We're on hiatus. Do as you please on the comment board and look for summer editors starting June 16. If you'd like to be a summer editor — or maybe you are lonely without your daily IvyGate and would like to share A/S/L + sexi pic? — drop us a line before May 16.

Also, how rad is this baby portrait? Will some Whartonite please use it for a senior yearbook portrait? Please?

PS: Saw this one coming a mile away.

1:44 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Comments (8) | Link | Read more: summer editors

We didn't want you to go on summer break without first knowing which Yalies got into those fantabulous secret societies! Like, your entire summer would be ruined! Sure, that first Skull and Bones list we posted was a total fake-out (only one correct name in the end!) - but who really cared? Here are the society lists, forealz.

We wish these kids the best. As long as the new members of Scroll and Key and Skull and Bones and Wolf's Head don't paint their theses with the blood of aborted fetuses, or make giant swastikas out of snow, or construct giant penises out of Christmas lights, or have enormous flame-wars with their gay lovers on our comment boards, or go to war in Iraq because they're "deciders," they're fine by us.

After the jump: the not-so-secret society lists in full.

Continue reading "One Last Bonesmen Bash" »

4:41 PM by Jacob Savage | Comments (42) | Link | Read more: Secret Societies , Yale

Sound the alarm! A break in the ranks! Princeton grad and Yale 1L Amelia Rawls defies the Ivy tribe this week in a column for the Washington Post, "Best and Brightest, but Not the Nicest," where she reveals the most closely guarded of our cabal's secrets: We are not bionic superheroes. We are not Mother Teresa. In fact, some of us aren't even nice.

I mean the kind of "nice" that involves showing compassion not merely because membership in community service groups demands it. The kind of "nice" that involves sharing notes with a student who is sick or lending a textbook to a friend who doesn't have one.

...these students will denounce world hunger but be unfriendly to the homeless. They will debate environmental policy but never offer to take out the trash. They will believe vehemently in many causes but roll their eyes when reminded to be humble, to be generous and to "do what is right."

What kind of horrible people was Amelia friends with in college, that she thinks thwarting sick people and teasing the homeless is normal among her peers? As for taking out the trash -- well, seriously, do you know any 18-year-olds who do that voluntarily?

Continue reading "Ivy Leaguers Big Fat Meanie-Poos, Says Princetonian/Yalie" »

4:00 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Comments (75) | Link | Read more: why people hate the ivy league

Hello, it's your negligent overlords checking in again. We just want to remind everyone of a post that went up last week, in case you missed it: We're hiring for the summer.

The valiant Maureen O'Connor and Jacob Savage (also Hal Parker!) -- of whom we are much enamored, to whom we are much indebted -- have been helming the HMS IvyGate since September, and their final post of the semester goes up May 2. Then the site goes dark till June 16, when we return with a new summer slate of guest editors.

We want you to apply. 'Cause it's summer, we're desperate excited to take a look at all comers. Maybe you're a newspaper geek who wants to enlarge her patrol to all eight campuses; maybe you're an anthro major with well-penned takes on the tribes and customs of these parts; maybe you're an inveterate gossip who wants to crown a real-life Blair and Serena.

Maybe you know better. But let's face it, you attend an Ivy, which means you've bit hook, line and sinker on a bad sales pitch before. Make that mistake again! Be an IvyGate editor! The pay is nonexistent, the commenters pustulent. And yet writing this stuff is fun -- witness our inability to take the blog out behind the lean-to and shoot it in the back of the head -- and there can be rewards. Why, just look at our recent alumni. We promise either a wildly lucrative promotion to the blogging bigs, or a nervy b.

To apply, email ivygate@gmail.com by May 16. 

Cheers,

Nick and Chris 

P.S. Disproving the existence of karma, we have been blessed recently with the talents of Zach Ozer, one of those ridiculously impressive tech guys from MIT. He's overseeing a big upgrade of the blog that will yield a prettier (shut up) and faster site. Leave your ideas and requests in the comments, where they will be rounded up and shot.

