Yeah, I'm back finally. To those of you who didn't read this blog over the summer, and so don't know what I'm talking about, I forgive you. It's hard enough keeping track of the staff around here. Anyways, apparently David Horowitz passed through campus, but after Ahmadinejad, no one really cared at all. TPMtv's got the goods.

Apparently, some states have elections in odd-numbered years. Freaks. Anyways, about 60 of my fellow Columbia Democrats knew about this wierd practice, and are in Kentucky right now campaigning for Steve Beshear. You can follow their progress here and here.

Two non-Columbia stories: In the Friday dump, Senators Kennedy and Enzi announced they're putting off changes to the NCLB at least until early next year (and one would expect, 2008 being an election year, that it will likely be pushed off until after the election). Frankly, they've had years to write good legislation on this, so the deadline excuse doesn't fly. They can even start with the crib sheet Zach Marks and I wrote. We'll let them take credit for the ideas. 

In butt news: this happened. I think it's an inspired idea.  

Yeah, yesterday wasn't a normal day at Columbia. It's not every day that you can only enter campus in two places, or that you have to show your ID at those gates, or that, if you are lucky to be onthe West side of campus, you get to run the gauntlet of hostile protestors calling for your university to be shut down. Also, you couldn't walk through campus without tripping over a reporter, and at one point I must admit that, for fun, I walked in a large circle and got five microphones/notepads shoved in my face before I could complete it. If I liked hearing the sound of my own voice, yesterday would have been a perfect day (wait a moment, I blog; of course I like to hear myself...)

There's plenty of other posts already about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, including here, here, here, and here (the latter ones are from my fellow Columbia students). I wanted to wait a day, to better, well, react to the reactions of the media. There's been some serious misunderstanding, and some downright lies, and a disturbing lack of support from the left-wing blogosphere. It may be longish, but stick with me here.

As usual, Faux, er, Fox News took the lead on disinformation. We all know Fox loves to hate Columbia (I think this is because we're the closest Ivy League school to their studios, and they're too lazy to send people elsewhere). They claimed that students applauded Ahmadinejad's comments, and that there were bitter clashes between groups on campus. The truth is, students did neither. Yes, if you watch the speech, there are students applauding, but there are two caveats to this: first, Bollinger got much more applause, and, second, that was the crowd inside. There were about 600 people inside, many of whom were graduate students from the School of International and Public Affairs. It's an open secret at Columbia that SIPA is particularly sympathetic to people with views close to Ahmadinejad's. One professor, Joseph Massad, has actually written a paper (now developed into a book) stating that homosexuality is a Western concept being forced upon the Middle East. Hardly surprising then that there was applause from some parts of the audience. But had Faux wanted to be fair and balanced, they would've gone outside, where Bollinger's remarks got a standing ovation from a huge crowd of students on the South Lawn, while Ahmadinejad got scattered applause and mostly silence. The biggest reaction to his speech? Like in the auditorium, his claim that there are no homosexuals in Iran was met with derisive laughter. Oh and those clashes? Almost entirely off-campus (i.e. not students), and the only one I saw had a grad student and an administrator or teacher, neither of whom were younger than 35. So much for students clashing. The truth is that the many diverse student groups got together in four days, and created a speaking schedule that allowed all points of view to be heard. Nobody was booed, nobody was shouted down. It was a proud day for Columbia.

More still in extended. 

That is an actual quote from a Brazillian judge's decision in a widely-publicized slander case (AP coverage here). Basically, Plameiras club director Jose Cryillo Junior hints that midfielder Richarlyson, who plays for rivals Sao Paulo, is homosexual. Richarlyson (odd name, even for a Brazilian soccer player) sues for slander, and the judge rules against him. In his decision, he also wrote that  it would not be "reasonable to accept homosexuals in Brazilian soccer because it would hurt the uniformity present," and suggested that allowing homosexuals into a "virile" sport like soccer would lead to affirmative action and quotas for homosexuals. 

 At first glance, this story does not look like it has a good ending - Richarlyson is jeered, other Brazilian soccer players who pose in gay magazines (apparently not unheard of in Brazil) are harassed even by their own fans, and there are no openly gay players in the top league. However, a deeper look reveals some positive signs. Tales of closeted players have recieved sympathetic airings, the judge has had to withdraw his ruling after being confronted by the ethics board that oversees such decisions, and has taken a "leave of absence," and, most importantly, at some players seem to be pushing for change. Here's to hoping it continues, for, as Richarlyson said, "This is a disrespect not only to me, it's a disrespect to Brazil. All that matters is if the player can do his job on the field."

