It seems as if Columbia has been having a bit of trouble with Fire Safety lately. Yesterday, two unrelated occurrences confirm that maybe we should be worried about the all-consuming wrath-fire after all.

From Bwog Tipster Addison Anderson, on yesterday's EC fire alarm:

After the alarm from the smoke scare on the 14th floor stopped ringing, everyone went back inside. I was walking down the hallway on 14, when I ran into a bunch of firefighters standing outside the Suite of Carelessness. The following exchange ensued:

Firefighter (annoyed): You know, there's a fire, and one of you kids might get hurt.
Me: So they shouldn't have let us all back inside?
Firefighter: ...No.
Me: Because that's what they did, they said we could...
Firefighter sighs and shakes head mournfully, fed up.

Some EC residents are beginning to feel like maybe the University has it in for them. First the non-working water heaters, then the awful elevators, and now this? It makes you wonder...

Next, a same-day dispatch from Bwog staffer Andrew Flynn.

Today was a bad day for fire alarms. One went off in Milbank during my class with Taylor Carman, professor of Philosophy. Carman was already over-time, but he stopped to assess the situation. Unfortunately, the noise of the alarm was not loud or frequent enough to constitute a significant emergency, he told us. So, as we watched through the glass doors as others streamed out of the building, Carman raised his voice and frantically tried to continue his lecture on Bourdieu over the commotion. A few minutes into this, he stepped back and stoically declared that he was beginning to question the wisdom of our procedure.

I love this man.

Well, friends, it seems that John Jay is infested with much larger, much blacker, much furrier pests than those of yesteryear—those being the famed bedbugs. Bwog recently received several pictures of pestilence countermeasures deployed throughout John Jay and the cafeteria's back room.

Bwog also speaks to its janitors on occasion. Last time, Bwog asked what the evil smell emanating from behind Bwog's broken stove was; the janitor suggested that there was perhaps a dead rat back behind there, in the electronics—yes, a dead, stinking rat which had wriggled its way into a cozy nest of wires and nearly gutted the whole suite with cleansing gas-fueled fire. Supposedly, this isn't something to raise eyebrows over, these days. Bwog knows its janitor wasn't raising his.

In other housing news, the 12^th floor of EC should be ashamed of itself. Housing and Dining reports that fourth incident of 'careless cooking' has been declared by the FDNY, which, in Bwog's opinion, is probably beginning to think Columbia students are conspiring against it. At least, this time, they haven't published the suite number. Bwog speculates that this this omission is intended to slow the formation of a fifth column of anar-cookery specialists.

Thanks to tipster Yadira Alvarez for having her camera phone ready.

Let's not kid ourselves- we've all been rudely awoken by the ungodly shrieking of a fire alarm and we've all cursed the name and bodily person of the (usually) faceless, unknown culprits. But, thanks to the personal touch of Columbia Housing and Dining, fire alarm emails have recently included the specific suite numbers of the culpable parties and awesomely withering summations of their crimes.

On Saturday, the EC alarm went off three times in the span of three hours. According to the email that EC residents received, the alarms went off at 8:35, 9:33, and 10:32 PM, and, for the first two alarms at least, the FDNY determined that they were caused by:

"careless cooking by a resident of suite 1202-1203 on the 12th floor."

On Saturday and Tuesday, the Hartley alarm went off at 8:55 and 11:07 PM, respectively. Caused by...

"careless cooking by a resident of suite on the 8th floor" and "careless cooking by a resident of suite 8-C on the 8th floor"

Perhaps this is Housing and Dining's form of the public pillory. Careless cookers everywhere beware.