Photo via Gothamist

Bulgarian politicians prefer to spend their time milking virtual cows. (Huffington Post)

Hawkers will sell you anything these days, including dental appointments. (Gothamist)

Careful with that joint. It could get you deported. (NYT)

Volunteers go above and beyond for the Great American Census – not surprising as it may one day be worth a fortune. (NYT, Gothamist)

A Yale student commited suicide from the Empire State Building. (Huffington Post)

Super hero/History prof/Provost Alan Brinkley was walking to work one chilly day, and noticed someone following him. Because he didn’t think to look for one of those little red “Lion’s Watching” Lions to protect him against evil spirits, the stalker eventually caught up to him and introduced himself – Griff Jenkins of Fox News.

Jenkins was there to heckle Brinkley about his American history textbook, Unfinished Nation. In the clip aired on Fox Nation this morning, Jenkins follows Brinkley for several blocks while criticizing the book’s treatment of the War on Terror. Apparently Brinkley wrote that only one terror suspect detained at Gitmo was ever charged, while Fox claims that the number today is over one hundred.

Too bad Fox didn’t have data for 2006, when the book was published. It’s also too bad for Fox that Jenkins’ suit (no coat, of course) was so damn spiffy and the Fox logo was so damn bright. All that plus Jenkins’ youthful enthusiasm and thick-rimmed glasses made our wool-clad provost look positively evil.

Jenkins even followed Brinkley for two blocks, up 116th and into campus, until the silent, speed-walking prey finally reached the sanctity of Low and unceremoniously shut the door in the camera’s face. Perhaps Jenkins’ called the book “Unfinished Business” rather than “Unfinished Nation” on purpose this morning – Bwog sees an old-fashioned smackdown in the works.

Bwogger Armin Rosen admits that this brief survey of people with the same name as other people who happen to be Columbia professors is random as hell, but bear with him.

I’ve never read Dostoevsky’s The Double, but I assume the story goes a little something like this: a successful English professor is wrongfully accused of his wife’s murder, only to wake up in the body of a mid-decade, D-list sitcom actor, who finishes his PhD in English only to be wrongfully accused of his wife‘s murder and wake up in the body of a mid-decade, D-list movie actor. What’s that, commenter: what I’m actually describing is a thinly-veiled cross between Lost Highway and Groundhog Day? Read a book, my friend: with this whole “postmodernism” thing, anybody can be anything, ever. Everything is relative! The author is dead! And Columbia professors lead strange double-lives within the bodies of other people! Sound like a Spike Jonze movie? Well maybe it should be–“Being Jeffrey Sachs” sounds like the surprise hit of 2008.

David Helfand

The man who introduced a generation of Columbia undergrads to the wonders of science (and a PhD student to the horrors of…well, the horrors of err, dancing with the man who introduced a generation of Columbia undergrads to the wonders of science) might not believe in God, but he sure believes in making great television. Proud owner of Columbia’s most accomplished doppelganger, Helfand went from producing overrated network garbage (sorry, “Friends” fans), to editing underrated, subscription-only works of television genius. Were his two sides merged, Helfand would be the only untenured senior faculty member ever to win a CableACE award.

Bruce Robbins

Back in the early 90s, when everyone thought the hot-shot Rutgers professor was writing catchily-titled theoretical harangues like “From Epistemology to Society” and “Death and Vocation: Narrativizing Narrative Theory,” Brucie was up to a little narrativizing of his own—remember Darnell from “The Hat Squad?” Y’know, the character that kept on…well, I actually have no idea what that character kept on doing, only that this apparently bifurcated identity operating on multiple levels of physicality and temporality in a trans-historical socio-cultural sphere, is proof that Robbins knows how to get down with his bad, postmodern self.

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Monday editor Armin Rosen has election news for those of you who haven’t spent the past four days sleeping next to a Kentucky offramp.

I believe it was Winston Churchill who called democracy the “worst form of government on earth, except for all those others that have been tried.” Well bollocks to you, Winnie. An election-eve barnstorm of our great land reveals that while mob rule does have some pretty obvious hang-ups ($8 packs of American Spirit, anyone?), it’s capable of producing an oddity or two–correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure Belarus doesn’t have candidates drunkenly pillorying puppet likenesses of their opposition.  

Going state-by-state:

CALIFORNIA: Jack Abramoff’s work representing Indian tribes made him an American hero, and it’s great to see that courageous activists are following in his footsteps. Besides–Casinos on Indian reservations mean more money for schools and firefighters. And you support schools and firefighters, don’t you?

NEW JERSEY: Forget property taxes, rampant crime, pollution, a long-standing reputation as America’s armpit: the biggest election-year issue coming out of the Garden State is this horrifying ad from Republican New Jersey state Senator Gerry Cardinale. Making possibly racist accusations that your opponent has ties to terrorists is one thing, but that sock puppet was really uncalled for. And if you’ll allow me a brief exercise in comparative political puppetry: though crude, the Gavin Newsom puppet produced some undeniably brutal satire. Meanwhile, Cardinale’s obnoxious, purple-coiffed duck smacks of desperation–I’m no expert on New Jersey politics, but just as a general rule, election-week TV ads centered on a raggedy yellow hand-puppet are good indication that you’re running out of ideas.

