According to an article in Sunday's New York Times, schools once institutionalized as safeties for Ivy aspirants are becoming first choices themselves due to higher application rates. It's a pretty no-fucking-shit argument, but the Times goes further and offers the kids this juicy morsel:

If you want an intellectually rigorous, urban campus, the University of Chicago may be a fallback for the University of Pennsylvania. If you fell in love with Columbia for its international studies program, consider Georgetown as a safety."

Whosawhatsitnow? I thought Chicago and Georgetown were like, hard to get into and stuff. Didn't U.S. News & World Report rank Chicago and Columbia as a tie for ninth in 2007? Isn't Georgetown ranked sixteenth for selectivity, six spots above Cornell? Sounds like this "world report" should read the Times' naughty little secret: any Ivy League wannabe can get into Georgetown and Chicago. How ignorant we all were before this tell-all!

Read the Times, you bright-eyed 16-year-old Ivy gropers. The old standby safeties may be competitive now, but you'll always have stinky Georgetown and Chicago to land on. Lying liars like U.S. News might rank them as top-tier, but, um, do you see an "Ivy" in the names of their leagues? If you can't get into those "schools," then stop masquerading as a student and go to voky.

And don't say the Times might be wrong. When has the Times ever been wrong about serious issues in recent years?

If you hadn't caught onto the sarcasm, hopefully that last sentence cleared it up. It's not that I hate the Times. I enjoy Frank Rich's columns instantly confirming my predetermined views as much as the next guy. But describing Chicago and G'town as safety schools for anyone is like saying that I have job prospects. I know only one person who ever got into Georgetown but 3.5 who got into Princeton. Does the Times want no one to go to college, like heartbroken Colin Hanks in Orange County? Find some real safety schools. We can't all be like that girl who refused to read Romeo & Juliet:

--JIM NEWELL

July 31, 2007 2:07 PM by Jim Newell | Link | Comments (14) | Read more: chicago , georgetown , new york times , u.s. news

From the elevation-challenged lands of Topeka, Kansas comes this morning's jolt of intolerance, thanks to the Westboro Baptist Church (homepage: godhatesfags.com). Seems the anti-everything bretheren are up in arms over the "perverts," "fags" and "dykes" emerging from far-flung Cornell, and they've decided to head toward Ithaca to forgive transgressions, er, I mean spread the joyous Word in honor (persecution?) of Cornell's LGBT Resource Center and general allowance of gay pride.

According to the release, the anti-religious group will be out in full force this Thursday at the ungodly (ha!) hour of 8:30 a.m. in an undisclosed location, all thanks to the First Amendment. The text, in all of it's Samuel L. Jackson-as-Jules Winnfield-esque glory:

This is a seat of higher learning in America, an Ivy League no less, which is filled with perverts running things, and they are trying to make fags and dykes out of all of their students. They, like the rest of America, have taught and CONTINUE to teach full-blown rebellion, to teach their sons and daughters to be snakes just like they themselves are and their father the Devil. Matthew 23:33- Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? John 8:44- Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. Jesus Christ called them poisonous snakes! He is not a wimp, and He is going to continue to bereave you of your children until he finally executes the Judgment upon you as he did the Sodomites (Genesis 19) and countless other nations (the Canaanites, the Benjamites, the Philistines, Pompeii, Egypt). America is doomed! She shall be laid desolate! The siege is coming!

Confused yet? Yeah, I am too, and I actually tried to stay awake in Sunday School. To add fuel to the fire, the date on this tour of love comes after the previous day's stop at a New York high school to picket the memorial of five deceased cheerleaders, or "raised-for-the-Devil, American whores." All because the school was "promoting sodomy among students" through a diversity club. Talk about not catching a break.

With a history of making waves on Scarborough Country and Hannity & Colmes and protesting at services for killed Iraq vets and Virginia Tech students -- oh, and reportedly saying the Holocaust was "miniscule" -- it's sure to be a tailgatin' good time. Hell, when FOX News calls you "radical," it's gotta count for something. Word has it that a counter-protest among the Big Red ranks is in the works, so to any Cornellians with a nice view from the ivory tower, be sure to send along the visual goods at ivygate.guest@gmail.com.

