The 2006-07 school year has contained multitudes. In fact, it may just be the most eventful year Columbia's had since... well, the year before. Remember Matthew Fox? The Chung-Diamond "scandal"? "Don't Be a Pussy"? "Epilogue to Our Crime & Punishment: A Petition"? Bwog certainly does, so step into the Wayback machine - you're about to relive nine months of Columbia in a single post.

August

First-years move in. Orientation yields a legendary (to Bwog's mind, at least) week-long burst of posting. Addison Anderson went to a bunch of bars in the name of "journalism." Most literary post: "And now for some disorientation," which reads like early Bret Easton Ellis, if he knew about Koronet's. Orientation week was the best.

September

Facebook went literally insane. Then calmed down somewhat. Harvard abandoned ED; Columbia did not. Columbia Football had as-yet uncrushed high hopes, later crushed. Seth Flaxman declared victory. Best villains: Zuckerberg! Murphy! Ahmadinejad! You know, one of those.

October

Everything was coming up roses for Mark Modesitt. 1968 spirit was invoked by Jim Gilchrist. The fallout was immense - shady disciplinary letters, "news" coverage of all sorts (Jon Stewart, Fox News). Even Bwog had an opinion. But October wasn't all about relevant television coverage of Columbia issues with high production values - we also had "The Gates"!
Best correspondence to Bwog: "Subject: terrorists. your worse then the mooselums who flew the planes into the buildings"

Columbia's own CNN - or perhaps MSNBC - presents its latest episode, and we dissect it for you.

Core schmore, what about the part when he made fun of "300"?!

CTV presents: Beating a Dead Horse 101.

What is a Mimzy? If it doesn't have any connection to the Core or Modesitt, we don't care.

Yogurt that doesn't taste like dirty snow? Watch yo' back, Tasti!

Last night, a sizable and enthusiastic crowd gathered in JJ's Place to see the three parties running for 2010 Class Council debate (and eat free chicken fingers). While Mark Modesitt's reconstituted Alma Matters [Remix] Party has the advantage of incumbency, the other two parties, AJ Pascua's Go Party and Maximo Cubilette's TOGA Party, seemed to possess far more energy — and focused that energy on ways to improve upon Modesitt's policies.

There's not a lot of original stuff you can say as a serious student council candidate — everyone hit on increasing aid to study abroad programs — but debates are the time to make as many promises as possible, and they did not disappoint. Modesitt's ticket (dressed, inexplicably, in somber black) focused on "class cohesiveness" and proposed a class email highlighting the achievements of class members, while Cubilette's party suggested further off-campus programming and dinners with constituents at local restaurants, and Pascua's promised to move back the CC Add/Drop deadline and throw another Winter Wonderland-esque party (Go VP candidate Sue Yang claimed responsibility for the success of the first-year formal).

For probably the first time ever, each party had a green plank in their platform. Modesitt promised to focus on environmental concerns in a second term, going so far as to question other parties as to their plans to reduce Columbia's "anthropogenic effects" on the environment. The sitting president recommended awareness — "turning off lights when you leave the room" — in his opening statement, which TOGA largely echoed, while the Go Party (dressed in green!) suggested campus-wide dorm room inspections over winter break to ensure windows were closed and appliances unplugged.

First-year Class Council candidate (and incumbent President) Mark Modesitt is going through some rough times. He has been accused of being a "rapist" in that most literally indelible of media - Sharpie marker on his dorm room door.

Modesitt (as will be revealed in a Spec article Wednesday morning) has contacted Public Safety to launch an investigation, naming specific students as potential culprits, and his John Jay floor attended a mandatory meeting about "hate speech."

As response, some of those whom Modesitt mentioned as suspects have created a Facebook group to protest what they call Modesitt's false accusation, quoting a letter that those students claim they were sent by Public Safety and a self-written disclaimer. To wit: "WE JUST DON'T LIKE TOOLS ABUSING PUBLIC SAFETY OFFICIALS FOR THEIR OWN PSEUDO-POLITICAL AMBITIONS AND BLAMING US FOR ARBITRARY BULLSHIT."

Not all of the members of the group are under investigation for the incident; indeed, as of this writing, 48 students had been invited to join the group, including several '10 Class Council candidates, as well as Modesitt himself. For the record, the three students who admitted to being under investigation either have been cleared of responsibility for the writing by Public Safety or expect to, claiming no involvement. Modesitt's door has also been sanded down.

UPDATE, 3:20 AM: A Bwog reader points out the "Related Groups" of the Facebook group for the accused and their sympathizers. They include "Shit Is Sooo Real: An Ayn Rand Tribute"; "Critique of Pure Douchebaggery"; and the most politically correct of all, "If you ask a retarded question in philosophy class, I'll rape you afterward." None of those under investigation are members in the latter group.

ALSO: Comments on this post have been preemptively disabled, at the direction of Bwog Management, because of the sensitive matter of the post.

AND, 9:35 AM: Spec is calling the incident a death threat and talks to Modesitt and several of the accused. Check it out.

-DPD

Few busy Columbia College students have the time to fully peruse their class presidents' frequent and information-packed emails. Bwog is here to help. We've compiled and graded the best of your class and college presidents' comments from their most recent appearances in our inbox, just in time for midterms. From the '10s to the '07s to Seth Flaxman, the grand-poobah of CCSC emails himself, here are selections from the bright young minds representing you:

Class of '10
President: Mark Modesitt

Features: Appointment of about 18,000 Coordinators, plus a Historian

Choice quotes:
"Just to forewarn you, a lot of the blurbs I was given to add to this e-mail were quite lengthy, so I went ahead and summarized them."

"Have you ever been locked out of your room in just a towel or underwear?"

Comments: Ah, the innocence of freshman year. Remember that social awkwardness that caused you to precede everything with caveats, or your surprise at seeing half-clad bodies wandering the halls? Mark, you take us back. A

Check out the rest after the jump...

The results are in, and CCSC has five new members! The Alma Matters ticket triumphed, with a whopping 27.2% of the vote--25 votes ahead of their nearest rival, Party of Five (even with an extended voting period, CC freshmen fell short of the national turnout average by about 10 points). President-elect Mark Modesitt picked up his ROLM phone on the first ring, and Bwog sat him down for an interview.

How did you campaign in the last few days?

Mainly, we reinforced for people to get out and vote. Our main thing is we ran a clean campaign, we weren't attacking the other parties or candidates, and that was our mission from the very beginning.

Were there attacks?

There were a few attacks, but mainly it was just competitive.

It seems like most of the candidates live on the same few floors in John Jay.

We all get along pretty great. We're all pretty good friends. AJ and I, we go to church together sometimes.

How do you deal with some of the negative campaigning?

I just know that I'm in the public eye, you just have to deal with it. You're putting yourself out there to get put down. I really wanted to be class president, I just had to fight for it. If you let it get to you, you're letting them do what they wanted to do.

Why, exactly, do you want to be class president?

As I came to Columbia the first time, I really just loved the campus, I loved everything about it. I really felt the urge to represent my class, and the more and more I meet people in my class, the more I love Columbia, and everything about it.

You only won a little over a quarter of the vote. How does it feel to be not the favorite of the majority of the class?

It kind of just proves how great out class actually is, we have such great candidates to choose from. I don't feel that as a negative aspect, I just feel more of an honor, that I was chosen among such qualified candidates.