Our own Zach Marks, having finished up his internship (though hopefully not his blogging) for us here at CP, has now been given a pretty sweet gig - blogging at HuffPo. Regardless of what you think of HuffPo, they don't pick nobodies to blog for them. His first post went up yesterday (and he then stopped by the office in the afternoon, yet didn't tell us about it...so modest). Our congratulations to Zach, and we hope you show his new blog some CP love.

 Also, to read about Zach's culinary skills with a microwave, check out this NY Times story.

The title, of course, only applies if you're a member of Young America's Fascists...er, Foundation, the group of young people who individually probably have more sex dreams about Ronald Reagan than Nancy and Rush Limbaugh combined (Amusingly, YAF bought Reagan's ranch, the oxymoronically named "Rancho del Cielo," or Ranch in the Sky; lucky members get to spend time in an intense training there). In their attempts to put the ugliest face possible on their call for "intellectual diversity" (i.e. Ann Coulter in the classroom), YAF is offering a free poster with the speakers who they want you to know they have. This means, of course, all their best men, and the few women who can actually make it onto their lecture team (the group includes 4 out of the 10 women listed in their speakers section, and a far lower percentage of the men). In other free stuff news, YAF is also offering its 2007-2008 "Conservative Campus Battleplan." We here at Campus Progress need some new bathroom reading anyway, so we'll probably pick it up - last year's version's "facts" aren't as funny the 100th time.

You're a young Republican in Indiana (just go with me here). You're looking for a nice way to end the month of July, so you attend a Young Republicans party, where you enjoy good food and drink while probably insulting the waiting staff and getting completely wasted. The leader of the Young Republicans National Federation, Glenn Murphy, is also there, and is also completely wasted. Kind soul that you are, you decide to offer him your house, because, unlike poor people, he deserves a safety net for his mistakes. You expect you'll be thanked in the morning, and this rising GOP star will remember your name for the future. Right?

 Well, you certainly don't expect to wake up in the middle of the night and finding yourself sexually assaulted. But that's exactly what happened two weeks ago in Indiana, in the latest incident of the best-selling series "GOP Stars - Tales of Forbidden Love." At Columbia, we're quite familiar with this: not only did we share every other progressive's slight glee at the outing of Ted Haggard and Mark Foley, but we also got our own dose of male prostitute. It says something when this sort of scandal doesn't even surprise people anymore. A few more details on the Indiana case in extended.

While flyering for the Clean My Ride campaign, our fellow interns ran into some people from the Republican Youth Majority. It's not a clone of Young America's Fascists...er, Foundation, but rather has three main positions: pro-choice, pro-environment, and fiscally conservative. Board members include some of moderate Republicanism's greatest hits: Pete Wilson, Bill Cohen, William Weld, and so on. 

What to make of this? The not-surprising part is that there is a group like this; many young people (and plenty of older ones) are sick of the litmus tests in politics, and young people(even with evangelical Republicans) are almost always to the left of their parties - though the Iraq War is a notable exception to this rule. The surprising part is their choice of issues. More in extended.

 Warning: this post is simply something I have to get off of my chest. It's mostly not political, nor is it original, but since we're posting (funny) Thiller videos now, I think I can write this.

 As I watched the promising premiere of Mad Men last night on AMC (it repeats tonight at 7, and I'm sure several more times throughout the week; I highly recommend it), I saw that it was created by Matthew Wiener, one of the writers on The Sopranos, which led the primetime series Emmy nominations with 15. The Sopranos deserves to win one more Best Drama award, having unfortunately come along when the West Wing was rightly sweeping the category early in the decade. Now The Sopranos deserves to win, if only because a show that great deserves more than one Best Series win. 

 But I support it only because it's the best of the five remaining. I can live with Scrubs and Studio 60 basically not being recognized, because their quality this year was only very good, not great. But once again, The Wire, the best drama in the history of television, was not nominated. 0 nominations.

 Before anyone calls me a snob, let me quickly point out that I thought Casino Royale should've been a strong contender for best picture at the last Oscars. But this lack of nominations, let alone any wins for 4 seasons, is unbelievable. One can understand leaving off Lost (early season letdown), 24 (by far its worst season), or Battlestar Galactica (the name, plus nothing really happened in its worst season so far). But The Wire has become better and better, with the 4th season being its best yet. As I said, this isn't an original post: TV critics from the AP to the Chicago Tribune to the San Francisco Chronicle brought this up. I'll leave you to choose your reason (the show has too many minorities, the voters don't have time to watch the whole season, and/or it's just not popular enough), but something about the system needs to be fixed, and I needed to say that too. Just rent the first disc of Season 1, and you almost certainly won't go back.

