A School of the Arts third year writing student named David Harrington is receiving some attention today from the New York Daily News in response to his famous internet invention, the Sarah Palin Baby-Name Generator. The Daily News loved their new Palin names so much that certain reporters even used them as bylines.

Bwog played around with this thing by entering in several of Columbia's most recognizable names. Here's what happened:

• Lee Bollinger: Shaver Razorback Palin
• Bruce Robbins: Steak Leather Palin
• James Franco: Moose Roadster Palin
• Roaree Lion: Snooker Hinge Palin
• Austin Quigley: Recoil Mush Palin
• Gayatri Spivak: Plop Hero Palin
  

Plus, it's not just random: entering in the same name twice will result in the same Palin name both times. Oh, and in case you were wondering, Bwog's actually quite partial to our Palin name: Ladel Torque Palin.

French lit obsessives might recall a character from Camus's The Plague who spends years reworking the opening sentence of a novel. It's a commentary on the human condition, or some shit...anyway, Butler library the Columbia library system, which has inspired everyone from Max Weber to Orhan Pamuk, could well have its own resident serial re-writer/tormented literatus. Meet Butler lounge denizen Marcos, C '98, today's victim of...

Why are you here?

I'm writing a novel.

What's it about?

I have no idea.

How long have you been working on it?

Five years.

Why are you writing it here of all places?

I'm an alumnus...they have good coffee.

I notice you're usually holding court with people at one of the booths...

I'm procrastinating.

So you aren't here for the intellectual stimulation?

That and the procrastination.

Exhilarating! In other totally unrelated news: the New York Daily News has deemed upperclassman dive 1020 an accurate barometer of public opinion. 1020's opinion: last night's "Soprano's" finale sucked ass.

-ARR

Spec is only running Monday and Wednesday on this sunny, gloriously action-packed midterm week. So in the absence of our usual morning recap, we present this motley roundup of completely unrelated miscellany...

• Behold the latest email from the CC '09 class council, proving to seniors, perhaps, that they don't have it so bad. The missive begins by observing "Wollstonecraft is a hotty," and quickly goes downhill. A section titled "Free Food Just Doesn't Get Any Freer" describes the purchase and movement of the Broadway farmer's market a few meters inside, to Lerner. To wit, soon will be your "Last Chance to SEXIFY" the student center. Add an announcement for a campus group J. Sachs project called GROCC, at least three misspellings, four instances of triple exclamation points, and three announcements copied and pasted from other emails. Coda? "BEST OF LUCK ON THE MIDDIES". Beware, sophomores - it's never too early to start worrying about Class Day.

• You've probably only visited if you've taken the English department's seminar on children's literature, or if you're a GS student with a full house. The rest of us, apparently, are missing out: Bank Street Bookstore was recently named by New York magazine as the best indie book vendor (well, for kids) in town. Come to think of it, where else would you find a place featuring picture books in Urdu, Vietnamese, and Bengali - not to mention an edition of "Winnie the Pooh"...in Latin?

• Material on college sex finally running thin, the Daily News calls out Columbia students for throwing "narcissistic" parties. Which deadly sin will the tabloids tackle next week?

• Meanwhile, Dartmouth students discover a new way to be bored...as if they needed it?

-CJS

Bwog tipster Raza Panjwani sent in this picture, a view across the Major Deegan Expressway (I-87) in the Bronx, just south of Yankee Stadium, taken from a Metro North train. The sign on the building reads:

Dear Columbia U:

The West Harlem Community Knows How to Share.

Why Don't You?

STOP THREATENING EMINENT DOMAIN.

At the bottom is the website (last updated in February 2005) of the West Harlem Business Group, a coalition of six businesses in Manhattanville fighting tooth and nail to stop Columbia's expansion.

Meanwhile, PrezBo went on the offensive in Sunday's Daily News, offering universities as the solution to New York's economic soft spots. Especially that big one up north, in the "old Manhattanville manufactuing zone." And in their last meeting in December, Community Board 9 passed a few resolutions aiming to make it a little harder for Columbia's 197c plan to make it through in one piece. Much excitement to come!

- LBD

Bwog must interrupt its holiday programming for this important announcement.

The New York Daily News, that staid bastion of equanimity, has declared that Columbia is out of control, and they're not talking politics: this time, it's all that wild crazy sex. The 1,200-word feature story (which ran online with the dubiously related picture at right) cites example after example to prove that Columbians have finally gotten too randy for their own good. Among them:

Exhibit A: An undercover Daily News reporter witnesses a lecture in Hamilton in which a man named "Dov" flogged a female student volunteer with various objects.

Exhibit B: Miriam Datskovsky weighs in. "Everything is so much easier and so much quicker," she told the paper. "You go to dinner and then have sex."

Exhibit C: "Smut TV," in which CTV airs "hard-core porn" involving "a naked couple engaged in sex." Financed by the school. Broadcast into dozens of rooms and lounges. Really.

Bwog must concede, Columbia has fallen to the purveyors of vice...now if only a little more of it would come our way.