The Mystery of Pain.

Asked to legitimize the illegitimate, GSSC Elections Commission resigns.

Barnard Voting: The eBear Necessities.

Congestion plan coughed up.

Bob Dylan meet Joe Pulitzer.

How safe are we really?

In other Columbia-related news: the NYTimes captures the different views on the boy arrested in the recent death of a grad student.

Given recent events, Bwog placed a call to Public Safety yesterday afternoon to find out how the department is reacting to Minghui Yu's death and how they intend to make students feel more secure. [Edit: 3:24pm: Jim McShane email after the jump.]

According to Public Safety, officers do not currently patrol the area where Yu was attacked, around the Jewish Theological Seminary or the Teachers College—they are only permanently stationed at the Broadway and Amsterdam gates., "Officers were patrolling the area where Yu was attacked, both on foot and in vehicles. We have different guards at the gates and patrolling off campus," said CU spokesperson Robert Hornsby in an email to Bwog. In an email from Associate Vice President for Public Safety Jim McShane, McShane announced that in recent months Columbia has been increasing its foot patrols and that as of last night, it had added an additional patrol vehicle (those massive SUVs you see crawling around campus).

Through the grapevine, Bwog has been hearing rumors that in attempts to safeguard against theft, Public Safety has plans to begin taking unattended laptops in Butler. Oddly enough, this is one rumor that turned out to be kind of true, in a vague, quasi-benevolent way.

Ricky Morales, Crimes Prevention Manager at Public Safety clarified: "It's not just that we go over there and we take it. It's a whole educational process." According to Morales, Public Safety has been meeting with members of the University Senate and library security to design a process of reminders and education/awareness about property theft that culminates with a possible meta-theft. Explains Morales, Public Safety is "not taking [unattended property], but safeguarding it from people." In other words: thieving the property to protect it from thieves.

- JNW

The residents of a Columbia dorm floor received these bizarre emails from their RA (specifics redacted) on Thursday morning. Here they are, very sic, copy-and-pasted.

"Date: Sep 13, 2007 3:27 AM
Subject: Incident Tonight

Hi Everyone!

As some of you might have heard, an incident occured around 1:40am
this morning. There were screams, loud noises, Public Safety came,
the GA/AD came, and NYPD came. There has been allegations of physical
assalt, maybe even rape.

Whether that is true or not, I just want to let all of you know that
the issue is being dealt with right now on all levels of the Columbia
adminstration. I know that to some of you, that might not sound so
convincing/pleasing...but have faith in the system. They will get to
the bottem of this.

Public Safety is now on the Facebook in the person of John Murolo, the Morningside Campus Director. Let's all welcome him into our trusting community with open arms and many Facebook friendship invitations. It must be tough to come back as The Man only two years after graduating at the fresh young age of fifty years. Let us make the transition easier, together.

In an email sent this evening, LLC director Scott Helfrich warns the student body to be on the lookout for a shady character who has been terrorizing a certain floor of McBain as of late. Helfrich included two photos and an account of the man's actions as described by Public Safety, which reads as follows:

On April 21, 2006 at about 6 P.M. a Columbia University student reported that a male, black, light complexion, shaved head, slim build, 6' tall, wearing baggy clothes---black shirt, denim pants and white sneakers entered the ladies shower area on the 5th floor of McBain Hall.

No further description of the crime is included, leaving Bwog with a few questions. Did this man enter the building with a CUID? If not, how did he make it past our impenetrable security forces? Was he planning on taking a shower? Maybe he was just confused. Let's not jump to conclusions.

At any rate, Bwog is happy to finally know for sure what it has always suspected: that creepy stalker guys are more intimidated by Columbia girls than the other way around. According to the email:

When the student confronted the male, he fled.

NY Daily News is calling Friday night's West End extravaganza a frat brawl. And reports that the Aerosoles window got smashed with a bottle of Hennessy.

Hennessy, people, Hennessy. That means that just hours prior to that you could have actually ordered cognac at the West End.

The Bwog has been spending the weekend trying to figure out what happened at the 'Stend Friday. A handful of people saw the fights outside but no one seems to know what went on inside. So far all we've got is this:

I was at the 'stend from 1130-1215 last night. The doors to the back room were closed, and there was some sort of party being planned back there. At around midnight, a friend tried to get in, but was told there was a ten dollar cover (at the Stend!). The crowd that was at the bar -- which included barely any Columbia students -- were all wearing some t-shirt for something, I'm not exactly sure what.

Got anything to add?

Carly Hoogendyk, Carman RA, reports:

Everyone's favorite security guard and vocalist is now soliciting his newest musical offering to Columbia freshmen just looking to swipe into Carman. Michael Lane has come out with a second album of him doing what he does best: singing over karaoke tracks. Lane opens with Santana's "Smooth" and ends, creepily enough, with another rendition (a repeat from his first album) of "Sexual Healing." You might wonder whether a couple of mediocre Marvin Gaye covers are worth dropping the asking price of $10, and I'd say... actually, yes. Especially for Carman residents-- I bought the first album and Lane hasn't requested to see my CUID since.

"Kula kula kula van sola sola sola..."

--Multilingual EC security guard, K. Davis, communicating in Cantonese with the Wai Lee delivery man, 2/26.

-- Neeraj Pradhan --

Now, we all know that lackadaisical first-years are prone to getting locked out of their rooms. Or sexiled (Yes, sex does occur at Columbia. We estimate at least five instances of sexual intercourse since September—-all coming Saturday night after Columbia's last second victory over Princeton in basketball). But Bwog just learned of a different kind of upset: someone on the sixth floor of Carman is locked in his room due to a lock malfunction. The fire department is on its way.

Well, we suppose it's still better than being "sexed-in," when a roommate in the innermost room of a walk-through double is blocked from exiting (and sometimes even from the bathroom) because of his roommate's amorous activities.

A Bwog correspondent sent the following in-- is it too much to ask if anyone has pictures?

There was a man on the median at 113th and broadway this afternoon wearing Adidas sneakers, pink socks, green pants, and a double breasted blue blazer with the words "Officer COOL" written on the back in what appeared to be white chalk, doing some sort of erratic dance while jumping from cement barrier to cement barrier all the while talking to himself and gesturing wildly with his hands and throwing a massive bright yellow down jacket around. It was both astounding and terrifying to watch.

Not an insignificant number of Columbia security guards are hovering around the front door of Butler, claiming on that there has been an "incident." For the Bwog's readership's sake, let's hope it's a good one.

Update: Interest seems to be swirling around one middle-aged woman... witness? culprit? Please not another public diddler.

Posters for the Taiwanese Student Association's spring general meeting (with seductively posed Asian women):

Haiku — 'The Freaky feeling'

She gives me a look

Sweating, I walk towards her

Damn yellow fever.


The haiku is a traditional Japanese form of poetry, making the TSA's statement either a capitulation to the imperialist force of Japanese culture, or a more subtle attempt to turn the form on itself and subvert the dominant paradigm.

In unrelated news, The Columbia Department of Public Safety recently confiscated two full-length, ornate samurai swords in decorated scabbards.