It’s still there, somewhere

Believe it or not, while you’re hiding under your covers avoiding high school friends, the world is still going on, somewhere, and we continue to believe that it is rotating around NYC and, specifically, our very own Columbia.  Here’s what’s been happening outside of your house:

In 2012, murders were at an all-time low, non-Apple device thefts went down, and Apple product thefts went up.  Don’t wave your iPhones around, kids. (NY Daily News, BGR)

Excuse us for “stirring this shit pile” again, but people, including the Native American Council, are still upset about Brownstone decisions. (Indian Country Today)

Hey prospies: “A core curriculum isn’t a bad thing at all.” (NYT)

JSachs predicts robots are taking over.  With this totally new concept, Mr. Bucket better look out.  (Boston Globe)

Columbia has become the go-to Ivy for veterans, with three times as many enrolled veterans as the rest of the Ivies…combined.  [To view, you may have to go through Columbia e-resources.] (Chronicle of Higher Education)

Need to email your prof about grades or class space?  Refresh yer netiquette knowledge. (Wellesley College Project)

And to ensure that some things never change, LiLo is still a mess. (NYT)

Global studies major via Wikimedia Commons

A huge piece in the today’s Times examined our most powerful and least proud alumnus’ deliberative process when ordering drone strikes,  in which he weighs the benefit of killing a suspected terrorist against the risk of killing innocents.

The piece included an oblique shout-out to CC. Obama, who in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech mused on just war, has apparently “reserved to himself the final moral calculation” when chancing collateral damage.

Obama applies “the ‘just war’ theories of Christian philosophers to a brutal modern conflict.” Without “a ‘near certainty’ that a strike would result in zero civilian deaths, Mr. Obama want[s] to decide personally whether to go ahead.” The coolest part:

A student of writings on war by Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, [Obama] believes that he should take moral responsibility for such actions.

“He realizes this isn’t science, this is judgments made off of, most of the time, human intelligence,” said Mr. Daley, the former chief of staff.

Hard choices…you should think about them critically!

Earlier today, the Columbia College Fund sent out an email to young alumni, hat in hand. Opening with a stirring description about we lucky students who are “experiencing life at Columbia College,” the email made a huge mistake. In a zealous sentence devoted to the Core, the Alumni Center gushed about “comparing the Republic to the Leviathan in Lit Hum.” Oops.

Egregious

At one point in time, Frontiers of Science would have dedicated several lectures to the butter churn

Purdue becomes the first of the 27 schools pursuing construction of a NYC science campus to drop out of the running. (WSJ)

Le Monde (the French magazine, not the restaurant you eat at when your parents visit) is fascinated by Barnard and education at an all girls’ school. Oh, can’t read French, can’t you? Well here’s Google’s not-so-perfectly translated version. (Le Monde)

A conservative nonprofit is worried that sex education, including Columbia’s very own Go Ask Alice, is promoting bestiality and S&M role-playing among the youth of our generation. Apparently someone forgot to tell them that no one at Columbia has sex anyway. (Gothamist)

Blew off your LitHum assignment again? Reading Don Quixote might be more important for your intellectual development than you think. (NYT)

Research on the numbers of high school and college graduates indicates that college rankings aren’t the problem with America’s higher education system—it’s that so few students enter the system at all. (Atlantic)

Director of Columbia’s Center for Iranian Studies Ehsan Yarshatar is spearheading the creation of Encyclopedia Iranica to better educate the world on the history and culture of the Middle Eastern nation, and has been doing so for 37 years. Now aged 91, he’s reached the letter K—halfway there. (NPR)

Little schoolhouse on the snowbank via Wikimedia Commons

Bwog wonders whether Bloom prefers the Lattimore translation to the Fitzgerald

Alison Herman, CC’15, was dutifully in attendance yesterday afternoon. She keeps it short and sweet below. N.B. Christia Mercer is a Bright Eyes fan.

At 2:30 sharp on Tuesday, over a thousand Columbia College freshpeople and one intrepid reporter packed themselves into Roone Arledge Auditorium for their first-ever college lecture. With the help of a nifty slideshow, Christia Mercer spent the next hour and a half holding forth on the Iliad—the book we spent our summers SparkNoting, avoiding, and occasionally reading. Proving that she knew her audience, Mercer began by steering students towards the Internet, specifically the Lit Hum website, which promises to augment the Lit Hum experience with shiny pictures and “luscious” quotes. There’s even a section for students to submit pieces of art inspired by the Lit Hum syllabus. Soon, however, it was time for the students to take out their books. Touching on glory, honor, and other lofty principles, Mercer nonetheless kept the mood light, casually dropping references to Lady Gaga, Havana Central, and even a nearly naked Orlando Bloom.

At the lecture’s conclusion, Mercer called upon the audience to literally answer the big questions, including “What does it mean to live a good life?” and “What is a good life good for?” Praising the answers of the brave souls who volunteered to represent their discussion groups, Mercer at last pronounced the freshmen free and ready to begin their first year of college.

Unfortunately clothed via the Orlando Bloom Files message board

Flocks of prospective students clutter campus in celebration of Presidents’ Day. It’s rumored that the Undergraduate Recruitment Committee expects “mega tours” this week. Makes you feel sentimental, don’t it?