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" »

April 30, 2008 11:25 AM by Jacob Savage | Link | Comments (26) | 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" »

April 29, 2008 11:55 AM by Jacob Savage | Link | Comments (21) | 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" »

April 29, 2008 11:02 AM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (3) | 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." »

April 29, 2008 1:19 AM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (78) | 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.

April 28, 2008 12:24 PM by Jacob Savage | Link | Comments (15) | 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" »

April 25, 2008 3:10 PM by Donny Dietz | Link | Comments (27) | 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.

April 25, 2008 1:03 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (4) | 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)" »

April 24, 2008 5:06 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (40) | 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.

April 24, 2008 4:26 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (17) | 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" »

April 24, 2008 3:29 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (11) | 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.

April 24, 2008 12:09 PM by Jacob Savage | Link | Comments (48) | 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

April 24, 2008 10:36 AM by J.D. Porter | Link | Comments (2) | 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" »

April 24, 2008 9:50 AM by Hal Parker | Link | Comments (13) | 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 

April 23, 2008 9:12 PM by Chris Beam | Link | Comments (13) | 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" »

April 23, 2008 6:50 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (19) | 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" »

April 23, 2008 12:34 PM by Jacob Savage | Link | Comments (35) | 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

April 23, 2008 10:49 AM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (3) | 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" »

April 22, 2008 3:12 PM by Jacob Savage | Link | Comments (83) | 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.

April 21, 2008 4:45 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (38) | 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.

April 21, 2008 2:00 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (2) | 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" »

April 21, 2008 12:00 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (31) | 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.

April 21, 2008 11:20 AM by Donny Dietz | Link | Comments (16) | Read more: Dartmouth , plagiarism

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

April 18, 2008 10:30 AM by Donny Dietz | Link | Comments (12) | 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.

April 18, 2008 2:40 AM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (15) | Read more: Yale , aliza shvarts , art

As the frenzy surrounding Aliza Shvarts' abortion-goo finger-painting scandal escalated, some cried "bullshit": "Herbal" abortion? Artificial insemination? Nine straight months of crampsing and hormonal fluctuation? Personally, I figured she was just really talented; it is Yale, after all. Not so, says Yale's Office of Public Affairs in a public announcement:

Ms. Shvarts is engaged in performance art.  Her art project includes visual representations, a press release and other narrative materials.  She stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages.  The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body.

She is an artist and has the right to express herself through performance art.

Had these acts been real, they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns.

Google-bombing yourself into horrific baby-killing infamy, however, raises not a single red flag. Basically, Aliza's senior thesis was to create the biggest PR disaster possible for her alma mater. Some will say this is attention-seeking malice; I say, it's a clever way to guarantee passing grade. At this point, Yale will probably do anything to make sure Aliza graduates on time and gets the hell off their campus and out of their hair.

April 17, 2008 7:23 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (29) | Read more: Yale , aliza shvarts , art

What's this? A college newspaper endorsing Hillary Clinton? Over-educated youth voters that don't want Barack Obama to be their new bicycle? Did they not see the video of the hot girl jiggling her breasts at the Illinois senator? Did they miss the memo about Will.I.Am? As upwardly-mobile 18- to 22-year-olds, Penn, it is your utmost stereotypic duty to endorse the handsome Columbia grad with the baritone voice, not the angry Wellesley lady with the funny-uncle husband!

Clinton's camp was so excited to have the support of a single person under the age of 60, they penned a  "MUST READ" press release about it. DP's ed board writes,

Obama's charisma far outshines Hillary's... But choosing the president of the United States is too important a decision to make based on hope alone. After finishing his term in the Senate and better showing us what he can do for the American people, Obama could one day be a remarkable president.

Is this a "pay your dues" argument? The whole point of being an entitled 21C Ivy Leaguer is not paying your dues: You either invent a website and make a billion bucks in a week, or you shuffle lazily through uninspiring office jobs and whine about underutilization. Don't worry, it's nothing that can't be cured with a little Ritalin.

April 17, 2008 3:48 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (33) | Read more: Hillary Clinton , Penn , politics

We saw this YDN headine:

For Senior, Abortion a Medium for Art, Political Discourse

And thought the headline editor made a humorously inappropriate mistake. But then we read this:

Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself "as often as possible" while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriages. Her exhibition will feature video recordings of these forced miscarriages as well as preserved collections of the blood from the process.

So— wait a— holy shi—

The display of Schvarts' project will feature a large cube suspended from the ceiling of a room in the gallery of Green Hall. Schvarts will wrap hundreds of feet of plastic sheeting around this cube; lined between layers of the sheeting will be the blood from Schvarts' self-induced miscarriages mixed with Vaseline in order to prevent the blood from drying and to extend the blood throughout the plastic sheeting.

Schvarts will then project recorded videos onto the four sides of the cube. These videos, captured on a VHS camcorder, will show her experiencing miscarriages in her bathrooom tub, she said. Similar videos will be projected onto the walls of the room.

I think I saw this, once. In a horrible, horrible nightmare.