Oh, and Aleksey Vayner has nothing to do with this. We just need to get our irrelevant potshots in early. -- ANDREW NUSCA

July 31, 2007 8:56 AM by Andrew Nusca | Link | Comments (16) | Read more: Andrew Nusca , Cornell , Gays , Heretics , Westboro Baptist Church , aleksey vayner , crazy flaming bigots , guest editors

Working at an independent student newspaper like the Daily Pennsylvanian, as I did for three or four years, entails a lot of grown-up stress. The school endorses you as a worthwhile educational opportunity but laughs at the thought of giving you even a farthing's worth of money.

That's right you 19-year-old editors, earn your own bread. Sell advertising or cease to exist. And if worrying about a corporation's fiscal standing isn't enough, sweat it over about Jane from Psych 1. She'll never go to the frat semi-formal with you, because she likes Tad, a Wharton man, even though he likes Ashley, but she's a ho and everyone knows it. I mean did you see her at Alpha Chi Ho-mega last week?

Oh right, newspapers. Turns out the DP kids are alright after all, because they're now inappropriately rich, at least by Dr. Evil's standards. According to a New York Daily News report, the recently deceased gossip columnist, TV personality and Hamptons flaneur Claudia Cohen (Penn '72) left some special happiness for her old fish wrapper:

'In a will filed in Manhattan Surrogate's Court, Cohen gave $10 million to the Spence School on the upper East Side, $5 million to the Alzheimer's Association and $1 million to the University of Pennsylvania's the Daily Pennsylvanian, "which meant so much to me and my career."'

My first reaction after reading this was a simple "Good Lord." Every thought since has been "Good Lord." I mean, that money could have gone to a socially responsible cause, like anywhere else.

This Cohen is rarely mentioned among famous DP alums. (Actually the only famous DP alum anyone ever mentions is the single worst college newspaper alum imaginable: Hayden Christensen. I mean Stephen Glass. Life as a House?) Yet here she drops the ad man's wet dream's worth of skrilla. But can the DP use that money to buy better voiceovers?

--JIM NEWELL

July 30, 2007 3:14 PM by Jim Newell | Link | Comments (1) | Read more: claudia cohen , daily pennsylvanian , new york daily news , spence , stephen glass

IvyGate has gone 27 seconds without new guest editors, but the children's parade will now march on. It's like a whole new Internet. Everyone loves the Internet.

I'm Jim Newell, Penn '07, s/w/m, survivor of 9-year-old muggers. In my sporting youth I was editor-in-chief of the Daily Pennsylvanian's weekly magazine, 34th Street (what what). Those familiar with Street consider it either an arts, entertainment and culture alt-weekly or a 20-24 page penis joke. Always the compromiser, I see Street as an artful, entertaining, culturally astute penis joke. Did I mention I'm unemployed? Wokka wokka.

My greatest pleasure while editing Street was to check a set of blogs the morning of each issue to see whether we'd been made fun of. Problem was, people had other things to do, like I don't know, breathe. Even IvyGate overlooked us, although they had their plate full of minor lifestyle plagiarism scandals to face first, and we all enjoy those. But now that I half-run this interlink haberdashery, I'm excited to get criticized ruthlessly, and with all luck personally, in the comments. Bring the pain, as it were. For all you trusty myrmidons out there, however, send yer raciest tips and a-list Evites to ivygate.guest@gmail.com. I'll only crash your party if you crash mine.

And I'm Andrew Nusca, Columbia '08 and the fiercest defender of the losingest city in sports, which just so happens to be the location of Newell's alma mater. You might recognize my handle from some of journalism's more, um, esteemed outlets (what, IvyGate's not esteemed? There's a spilled cup of brew in the logo. C'mon.), including the Huffington Post, Men's Vogue, Popular Mechanics and the New York Daily News. For all you news hounds out there, I write the media criticism blog The Editorialiste, too. I live in Brooklyn and as a result get no sleep until I'm there, so it's a very real possibility that my late-night drivel will greet you with your saccharine cup of Fivebucks the next morning. Cheerio, fuckers!

