A sharp-eyed tipster noticed that the rouguishly grizzled visage of erstwhile Artist-in- Residence Vaclav Havel has a near double: that of billionaire financier Kirk Kerkorian, a revolutionary in his own right.

Meanwhile, our man Sunil appears to have put his foot in his mouth regarding footballer David Beckham's move to the Los Angeles Galaxy. Bwog still loves you, professor.

Plus! The long anticipated second oeuvre of Robyn Schneider, BC '08, is now available for $15.99, and the Mao-suited GS student Michael Woodley has published a book on something that we probably couldn't understand. Anyone read them? Reviews welcome.

The Opal Mehta scandal continues! Apparently not satisfied with plagiarizing from Columbia grad Megan McCafferty, Harvard sophomore Kaavya Viswanathan also lifted passages from Salman Rushdie's 1990 children's novel Haroun and Meg Cabot's Princess Diaries. At least she chose well with the Rushdie.

Learn all about it from our good friends at the Crimson.

When college-authored Young Adult Chick Lit scandals emerge, who better to comment than Barnard '08's own Robyn Schneider. Herself the author of two forthcoming Young Adult books, Robyn (B&W profile) is taking it personally.

Kaavya Viswanathan must have an industrial strength photographic memory.
Why, you ask? Because only someone with a mind like a steal (ha) trap
could unknowingly plagiarize Megan McCafferty's novels more than forty
times and do so unconsciously.

McCafferty's publisher, Steve Ross, called the Harvard sophomore's debut
novel, already a New York Times bestseller, "Nothing less than an act of
literary identity theft." He claims that it is "inconceivable" that
Kaavya was not aware of what she was doing.

But what I think is that Kaavya still isn't aware of what she's done.
Many of the litblogs I read are blaming Kaavya's plagiarism not on her
lack of morals but on her age. Apparently, if you give a teen a book
deal, they won't know better than to plagiarize. It's sentiments like
this that make me want to gouge my name out of the LA Times article that
featured Viswanathan and myself as young chick lit novelists. Do I have
to listen to sweeping generalizations that all young writers don't take
stealing seriously because our generation downloads illegal music files?
Just because James Frey lied doesn't mean I automatically assume all
memoirists are "embellishing" the hell out of their unremarkable lives.
And just because Kaavya apparently plagiarized doesn't mean that all young
novelists should be blamed. Can the world please leave the rest of us out
of this?

The publishing world has been all abuzz the past few weeks over Harvard sophomore Kaavya Viswanathan's new book How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild, and Got a Life. Even the Blue and White fell under the spell of a peer with a $500,000 book deal and reviewed the book in this month's print edition.

Well, frustrated authors, rejoice! It was all too good to be true. The Harvard Crimson published an article tonight claiming that Kaavya plagariazed portions of fellow young adult chick lit (yes, that's a real genre) author Megan McCafferty's first two books.

Does that name sound familiar? Here's the Columbia twist-- Ms. McCafferty was the gentle vision in a red sundress who graced Columbia's bookstore last week with a reading (Bwog was there). Her third book takes place at Columbia, but we doubt Kaavya will get a second novel to work that into.

Textbook plagiarism after the jump and more in the Crimson article.

Thank you, Anthony Pucillo, for exposing the sheer ridiculousness of self-promoting student authors!
Unless, of course, you were serious.

When Bwog first saw this poster, it rejoiced: the librarians actually care about us! They want us to sleep and sit in the sun and live healthy lives! Actually, they just want us to get our shit out of their reading rooms.

The Dems' delightfully self-important poster answers the age-old question: How do you build a bridge to the 21st century? With a lot of tools.