If L'Affaire Papaya is any indicator, Shvarts should think about getting a security detail for her dorm. Drudge Report linked to the article, and you know what they say: First Drudge, then the blogosphere, then psychotic right-wing militiamen with websites hosted on Angelfire. Due to sudden influx of Drudge-related traffic, YDN's website is periodically going down. So, until YDN stabilizes, we're running the full article and a li'l more commentary after the jump. Oh, and in case you're wondering:

Shvarts declined to specify the number of sperm donors she used, as well as the number of times she inseminated herself.

Well, at least she has a sense of modesty.

Continue reading "Endlessly Creative Yalie Makes Art with Abortion Goo" »

April 17, 2008 11:00 AM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (91) | Read more: Yale , Yale Daily News , aliza shvarts , art

So, you know how some people say Skull and Bones isn't so powerful or evil anymore? Because if they were, Team Cazares would have squashed Akash Maharaj like a bug by now, right? Well, a few IvyGate commenters showed off their best creepily conspiratorial powers last night, managing somehow to get a hold of Akash's social security number and posting it all over our comment boards.

Under society-alluding pseudonyms like "munchingonyourbonelikeawolf" and "keystothebone," the commenters printed documents they claimed Akash sent to various education and government authorities. Some had different SSNs from others which made it seem like a hoax.-- until we got an email from Akash saying that at least one of them got it right, so could we please remove it from our website, kthxbye. He thinks Victor is behind it.

Since the comments all came from Yale IP addresses, the rogue commenters may actually have been so stupid as to not cloak their identities and will soon be shipped off to Guantanamo Bay or something. That, or the guy at the library who leaves his laptop unguarded during study breaks just got so screwed. Before last night, SSN-revealer "322" last commented a year ago, on our walrus moustache post.

Continue reading "Secret Societies Return to Evil Glory by Stealing Akash's Identity... on IvyGate Comment Board?" »

April 16, 2008 4:30 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (70) | Read more: Secret Societies , Yale , skullfucked

At press time, 949 Princetonians had renounced "anonymous character assassination, a culture of gossip," and all things generally  :-( and on the internet by joining "Own What You Think," an petition/movement/club that thinks "anonymity=cowardice." Led by class of 2010 class president Connor Diemand-Yauman, the group sponsored a glowing "Love Wall" outside the Frist Campus Center last Saturday. The Prince explains that the Love Wall's purpose was to hand out warm-fuzzies all the night long:

Students on their way to the Street stopped to marvel at this and many other messages on the "Love Wall," which displayed positive affirmations written by students about themselves and others.

And by "marvel," she means "paused long enough to trick the optimistic newspaper reporter watching them into walking away, then resumed talking smack about everyone they knew." The group's adorably optimistic poster campaign announces "You Can't Take Me Down," a sentiment many a student has attempted to disprove by ripping the posters apart and scattering their shredded remnants like ticker tape all over campus.

Please proceed to the anonymous comment board below for cowardly discussion of the movement.

April 16, 2008 12:47 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (15) | Read more: Princeton , own what you think

• 
• Brown: Child pornographer / Brown hockey player sentenced to slap on the wrist.
  
• Cornell: I heart Huckabee.
• Columbia: "Columbia Students for a Free Tibet address each other as “freedom fighters.” The insurgents in Iraq also share this revered name." A batshit column by another Chinese propagandist. Have you no sense of decency, ma'am? At long last, have you no sense of decency?
• Harvard: Don't worry, kids. Primal Scream won't be affected by that pesky 1784 lewdness law that's still on the books.
  
• Dartmouth: So they're arresting kids for marijuana again.
  
• Penn: Doesn't Barack Obama know the DP isn't worth his time?
  
• Princeton: "An Yi ’10, a Chinese student, said she thinks the protests against China are based on misinformation spread by a biased Western media." Have these Chinese shills infiltrated all of our campuses?
• Yale: Gaylies having a tough time of it.
  

April 16, 2008 11:39 AM by Jacob Savage | Link | Comments (13) | Read more:

Sifting through background on Skullfucked: The Akash Maharaj and Victor Cazares Story, we find a strangely poignant scrap in the form of a movie review and more comment banter. From Akash's review of the Pedro Almodovar film Volver (published as a Facebook note in 2007):

Volver **** (best film of the year)

I have been called emotionally distant by any number of people and those who know me well know I can be very unsentimental - and yet I was profoundly moved by this film.

A number of characters ask the truth to be told, but then add, "Someday, you will tell me everything" the whole truth, the whole story is put off so that the community can reinvent it. Narrative creation is an act of recreation. Dead bodies don't stay dead but come back for their rewrite and their redemption, stories are added to and altered with time... Over and over, Almodovar refuses to see the story straight through but rather filters it through a kind of memory process. Memory isn't just what happened but what we think happened, and what we'd like to have happen. And so new voices are brought in to add their gossip, to rewrite or essentially, to return.

Poignant, coming from a man who, months later, would stand accused of a "narrative creation" of criminally fraudulent proportions, only to be undone by another "retelling," from an ex-lover to the authorities. Naturally, the lover—Akash's foil and rumored whistleblower, Victor—also makes an appearance on the note, with three film-buff-bantering comments at the onset of their relationship.