So fear not, dear readers, for there is plenty of room for a real journalistic integrity 'round these interwebs. Consider IvyGate under my watch to be the Vanity Fair of the collegiate blogging world: Always classy, always trashy. It wouldn't be any other way. As Newell said above, send the good tips to ivygate.guest@gmail.com . Mmm, tasty.

This is Sam Jackson and I just wanted to say it has been a real pleasure to work with Beth writing IvyGate these past two weeks. Readers: your kind and thoughtful comments inspired us to new creative heights as we brought you the quality IvyGate coverage you know and love.

Although we didn't meet the usual scandal quota (yet!) we cleared IvyGate's good name and reported on the illegal gun collections of Yalies, the roaming child gangs of Penn, the fact that Harry Potter is apparently popular, Columbia student groups and their threat to national security, and of course, sex and its associated expenses.

We also trashed on the Kennedys, explained away Princeton's fundraising bonanza, met the new kid on the blog block, learned not to look for jobs on Craigslist or friends in business, and explored the seedy underworlds of frat boys with guns and summer campers with wandering hands. Finally, we hated the possible next next next generation of IvyGate guest editors.

And this is Beth. What he said.

Enjoy your summers, and send in those tips!

XOXOXO,

Sam and Beth

July 29, 2007 4:38 AM by Beth Milton | Link | Comments (2) | Read more: guest editors

July 29, 2007 4:03 AM by Beth Milton | Link | Comments (12) | Read more: Admissions , guest editors

    The Department of Public Safety is alerting community members of an incident that took place in the Blair Hall courtyard on Tuesday, July 24, 2007, at approximately 10:30 p.m.

    A group of male juveniles were talking to several female Princeton University summer camper [sic.] attendees in the Blair Hall courtyard. During the conversation one of the male juveniles grabbed a body part of one of the female campers.

    The male juvenile was described as a white male, approximately 16 years of age, 5’ 5”, medium build, with short, blonde spiked hair. The male juvenile told the female camper that his name was “Adam.”

July 27, 2007 11:14 AM by Beth Milton | Link | Comments (2) | Read more: Princeton , guest editors

In a tragic turn of events for college students nationwide, birth control costs on campuses are going through the roof. Last year's Deficit Reduction Act has recently been fingered as the culprit in the rising costs.

July 26, 2007 2:17 PM by Sam Jackson | Link | Comments (13) | Read more: Sex , birth control , contraception , gawker , guest editors , republicans

Oh, Yale. You think your assault rifle-toting frat boys make you so special. But don't you realize 5.2% of all Greeks carry guns? (The binge-drinking kind of Greeks, not the baklava-making kind.)

So reports Jennifer Epstein in an Inside Higher Ed article, which is chock-full of all sorts of troubling anecdotes. For instance, at Alpha Gamma Rho members at Oregon State University "told police they were frustrated that transients entered the house without permission and at least two told police they had shot at transients with BB guns." Maybe if they left less porn and pizza and booze lying around, the transients would be less likely to stop by?

The weirdest story, though, is from Dartmouth and dates all the way back to the pre-IvyGate Stone Age of 2005. Apparently a Michael Volodarsky, Class of '08, decided one Super Bowl Sunday to explore the roof of the Zeta Phi house on a "smoke break." Up there he found a loaded BB gun, and with nothing much better to do, decided to take a pot shot at an Epsilon Kappa Theta... er, at a garbage dumpster. The Kappa Theta sister just got in the way. Michael is still at Dartmouth--and a proud member of the Bones Gates Bones Gate, a.k.a. Delta Tau Delta.

IvyGate's advice: Stay away from Bone Gate parties--you never can know if cries of "Shotgun!" precede free-flowing beer or falling plaster.

--BETH MILTON

July 25, 2007 12:26 PM by Beth Milton | Link | Comments (21) | Read more: Dartmouth , Yale , david light , fraternities , guest editors , guns

The CUCSSA responded by sending out an email to its members the night before that referred to using "flags dyed red in blood to beat" the "high spirits" of Falun Gong. The email also repeated slanders of Falun Gong typically used in the Chinese regime's propaganda.

