for any Columbian: the first time that you forgot to switch to the 1 train at 96th, and the first time someone who was staying with you forgot to switch. The latter, of course, is the funnier, especially if you tell your visitor the wrong directions back, but the former is annoying, and could even cost you a full two dollars $2.25 (still a full hot dog at some local stands!) if you don’t realize your mistake until you’re outside.

Yes, subways can be deceiving. Fear not, though, subway novices, for if you have enough money to spend on an iPhone/Blackberry/Android/Kindle, then you can buy the new iPhone subway app from an start-up company called Exit Strategy NYC. While it admittedly won’t prevent such boneheadedness as missing your stop, it will save you time: the app – created by ten weeks of riding the entire subway system – tells users which car will be the closest to another line or an exit.

Still, this is just an smartphone app – why mention it here? Because the app, which was blurbed in CityRoom and amNY, was conceived/programmed by two former Columbia students – Jonathan Wegener, CC ’07 and Benny Wong, SEAS ’07. Though CityRoom says Wegener had no experience in developing a mobile application, neither alum was a web neophyte while on campus – Wong’s LinkedIn profile says he worked for CUIT (and is now at Morgan Stanley), while Wegener used to run the original Columbia-specific website, CULPA. That’s using your education.

UPDATE: Wegener got in touch with us to stress that the application does not have a map of the subway system, an impression the first version of this post mistakenly gave (Google’s handled much of the actual mapping). He also provided us with a sample image, and said the program will be getting some TV coverage soon.

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. 

Remember Miss Subway competitions? No, because they were discontinued after 1976 (save a one year revival in 2004). But we should all pretend to be nostalgic for them now that, with the help of a tipster, we have found a former Columbia student winner!

After extensive research (read: some Googling), we know nothing about the smart and seductive Helen Lee except what her Miss Subway sign tells us. She studied Chinese, trained in voice and liked interior decorating and football games when “escorted by her Yale beau.” Yale!? Okay, since your pastimes are as archetypal as you are beautiful, we’ll forgive you. The Miss Subways just held a reunion, so maybe Helen was there!

In completely unrelated alumna awesomeness, Megan McCain went on The View recently to praise her Alma Mater. “I was around all these, like, MENSA scholars,” she said of her Columbia classmates, adding, “There’s a really good school at Columbia that’s specifically for math and science.” The one downside is that she was comparing Columbia’s prowess to The View and its hosts. But still, intellectual compliments? SEAS love? Looks like another high-profile alumnus just got one-upped.

-DJB

Even more awful terrorism-related news today, as the FBI has recently issued an alert that “al-Qaida suicide bombers were contemplating an attack on New York’s mass-transit systems during the holiday season.”

The would-be attacks are being described by law enforcement as “plausible, but unsubstantiated.”

No futher details have been made available, and no arrests have been made. Still, “Department of Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said the warning was issued ‘out of an abundance of caution going into this holiday season.’”

According to Barnard Public Safety, there’s been a stabbing on the 1 train at the 116th subway stop. No students were involved in the incident, but that “it was some high school kids.” 

Stand by for updates/photos.

Update: 4:50 PM – Further investigation reveals that the stabbing took place on the 1 at 110th Street, not 116th. Bwog checked both the 116th and 110th Street stops for delays and/or commotion but found neither. A policeman told us that the stabbing took place around 4 PM and the police cars on 116th are just here to “see what’s going on.” There’s no news of it yet on local stations.