I woke up the morning after IvyGate’s big bar bash relieved that I was in my own bed and apparently still wearing my underroos. So far so good, I rationalized, and that was when I heard the shower turn on.

Despite the early morning haze of one too many gin and tonics, everything came back to me. I hadn’t gone home from that party alone. I had gone home with my new co-editor.

**

I don’t usually take showers in unfamiliar apartments the morning after. Hell, I usually just grab my pants and run. But this time was different. It was uncanny how much we complemented each other. Robyn was from Irvine, California, a student at Barnard, and headed to med school in the next few years.  Basically, she could do a Korean accent better than I could; she was the daughter my mother was meant to have. I was raised in New Jersey, a former prep schooler and a student of literature at Harvard.  I should have been bat-mitzvahed years ago.

When we met, we finished each others sentences. We ordered the same drinks, a few too many.  Sometimes you know right away that it’s not going to work out.  But sometimes you know that it will.  And so I stayed for my shower.  We were going to be the best of friends.

**

Our beautiful-yet-awkward relationship started out where most healthy, substantive relationships begin: through Facebook. After stalking the shit out of each other once we were assigned as co-editors, we decided to meet for drinks.

We were both in New York for the summer, interning in publishing (Juli), and taking summer physics classes whilst editing Columbia’s bioethics journal (Robyn). Well, drinks turned into a baking fiasco, then a round of embarrassing sex story trade offs, a trip to Nick and Chris’s aforementioned IvyGate party, and finally a drunken subway ride uptown, which culminated in what can only be referred to as a slumber party.

Yes, really. A slumber party. With pajamas and giggling and cookies and all that girly shit. And now we’re, like, totally BFFs. Over the past few weeks we’ve gone to the theater, the park, a nice Italian restaurant.

So thanks, Ivy Gate, for the first completely not awkward morning after we’ve ever experienced (i.e. In the words of Douglas Adams, ‘So long, and thanks for all the fish’).  And, as an act of gratitude, the plan is basically to turn this blog into the next Sex and the Ivy.  It’s a hard job. But someone’s got to do it.

Send us tips, recipes, personals, or embarrassing sex stories at tips@ivygateblog.com

—
Juli Min, Harvard ‘09, is the singer in a funk band and also an acoustic indie duo that performs in and around New York.

Robyn Schneider, Barnard ‘08.5, is the author of several forgettable books for teenagers.  She hopes to attend medical school and bedazzle the shit out of her scrubs.

–ROBYN SCHNEIDER AND JULI MIN

Well, we’ve all suspected it for some time, but now we have it directly from the horse’s mouth: IvyGate founding co-editor Chris Beam is a Republican operative intent on destroying the reputation of America’s Greatest Hope for Survival.

Beam, who is a Columbia grad, has a prominently placed item at Slate today in which he claims responsibility for widely circulating the phrase “terrorist fist jab” as a possible interpretation for the fist-bump shared between Barack and Michelle Obama on the night that Obama clinched the Democratic nomination. Like so many things in our Internet-crazed lives, it seems that the trouble originated in an anonymous comment on a website:

The morning after Obama locked up the nomination, I was writing a “Trailhead” item that mocked the media’s difficulty in figuring out what to call the now famous gesture. “Fist-pound,” “knuckle-bump,” and “fist-to-fist thumbs up” were among the funnier examples, but one of them—”Hezbollah-style fist jab”—was particularly risible. It came from the Web site for Human Events, a hard-right weekly. Unfortunately, I failed to note that its provenance was not the magazine itself but a reader comment posted below an unrelated column by Cal Thomas. I linked the phrase to the column but didn’t explain that the words weren’t Thomas’

A couple miscommunications later and the phrase ended up on Fox News, causing a great deal of hand-wringing about how low the Republicans are willing to go to paint Obama as a the scary “other.”

As usual, the left has proven that the only thing more dangerous than the vast right-wing conspiracy is the vast left-wing ability to fuck itself over unnecessarily. Beam’s confession coincides with day 3 of the mass hysteria provoked by the cover of the latest New Yorker, which depcits Barack in traditional Muslim garb terrorist fist-jabbing a machine-gun toting Michele while an American flag burns in the fireplace. The cover has led to cries of umbrage from Obama’s camp, a great deal of shouting on cable news, and mumblings of “Didn’t New Yorker covers used to be funny?” from sane people.

Meanwhile, real terrorists killed more real people, but I’m not sure how you make that into a cartoon. Oh, right.

Welcome to IvyGate, version 3.0. Zach Ozer, our preposterously gifted business and technology guy, has coded up a pretty major upgrade. We know you want to start complaining in the comments, so here’s just a brief rundown:

• Speed. IvyGate is now a Wordpress blog hosted by MediaTemple, not a Movable Type blog hosted on Yahoo. Hopefully, this means zippier page load times and comments that post immediately, instead of the old 45 business days.
• Speaking of comments! Now you have to register to register your discontent. You can do so here.
• Bugs. Please let us know what you find via our fancy bug tracking gizmo.