9:00 AM by Nick Summers | Comments (11) | Link | Read more: IvyGate , MM4MW , guest editors , help wanted

Talk about long-winded. The Dartmouth Review interviewed Priya Venkatesan, who babbled for two days straight. (Literally. The interviewer ran out of tape.) She flip-flops on whether or not she'll sue and explains how Writing Program Director Tom Cormen used top-secret alphanumeric codes for covert intimidation:

PV: ...One time Tom Cormen was sitting in the class, and she [a student] asked me, how many T’s are in Gattaca. This was the kind of question she was asking, “how many T’s are in Gattaca?,” and I was about to answer her and Tom Cormen pre-empted me, “two t’s.” I’ll leave you to interpret it.
TDR: No. No, I don’t understand that.
PV: I have to tell you: it means tenure track.
TDR: Oh, okay.
PV: Because I wasn’t tenured track.
TDR: Oh, okay, yes.
PV: They were trying to intimate that I wasn’t ready for tenure track.
TDR: Yes, okay, I didn’t realize that’s what that meant.
PV: I’m kind of making this leap because this is the kind of subversiveness that was going on in that environment. That [girl x] would ask how many t’s are in Gattaca and that Tom Cormen would respond, “two T’s” as if I had no grasp on tenure track. ..but with [girl x], something’s going on with her. I’m not a doctor, but she’s not all there.

This interview is so bizarre, it's breathtaking. Venkatesan repeats every sentence at least five times, which explains why she never had time to answer questions during lecture. I tried really hard to imagine a context in which such loquaciousness would make sense—Dartlog is holding her captive? She is Scheherzade and silence is punishable by death?—but it's hard. The interview is nearly 8000 words long (that's 30 double-spaced essay-pages). And since you probably don't want to read all that, we've got the Cliff's Notes version after the jump.

Continue reading "Venkatesan Speaks! ...and speaks, and speaks..." »

1:57 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Comments (43) | Link | Read more: Dartmouth , Priya Venkatesan

• Brown: "Full Monty" review acknowledges nudity, fails to evaluate penis-size
• Cornell: Jenna B.'s long good-bye: "my appeal was on par with the pinto beans in the dumpster behind That Burrito Place"
• Dartmouth: Conviction in manslaughter of student
  
• Princeton: Seniors write letters to selves, lest self forgets how insufferably self-indulgent self is: "Senior spring at Princeton is a kind of romantic, eternal orange sunset."
• Yale: Shvarts submits non-abortion-goo "alternative project"
• Yale: Commenters = sad pandas
  

9:21 AM by Maureen O'Connor | Comments (2) | Link | Read more: RagTime

Breaking news: it looks as though unhinged post-modernist and writing professor Priya Venkatesan will or will not be pursuing legal action against Dartmouth College. Trying to stay in the news despite her rapidly fading 15 minutes, Venkatesan contacted Dartblog and The D yesterday to say that she was dropping the suit. Never mind, though. Within 24 hours she re-contacted them to say that she will indeed be pursuing legal action. What seems most likely, however, is that Venkatesan, despite her claims to the contrary, has not seen a lawyer.

The D has one pithy student's take on the whole matter:

If Venkatesan followed through with her lawsuit the same way she followed through with grading our papers, no one would have had anything to worry about,”

Meanwhile, the Dartmouth Administration seems more bemused than angry, exasperated that Dartmouth's spam-blockers can't shoo Venkatesan away. Here Gail M. Zimmerman, the Dean of First-Year students, pretends to care about Venkatesan's legal action:

Robert Donin, Dartmouth's General Counsel, was present at yesterday's meeting. He advises that we do not believe there is any merit to a potential lawsuit and he does not feel it necessary for students to retain their own legal counsel at this time...

Questions arose as to our ability to block Prof. Venkatesan's emails. Whether that ability exists or not, it would not likely stop her emails from reaching your inbox given the dearth and ready availability of other free email systems such as hotmail, gmail, and yahoo. If these emails are distressing, please don't hesitate to forward them to me unopened. I would request you to forward any emails to me regardless of whether you read them or not so that I can be apprised of and assess how best to respond and support you.

After the jump: we analyze Venkatesan's academic work.

Continue reading "Update: In Ultimate Po-Mo Move, Unhinged Dartmouth Prof Drops Lawsuit, Pick Lawsuit Up Again, Leaves Everyone Unsure of Everything" »

11:25 AM by Jacob Savage | Comments (26) | Link | Read more: Dartmouth , Priya Venkatesan

Our commenters aren't known for taking the high road. Our boards tend to devolve into a sort of "my school is better than yours but at least we can all agree that Cornell sucks" type mentality. But people, you ain't seen nothing yet. Gaylies extraordinaire Akash and Victor - or maybe just their campaign "surrogates" - are duking it out, JuicyCampus-style, on our comment boards. Despite all sorts ofpseudonums, most of the comments come from the same IP addresses, posting again and again. Both Victor and Akash claim they are not the posters, only to follow up their denials with juicy tidbits more or less proving that they are in fact Victor or Akash or close friends. Did Akash lie to get into Yale? Did Victor ruin his life? Who knows?