The Falun Dafa Club received a copy of the inflammatory e-mail and Columbia University police were on hand the next day when 20 to 30 CUCSSA members showed up carrying large red flags, which they were forced to leave outside the lecture hall.

During the panel discussion CUCSSA students held up small placards attacking Falun Gong using terms borrowed from the Chinese regime's anti-Falun Gong propaganda, flew paper airplanes in the direction of the speakers, and in other ways acted in a disruptive manner. Two students from the CUCSSA group were prevented from reentering the lecture hall because of their inappropriate behavior.

Continue reading "Columbia Student Group May Be Overseas Extension of Communist Regime" »

July 24, 2007 10:05 AM by Sam Jackson | Link | Comments (23) | Read more: Columbia , campus life , china , communism , falun gong , guest editors , protests

Class of 2011, look around you. In this room (ok, in this Facebook group), there are future friends, classmates, and colleagues. There are future boyfriends and girlfriends. And, Class of 2011, there just might be that special someone you end up suing in a Boston federal court for $1 billion.

That dream has come true for Harvard twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and friend Divya Narendra. This week in Boston they are taking former classmate Mark Zuckerberg to court in what will certainly go down as the trial of the century (only 93 more years to go): Facebook v. ConnectU.

What? Don't remember ConnectU? Exactly the point.

According to an article in the Guardian, the claim is that when the Winklevosses and Narenda asked Zuckerberg to help out in designing their innovative "social networking site," he

deliberately stalled its progress, stole the source code, design and business plan, then set up his own rival. Facebook sped away while their site, now called ConnectU, was still in the traps.

That's what you get for trusting a psych major.

The intial suit was filed in September 2004--the requisite counter-suit in November 2004--and while the basic facts of the case haven't changed, the stakes certainly have.

So, what's stolen source code worth these days? Enough to ask the judge to "shut down Facebook and transfer all its assets to [you], plus damages." Mmm. Damages. From a site with an estimated worth of at least $1bn (estimates run as high as $2bn).

IvyGate will keep you updated as the case progresses, but we'd love to hear from anyone who knew Cameron, Tyler, Divya, or Mark back in the day. Anonymity oh-so guaranteed.

P.S. ConnectU is still alive and kicking. Barely.

--BETHANY MILTON

July 23, 2007 1:43 PM by Beth Milton | Link | Comments (10) | Read more: Facebook , Harvard , guest editors

Thank you, tipsters, for pointing out that Penn's crime wave of oddity continues.

In police custody is Eber Devine, a 38-year-old man accused of using Craiglist to set up a bogus interview with a job applicant: the kind of interview where you get told to

stand up. Go walk around the room. Go stand in the corner. I want to look at your ass.

And where did the shoulder-touching and heavy breathing take place? None other than Penn's own Van Pelt library, since Devine's hugely successful mega-company is in between offices right now, ya know.

While it's hard to know how may other Penn sex stories start with

"He met me outside. We went upstairs to where there's, like, conference rooms,"

lets hope most end with happy students, not creeped out librarians and arrest warrants.

--BETH MILTON

July 21, 2007 7:17 AM by Beth Milton | Link | Comments (13) | Read more: Penn , guest editors

July 20, 2007 3:42 AM by Sam Jackson | Link | Comments (41) | Read more: Harvard Crimson , Ivy League , Yale Daily News , harry potter

Best part of guest editing this blog? Discovering that there is a bizarro world of people who spend significant chunks of their day reading college blogs, writing college blogs, and starting new college blogs. And all this time I had been visiting with friends, reading books, cooking dinners, and enjoying sunsets!

Well, while I was off enjoying cold Carlsbergs, someone was hard at work. And as if IvyGate needed the competition, there's a new blog on the Ivy League -- or at least college -- beat: theU.com's own O.T.R., omg.

Doug Imbruce (Columbia '05) started the parent site, theU.com, whose current purpose seems to be a giving away scholarship money based on a hot-or-not scale. The same Doug who famously accepted defeat as Freshman Class President by declaiming, "'Don't come crying to me when they run this school into the shitter.'" Doug, however, has moved on -- not just from his defeat, but also from using WB stars to host online college tours.

