Ah yes. The madness begins, the tradition continues. The madness is that which unfolds when nearly 10,000 generally intelligent and insufferably motivated people are crammed into a six-block postage stamp of a college campus; the tradition is the Commentariat’s creepily accurate SEMESTER IN (P)REVIEW. Not to say I told you so on like, almost everything in the spring edition. But shit, I told you so. And am about to do so again. This semester’s top stories, in no particular order:
-SPRAYREGEN V. BOLLINGER: Our buddy Lee C is once again the defendant in a precedent-setting case, although his will be a pyrrhic victory indeed. Irate Manhattanville landowner NIck Sprayregen will deliver on his threat to sue the state over its decision to declare the area blighted; as a stalling tactic, he’ll also start beating the eminent domain/property rights war drum as soon as it’s clear that his various legal challenges aren’t going anywhere. Columbia will artfully tiptoe around the ED issue (heh), but not without mayoral hopeful Tony Avella repeatedly–and publicly–crying foul.
-WORLD LEADERS’ FORUM: THE SEQUEL: Last year’s WLF was a veritable rouge’s gallery–and that was before a certain Iranian president copped an invite. Nothing could match last year’s cavalcade of tinpot dictators (Gurbanguly Burdymuhamedov) and democracy-weary technocrats (Fakrudin Ahmed, Mikail Sakashashshsviillli), and this year won’t come close: speakers will be non-controversial, although scattered dissenters will question the wisdom of inviting Kazakh leader Nurusultan Nazarbayev. Yeah, just you wait and see…
-FRAT ROW BLOWS: As the fascist heel of Housing and Dining presses ever harder on the necks of our Greek brothers and sisters, the frats will be sure to be on their very best behavior. Parties will either be small-ish and exclusive or small-ish and at bars; if any fun does occur in a frat house, it will occur under paranoid layers of secrecy. That pool behind AEPi will seem a symbolic threshold for what the local Gestapo will tolerate.
-THE VILLAGE POUR HOUSE DOES NOT: The Pour House will seem a godsend to the ‘hood’s ailing bar scene, siphoning off 1020 patrons while keeping complacent up n’ comers like the Underground on their toes. A positive development over all.
-OBAMA ELECTED, CAMPUS ELATED: Sure Obama’s election will seem like a watershed in American history on November 5th, but Russian bellicosity, Iranian intransigence, the market’s horror at practically all of his policies and a Democratic Congress with approval ratings in the high teens will make for a rough first hundred days, which will be described in excruciating detail in this blog’s Spring in (P)review.
or:
-MCCAIN ELECTED, CAMPUS EVEN MORE DEPRESSING THAN USUAL: I don’t even want to think about this one–not because I am a fan of Obama, but because I am a fan of happiness in general. What a depressing slog this autumn will be if, against all possible logic, the American people wind up electing McCain: because if dazzling political talent, near-messianic appeal and eight years of George W. Bush isn’t enough to get an orthodox liberal elected president, then liberalism is, to put it mildly, in trouble. The academy’s almost permanent sense of denial (remember: there hasn’t been a true liberal ideologue as president since Johnson, arguably) will probably turn into something much uglier. November 5th could be a very bad day to be Eric Foner. Or anyone going to his school, come to think of it.