Highlights: "cc" calls Akash a "psycho-loser" and "midget," and writes with glee about how Akash will soon be "raped and beaten in prison for 25 years." "ha ha" responds, calling Victor a "cross eyed bipolar, trailor trash freak" and insinuates that Victor may have had sex with his uncle as well as underage children - and that his mom supposedly had an affair with an illegal immigrant. It only gets worse from there. In all likelihood, none of these things are true - but to see the horrific results of love gone awry is nothing short of incredible.

After the jump: the flame war continues. How about a cease-fire, guys? We'd happy to engage in some shuttle diplomacy.

Continue reading "Gaylies Gone Wild: Victor and Akash Edition" »

11:55 AM by Jacob Savage | Comments (21) | Link | Read more: Yale , gaylies , skullfucked

At college, you can do anything. You could learn a new language, play a new instrument, start a blog! You could even to learn to juggle, and find dozens of like-minded juggle-people to toss bricks and balls and bowling pins through the air with you. And that brings us to the most glorious YouTube channel I have ever encountered, PJuggling, home of Princeton's official juggling team.

To whet your appetite, I present first a promotional video for a PJuggling show apparently themed on Freud's Interpretation of Dreams. A boy in a plaid shirt wanders into a men's lavatory, only to find every stall occupied by a short man tossing tiny balls in the air, a creepily knowing smile dancing across his lips. The boys attempts to leave the lavatory, but the ball-tossing man blocks the exit! A cornucopia of bizarre imagery later, the boy awakens and finds a phallus in his bed.

After the jump, however, things get even better. How could such a thing be possible, you ask? Clues: Simian Mobile Disco's "I'm a Hustler Baby." Lip syncing. Break dancing. Yo-yo. The robot.

Continue reading "Princeton Juggling Team Toys with Freud in Ball-Caressing Videos" »

11:02 AM by Maureen O'Connor | Comments (3) | Link | Read more: Princeton , YouTube

The D reported yesterday on lecturer Priya Venkatesan (also undergrad '90 and a Med School researcher) who, in a series of strangely passive-aggressive group emails, announced a plan to sue her students for workplace harassment based on "intolerance of ideas." The emails—reported first in Dartlog and forwarded to a zillion email lists within seconds—also contain info on Venkatesan's upcoming Academy X rip-off where she plans to "name names." Venkatesan tapped into the email list from her Winter 2008 Writing 5 class:

Date: Sat, 26 Apr 2008 20:56:35
From: Priya Venkatesan
Subject: WRIT.005.17.18-WI08: Possible lawsuit

Dear former class members of Science, Technology and Society:

I tried to send an email through my server but got undelivered messages. I regret to inform you that I am pursuing a lawsuit in which I am accusing some of you (whom shall go unmentioned in this email) of violating Title VII of anti-federal discrimination laws.

The feeling that I am getting from the outside world is that Dartmouth is considered a bigoted place, so this may not be news and I may be successful in this lawsuit. I am also writing a book detailing my eperiences as your instructor, which will "name names" so to speak. I have all of your evaluation and these will be reproduced in the book.

Have a nice day. 

Few of Venkatesan's students deny disliking her; they just say it had nothing to do with race, gender, or any other federally-protected characteristic. Rather, the lecturer embodied that special brand of neurotic pedagogical tyranny that includes making rules against questions, refusing to interact with students, and, according to the D,

cancelation of class for a week after the class applauded a student who contradicted Venkatesan’s opinions about post-modernism

Spontaneous applause during a class on literary criticism? Obviously, there is something very wrong with this picture, so outrageously shocking as to shake Venkatesan to her very core: In a class at an Ivy League university, students were paying attention. Worse: They were engaged, and they cared.

"I was horrified," Venkatesan said. "My responsibility is not to stifle them, but when they clapped at his comment, I thought that crossed the line ... I was facing intolerance of ideas and intolerance of freedom of expression." ...She canceled class because the incident caused her "intellectual and emotional distress," she said.