After the jump: Akash's complete Volver note and Victor's comments.

Continue reading "In Facebook Note, Prophecy and the Beginning of a Doomed Relationship" »

April 16, 2008 11:00 AM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (8) | Read more: skullfucked

• 
• Brown: How many times must a man turn his head...
  
• Cornell: A campus winery!
• Columbia: A brand new effort to prevent Columbia kids from shitting on "ditzy Barnard girls."
  
• Penn: Proud members of the Colbert Nation!
• Princeton: "I totally got raped by my history test."
• Harvard: "And while it may seem futile and even self-indulgent to sit uncomfortably in an armchair in William James feeling guilty, the opportunity for honest confrontation of our privilege as Harvard undergraduates will prove worthwhile as long as it informs future interactions with those that might not share in the same advantage."
• Yale: Check out "Yale Decides 2008" - it's a parody but without the self-knowledge!
  

April 15, 2008 2:46 PM by Jacob Savage | Link | Comments (7) | Read more:

Ever since full names broke in the scandal we shall henceforth call Skullfucked: The Akash Maharaj and Victor Cazares Story, we've gotten a tsunami-force wave of tips evaluating the boys' relative worth and/or loathsomeness. Consensus seems to be that Akash is sketchy but super smart and kinda cute. Were it not for that whole felony thing, he'd be a catch!

On the other hand, Victor (at right) has more enemies than Wharton has douchebags. Gawker published a damning email about Victor with several redactions; since we got a nearly identical email, we're guessing the missing parts are those featuring the breathless retelling of sexual encounters of such graphic and character-assassinating proportions that even Gawker won't touch it. When your enemies are more ruthless than Gawker is, you know you're in trouble.

A brief compendium of Skullfucked rumors:

victor cazares used akash throughout their relationship so that akash would buy him food (every day), clothes, books, train tickets etc. victor even stopped going in regularly to his job at la casa (the latino cultural center at yale) because he expected akash to take care of him.

victor did indeed claim to destroy akash's belongings and the yale police have the email and have advised akash to seek monetary compensation by suing victor in civil court. it is unclear though whether victor actually destroyed his ex's belongings or whether he was just lying so he could steal them. ... last i heard, akash was trying to press charges against victor for larceny and criminal mischief (regarding his belongings) 

Both boys have blocked each other from their respective facebook profiles but there are still wall to wall messages that mutual "friends" like myself can view. It's fascinating how early in the relationship VICTOR seemed like the obsessive one, posting comments on Akash's wall over and over within seconds of each comment. ... It seems as if over time, Victor became more secure and then Akash went crazy. But in the beginning it was the reverse.  

After the jump: Wall posts for Akash, with love from Victor. We discover that "Babel" is overrated and that Trader Joe's is the market of choice for depraved Yalies.

Continue reading "Nothing Like an Internet Scandal for Finding Out How Many Enemies You Have" »

April 14, 2008 5:20 PM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (44) | Read more: Yale

• Columbia: "the staccato clatter of hollow celluloid on Masonite and rubber creates a strangely calming drone for four uninterrupted hours"
  
• Cornell: Jed Bartlett was Barack Obama?  No Way!
  
• Dartmouth: Half of these kids probably haven't seen Animal House
  
• Harvard  Crimson editorial staff performs ventriloquism on Science Center. Can't decide if this is terrible or awesome.
  
• Princeton: Students abuse drugs hardcore in order to... study?

April 14, 2008 11:40 AM by Maureen O'Connor | Link | Comments (5) | Read more: RagTime

So you think you’re pretty awesome. You are, like, the greatest thing that’s ever happened to Harvard. You effected lasting change during your time there, and you want to make sure, at the tender age of 23, that your legacy will be remembered. So what do you do? Why, you create an “award” in honor of your greatness and name it after yourself!

Aaron Chadbourne, Harvard ’06 and now a first-year at Harvard Law School, felt that his myriad accomplishments as an undergraduate were being overlooked. I mean, Aaron Chadbourne changed Harvard! Aaron Chadbourne is a legend! So Aaron Chadbourne decided to create the Aaron Chadbourne Student Advocacy Award to honor Harvard undergrads most similar to Aaron Chadbourne. Chadbourne sent out an email detailing his latest accomplishment – the Aaron Chadbourne Award – to the Harvard UC list:

Nominate a Student Representative for the 2008 Aaron D. Chadbourne Student Advocacy Award:

Aaron Chadbourne has established an annual award to recognize a student who has made a positive and lasting impact on Harvard, for the benefit of the student body, by forging and leveraging relationships with Harvard administrators and faculty members.This award shall be given annually to a junior or a senior at Harvard College who has served as an Undergraduate Council-appointed representative to one of Harvard's administrative or student-faculty committees or in a similar capacity on a board or committee at Harvard that works closely with faculty and administrators.

An honorary award may also be given to a faculty member or administrator who promotes student representation and participation in decision-making at the College and University and who serves as an advocate for student interests at Harvard. 

Many originally thought the Chadbourne Award was an April Fool’s joke. The Crimson has a pretty good take:

Originally questioned as an April Fool’s joke over the UC general e-mail list, the