Rumor had it Doug had something up his sleeves, but it was Penn's "sex blogger" Jessica Gold Haralson that was first to break the silence, forfeiting her anonymity and announcing on Monday that she was Penn: Off the Record's inaugural editor. Jessica, though, is just the start of it: theU is backing a whole series of O.T.R. blogs. According to Managing Editor Lena "I lowered my mouth over his cock and slid my lips over his shaft easily" Chen,* they have already recruited "75 writers at 40 campuses." OK, a list of active sites shows 21 schools, but at least the Ivies are represented. Well, except Brown, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, and Dartmouth.

What can we expect from O.T.R.?

"UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA O.T.R." is like a student newspaper written by ALL UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA students - in real time, online... anonymously. Any student can post, and the blog is edited by a few Juniors/Seniors (who basically filter out stuff that sucks).

So, chaos. Potentially interesting, potentially offensive, and potentially dumb Junior/Senior-filtered chaos.

Right now the main O.T.R. page, compiling posts from every school, boasts a little bit of everything: YouTube, photoshop, celebrities, Lolcatz,  alumni news, course listings, and a surprisingly harsh attack on Penn boys. It's not entirely professional, but it's definitely got potential.

O.T.R., welcome to the blogging block.

--BETH MILTON

*[Ed.: Taken out 'cause it was mean; put back 'cause Nick made me] 

July 19, 2007 3:44 AM by Beth Milton | Link | Comments (16) | Read more: Cornell , Harvard , Penn , guest editors

The University of Pennsylvania appears helpless to stop a surge in assaults and robberies by several bands of tweens on campus in the last month. WPVI ABC local news tells us "the hunt is on" for a group of children as young as 9 years of age "terrorizing residents, on and around the University of Pennsylvania campus." The kids are "targeting Penn students and staff" and that there have been as many as ten incidents around the campus in the last few weeks.

They strike in groups of three to eight, according to a Penn security alert, and some may be up to 13 years old (gasp!). Luckily, the Philadelphia Daily News reports that patrols have been stepped up, including covert operations, while security cameras and footage are being monitored. Can someone explain what these "covert ops" might be? Are they sending grade schoolers to infiltrate these vicious gangs? Undercover officers dressed as students intended to lure them out of hiding?

Two boys have been arrested so far, but the remaining groups are still at large. Good to know the sharp team of police and University security officers can handle themselves against some tough West Philadelphia criminals.

In a related tots-on-trikes robbery story, two nights ago a pair of 14-16 year olds on bicycles robbed a Yale graduate student at gunpoint. On the bizarre summer crime meter, I give one point to Yale for David Smith's weapon stash and one to Penn for the munchkin gangs. With a good heat wave, Penn could easily pull ahead, but where are the other ivies?

If you have more information about these dangerous criminals, or any tips in general, send them in to ivygate.guest@gmail.com

 --SAM JACKSON

July 18, 2007 12:24 PM by Sam Jackson | Link | Comments (44) | Read more: Penn , Yale , crime , philadelphia

When police arrived on the third floor of the fraternity they found a treasure trove of firepower including, but not limited to: an AR-15 assault rifle, a .50-caliber rifle, a Russian M-91 infantry rifle, a 12-gauge shotgun, various pistols, and ammunition. In total, two assault rifles and nine other guns. Light reportedly did not have permits for any of the weapons.  After searching the fraternity during the raid police also said they found 'bomb-making materials,' an assortment of chemicals including a large bottle of mercury. Some students speculated that this might be explained by his background in the sciences.

 Described as an excellent student by his peers and as 'a perfectly normal person' by an unnamed member of his local gun range, Light was well known as a gun enthusiast and collector. His facebook profile (gone since this afternoon) describes an interest in 'pyrotechnics, blacksmithing, weaponry, surfing, firearms' and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Generic taste in music isn't the end of this story, though: more after the break.