Then again, being outsmarted by a room full of eighteen-year-olds must be pretty humiliating. A kinder choice would have been emitting a spontaneous snore or two, then preoccupying themselves with a more innocuous form of disrespect, like text messaging during class or ostentatious yawning.

Possibly awesome turn of logic: If the students' crime was "intolerance of ideas," and the idea in question was post-modernism, does that mean post-modernism is Venkatesan's religion? In which case academia has finally curled so far inward as to truly out-po-mo itself. "Where everything is possible and almost nothing is certain," indeed!

After the jump: More emails from Venkatesan and Dartmouth authorities, and a sample of Venkatesan's evaluations.

Continue reading "Putting the "Class" in Class Action. Also, the "Ligitious and Passive-Aggressive Book-Peddler" in Professor." »

1:19 AM by Maureen O'Connor | Comments (64) | Link | Read more: Dartmouth , Priya Venkatesan

So remember when Brown student / enraged leftist Margaree Little pied Tom Friedman in the face and some of us thought it was awesome and others were like, no, I love semi-retarded columns about globalization?  Well, we finally have a visual on her, people. Let’s just say it makes her seem a little less like an adorable hippie and a bit too much like a real revolutionary. In retrospect, Tom Friedman got off easy. Up against the wall, motherfuckers.

12:24 PM by Jacob Savage | Comments (15) | Link | Read more:

Okay, so we all know this was a big week in for the Democratic primaries. But the number of Obama/Clinton/McCain cartoons printed in the Ivy League this week was absurd. Nine out of the 26 (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9) cartoons printed in the Ivy dailies this week were related to the Democratic primary (that's more than a third). I've made this complaint before... and I got to thinking, what's so bad about it? So perhaps it's time for a little explication of the standards by which I judge these cartoons - an ars cartoonica, if you will. And, of course, I've still got a couple of bad ones, just after the jump.

Continue reading "Toon In, Drop Out: Ars Cartoonica" »

3:10 PM by Donny Dietz | Comments (27) | Link | Read more: Toon In, Drop Out

• Brown: "'How many kinds of ketchup are there? Really only two, Heinz and Hunts,' Norton said. 'It's kind of a duopoly.'"
• Dartmouth: Cheating scandal rocks Hanover - Hanover High School, that is.
• Penn: Get your pocketbooks ready, parents! Disgraced ex-Dean of Admissions Stetson to start college consulting firm.
• Harvard: Harvard gets more money from a Rockefeller.

1:03 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Comments (4) | Link | Read more: RagTime

4:50PM: Pikes by the Pool

Mike: With Will in class, I've been looking for someone else to talk to about Newman's Day. Luckily, I ran into a friend who told me Princeton's Pikes were set up outside a dorm with a kiddie pool, grilling, and shagging golf balls down between the other residence halls.

Continue reading "Liveblogging Newman's Day: Pissing with Pikes (UPDATED 11:57 PM)" »

5:06 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Comments (40) | Link | Read more: Princeton , liveblogging newman's day

Since no Bonesman is allowed to 'fess up to being one, the organization is, by necessity, unable to denounce frauds. Consequently, it is really easy to play jokes on them. Yale pre-frosh Princeton Ji Chang (not to be confused with Princeton freshman Princeton Kwong; apparently there was a bubble of Princetons born around 1990) stumbled across a group of "Bonesmen" offering photo-ops during Bulldog Days:

So here I am, young, impressionable Princeton Ji Chang, walkin' round Yale during orientation week [Bulldog Days] when -- suddenly and without warning -- a bunch of cloaked Skull-and-Bonesmen came up to me! Apparently they were holding a fundraiser: $2 polaroids, and $0.25 autographs. So, of course, I totally took a picture with them in front of their creepy building (i think they call it a tomb or something?). Anyway, the picture's great. But the whole thing struck me as a little odd - does Skull and Bones really need to be doing fundraising? And do they always wear such creepy clothes?

Nah. Usually they just pop the collars on their vampire capes and call it a day.

4:26 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Comments (17) | Link | Read more: Secret Societies , Yale , skull and bones

ivyTunes is back! This week, Penn audiophile James Yu checks in with Filligar. If you are in or know of a band worth covering, send links and/or MP3s to tips@ivygateblog.com.

A somewhat telling admission: since November 27, 2006 – the date Filligar appeared on our very first installation of ivyTunes – "Venice World's Fair (c. 2138 AD)," a catchy, deliberately nonsensical song off their earlier album, has played a whopping 61 times on my computer. That puts it easily within the top twenty of my most played tracks.

And with good reason. Filligar, composed of Dartmouthian brothers Johnny ('11), Teddy ('09), and Pete Mathias ('09), and childhood friend Casey Gibson (Hamilton '09), is fun and clever, but never nauseatingly so. Like Vampire Weekend, the Columbia band that rode the blogosphere to become the indie rock darlings of 2008, Filligar has the chops to explode into the next big thing.

The amount of positive exposure these four Chicagoans have received is impressive, especially in light of the fact that they are all full-time students in the wilds of New York and New Hampshire. They've been reviewed by the Chicago Sun-Times, have seen airtime on major radio stations such as WXRT Chicago and WFNX 101.7 Boston, and have had their song "Big Things" play on this season's premiere of MTV's The Real World.

All the Same - Filligar

After the jump: More review, and two more tracks. 

Continue reading "Return of ivyTunes, Return of Filligar" »

3:29 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Comments (11) | Link | Read more: Dartmouth , filligar , ivyTunes

So yesterday the internets were all a-twitter with news that Tom Friedman got pied in the face by an unhinged Brown leftist. Here's the footage you've been waiting for.

12:09 PM by Jacob Savage | Comments (48) | Link | Read more: Brown , thomas friedman

• Brown: Student nabbed in Thomas Friedman pie-throwing incident; accomplice remains at large, calls himself "Colonel Custard"
• Columbia: Startling noninformation: Some in Harlem like to walk around campus, whereas others do not
  
• Cornell: Current Cornell cheaters not as bad as old Cornell cheaters
• Dartmouth: "The liberal student has died"
  
• Harvard: Plastic surgeon writes children's book in which Mommy gets breast implants, infuriating a freshman, who gets the title wrong
• Penn: Something called "Hey Day"moved from Friday to Tuesday!
• Princeton: Band rides up to campus in van run on vegetable oil
  
• Yale: "No human blood" in Shvarts art studio

10:36 AM by J.D. Porter | Comments (2) | Link | Read more: RagTime

Newmans Day is a booze-based holiday at Princeton inspired by famous words almost certainly never spoken by Paul Newman, "24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not." This year, we commissioned Will and Mike, two Princeton participants, to liveblog their beer-soaked adventures. Live-streaming updates after the jump.

7:00AM: Baseball Bats and the Finer Points of Vomiting in Public Places

Will: I woke up to the dulcet tones of a baseball bat striking my front door.  The engineer living down the hall was having another long night.  As he paced, swinging his baseball bat around his head like a spastic monkey, he spoke to himself--"Maybe if I write a short introduction.  A short introduction will be fine."  As I prepared for a day of abusive drinking, I realized that he was discussing formatting decisions...while swinging a baseball bat, at 5am.  It was going to be a great Newman's Day.

Mike joined me almost an hour late, which meant I had a one beer lead on him and a chance to start watching my collection of Beavis and Butthead.

Tally: 2 beers
BAC: 0.02

....

After the jump: Mike arrives, things get frat-tastic. Live-blog! Beer! Whoo!

Continue reading "Liveblogging Newman's Day: Barf Before Breakfast and Von Trapp Frats" »

9:50 AM by Hal Parker | Comments (13) | Link | Read more: Princeton , liveblogging newmans day

Um, hi, it’s your absentee landlords, checking in for the first time in months!

If you’re like us, the only thing longer than your summer To-Do list is your summer Not-to-Do list: countries not to visit, books not to read, jobs not to get, and, most importantly, blogs not to write. So starting next week, IvyGate will be trading in its argyle sweaters for argyle Speedos, tweed jackets for tweed beaters, and going on early summer leave.

But what would summer be without a little resume padding? That’s where you come in. Last year, we handed the blogging reins to an excellent group of summer editors; several of them – notably Maureen and Jacob and Hal, to whom we owe our souls – stuck around and valiantly edited the site for the academic year. We’re hoping to do something similar this time around. So if you or anyone you know is funny, brainy, and self-destructive enough to put their life on the line and blog through these hot August days, please get in touch by May 16 and we’ll talk.

