Late-night news in "Giant Inflatable Penis-gate," as the queer community has moved quickly to respond to the controversial editorial published in Wednesday's Spectator. In addition to the factual errors, the editorial is also attracting controversy for alleging that Queer Awareness Month "must be sure to focus on awareness and education before revelry." The "revelry" in question was Genderfuck, the underwear-only party held this past Saturday night.

Word of the editorial spread quickly through queer organizations on campus. About 20 students (including several leaders of the queer community) commented on the original editorial, and the Spectator uploaded Thursday's letters to the editor before the rest of the site was updated. In addition, seven student groups have sent a letter to the Spec editorial board, calling the editorial "inaccurate, sensationalized, misinformed, and malicious" and demanding "sufficient space be given in the immediate future to concerned groups and individuals to offer editorial responses." Finally, plans are already in place for a "kiss-in"/protest at the Spec's offices tomorrow at 12:15 PM.

In addition to publishing Thursday's letters early, the Spec is considering a meeting with queer groups on campus, and a source tells Bwog that editor-in-chief Tom Faure will be penning an explanation of the editorial process in the same issue. The letter from the student groups to the Spec editorial board is posted after the jump.

UPDATE 3:26 AM: Faure's aforementioned letter is also posted after the jump.

An amused tipster -- who has thoughtfully already coined the phrase "Giant Inflatable Penis-Gate" -- has just pointed Bwog in the director of Spec's recent correction to this morning's staff editorial on Queer Awareness Month. The correction reads:

"Because of an editorial mistake, the original version misstated that Columbia Queer Alliance was responsible for Queer Awareness Month. While CQA and QuAM collaborate on some programs, QuAM is its own unique group. The editorial also misstated that a giant inflatable penis was part of QuAM's opening tabling. It was in fact part of a different campus event."

This time, the critics were right.

We tried reporting on the Blight demonstration on South Lawn at noon today, which was a protest of Columbia's lack of transparency in the expansion process and the potential use of eminent doman to obtain the last few properties in Manhattanville that Columbia needs to build its new satellite campus. In order to do that, a Columbia-funded study is underway to determine whether the area is "blighted," which means the state can hand it to a private entity.

The actual story will be reported in the Spec in an hour or so--read up for what really happened (UPDATE: find it here). Our "story" failed to contextualize the quote, which our tipster overheard while walking by, and completely misrepresented the character of the protest. We also tried to insert snark by quoting a Columbia planning site. It wasn't funny, and it wasn't informative, and it made this Bwog editor feel pretty bad. So, kick us in the shins.

CORRECTION to earlier post:

It appears that our source on the statistic that 13 out of 57 people tested for HIV yesterday must have misheard: according to a staff member at the Gay Health Advocacy Project, Bronx AIDS Services (who provided the HIV antibody testing) clarified that only 29 people were tested--none positive.

For future reference: GHAP offers free and confidential HIV testing to everyone--gay, straight, staff and students--during walk-in hours, Monday through Thursday from 4:00-7:00 PM, or by appointment (854-6655). Results are available the day following the test.

We were there when students stormed the stage in Columbia's Alfred Lerner Hall and chased off the Minutemen, and we were there with the chanting crowd outside. We reserve the right to set the record straight. This item will be updated as news breaks.

O'Reilly Factor, interview with Marvin Stewart:

We would like to remind you that the head of Columbia's College Republicans is named Chris Kulawik, not Chris Collawick.

We would like to clarify that on no occasion did we hear any of those present at Wednesday's fracas shouting out racial epithets or slurs; and that, too, no epithets or slurs were overheard by us within or near the protest area at Broadway and 115th St.

Most importantly, we can confirm that Mr. Stewart was gravely misinformed as to the content of the trilingual banner he referenced in his interview with Mr. O'Reilly. In no way was a denial of the holocaust expressed by Columbia students' signage. The English and Spanish of the poster in question, easily recognized, restated the common slogan, "NO HUMAN IS ILLEGAL," and the Arabic more closely translated the same sentiment. Several people emailed us to say that they had scanned "insaan" for "holocaust." We have gone through the dictionaries: insaan, bas ed on the root of ans (man or human being), translates as "human." Pardon our pedantry when we say that "holocaust" would likely be expressed as a compound noun and would certainly be rooted in either "fire" or "massacre," each of which has a very different spelling from ans. The banner Mr. Stewart mentioned simply restated one message in three languages: "NO HUMAN IS ILLEGAL."

Fun for the new year at Spectator! Replacing the Weekend section, this fall Spec will launch a full-color, Village Voice-style weekly magazine tentatively titled The Eye. In a canny move, they recruited a features editor who's already been dishing for the Daily Telegraph and other publications for years--Bee Shaffer, daughter of Vogue empress Anna "Miranda" Wintour (Fashion Week, anyone?). Bwog hopes that this venture fares better than the late Splog, which we've heard will rise again soon.

Meanwhile, many Bwog readers have been puzzling over the state of Spec's website, which has been in disrepair for quite some time. They're apparently attempting to code with CollegePublisher, a service used by college newspapers from Syracuse to San Diego State, which requires subcribers to sign over all advertising rights in exchange for flashy ads from big corporations. (ed. note This is not entirely accurate. Please see correction.) But hey, you've got to fund the hors d'oevres somehow.

Spectator could not be reached for comment.

CORRECTION: Contrary to the post above, Spectator did comment on their website change and new magazine! And Bwog got some facts wrong. An email from Spec E-i-C Steve Moncada reveals "1) The magazine will be titled, The Eye. 2) Spectator is in the process of switching web hosts from New Digital Group to College Publisher. The new host, which subsumed the old host, offers free web services to Spectator in exchange for national ad placement at three locations on the website, and it is currently home to over 260 college newspapers. In addition, Spec hopes to debut a site for The Eye by the beginning of the school year which will be hosted on Spectator's own server. Spec editors hope that the magazine site will be a starting point in freeing the paper from the constraints of these national web-hosting conglomerates."

In which the Bwog apologizes for getting a couple facts wrong:

- In the February issue, Brendan Ballou wrote that "Rebel With Uranium" Ken Hechtman and his merry band of anarchists "were the first to reach the Low Library roof, and as far as we know, the last."

Correction: They were not the last.

- On February 4, the Bwog moaned about Jake Gyllenhaal's fake alumni status:

He was supposed to graduate in 2004. He didn't--he dropped out to play a gay cowboy. Which is fine, but it means he DID NOT GRADUATE, unlike, say, his sister or his uncle [Professor Eric Foner].

But, as Quick Spec pointed out this morning, Professor Foner is not
our fakest alum's Uncle. He just used to be married to the gay cowboy's mom.

The Bwog just couldn't imagine that their superhero professor has an ex-wife. Discover the sobering truth after the jump.

A poster of the Graduate Students Employee Union in Mudd claims "According to the Living Wage Project at Penn State University, the minimum living wage for a single person's very basic budget in New York City is $21,272."

A visit to the poster's cited Living Wage Calculator reveals the living wage estimate for a single adult in New York City, NY to be $16,050 before taxes.

The Bwog hopes graduate students put a little more care into grading our papers (and writing their theses).

My first Spectator column of the year came out Monday, and I proved myself to be a royal idiot. Soon after, I sent a mea culpa to the Spec sports staff, the athletic department, and a few angry student athletes -- see after the jump.

But before the jump ... please don't call me a racist and resentful of economic diversity. Just say I'm insensitive to athletes or an asshole or something resembling the truth.