Continue reading "Yale '09 Biology Major Minoring in Illegal Assault Rifles Arrested, Suspended after Massive Weapons Cache Discovered" »

July 18, 2007 12:45 AM by Sam Jackson | Link | Comments (15) | Read more: Yale , Yale Daily News , david light , felony , fraternities , guns

It's summertime, the grades are in, and the students are all gone--what's a provost to do but count up the change in the piggy bank? Princeton has been doing just that, and reports that this year they've received a staggering record of $49.04 million in alumni donations, a 21% spike from last year.

 
Reasons? "'Frederick G. Strobel '74, the volunteer leader for Princeton's annual giving campaign for the past three years, said alumni donate to Princeton so readily in large part because of the university's "commitment to excellence.'"

And I got an *awesome* Livestrong bracelet because I actually care about Lance Armstrong's testicles.

A better explanation can be found in a research document on Princeton's own web server: Altruism and the Child-Cycle of Alumni Donation (pdf). Using data from an "anonymous selective research university," Stanford's Jonathan Meer and Princeton's Harvey S. Rosen toss about logarithms, Greek letters, and Tobit estimators to conclude that "about 52 percent of giving by parents whose children apply to Anon U is due to altruism and the remaining 48 percent is due to self-interest."

Maybe the best explanation for increased Princeton giving is the increased numbers of pimply teenagers applying, which in turn is probably due to increased unprotected Princeton alumni sex back in 1988-1990. Don't believe us? Princeton giving broken down by class year. Graduate in '82, kids by age 30, progeny aiming for class of 2012 equals $8 million, or a sick average of $10,267 per alum... probably taped to the back of Jr.'s application. And they said dropping Early Decision would hurt the bottom line!

--BETH MILTON

July 17, 2007 3:17 PM by Beth Milton | Link | Comments (17) | Read more: Princeton , alumni , guest editors

If you own a Porsche and went to Harvard, shouldn't have enough connections to convince the DMV to squeeze an extra "A" in there? Aren't you a Kennedy or something? LME.

--BETH MILTON

July 17, 2007 9:17 AM by Beth Milton | Link | Comments (17) | Read more: Harvard , guest editors

Other blogs picked up the story, including Mayor Sam's Sister City, a blog authored by Michael Higby, LA resident. All was well until late Tuesday night.

That's when someone sinister fraudulently presented himself to Mayor Sam and other blogs as Jacob Savage and claimed that the story was "a light-hearted jest," fabricated. The worst affront? This impostor described IvyGate as an 'Ivy league version of the Onion, with sometimes real news to confuse.' As our readers know, the IvyGate and the Onion are both characterized by hard-hitting fact-based journalism.

Now, the timeline: Higby proceeded to 'correct' his posts on Thursday with this new information without first verifying the identity of his 'Jacob Savage' contact. He then accused IvyGate, a "wannabe Phil Hendrie of blogs," of having "clowned the old, dead Republican mayor." We here at IvyGate felt it was important to correct these untruths and set the record straight. We have had limited success in contacting Higby and less success in getting him to retract his Thursdsay item badmouthing IvyGate. Nick first e-mailed him on Friday; there have been many more since, and for all these efforts, we've gotten but one in return before he disappeared again.

Rather than let his post fester, I am writing this now to inform all interested parties that the story as originally run remains true. Again, it's not our goal to single out Villaigarosa any more than we already have, but we had to clear our good name on this. IvyGate is and will continue to be an accurate and well-reported source.

July 16, 2007 6:05 PM by Sam Jackson | Link | Comments (6) | Read more:

I'm Beth Milton, Columbia '06. Impression of my undergraduate years? Let's just say I currently live in Copenhagen, a good 4,000 miles away from Morningside Heights. Not that I mind writing about the place, having helped launch The Bwog back in 2006, when the biggest thing we had to report on were some mysterious cracker packets. Oh, how the times have changed. When I'm not working on, thinking about, or dreaming of IvyGate, I'm also an Associate Editor for The Morning News, where I whip up some delicious afternoon headlines.

Want to win my undying affection? Try sending Sam and me rumors, tips, links, videos, musings, compliment, and complaints at ivygate.guest@gmail.com. It works every time.