50% rise in the mortality rate. 3 out of 9 hospitals open, with the only public one of the three stuck in temporary facilities, operating at a third of its normal capacity. 6000 physicians displaced. No mechanisms for reimbursement for any physicians that want to return. Almost no places for Louisianan medical students to train in state, thus losing the doctors of the future. These are only a few parts of the disturbing picture that is New Orleans health care after Hurricane Katrina.

Where is the state? They're enjoying a surplus in the billions, yet refusing to invest in the non-existent hospital system. 

 And where is our federal government? Well, most of New Orleans's own representatives are too busy covering themselves for either corruption or hypocrisy.

In the hopes of raising more awareness about this issue, and getting some assistance for those who actually care, I joined some fellow Columbia students yesterday on Capitol Hill to lobby on this issue. More information about the horrible situation and the lobbying trip inside.

General Michael Rose, former commander of the UN force in Bosnia-Herzegovina from 1994-5, has been in the public spotlight again for over a year now, since he called for the impeachment of Tony Blair over the Iraq War. Yet, as his article in yesterday's New York Times shows, while he obviously believes the Iraq War a catastrophic mistake, he is not ready to condemn America to the "has-been" pile of world powers in history. Rose draws several parallels between America and the Iraq War, and Britain and the American Revolution. A war fought with too few resources, followed by extensive hand-wringing over the strategic position of the world power - the situations share these characteristics. And Rose only limits his comparison to the Iraq War - it's very easy to argue that the Vietnam War should also be lumped in here. More discussion, including the important differences (both good and bad) between the British and American situations, inside.

My fellow intern Zach has already touched on this, but this New York Times story from two days ago perhaps demonstrates that old cliche "every cloud has silver lining." Crucially, President Bush's action was a commutation (and, in Bush's defense, at least he didn't pull a Marc Rich; I'm sorry, but the Clintons have no business criticizing this); i.e. he was taking issue with the length of the sentence, as opposed to whether or not Libby was guilty. And the reasons he cited were the same as those that critics of sentencing guidelines. For years, advocates have tried with several different administrations to change federal sentencing guidelines, which, among other mistakes, does not take into account past record of the defendant, and does not prevent the judge from using facts unproven to the jury. More in extended.

Today's the first day of a three-day whirlwind of events here at CP. The Student Journalism Conference and the Iraq Lobby Day just kicked off within the past hour of writing this post, and final preparations are being made for the rest of the week. The main event, the 2007 Student Conference, has already hit Roll Call. Unfortunately, the article is only available through a $275 subscription that college students like myself simply cannot afford, but if you're in the DC area, pick up a paper copy. More coverage is sure to come.

You'd think Americans would know more about their own defense projects than the British press. Apparently not. On Friday, CBS's local San Francisco station 'discovered' that the military had received a proposal to build a "gay bomb," which would release chemicals designed to make soldiers sexually attracted to each other. Of course, the British, with an actually competent press, were on top of this story first: the BBC wrote about this idea two and a half years ago, as did the Guardian (their article includes an idea that I actually would like to see - a "Who? Me?" bomb that would make your fellow soldiers believe you smelled terribly. I am fairly certain they could've gotten this idea from Anchorman - "smells like a turd covered in burnt hair!") Even our own August J. Pollak drew a cartoon about this.

So why am I writing this anyways? See below. 

Note to protestors: one way to get people's attention? Follow the example of the Stanford Sweat-Free Coalition, and put notices like "11 Students Currently Sitting In Offices of President Hennessy. Naked Students Rally Outside, Arrests Possible" in your press releases.

Anyways, the students occupied Stanford President John Hennessy's office for a short time Tuesday, followed by a rally outside. "Some of the students...rallied naked or topless outside Hennessy's office earlier to draw attention to their cause." The original office occupiers were later arrested for trespassing and released (San Jose Mecury News here).

The students wanted for Stanford to join the Designated Suppliers Coalition, a national coalition of colleges who agree to only use clothing suppliers that follow fair labor standards such as a living wage and the ability to form unions. It has only about 30 or 40 member schools right now, so hopefully students can follow Stanford's example and expand this coalition's reach across the country.