And if you're a foreign affairs newshound or doing work-study at the Harriman Institute, you'd immediately know that that person is Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili, Law '94 and member of an alleged "'Columbia Club of Post-Soviet leaders." While the real Columbia club is still a tenant of our much hated and intellectually sub-standard rivals at Princeton, the fake Eastern European one isn't taking guff from anybody--especially not from democratic opposition movements.

But Saakashvili's Columbia education hasn't gone totally to waste. In a move practically unprecedented in the history of post-Soviet despotism (and feel free to prove us wrong on this one, Area Studies majors), Saakashvili is shrewdly giving in to the protesters' demands and calling new elections for this coming January. So now he's both feared and loved, even by some of the same people. Package deal!

For this simultaneously brilliant and reprehensible political maneuvering, Columbia's own would-be Musharraf is Bwog's first ever Alumni Who Makes Bwog Both Ashamed Lets Bwog Down and Proud. Congratulations?

EDIT: Right you are, commenter! Looks like Columbia alumni have given us fewer opportunities for scolding, in fact so few that we temporarily forgot the name of our own feature. Good job not letting down, alums!

-ARR

A grey day dawning over snow slowly turning to carbon-saturated black mush? A snowman keeled over like a post-1989 piece of Soviet stauary? It's all put us in the mood - for Eastern Europe! Kidding aside, here are some highlights from the Birch's fantastic winter issue:

A poem about...gerunds. And literal translations. Trust us, it's good.

Reference check: Nietzsche, Kundera, Benjamin, Kafka, Lukācs...and, um, Job? All used in a noble effort to preserve memory...and seem well read.

Havel (ha, you thought you'd heard the last of him) on Communism: "it was built on blah blah blah"

Czech band describes paying to be imprisoned in a work camp, emo-ness of fans

Ex-President of Georgia admits: he still looks up to Stalin