Think that’s it. You’ve got bitching to do in the comments, and our first guest-editor duo needs to make up for lost time, so we’ll get out of everyone’s way. Except to say once more that Zach, if you need a kidney, just ask.

See you next summer!

–Nick & Chris

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

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

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

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

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

Cheers,

Nick and Chris 

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

It looks like this fine rag is good for something after all. An email sent to us yesterday begs us to contact Jennifer on behalf of the United States Army. As patriots, we obviously do everything in our power to help the government of this great country. We’ve therefore decided to post the email so that Jennifer can use her stellar resume to go forth and save the world:

[name redacted], CIV USA HRC

Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: FOUO

We’d like to get in touch with Jennifer.  Please send her this note, if you can.  Thank you.

[name redacted]
Mgmt Svc Spec (Human Resources/Civ)
Management Support Branch
Officer Personnel Mgmt Directorate
U.S. Army Human Resources Command

In a follow-up, the Army explained:

Just pass it on to Jennifer, if you can…  Yes, there are positions within the Army Human Resources Command that we are recruiting for.  I cannot offer her a position, but can let her know what is available and how to apply.  The jobs are posted on www.cpol.army.mil. Again, thank you!

Contact us, Jen. We can totally help you, if a position as a secretary or whatever at the Army Human Resources Command isn’t like, beneath you.

With the exception of our of endorsement of Francis Martel, IvyGate hasn’t traditionally thrown its weight behind presidential contenders. But in light of the excitement Barack Obama has generated throughout the Ivy League - and the excitement he’s generated in our own heads - we hereby Barack the Vote. We endorse Barack Obama for President.

Let’s go through some of the support Obama has garnered. First, we owe Andrew Mangino a mea culpa; it turns out the YDN does not consist of Clinton stooges. Following the lead of their Editor-in-Chief, the YDN has endorsed Obama:

An Obama presidency promises a reassertion of the natural, American optimism for which JFK stood, but also new reforms of which he could only have dreamt. Let us not let this moment slip away.”

So has the Crimson:

Obama represents an opportunity for a Democratic nominee who represents the value of service, intelligence, and judgment, and, most of all, an opportunity for real change, unburdened by favors owed and ideals lost.

And then there are the literally zillion articles about student support for the junior Senator from Illinois. Brown loves Obama; Columbia student and ex-IvyGate contributor J.D. Porter endorses Obama; at Cornell, 1,100 people “Rocked for Barack”; Larry David came to Dartmouth just to talk about Obama; and a different Prince columnist seems to endorse Obama every other day.

After the jump: some more thoughts about America’s future.

Read the rest of this entry »

Alright, listen up: you don’t like us and we don’t like you, so we’re gonna keep it brief. We’re peacing, and some new people are taking over. They’ll (re)introduce themselves shortly and explain how things will work from now on.

We won’t bore you with too many thank-yous, regrets or What We Learned, but some things must be said: (1) Society is probably the worse for our creation. (2) We couldn’t have done it without a team that was often uncredited — so thank you, stringers and tipsters. (3) We never got a chance to do LOLivies, so here’s one at right.

New guys, go nuts.

Onward,

Chris and Nick

Amuse yourselves.

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.

Hi, Ivygate readers -

I’m Jacob, Princeton ‘06.

A little about me: I’ve spent much of my time since graduation sort of roaming around; I worked on a political campaign in Minnesota for a spell, then took off to the Holy Land to live off some fellowship money. It’s the next best thing to a trust, I guess. Right now I’m in the Negev Desert working as a stock-boy in a kibbutz commissary store. What I’ve learned: Israelis love watermelon. They also do this weird thing where they put their shopping carts in line before they place anything in them.

Hal and I met during our respective tenures at the Nassau Weekly, where we wrote brilliant articles about brilliant things all the time. Like many friendships, ours is based on a number of shared dislikes: Ivy League daily newspapers, institutional hypocrisy, and Dartmouth - all of which the Ivy League supplies in spades, and about which Ivygate has so dutifully and irresponsibly reported. This is why we enjoy Ivygate so much; it’s also the reason we’re looking forward to our oh-too-short tenure with such intense anticipation. It’s sort of like getting to plan high school prom, only better.  So bear with us, please.

I’m Hal, Princeton ‘08

I don’t know anything about journalism, the Internet, or even the Ivy League really. I am currently ensconced in Firestone library doing “research” towards my Senior Thesis on a philosopher — Jacob may be interested to know — with whom no self-respecting kibbutznik would shake hands (Hint: He was a onetime Nazi who shacked up with Hannah Arendt.)

I spend my days like most Princetonians — playing pranks on the elderly, giving tourists false directions, and throwing rocks at children when they’re not looking. I believe Ivygate is a natural extension of these things.

Fact: I once beat up Jacob Savage.

Please send us tips.

–HAL PARKER AND JACOB SAVAGE