Today's Crimson featured a neat little open letter from Bradley Smith, founder of the Committee for the Open Debate on the Holocaust. Yep, it is exactly what it sounds like. A group that questions the existence of the Holocaust.

Bradley Smith, the founder of the organization that placed the ad, is a known Holocaust denier who has been identified for his hiding behind the veil of free speech in America. Here's his coolest quote:

I don't want to spend time with adults anymore. I want to go to students. They are superficial. They are empty vessels to be filled.

Really, economic times are hard—Harvard knows that—but the Crimson business board is really opening the flood gates with this one. Not only is the Harvard Hillel pretty serious about not ignoring Jewish history, but to be frank, their student body is pretty aware of the sensitivity of certain issues.

Seriously, the First Amendment is awesome, but would the Crimson might as well run a full page for the Imperial Klans of America on that campus. (Yeah, that's the real link. I'm on some sort of list now I think. Fuck you, Harvard Crimson Business Board for making me reckon with freedom of speech!)

After the jump, pictures of kittens. Because IvyGate was not built to deal with bigot-speak. But you can see the ad in context, too.

UPDATE: Max Child, President of the Harvard Crimson, published an apology. Evidently it was some sort of crazy accident. They even gave the ad money back to Mr. Hates-the-Jews. Nice cover-up, dude.

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On Harvard Time, a weekly comedy news show at America's preeminent institution of higher learning, recently parodied a Harvard Admissions video directed at prospective students and their parents:

The footage from On Harvard Time's iteration is ripped directly from the dated "Experience Harvard" video; what changes in the parody is the text at the bottom of the screen. The result is subtly humorous: a line of librarians holding numbered placards outside the library has been modified to refer not to the number of books in the University's collection but the number of "Asians photographed on these steps."

Other highlights include: "Times you will read the Crimson": 1/ "Times it will be given to you":  14128. "Hours you'll spend on your application": 120/ "Seconds they'll spend reading it': 12.

The last time IvyGate posted about a Harvard boy and his dong, you gagged and begged us to never do it again. But try as we might, we can't stay away from Harvard or dongs.  Below is a video unofficially titled "Harvard Bros," starring two mustachioed Havard "bros" rapping about their penises. We'll just call it "The Dong Song." According to Abel Acuña, the video's director, "Harvard Bros" won best music video at the Harvard Undergraduate Film Festival.

According to resident IvyGate film critic (me) the video offers some decent production value but lacks that Cambridge intellectual punch we've seen from favorites On Harvard Time. Acuña mentioned to us that he's all about entertainment, and those VES film studies fools can kiss his Harvardwood ass.

Full disclosure: the latter part of that sentence is largely fabricated. But that doesn't mean it's not true. After the jump, more videos from Acuña's production company Senior Spring. Read the rest of this entry »

The Harvard-Radcliffe TV station has changed call letters from HRTV to HUTV and changed its tone from soap opera to silly. Besides abandoning their Seven-Sisters roots, the HUTV site also appears to have abandoned any attempt at serious television. But this video of Stephen Pinker--known on campus as "The Hair"--smashing a TV is aight.

The show line-up includes some standby favorites like On Harvard Time alongside less serious-sounding shorts by the Harvard Hooligan, but even the most informative HUTV News pretty much just covers students talking about Obama. It's a nice try, but we'd rather watch the Mather House video.

That said, one has to wonder why HUTV would invest their resources so heavily to make a website of B-grade viral videos. (Well, make that bacterial videos since nobody's really catching on.) Harvard has a recent history of really good comedy and a short history of bad jokes. But since a Brown alum basically owns TV news, you'd think HUTV at least try to report on some real current events to build a legacy. Those Harvard kids love legacy, after all.

So c'mon HUTV. Let's see some real balls-to-the-wall, unembedded reporting! In the meantime, just leave the real journalism to us.

At 5pm today, about 27,066 of the record 29,112 students who applied to Harvard this year will get the thin email from 86 Brattle St. These down-and-out overachievers will be weeping into the AP test prep books until they hear from the other 7 Ivies. But that doesn't mean that the Cambridge crowd can't laugh at them first.

Who says that Harvard students are arrogant about being Harvard students, anyways? (A few different sources, actually.) Well, any doubt can be assuaged by the warm pat on the shoulder offered by On Harvard Time. Reports of a new record low 7% acceptance rate guarantee that OHT's new video, "You Got Rejected," beats the Yale Amazing Race audition tape for the most relevant video of the day.

Read advice from Dean Fitzsimmons about money and the waitlist after the jump.