May 2: Last day of publishing
May 3 - June 15: Dark
June 16 - August 22: Summer Editors

This being summer and all, we’re open to everything, including people who wouldn’t necessarily be obvious choices. Given the general summer slowdown in news, we’re especially fond of peeps with journalism backgrounds who know how to pursue stories. And remember, we abhor the Ivy League, so there are absolutely no requirements here (like attending an Ivy school).

Otherwise, whether you’re writing the great American novel or finding spiritual fulfillment at Lehman Brothers; volunteering for Obama or volunteering for, well, Obama; competing in the Olympics or challenging our high score in Torch Run (215, kid you not), enjoy your freedom. It only comes four months out of the year!

In the meantime, if you’re sitting on any last-minute tips, don’t be shy.

P.S. -- Seriously, though, big thanks again to Maureen, Jacob, and Hal. Writing this site is a thankless job, and they made our little flash in the pan glint a little longer.

Cheers, 

Chris and Nick 

9:12 PM by Chris Beam | Comments (13) | Link | Read more: Writing for us would be a terrible idea but your vanity has made you do worse before , guest editors , help wanted

Members of the class of 2012 will be disgusted to hear that - surprise! - beer is a rather popular beverage at college. With every school comes a small array of depraved beer-chugging traditions. At Princeton, we use the name of a guy whose son died from substance abuse as shorthand for a substance-abusing holiday known as "Newman's Day," said to originate from a line frat boys everywhere only wish could be attributed to Paul Newman:

24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not.

Obviously, the appropriate day for investigating this claim is 4/24, tomorrow.

Naming scandal aside, Newman's Day represents a unique opportunity in the annals of collegiate drunk-hood. What would actually happen if you drank perpetually, 24 hours a day? (Alternately: What would it be like to go to Dartmouth?) Would you become a literary genius, like famed writer-drunks of yore? Would you be able to function at all? Resident dude-bros Mike and Will (spring semester seniors, post-thesis, of legal age and armed with two cases of Yuengling, a breathalyzer, laptop computers, and several digital recording devices) will be taking the beer-by-the-hour challenge and sloppily typing their findings here. Check in periodically for updates on the progress of their inebriation, featuring drunken class attendance, participation in a dodgeball tournament, a guide to the most scenic of beer-slamming Princeton locations and a whirlwind tour of the eating clubs in the evening. Says Mike,

Will and I are not alcoholics. We're journalists for a day. And that day happens to involve a lot of drinking.

After the jump: Brothers of the brewski introduce themselves, explain the rules of the game.

Continue reading "Adventures in Drunken Liveblogging: Princeton Newman's Day" »

6:50 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Comments (19) | Link | Read more: Princeton , liveblogging newman's day

Brown students really are the Ivy League’s revolutionary vanguard. Yesterday, at a guest lecture by New York Times pseudo-journalist Thomas Friedman, two students accomplished their revolutionary duty: they pied Friedman in the face. One woman was caught by an intrepid professor, even as her male accomplice got away.

The Brown Daily Herald with the scoop:

At the same time the woman threw the pie, a male accomplice seated a few rows back ran down the aisle and onto the stage, throwing small pamphlets explaining the actions into the crowd. After the pie hit Friedman and splattered on his face and torso, the two jumped offstage and ran out of the southeast exit of the building, followed closely by a man trying to catch them. A police officer also ran toward the exit but stayed inside. The thrower was eventually caught by police, who detained her in Salomon's lobby before moving her elsewhere.

According to our commenters, "the pie thrower was Margaree Little '08, a transfer from Colby who is responsible for much of the pro-Palestinian activism at Brown." Pro-Palestinian views or not, the pamphlet thrown on the floor by the would-be revolutionaries does a pretty good job of justifying the pie-throwing, accusing Friedman of a "sickeningly cheery applaud for free market capitalism's conquest of the planet" and "for helping turn environmentalism into a fake plastic consumer product for the privileged."

After the jump: the aftermath, sort of.

Continue reading "Brown Revolutionaries Pie Tom Friedman in the Face" »

12:34 PM by Jacob Savage | Comments (34) | Link | Read more:

• rown: Thomas Friedman pied! Rogue individual as yet unknown. Would the mad pastry-flinger please come forward so we can give her a medal of valor?
• Columbia: Campus Dems wash a heap of dirty flags. Con: Flag desecration  Pro: Brighter whites
• Cornell: JYA in Jerusalem prompts revelation: Ithaca could use a better mall.
• Cornell: JYA in Cairo prompts revelation: Slavery sucks.
  
