In case you missed it while stuck between the pages of a good book, engaged in a good ole nine-to-fiver, or traveling to a war zone with limited contact with The Economist and the BBC, here are a few highlights to bring you up to speed on recent events:

• Awwww, Israel has a new friend.
• The Invention of a real-life Harry Potter Invisibility Cloak
• Overhead luggage may move during flight. So may United Airline’s seats.
• Bush had the W. Obama has the O.
• Aussies suggest eating Kangaroos to save the world. (Anyone else think this environmentalism has gone full circle?)
• George Orwell rises from the dead and starts to blog.

One week has passed since I landed at JFK and stepped into a much bigger world. In that week, I have started the process of becoming a New Yorker logistically. However, in attitude and in spirit I haven’t even scratched the surface.

I inspected the neighborhood stores, navigated the subway routes, and was shown around mid-town by a few new Columbia friends. Several times, I was speechless in the shadow of blocks of massive structures. I learned to walk on the right side of a walkway — and walk fast– or risk being swept away. I also had to pick up the tricks of the tip and that there is even a whole science to tipping. So, now, included in my list of stuff to bring to school, I just added a Dummies’ Guide to Tipping .

In short, I’m in awe. I’ve already been assured that in time I will become accustomed to the city and join the hoards of New Yorkers going about their lives amid the fantastic back-drop that you’d expect from the capital of the world. Coincidentally enough, it was an ad for Columbia University that made me think that these assurances had any merit. (Who would have thought that an advertisement could provoke intellectual musing instead of the usual provocations associated with billboards and obnoxious posters?!) It got me thinking … and I remember what E.B. White once said, and it gave me some hope for the future.

“ There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter — the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. […] Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion.” E.B. White

In four years, I expect to be one of those passionate, nouveau New Yorkers, but for now, I’m okay with being a restless up-and-coming freshman.

Religion has been on the front cover of the Sydney Morning Herald and every other major Australian paper almost every day for the last week. Sydney hosted World Youth Day–a day (or a week, really) where the Pope has asked the youth of the world to come together and celebrate their faith. Naturally, Catholics were the only ones who really turned up.

The event had its fair share of drama, including some pilgrims assaulting protestors who were handing out condoms–chanting “the pope is wrong, use a condom”. But the most significant event of the week was the highly-anticipated apology from the Pope. Apology? What for? For the series of child molestation incidents by his own clergy in Australia.

The Pope announced to the masses at Saint Mary’s Cathedral that he was profoundly ashamed as a result of the abuse of minors in Australia.

“Indeed I am deeply sorry for the pain and suffering the victims have endured, and I assure them as their pastor I too share in their suffering,” he said.

For Anthony Foster, and no doubt many others, this was not enough. In front of the masses, such apologies are almost meaningless. Sweeping and general, it lacked the personal and intimacy of the one-on-one apology. And once that happens, then what? An apology alone leaves action twiddling its thumbs, words taking over instead.

Anthony Foster’s two daughters, Emma and Katherine, were raped by Melbourne priest Father Kevin O’Donnell. Katherine Foster developed a heavy drinking habit and was left physically and mentally disabled in 1999 from a car accident. This year, at the age of 26, Emma Foster committed suicide. 

Melbourne Archbishop George Pell’s capped offer of $50, 000 compensation was rejected by the family. The Catholic Church has put aside funds for a “Towards Healing” project.

Mr Foster says the Church must do more than it has so far to help all victims of sexual abuse.

“Emma carried the pain of her abuse for all her life until it ended recently and Christine and I now carry that pain instead of her,” he said. Mr Foster believed that the Pope had to beg for forgiveness from the victims.

I will not join your facebook group. Nor will I play virtual scrabble with you or pay $1 to facebook.com to send you an image of a cup of a panda as a virtual “Gift.”

I admit that I do have a facebook account, but I would like to add that, in spite of this, I am not, in fact, a loser. Since I signed up, I have received thousands (or at least tens) of invitations to groups dedicated to worthy causes. Save Darfur. Stop AIDS. Cure cancer. NAMBLA*. But I never accepted a single one. I felt no need to publicly declare my acts of philanthropy.

But some people seem to have an incessant need to add applications that organize a list of favorite “causes” such as the number one most downloaded application, “Causes,” which 52 of my current Facebook Friends have. Joining groups and applications, however, does nothing to actually feed the starving children of Haiti. The rainforest in the Amazon doesn’t care if you “accepted an invitation.” The starving children don’t really give a crap, either.

But the “Causes” application is not, in my opinion, the most egregious to grace the network’s pages. The worst facebook application has got to be “Top Friends,” among the top five most popularly downloaded additions to one’s profile.

The premise behind this application is that is allows the user to select a large group of friends who are his favorite and share this list and accompanying photographs with the world. The thing is, that I find this to be completely pointless. Even more pointless than “Causes.” You won’t be any “less friends” with someone if your friendship is not made known to everyone who views your profile. Thank you, “Top Friends,” for creating gaudy, flashing backgrounds that looked as though they’ve been ripped from an eighth grader’s geocities website. You really can’t help but look. And then cringe in response to the sparkling lights that threaten to give you a seizure.

“Top Friends” is ugly. It is a huge design flaw. It is the pimple of facebook. People who do not know that potentially life-threatening animated gifs are not (and were never) in vogue should not have control over designing part of a website to be viewed by other people.

I don’t know why anyone would want to bring the worst of myspace.com, the worst of social networking sites, to facebook, which may not be the pillar of the community, but, hey, at least it’s not myspace. Read the rest of this entry »

I know I usually reserve this blog for comment on Columbia-related issues, but it was really difficult to follow the news coming out of the Middle East this week without wanting to write something about it.

A recap for those of you who haven’t been following it: as part of a possibly misguided live-terrorists-for-dead-bodies swap, Israel freed quadruple murderer Samir Kuntar, a stain on the human race whose only detectable accomplishment involved killing a family of Israelis and savaging a four year old girl with a rock. Naturally he was given a hero’s welcome upon his return to Lebanon, where murdering a child with your bare hands is fine, so long as that child is Jewish. In Lebanon, the children you kill needn’t even be Israeli if you’re looking to elevate yourself to superstar status—just look who turned out for the funeral of Imad Mugniyah the monster (or rather Hezbollah military commander) responsible for the JCC bombing in Buenos Aires in the mid-90s. Apparently, any Jew will do.

But this isn’t merely a case of terrorist pathology seeping it’s way into a country psychologically battered by 25 years of more or less continuous bloodshed. Indeed, Kuntar was feted by the government of Lebanon itself—greeted by its president, dressed in military garb, walked down a red carpet. One can only imagine what the country’s officials and cabinet ministers must have said to him as they shook his hand and patted him on the back: “nice wrist action when you bashed that defenseless girl’s head in, Samir! You really showed her!”

This reveals more than just the moral equivocation—and worse, moral depravity—that accompanies an increasingly nihilistic modern-day anti-Zionism. It goes beyond that to mock moral relativism itself, to shatter the idea that nothing is wrong so long as it can be justified in context. I hate to sound like Bernard Lewis or Norman Podheretz, but to me the following statement couldn’t possibly be more obvious: there are societies that pin medals on racist child murders, and who see such people as symbols of national redemption and hope. And then there are the people and societies who will defend liberalism even—and especially—when they are being made a travesty of. Lebanon’s (and, while I’m at it,  the Arab world’s) celebration of anti-Jewish barbarism is another reminder of the crossroads at which the Saidists now find themselves, even if they’re too self-absorbed to realize that such a crossroads even exists. In a very real sense, it’s a reminder of where all kinds of lines are drawn–and that those lines are there in the first place.

It is now scientifically proven that I am genetically superior to all of you. I am the child of a new breed of human of a higher intellectual capacity.

And, even better, if you don’t find what I’m saying totally %$#^&@$%-ing hilarious, you have doubtlessly suffered extensive damage parahippocampal gyrus in your right brain. (heh, loser.)

According to Yahoo, detecting (ahem) “sarcasm” is a sign of evolutionary superiority and, evolutionary biologists claim that sociality is what has made humans such a successful species.

Sarcasm a sign of success.

I always suspected.

because we all like to hear about what’s going on in other people’s lives at Columbia…

CU roommate 1: You can’t recycle used tissues.
CU roommate 2: Oh, you found those?

Prof. o’ Logic: .. object of interest. Object of our desire. Wow. I don’t know where that came from. (pause) I feel really weird now.

Announcer on 1 train: Stay clear of the closing doors, thank you. [pause] I said STAY CLEAR OF THE CLOSING DOORS. DO I HAVE TO CALL THE POLICE?! GET IN OUR GET OUT, SIR!

CU Grad Student: Gossip Girls? I’ve never heard of that.
CU Sophomore: It is only the greatest show in television.
CU Sophomore 2: I hate that show.
CU Soph 1: You only say that because you hate America.
CU Soph 2: No I don’t. I love our country.
CU Soph 1: But Gossip Girls IS the American culture.

CU Student: No, she can’t come out with us. It’s after sundown.
CU Student 2: Wait, can “jew people” have sex?
CU Student 1: I’m not going to answer that question.

Read the rest of this entry »

That’s how John Nance Garner once described the Vice Presidency. Yet, somehow one of the most beloved games the media plays every four years is a mixture between 1) guess the nominees’ respective choices for VP and 2) think up pie-in-the-sky dream teams that are “unbeatable.” And to be honest, I don’t blame them: this is their version of the NCAA Tournament bracket. That being said, I’ll throw in my two cents anyway.

The truly amazing part of this whole process is that despite election after election to the contrary, people continue to believe that the magic to winning is in finding the perfect running mate. Ginia posted an interesting pro/con look at four pols being mentioned as potential running mates. I’d like to take a slightly different look at the same issue. Specifically, the ways in which a VP can and cannot boost the ticket.

Myth: A strategically chosen veep can deliver a home state or a region of the country.

People love to cite the 1960 election in which LBJ allegedly “delivered Texas.” Even if we grant this example—and it certainly is a disputed claim—it’s just about the only example. First, the only close elections have been in 1960, 1976, 2000, and 2004. Mondale in ’76 may have swung Minnesota, but Carter’s victory was decisive there. Gore may have helped in Tennessee in 1992, but Clinton beat Bush comfortably. Did Cabot Lodge help Nixon in ‘60? What about Bentsen’s boost to Dukakis in Texas in ’88? How did Edwards do in NC in 2004? A veep will very rarely swing an election by helping in a home state, let alone in an entire region.

Fact: A vice presidential candidate’s policy agenda is virtually unknown to the country and thus inconsequential in the election.

Quick, name a policy proposal advocated by Spiro Agnew? Edmund Muskie? Lloyd Bentsen? Dan Quayle? Exactly. People want to know what the President will do if elected, and they want to be confident that in the case of tragedy, the veep won’t screw it up.

A running mate CAN help compensate for perceived weaknesses in the Presidential candidate. Most people focus on the top of the ticket and the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate. A well known veep candidate with some generally acknowledged strengths can compensate well for a candidate’s weaknesses.

So what are Obama’s weaknesses? Well he’s the first candidate since 1960 to be unseasoned both in governmental management (i.e. no gubernatorial experience) AND in foreign policy chops (i.e. first term senator). But Obama’s main strength is that people perceive him as less partisan than most politicians and also as a uniter. With that in mind, here are a few names Ginia did not mention who should be considered:

Mark Warner – Sure, he’s running for (and likely to win) a Virginia Senate seat currently held by retiring Republican John Warner (no relation). But he also was an exceptionally popular governor who passed a necessary tax increase through a heavily Republican state legislature. Warner reasoned and compromised with lawmakers to create a bipartisan bill. If that doesn’t fit Obama’s alleged message of “change” than I don’t know what does. Problems: aforementioned Senate seat; a wife who hates the limelight.

Ted Strickland – Extremely popular Governor of Ohio. From Appalachia, and very comfortable talking about, and backing up talk of, family values and religion. A progressive who appeals to heartland moderates and liberal Republicans. Problems: Short on experience, and only two years into the governorship. Would it be prudent to jump to the national stage so soon especially with another green candidate?

Kathleen Sebelius – Popular Governor of Kansas, in the middle of her second term, and long on managerial experience; she appeals to constituents despite being decidedly and openly pro-choice. She must be doing something right. Problems: I hate identity politics, BUT, a black man running with a woman might just be too much for some Americans to handle at this point.

Or, how I almost scooped the Chronicle of Higher Ed.

The following is the result of a pretty thorough investigation of the Massad tenure situation. It was written for Bwog about five months ago, and although they had journalistically legitimate reasons for never posting it (specifically the reliability of the anonymous source, who we now know to have been fundamentally correct, if self-importantly conspiratorial), I think it’s still the one of the most thorough assessments of the Massad controversy to appear anywhere. Of course the bit about Brinkley rigging the Ad Hoc committee can’t possibly be confirmed (although, crucially, it is here offered as a single source’s theory, rather than a conclusion on our part). But our suspicion that the tenure decision was Brinkley’s alone turned out to have been totally correct, as did our suspicion that a decision had already been made by November (to give this a bit of context, that bit in the last paragraph is in reference to the hunger strike).

Last week, Bwog made passing mention of one of the juicer conspiracy theories of late: that provost Alan Brinkley put out a mafia-style hit on MELAC firebrand Joseph Massad. An anonymous source explained it thusly: three years ago, Massad was denied tenure and “promoted” to Associate professor–although this was his signal to get out of Morningside, he stayed on until he was next up for tenure. This year, he was endorsed for tenure by his department, but rejected by an ad hoc committee convened by provost Brinkley–the membership of which is know only to Brinkley and the committee members themselves. According to our source, Brinkley rigged the committee specifically to prevent Massad from getting tenure, although this was a forgone conclusion given the school’s decision not to give Massad tenure three years ago.

Read the rest of this entry »