Time to celebrate!

Hey all of you sophomores who had a bad time of housing—you’re finally off the waitlist! A tipster has informed us that although Housing has not yet emailed him, he has seen his assignment on the one and only Star Rez.

Frog w/ champagne via Wikimedia.

Photo via AmericanRhetoric.com

It’s that time again!  The seventh annual Columbia University World Leaders Forum, brainchild of our own Lee C., is right around the corner.  This year, PrezBo “invites you to join him in welcoming” exciting people such as Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the President (and former first lady) of Argentina, Martti Ahtisaari, Nobel laureate and former President of Finland, and everyone’s favorite, Kofi Annan (PrezBo’s email thoughtfully lists “Columbia Global Fellow” ahead of “former Secretary-General of the United Nations”–we’re very important here, did you know?).  The first talk (by Mrs. Fernández de Kirchner) is next Monday afternoon, and online registration opens tomorrow (or today, depending how you keep score) Tuesday, the 15th, at 9 in the morning.  Check out the full email after the jump. Read more…

With all the other restaurant switching going on, several commenters have asked about Haakon’s Hall, which was supposed to replaced Radio Perfecto last fall (including free wifi). Today, though, Bwog Viking Establishment Correspondent James Downie investigated, and found a notice saying that the opening has been delayed until April. 

Hang on, then, Valhalla aspirants – your cuisine will be here soon.

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 Photo Courtesy of NYU Local

The Columbia Students for a Democratic Society, who used to know a thing or two about campus protest, just sent out a press release from Take Back NYU, the pro-Gaza-ish, Marxist-y group that took over Kimmel Hall last night.

Their first demand? They request, “full legal and disciplinary amnesty for all parties involved in the occupation.” Style tip for radical, leftist protests: Don’t mention yourself until the end.

According to the New York Times and NYU Local, the protest started with around 70 students and has dwindled to less than fifty. The Times posited that only half the students are native NYUers and many New School students, apparently addicted to building occupation, are among the crowd. Full press release after the jump.

-DJB

Read more…

Photo courtesy of NYU Local

Radical student group Take Back NYU (TCBY, no wait, TBNYU) has barricaded itself inside a dining hall at Kimmel Center, NYU’s non-diagonal equivalent of Lerner.

TBNYU had publicly planned to boogie tonight at their second annual “Study Breakdown,” but plans quickly went 1968 earlier this evening when several dozen students began barricading doors, hanging slogan-bearing signs in windows, and announcing their agenda via loudspeakers.

Among the group’s demands are more affordable tuition, public accounting of all university expenditures, more financial aid, and, in particular, financial aid for 13 Palestinian students. Signs at the center show the group has an international flair, as well, sporting slogans like, “Solidarity With Gaza.” (No explanation as to how the situation in Palestine relates to pricey East Village studio apartments, but maybe it’s an “everyone who wants to protest, do it here”-type of thing.)

NYU Local has been liveblogging the goings-on since around 9 and in the last hour has reported “Tons of cops outside!” Take Back NYU also has a live stream broadcasting on the Web.

UPDATE (12:17 a.m.): Our NYU correspondents tell Bwog that students outside the center are “happy and cheering.” Meanwhile on the streaming video, a TBNYU member describes their group: “It is a Marxist communist organization, but there’s no kind of – no, like, we don’t screen our members. There’s a little Trotsky in there. Maybe. We’re, like, a strong-minded group. But, yeah, no, absolutely. We’re democratic.”

UPDATE (1:02 a.m.): Bwog has been told that there is one Barnard student there and “a lot of Columbia students came here but either left for int’l student visa fears or couldn’t get in because they stopped letting people in at some point.” There will be a “support rally” in front of Kimmel tommorow at 12:15 p.m. for any students who feel strongly enough to make the “trek.”