• Harvard: TV-transmitted disease afflicts sex columnists and annoying girls on blogspot.com
• Penn: "It might have slipped under the radar..." What planet does this girl live on? It was on CNN! And IvyGate.
• Yale: Shvarts-Embryo-Art project banned

10:49 AM by Maureen O'Connor | Comments (3) | Link | Read more: RagTime

Certain things: death, taxes, pre-frosh baring their innermost secrets on Faceook, never seem to get old. Remember back when the now-esteemed Class of 2011 discussed their favorite drinks with the world (consensus: beer is gross, but foreign beer is like okay)?

Well, members of the Class of 2012 are not so different than their intrepid predecessors: they still like to talk about how much they love mojitos and margaritas and that “jager = good taste” (!!!!) and that they hate beer because it “smells funny and looks kind of funny too.”

Indeed, worried that Princeton is for squares, Mary-Jane Smith (what a clever pseudonym!) writes in:

I made a fake ID (ok, the name's really lame... whatever) Do a lot of people smoke weed? And since the 17- 19 preview is near 420, will there be a lot of smoking? Because personally I smoke at least once a week and I was wondering if anyone else at Princeton did the same...

You guys think you have tough choices! Ha! Listen to this... I got into Harvard, UPenn, Yale, Brown, CalTech, Stanford, MIT, and Dartmouth. Unfortunately, I somehow got denied from Cornell, which I really liked, but I was in all likelihood overqualified. This was unfortunate.

omg its so funny. like i got accepted here, but waitlisted at harvard and princeton. i mean what the fuck

After the jump: the academic records you never wanted to see.

Continue reading "Fun with Facebook: Meet the Class of 2012, the Douchiest Class in History" »

3:12 PM by Jacob Savage | Comments (83) | Link | Read more:

One such way of directly glorifying God through finance is by imitating God's creativity. In Genesis, God instructs Adam to "be fruitful and increase in number" (Genesis 1:27, NIV). While it may be taking the passage out of context, God desires men to multiply not only their progeny, but also everything they own, including their financial resources.

Why sit around with just one golden calf when you could barter it for enough gold to make two more? You could even team up with a biology major and found a golden calf breeding center, and propagate a dazzling new race of diamond-encrusted cattle!

Of course, because we are not God, we cannot create ex nihilo like He does, fashioning something out of nothing. Rather, we always start with an initial quantity of resources which we then manipulate so as to add value to it. ...within finance, the work invovles creating more out of less, and is thereby a celebration of God's own creative work.

When I become a plastic surgeon and create D-cups where previously there had been only B's, I will remember this logic, and will thank the Lord for so inspiring me.

Other promising headlines from this month's Revisions: "Smiling Depression Away," "Has the Church Replaced Israel?" and "Why Do We Have to Die?" The more I look at it, though, the more I think their willingness to ask that last one in earnest is kind of awesome.

4:45 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Comments (38) | Link | Read more: Princeton , i-banking , revisions

Good to know not every politically-minded youngster is afraid of negative press. Last Friday, George Krebs celebrated becoming president of the Columbia College Student Council with a champagne-soaked party. Bwog liveblogged the voting, results, and ensuing celebration in Krebs' dorm, featuring music like "Damn It Feels Good to be a Gangsta" and "We Are the Champions":

Krebs bounded down the Watt stairs and greeted us. "Thank you!" he yelled. He ran back up the stairs and slammed the door to his studio open. "WOOOOO!" he yelled. His party and their drunken cohorts yelled affirmatively, and responded with similar "WOOOOs."

A random drunken cohort held up a pinata shaped like a donkey. Krebs grabbed a broom out of absolutely nowhere and pounded the pinata. More "WOOOOs." Six Coors Lights fell out of the pinata and they were snatched up within seconds.

This is in keeping with Krebs' campaign promises:

"Nothing's off the record! Transparency!" They pointed at Bwog, who was timidly sitting on a couch. "TRANSPARENCY! WOOO," they continued.

When our generation to grows up and enters actual politics, the entire newscycle will explode from overabundance of digital image and disclosure.

2:00 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Comments (2) | Link | Read more: Columbia , george krebs , student government

Yalies: If you would like to commit a grievous crime, now is the time, as you are almost guaranteed to fly under the radar, because we are all way too busy discussing Aliza Shvarts-Embryo-Art's menstrual cycle and senior project.

Yale's administration is now threatening to ban the aborto-agitator's project if she doesn't 'fess up to making it up. YDN explains,

The University will not allow Aliza Shvarts ’08 to display her controversial senior art project at its scheduled opening Tuesday unless she confesses in writing that the exhibition is a work of fiction, Yale officials said Sunday. ...  "I am appalled," Yale College Dean Peter Salovey said in a statement Friday. "This piece of performance art as reported in the press bears no relation to what I consider appropriate for an undergraduate senior project."

School of Art Dean Robert Storr also condemned the project in a written statement Friday.

"If I had known about this, I would not have permitted it to go forward," Storr said in the statement. "This is not an acceptable project in a community where the consequences go beyond the individual who initiates the project and may even endanger that individual."

Storr accuses Aliza of "avoiding intellectual accountability" for screaming ABORTION! in a crowded theater. Another administrator said the Shvarts-induced PR disaster is as bad as the time they admitted an ex-Taliban leader as a student.

Now that everyone's favorite kinda-slutty-for-needleless-syringes Yalie commands about 50% of YDN, plus headlines in every newssource this side of the Milky Way, there's much to read. After the jump, a highlights guide to the latest, including info on Shvarts' much-maligned adviser.

Also, may I please call attention to the fact that, in the above image, Aliza is standing on not one but two soapboxes? Girlfriend literally needs double the platform to get her message out.

Continue reading "Aliza Shvarts as Bad as the Taliban, PR-wise" »

12:00 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Comments (31) | Link | Read more: Yale , aliza shvarts , art

Ain't it always the case that when something seems too good to be true, it is? So it was for The Dartmouth's April 16 cartoon from Bora Kem '08, which defied the low standard we usually set for college toons (click for enlargement):
That is until it was brought to our attention that the entire things was ripped off from a piece by the Investor's Business Daily Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist, Michael Ramirez:
 
All ya gotta do is take the clothes off the character and put the on the rack and nobody will ever know!

Except us. Which might explain why, despite being published in The Dartmouth last Wednesday, the comic hasn't been uploaded to The Dartmouth's comics page. In fact, one student claims to have e-mailed the EIC about these uh... similarities and received no response.

11:20 AM by Donny Dietz | Comments (16) | Link | Read more: Dartmouth , plagiarism

Continue reading "Toon In, Drop Out: Where's The Shirt?" »

10:30 AM by Donny Dietz | Comments (12) | Link | Read more: Toon In, Drop Out

It's real! It's fake! It's real! It's— oh, hell. In the matter of Aliza Shvarts' reproductive organs and senior art project, who can even keep track? In a new interview with the Yale Daily News, Shvarts disputes Yale's designation of her abortion-goo-cube and menstrual-snuff-films as "creative fiction," and admits that even she isn't sure what happened:

Shvarts stood by her project, calling the University’s statement "ultimately inaccurate." ...Shvarts reiterated Thursday that she repeatedly use a needleless syringe to insert semen into herself. At the end of her menstrual cycle, she took abortifacient herbs to induce bleeding, she said. She said she does not know whether or not she was ever pregnant.

"No one can say with 100-percent certainty that anything in the piece did or did not happen," Shvarts said, "because the nature of the piece is that it did not consist of certainties."

What is reality, anyway? What is truth? We have here the story of one mildly deranged art student who somehow took an entire 24-hour newscycle hostage. We have many questions but not a single sufficient answer. For instance: How supernaturally powerful must this girl's uterus be, if we are to believe it withstood nine maybe-pregnancies followed by nine abortions in just as many months? Aliza Shvarts, we dub thee "Wonder Walls."

More urgently: What poor, abused YDN staffer was forced to witness this?

This afternoon, Shvarts showed the News footage from tapes she plans to play at the exhibit. The tapes depict Shvarts — sometimes naked, sometimes clothed — alone in a shower stall bleeding into a cup.

It's like some terrible staring contest, and I'm pretty sure someone blinked, I just don't know if it was her or us.

2:40 AM by Maureen O'Connor | Comments (15) | Link | Read more: Yale , aliza shvarts , art