Aside from the lethal shooting of an NYU student, the burial of the kids and adults who didn't make it out of that Bronx house fire, and about two days of above 65 degree weather, you didn't miss much in NYC. But at Columbia, on the other hand...just look at all of the exciting things that happened while you were gone:

The novelty of the Christmas decorations wore off halfway through the Yule Log bash, but the lights twinkled on for several snow-less months anyway. Yesterday, the holiday cheer was spotted bagged up and waiting for storage in Columbia's musty attic until next year's festivities.

Further down College Walk, a horde of baby journalists here for a Columbia Scholastic Press Association conference, wearing name tags and eager smiles, colonized Alma Mater. They've been crawling around campus all week. Go away!

And speaking of nuisances, Low Library is undergoing a "bird control project." Luckily, the ugly scaffolding you may be able to see if you squint and look at the back of the photo at left, should be gone by tomorrow.

-SEV

Aside from the lethal shooting of an NYU student, the burial of the kids and adults who didn't make it out of that Bronx house fire, and about two days of above 65 degree weather, you didn't miss much in NYC.

But at Columbia, on the other hand... Just look at all of the exciting things that happened while you were gone:

The novelty of the Christmas decorations wore off halfway through the Yule Log bash, but the lights twinkled on for several snow-less months anyway. Yesterday, the holiday cheer was spotted bagged up and waiting for storage in Columbia's musty attic until next year's festivities.

Further down College Walk, a horde of high school student-journalists wearing name tags
and eager smiles colonized Alma Mater. They've been crawling around campus
all week!

Go away!

And speaking of nuisances, Low Library is undergoing a "bird control project." Luckily, the ugly scaffolding you may be able to see if you squint and look at the back of the photo at left, should be gone by tomorrow.

-SEV

Today is the first workday of Queer Awareness Month, and the works are certainly in progress. Alma is bracketed by a floating balloon-rainbow and several students are seated at a table in front of her, handing out treats. Skip along to Low Plaza to get free Skittles (Taste the Rainbow) and condoms from our campus queer organisations. Make sure to get a picture of you and your sweetie, or you and your friends, or you and your prospective future whatever, under their rainbow of balloons.

Word has it that the university administration has already mishandled this event. Though QuAM is sponsored by the Office of Multicultural Affairs, it seems nobody ever told security and groundskeeping, and also, strangely, the Department of Art History. This morning, as the Queer Alliance folks floated their rainbow and anchored it, they were accosted by an angry official who first demanded an explanation, and then began screaming for "Papers, acht, you need papers! We cannot proceed without papers!" Something like that.

He and his pals gave up after he was asked whether he had "anything better to do than hassle some homos." Various bystanders mocked him as he left, sheepish. But within minutes, as an intrepid flag-waver was preparing to affix the rainbow standard to Alma's scepter, a cold-bosomed curatress from Art History reprimanded him, declaring that no flag other than the black drape of National AIDS Day was to be affixed to Alma's person. The standard was not raised.