And I'm Sam Jackson, Yale '11, no relation to Mace Windu and son of an actually black Michael. Some of you may already be familiar with my writing, as IvyGate sends a couple hundred visits to my blog about college admissions each month, where you stay for an average of 11 seconds longer than the usual visitor (thanks guys!). Basically, I'm here writing to repay my free traffic voodoo blood debt. I'm spending the summer working around the Boston area to pay down those tuition bills; nothing too glamorous. IvyGate's '40 grand' tagline is sadly out of date.

I may not be as jaded as the other editors but all the same I'll do my best to collect, pervert, and distort Ivy-related news just the way you like it. The inbox has some gems, but I'm confident you fine readers are withholding some great summer stories.  My undying affection isn't won as easily as Beth's, but don't let that stop you--send in your tips, praise, rumors, rants and career-ruining revelations today! Sharing is caring, after all.

July 16, 2007 1:18 AM by Sam Jackson | Link | Comments (21) | Read more: Bethany Milton , Columbia , IvyGate , Sam Jackson , Yale , bwog , guest editors

We mounted the dais of the Yale Club, shoplifted from the Lebanon Co-op, solicited tales of sordid happenings, impugned the character of Senator Frist, kidnapped the Grey Lady, paid our taxes with an eating club, bonfired with Antonio Villaraigosa, Jr., spent a night at Dick's House, sensationalized some old news, drank Smirnoffs online with the class of 2011, rapped with a man named Cockmaster D, and learned what's fresh and what's not.

In the meantime we were called "queers," "idiots," "fools," "inept," "bastards," "douchebags," "terrible," "dull," and "hacks" -- all of which were correct. The commenter who insulted Princeton's tap water crossed the line though. Also, one of us was fraudulently impersonated.

--HAL PARKER AND JACOB SAVAGE

July 15, 2007 4:44 AM by Hal Parker | Link | Comments (5) | Read more: guest editors

This issue of OSF is so sickening we didn’t even want to make fun of it. Sure, there are grammatical mistakes, semi-literate ledes (“So after my last article about how art history is the bomb,” etc.) and the occasional misplaced participle. But taken as an organic whole, this issue serves up such a damning critique of everything that enabled its existence -- Princeton, the Ivy League, even America itself -- that ultimately we just felt depressed and disgusted. We both have yet to actually finish the magazine. You can download this miscarriage of the brain as a PDF either here or here.

According to founder/visionary Harrison Schaen , OSF "started with a dream.” Yet they awoke from this dream only to find it had been transfigured, like Gregor Samsa, into a verminous monstrosity misunderstood and reviled by everyone who came into contact with it. The latest OSF includes rapt coverage of the lame wealth-mongering event that is the Princeton fashion show, fake-tan advice ("Getting a tan from the sun is not a good solution"), copious ninja humor, shopping suggestions for $17,000 watches, Spring fashion advice (the magazine was published in early June) , and inane softball interviews with Tara Reid and David Geffen. Let it be said: this magazine does nothing either to inform or to entertain, unless by accident, and it is not even remotely connected to journalism. It reads like a deranged hybrid of New York and Variety if "Charly" from Flowers for Algernon wrote copy.

On pg. 14, underneath the massive garishly-decked-out heading, "WHAT'S FRESH," we're presented with a crude collage of hideously expensive luxury-goods, all of which have apparently been deemed "fresh" by the genius tastemakers who run this irredeemable shitshow. Did you know that Phillip Crangi earrings, only $2,550, are "fresh"? For some reason adjacent to this they've printed "888-8-BARNEYS." It's unclear whether this has been done because they think this is proof of some high-fashion in-knowledge which is supposed to impress us, or whether because they think these tiny, crappy pictures are so amazingly compelling that people will be digging their iPhones out of their oh-so-fresh Ralph Lauren Collection Totes ($900) in order to call in orders right away. For only $475 we learn, you can buy a Cartier silk-cord-and-rose-gold LOVE bracelet, but $100 of that goes to the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust. This magazine is too retarded even for socialites.