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The Undergraduate Council for everyone's favorite self-important student body is currently electing a new president. With polls closing in just 36 hours, Harvard students (apathetic and otherwise) will surely end up with either a prank or a prodigal in office.  Ultimately, it doesn't really matter since the university administration will likely limit any big changes or new investments during the winners' term.

The primary contenders in Cambridge's latest slogan-fest include the Harvard Hooligan, that annoying kid from the YouTube videos in addition to  a few actual U.C. Reps.  While the more "serious" candidates deserve mention for the extent of their hypocrisy, the fake ones make for better blogging.  But seriously it's like a postmodern circus of Situationist proportions out there.  The Hooligan (a.k.a. Michael Koenigs '09) staged an assassination attempt during the bright-lights debate attended by approximately 9 people.  Hopefully, his freshman Alaskan-native running mate, Aneliese Parker '12, will step into his place.  Meanwhile, VP candidate Alexandra Petri '10 explained in an interview with On Harvard Time that her running mate was in fact the Invisible Man (à la Wells, not Ellison).  They seek to replace the U.C. with a Hapsburg prince.

Read about the follies of the more serious candidates after the jump.  Or vote now on the UC website!

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Okay, okay. So maybe we rubbed off as a little mean in our previous post on Luis Martinez, organizer extraordinaire for Harvard's incoming class of 2012. But we felt slightly vindicated after receiving this anonymous tip from a self-described "IvyGate superfan":

Hi IvyGate!

I don't know if this is any use to you anymore, but as an IvyGate superfan I felt obliged. Luis Martinez was in the Class of 2011 and started the year. He also friended everyone in that class and proceeded to join about every organization on campus, or "205 or so" according to him. I know him personally and have been friends since high school with his former roommate. He happens to be a pathological liar so you can't really be sure of anything he says. Before leaving Harvard, he claimed to be writing a history book about racial relations in the south in the 1920s and 30s for which he was receiving advice from Drew Faust herself (and who he refers to by her first name). As dubious as this sounds I do believe that the part about being advised by President Faust is true, although he might have duped even her about his history book.

When we last  wrote about intrepid On Harvard Time reporter Derek Flanzraich, he was interviewing American hero Frances Martel. This time he's upped the ante, and somehow got Karl "they stamped my passport to let me into Massachussetts" Rove to appear on the program. Needless to say, Flanzraich didn't lob softballs. Watch the video below. He asks Rove to help him celebrate Gaypril! Gaypril! (via Wonkette)

Anyone else find it ironic that April 1 is America's unofficial "find out if you got into college day"? Now there is a prank we'd like to see.

Record applicants, ergo record rejections, this year. The Daily Princetonian predicted of a 6% rate for its alma mater, but then realized they accidentally flipped the digit upside down, as it was actually closer to 9%. Bloated with low standards! Harvard came pretty close to the Prince's fantasized elitism, with an acceptance rate of 7.1% from its 27,462-applicant base. On Harvard Time's take on the rate:

Yale accepted 8.3% of applicants, Columbia 8.7%. Penn had the highest Ivy acceptance rate, a wide-open door to the huddled masses, at 16.3%!

Complete Ivy acceptance breakdown (except Cornell because they haven't released their numbers yet and admissions offices don't take press requests or phone calls until after the murderous rage of rebuffed high schoolers passes, on April 3), links to articles, even a spreadsheet! After the jump. 

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Frances Martel, our favorite Ivy League Republican sorta anti-Semite who is not Ann Coulter, is running for Harvard UC President. On Harvard Time interviewed her, and it turns out that she's endearingly weird in person.

But what's not so endearing is her fascistic, single-issue platform. If elected, the first thing Frances promises to do is "abolish parliamentary procedures." This way she can rule Harvard by fiat and make the Jews accept her Lord.

No, really. Some choice excerpts from the interview: "People in power are quivering"; "we'll blacklist them"; "I think I have the average perspective on the Jewish faith, which is 'It's nice.' I don't consider myself Jewish...I think it's wrong that they're doing what they're doing, and when you write persuasive pieces -- when you write opinion editorials -- you use all the weapons in your arsenal you can to convince people that you're right."

Believe it or not, Martel's running mate - who has not made a single campaign appearance - is Jewish.

Watch the video. Watch Frances' awkward campaign manager nod and pretend to answer questions as Leo Zimmerman. Watch Frances in her pantsuit answer an entire question in Spanish.

After the jump: some other candidates field questions from On Harvard Time. They're more normal, though, and therefore more boring.

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