MARYLAND: What’s that? A contested election in the politically homogenous, left-wing utopia of Takoma Park? Well I’ll be damned. This calls for an investigation! Bowers, it seems, is anti rent-control in a part of the country that’s only slightly more conservative than Berkley; Robinson likes recycling, local business and urban microfinance. I trust the Co-op has been abuzz with discussion over whether the right-leaning newcomer can play the spoiler to the older, carbon-hating establishment lefty, but somehow I think Marylanders have more important things to worry about. Read more…

Students who log on to the Dining Services website to complete a quality-assurance survey are in for a special treat. Columbia is going to donate ten cents to the charity of your choice!

Ten cents?! You might think. That’s vaguely offensive and pathetic! But wait! You can take the survey as many times as you want. So that’s like, an entire dollar to charity for completing a quality-assurance survey ten times.

Columbia: forerunners in philanthropy and accuracy.

 

Not content with battling it out in the U.S. News and World Report rankings, the Ivies are throwing it down by way of that most gentlemanly of pastimes: war! Or rather, inter-campus computerized simulations of games that simulate war! Kind of!

Our buddies at GoCrossCampus have organized an Ivy League championship. While Columbia hasn’t won a single outright basketball or football championship in the League, we all know that cross-country Risk is the glamour sport of the future. So take up arms, Columbians! Let our arrows blot out the sun! We’ll make Princeton pine for 1777! Hoohah!

-ARR

Geraldo Rivera was in front of the Broadway Gates tonight. So was Armin Rosen. 

 


When I saw a Fox News producer scouring College Walk for students willing to stand behind Geraldo Rivera during a live episode of Geraldo at Large, my thoughts instantly turned to the mustache. Specifically, I wondered whether and how such an aerodynamic and totally inexplicable article of facial hair actually exist on this earth. After spending the past hour a mere few feet away from one of the titans of sensationalist pseudo-journalism, I can say that yes, the stories are true. Hard as this may be to believe, the Geraldo mustache is no urban legend.

The Columbia journalism grad held court with a group of about 50 or 60 students and rubberneckers, shell shocked by the pairing of Geraldo frickin’ Rivera with a murderous president of Iran. So the mood was light, even if the topic and the passions involved were not.

“Nobody wave. You gotta swear to God nobody’ll wave” the mustachioed anchor instructed the rotating gaggle of students. “Don’t be dumb,” he added. “This isn’t NYU,” one girl retorted, although the most insulting line was Geraldo’s: “Don’t be nervous,” he instructed participants. “We’re not on 145th St.” Would that we were, Geraldo, so that we could postgame this over some hot jazz at St. Nick’s, rather than having to go straight from here to the dreary confines of the Butler reading room. Read more…

Minutemen, minutemen. What heady times those were. Stages were rushed, lives changed,  definitions for “Kulawiking” determined. Indeed, it was only after many long and trying months of op-eds, town hall meetings and general soul-searching that we were finally able to go about the difficult business of trying to move on with our lives.

Or did we? Via Spec, at least one person is nostalgic for Minuteman-mania, and who can blame him? I think we’d all agree that Minuteman didn’t receive get enough attention around here. It’s not like it wasn’t discussed ad nauseum for months on end, or covered top-to-bottom in the campus and national media. Hell, it’s about time we were reminded of the mayhem that went down last year. Maybe Bill O’Reilly could do a one-year anniversary special this October 4th? Pretty please?

As for the invitee: he’s kept himself busy the last six months trashing our dear president, appearing on Lou Dobbs, and taking on everything from Mexican trucking to his fellow Minutemen. Gilchrist might have been cast out of the Minutemen in disgrace, but Bwog suspects he’s still got plenty of fans here at Columbia…

Cafe 212 is now selling massive 8 oz. tubs of candy corn for $4.29… and people are buying them.

Stop it. 

Just.

Stop it.

One of our more distinguished alumni (excerpted):

“I’m a liar and a cheat and a thief and the ultimate manipulator. … I tell lies every day, man,” the 40-year-old actor says in the February issue of Men’s Journal magazine. “And when I say I’m phenomenally manipulative, I am.”

Fox, who is now starring opposite Matthew McConaughey in We Are Marshall, a Warner Bros. Pictures release, says he “can be unapologetically vicious” and is “absolutely an instigator.”

“I really enjoy social boozing, and what I enjoy about it is when people I know and care about say and do things they normally wouldn’t say or do,” he tells the magazine. “To make that happen I’ll instigate anything.”

“As for the skinny-dipping, when I was a kid there wasn’t a huge delineation in our family between having clothes on or not having clothes on,” he says.

“And the reason I have so much fun doing it now is people are so shocked by it, and, like, `Oh, my God, Fox just took his clothes off!’ But, I mean, just how long ago was it that we were all wandering around in loincloths?”

…was everyone else remotely affiliated with Columbia busy on May 15th? Why is this man speaking at Class Day? Something must be done…

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