Continue reading "Abort, Doctor, Abort! The Unmitigated Tragedy of Oh So Fresh, Issue II" »

July 14, 2007 6:58 PM by Hal Parker | Link | Comments (13) | Read more: Oh So Fresh , Princeton , guest editors

The student-professor romance is an erotically charged if ethically dubious prospect. The key word is "prospect." While probably everyone has taken the GER101 class enthusiastically taught by that really hot grad student who was writing her dissertation on Hannah Arendt, actual entanglements seem to be exceedingly rare in real life -- disproportionate representation in popular culture and student dream life notwithstanding.

William Deresiewicz is an Associate Professor of English at Yale as well as a frequent contributor to The Nation and other publications. While to many he may be known as "Professor Deresiewicz," to others he is better known by the affectionately-bestowed sobriquet "Cockmaster D." In the current The American Scholar, the Cockmaster tackles the subject of student-professor romance, aiming to show:

Why we should understand, and even encourage, a certain sort of erotic intensity between student and professor.

In this actually pretty interesting (and very worth reading) essay, Deresiewicz first examines the stereotype of the lecherous academic -- a stereotype, he claims, which embodies, "not only our culture’s hostility to the mind, but also its desperate confusion about the nature of love." To flesh out this stereotype, Professor Cockmaster turns to cultural sources traditionally taken as the final word on American life: a boatload of crappy movies about English professors, along with the novels of Philip Roth and Saul Bellow. The following picture emerges:

The alcoholic, embittered, writer-manqué English professor who neglects his family and seduces his students is a figure of creative sterility, and he is creatively sterile because he loves only himself. Hence his vanity, pomposity, and selfishness; his self-pity, passivity, and resentment. Hence his ambition and failure. And thence his lechery, for sleeping with his students is a sign not of virility but of impotence: he can only hit the easy targets; he feeds on his students’ vitality; he can’t succeed in growing up.

Needless to say, NO ONE like that has ever worked at an Ivy League university. Plus, as the Cockmaster points out, "Male professors are not less-devoted or less-faithful husbands, on average, than other men — in fact, relative to wealthier ones, they are probably more so."

So "whence," as Professor D might ask, does this stereotype come? After mentioning not unseriously the possibility of bitter screen-writers with an axe to grind against their old creative writing professors, the Cockmaster takes a closer look at the "idea of universities as dens of vice, where creepy middle-aged men lie in wait for nubile young women."

Continue reading "The Wit and Wisdom of Cockmaster D" »

July 13, 2007 4:26 AM by Hal Parker | Link | Comments (12) | Read more: Cockmaster D , The American Scholar , William Deresiewicz , guest editors

In our continuing coverage of the Class of 2011’s alcohol-fueled escapades – (don’t worry Antonio; you’re in good company), we bring you an entire genre of weirdness: the 2011 facebook party groups.

Across the Ivy League, these remarkably similar groups of self-proclaimed alcoholics are proliferating. They feature a whole lot of back-and-forth about what kinds of parties to throw, what kind of drinks are totally bomb, and how to obtain fake ID’s – or, as Penn kids prefer to call them, “counterfeit documents.”

Many of these children seem like douchebags; others are just clueless. But watching them interact is utterly fascinating. They are learning, people. And that’s what college is all about. Though we do wish they’d take some time out of Drinking 101 and learn to spell.

After the jump: Why the Class of 2011 is the Best Class Yet

Continue reading "Drinking on Facebook 101" »

July 11, 2007 2:15 PM by Hal Parker | Link | Comments (111) | Read more: Class of 2011 , Drinking , Ivy League , guest editors

Columbia has an S&M club? Columbia has an S&M club. But it's not an S&M club; it's a "BDSM discussion group." According to Wikipedia, Conversio Virium is the "oldest University student-run BDSM discussion group in the United States." An old article in the Spec reports that, "Conversio Virium has an e-mail list of over 200 and holds weekly meetings with 20 to 30 regulars."

The group's website (seriously, check it out) explains that its Latin name means, "exchange of power" although virium, "can also refer to other types of energy such as vital, spiritual, and sexual energy." So what sort of things actually go down at these discussions? Well, certainly not BDSM play, if that's what you were thinking: