Yes, the real Hogwarts—of Weed, naturally—actually exists, and got a wonderful New York Times feature this week in which, like every other time the New York Times tries to talk about weed, we anxiously await whatever bush league-level snickering they can sneak into the copy. Since B-Real isn't an adjunct professor, this could prove difficult for them.

The story: Med Grow Cannabis College is dedicated to informing and educating students about Michigan's new medical marijuana program, which, not a not-smart endeavor, considering the rest of the state's economy is totally cashed. The founder is—again, naturally, or rather: organically—a 24 year-old kid with entrepreneurial aspirations who's name is not Dr. Greenthumb. There's an accompanying video in which someone identifies a strain of weed in the first five minutes as "Obama Kush." And all it costs is $485 for a six-week "primer" on how to grow the best sticky on your street.

And what did the Times come through with here?

• The lede: "At most colleges, marijuana is very much an extracurricular matter."
  
  
• The title: "At this school, it's marijuana in every class."
  
  
• They labeled a video clip "Higher Schooling."
  
  
• This bizarre fill-in-the-blanks line that we're not high enough to laugh at: "....[classes share] stories of their best highs ("Smoke that and you are ... medicated!")."

And...that's it.

Seriously, those are all the weed "jokes" the New York Times managed to pack into an entire story about a university dedicated to Anthropotogy 1010, and the total sketchballs who attend this Hempstra University. If they want to graduate Magna Chronic Laude from Notre Dank, they're gonna have to hit the bongs harder than that. Then again, maybe weed humor just isn't (in) their bag after all.

Barbour's proposed budget would merge the state's three public historically black colleges into one public historically black college. Then, for good measure, Mississippi University for Women would be merged into Mississippi State University.

While his plan stressed that the various merged institutions would survive in some form, he also said that this major reorganization should result in the elimination of many programs, which supporters of black colleges fear will come largely from their institutions. The governor's budget statement said that all of the state's public colleges would see "a rationalization of class offerings.... Every university would be expected to reduce costs by consolidating or eliminating programs not pulling their financial weight." (The plan in total would turn eight universities in the state system into five.)

No better way to get your state out of a financial crisis than to reduce opportunities for minorities, women, and the poor and middle-class to receive quality, affordable education! If only Mississippi had a historically Gay Atheist university whose budget he could slash!

(The Supreme Court found Mississippi's attempts at providing black people with educational opportunities to be somewhat lacking, back in the '90s, and the state promised to heavily fund its HBCs to make up for it. But: "the state's pledge to create a $35 million private endowment to support black colleges never gained more than the initial $1 million that was used to start the endowment seven years ago.")

According to a survey from the University of Michigan that polled therapists on college campuses around the country, "over 90 percent" of college counseling services are "seeing an increase in the number and severity of students with mental health problems." With all of the bad performance art, binge drinking, and meaningless political "activism" that goes on at colleges these days, it wouldn't be surprising if students were going nuts, but the experts say they don't actually think today's collegians are crazier than previous generations.

Daniel Eisenberg, who directs the Healthy Minds Study, says the spike in mental health issues on college campuses may be due to "better screening and earlier diagnosis of mental illness in high school." All of this extra counseling might not be such a good thing though. Mental health professionals have a lot to do with the college ADD drug epidemic. Maybe so many students are rushing to the shrink and claiming to have serious mental health conditions because they all want to score Adderall.

Colleges See Rise In Mental Health Issues [NPR]

As you can probably imagine, a good portion of the interview centered around Polis' sexuality, and to his credit he handled Colbert's ridiculous questions deftly, even turning the tables completely on Colbert to essentially question his sexuality, a strategy which led to a few nuggets of pure comedy gold. And then, after quoting Polis saying that working in Congress was like going back to college, Colbert pulled some cans of Coors Light and a beer funnel from a bag and challenged Polis to funnel beer with him, a dare that Polis accepted, thankfully, as the end result was almost as funny as the time Colbert coaxed Robert Wexler into professing his love for hookers and cocaine.

Things you didn't know before: people can get addicted to weed! For example, this lady, who came home after work, and got blazed:

Joyce, 52 and a writer in Manhattan, started smoking pot when she was 15, and for years it was a pleasant escape, a calming protective cloud. Then it became an obsession, something she needed to get through the day. She found herself hiding her addiction from her family, friends and co-workers.

"I would come home from work, close my door, have my bong, my food, my music and my dog, and I wouldn't see another person until I went to work the next day," said Joyce...

Okay, well, Joyce is 52, but that pretty much rules out anybody on any Gawker Media editorial mastheads, yet basically resembles a fairly accurate description of half the people I know, except they're too broke to have dogs. Also, that sounds like a decent routine, although one that'd get old, fast. Also:

The drug cannot lead to fatal overdose and its hazards pale in comparison with those of alcohol. But at the same time, marijuana can be up to five times more potent than the cannabis of the 1970s, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Weed's getting way better, because there's more out there, so more people are smoking it. Like the internet? No.

They even threw down on an awesome graph showing just how not-addicting marijuana is. But I knew plenty of people like Joyce in my years of rigorous academia, wherein a hot shower ran in a dorm bathroom all day to steam out the smell of marijuana, smoked traditionally before and after long lecture hall classes. These were the exploits of other people far more successful than me. I ended up here, and can't handle my shit when too stoned. I freak out and get paranoid of COPS, MAN, FUCKING COPS. Anyway, these people are what we like to call High-Functioning Stoners, whose existence the Times only hints at:

Jonathan James, has concerns about his own marijuana use. Mr. James, 50, a former choreographer, has been a regular pot smoker for 35 years. He said smoking marijuana helped inspire some of his most original ideas. But Mr. James is afraid to stop smoking, even after kicking heroin and cocaine...He said he would be more successful without pot.

"It keeps me back - from engaging in the dreams and aspirations I have," he said. "I would like to feel I don't need to take anything to feel better."

They also tell sad tales of people who've lost everything to Marijuana addiction, but the medically skeptical side of me just thinks that if it weren't pot, it'd be something else. Isn't that how addictive personalities work?

See, upon first reading the Sunday Styles seemingly investigative piece, it occurred to me that the real problem they try to get at throughout the entire thing but (typically) fail miserably at is: having a weed addiction simply isn't cool. It doesn't carry the I-Was-Out-With-People-Doing-Shit street cred of coke (recent case study: Mischa Barton going crazy) or the I-Was-Hanging-Out-With-People-You'll-Never-Be-Cool-Enough-To-Know je ne sais quoi of heroin (recent case study: the death of Dash Snow), or even the longstanding tradition of Red-Blooded American Alcoholism and Lung Cancer that comes with drinking and smokin' cigs. But weed? Puh-leese.

Then, it occured to me that that's exactly what the Times was hinting at. Weed addictions aren't cool...yet. But they're so rare and looked down upon and things nobody you've heard of or know has, the fact of the matter is that weed addictions are the new heroin addictions, and Sunday Styles was the first to crack the case. Genius.

Unfortunately, despite referencing Louis Armstrong, Bob Dylan, and "silly...movies like 'Harold and Kumar,'" no piece on marijuana addiction is complete without one substantial moment in pop culture, which they miserable failed at including. We've done the pleasure of bringing it to you.

Now: who's got greens?

Marijuana Is Gateway Drug for Two Debates [NYT]

The following scathing anti-grime manifesto was written by Jeffrey Sieben, the IT/Web Manager at the Columbia Journalism Grad School, and sent out via email yesterday morning:

Dear Students,

There have been some comments related to the cleanliness of labs. I
want to state that all labs are cleaned and disinfected on a rotating
schedule, however the primary reason for their sometimes brow raising
appearance is food in the labs.

Any food or drinks at computer workstations is prohibited, there is no
exception. Please keep it at the center table during your busy work
schedules.

Some amount of grime will of course accumulate through normal usage of
public computers however compounded by deliberate food at the stations
is inconsiderate to your fellow students.

Please be considerate and help keep our labs clean! Additionally,
sanitary wipes are available in all the labs should you require extra
cleanliness.

Please send me an email if you have any concerns or are thinking about
calling the CDC.

Take care,
Jeff

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you kids at Columbia? Can't you eat your damn Funyuns and drink your damn Pepsi Max in the quad? Who the hell do you think you all are, James Franco or something?!

Well, actually we don't know the real reason, other than Franco's claims of having to work on a film or something, but this video from The Harvard Lampoon, "James Franco's Rejected UCLA Commencement Speech," which actually stars James Franco, is pretty funny, so we thought we'd share it with you since we chronicled this whole saga last month. Enjoy, brah.

Here's how "Scared Journalist" described their wretched life:

I spent the last four and a half years studying print journalism in college and watching vacantly as the newspaper/magazine industry crumbled before my eyes...I always figured I had what it takes to get a job even in an extremely competitive market: Before I ever graduated, I had completed four internships at newspapers, magazines and a Web site, published almost a hundred clips (including longer, high-quality pieces), and left a good impression with everyone I worked with. I knew I wanted to be a journalist, and I knew that I wanted to write for a living.

Now, six months after graduating, my parents still pay my cellphone bill and I am working full-time making ice cream. I make a couple hundred bucks here and there freelancing for a magazine I interned at, but otherwise my "freelance" career, as well as my journalism career, is dead in the water. I find myself despondent and unable to send out any more cover letters, and I can't find the time or motivation to research a story idea enough to send it to an editor because I assume he or she will simply reject my half-baked idea. I'm panicking, but I fear failure so much that I can't even get started. Freelancing seems to be my best option career-wise, but I can't summon the willpower and enthusiasm to do it. Plus, I lost my license to a DUI conviction (that got me fired from one of those newspaper internships), which has immobilized me and left me unable to relocate to a new job until October. The DUI also contributes to my job-hunting anxiety.

What I see is that my passion for journalism and writing is waning. Working full-time has taught me that work is work and play is play, and that I need to maximize the efficiency of my hours I spend at work in order to maximize how much I can play outside of work. I am looking into jobs in other fields that pay better. Is it healthier to stick it out working at an ice cream store and desperately try to make it as a writer, or should I pursue a career where financial security is more realistic?

This person's letter launched Tennis into an almost incomprehensible treatise on the virtues of the writing life in which he cited Sartre and Boswell and "Samuel Pepys on London Bridge getting blown by whores." What he should have said is this:

Enough with the whining, Sally! From here on out for the remainder of your existence I want you to stop each time you start to feel sorry for yourself and remember that some poor sap on the other side of the world is going to be beheaded today because he trimmed his freaking beard. Got that?

So your parents are paying your cell phone bill. And? What's the problem? Why aren't they paying more of your bills? Why aren't they paying your damn rent as well? Probably because you're too much of a coward to ask them to pay it! Listen kid, you're never going to get anything in life without asking for it, so never be afraid to ask for anything, no matter how ridiculous it may seem. Milk this whole parental support crap for as long as you can. Hell, lie if you have to—Tell them you have cancer and that you need $5000 for some alternative treatment not covered by their insurance that's only available in Bulgaria. Then go to Bulgaria for a couple of weeks, where you'll be fawned over by some of the world's most beautiful people for simply being an American, and you'll still come back with enough money to pay rent for a couple of months because everything's so ridiculously cheap over there. Then tell your parents that the treatment worked and you're cured! Say it with conviction and they'll believe you, because no parent wants to believe that their child would lie about having cancer for rent money. And consider yourself lucky for simply having parents with the means to help you. I wish mine would have. I had to work from the day I left home at 18 and that sucked!

Finally, and I don't really know how to break this to you gently, but you got screwed kid. You just wasted 4 1/2 years of your life and thousands of dollars that would have been better spent traveling the world doing drugs and having sex with beautiful strangers. Then you could have come back and just started a blog making fun of a certain gay British new media overlord and he would've hired you and—Voila!—A media job! But hey, free ice cream can't be all that bad.

And about that DUI—Move to New York where you don't need a car to get around and you can take cabs home when you're bombed out of your mind. Why else do you think this city is the media capital of the world?

I Studied Print Journalism: Now What? [Salon]

So what world leader or esteemed person of letters did UCLA get to replace Franco, the noted sleep-deprived grad student/part-time thespian? The LA Times reports:

UCLA announced that Brad Delson, lead guitarist for the popular rock-rap band Linkin Park, will step in to replace movie star James Franco as commencement speaker at Friday's graduation ceremony for the College of Letters and Science.

A committee of administrators, faculty and students turned to Delson after Franco withdrew, and officials expressed gratitude that Delson accepted the invitation on such short notice to address an audience expected to number 10,000 in Pauley Pavilion.

Brad Delson? Brad Freaking Delson? Are you kidding? No offense intended to Mr. Delson, noted by the Times as a UCLA alum who has established a scholarship fund at the school, but if we'd spent $100,000 on an education at UCLA, one of the more prominent institutions of higher learning in the country, and our graduation speaker was a guitarist for pop/rock band, we'd be mildly disturbed. Then again, we suppose Brad Delson is better than P.O.D. drummer Wuv Bernardo, who we heard was UCLA's backup in the event Delson couldn't clear his schedule.

How does it feel knowing that Arizona State is laughing at you right now UCLA?

Rock Star to Replace Actor for UCLA Graduation Speech [LA Times]

In a statement released by the school this afternoon, Franco blames his heinous betrayal of his alma mater on some crap scheduling conflicts.

"I deeply regret not being able to keep my commitment to giving the commencement speech at UCLA's graduation this year," Franco said in a prepared statement provided to UCLA. "Unfortunately the date conflicts with me needing to be on location to begin pre-production on my next film. I wish everyone in the 2009 class the best of luck in all of their future endeavors."

Whatever! What a load of BS. We heard that some Fordham kids were throwing a kegger at a house on the Jersey shore next Friday night, and there's no freaking way James Franco is going to miss out on that action. James Franco just bailed on UCLA to get high and laid, just like Bill Clinton did last year.

Meanwhile, the slighted UCLA grads are venting their angst on Twitter, naturally.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.

See what you're doing James Franco? That's the youth of America speaking right there, and you're destroying them! How will the school ever find someone whose academic and cultural significance is on par with yours on such notice? Who can they possibly find to take their high five-figure speaking fee to step before a podium and spout a bunch of horrible lies cloaked as truth in flowery rhetoric about how they're the future of the nation and how they can change the world and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? Who will they find to tell them that in five years there's no way they'll ever regret starting out their lives $100,000 in debt for a seemingly worthless piece of paper when they could have been traveling the world having orgies with beautiful strangers and experimenting with mind-altering chemicals? Oh yeah, we almost forgot—- Tom Friedman will cash just about any check!

Whatever, James Franco hates UCLA and he really hates America. This much is certainly true, even though some UCLA students were hoping this would happen.

James Franco not speaking at UCLA commencement ceremony [UCLA Newsroom]

It was four juveniles walking around with a toy gun, that they scored rummaging through all the crap Princetonians leave behind as they rush away for the summer. In other news, Princeton students are corrupting the youth with intoxicants!

Police believe the incident stemmed from a bigger problem of kids from town going on campus and rummaging through dumpsters looking for unused alcohol, which campus security says has been on ongoing problem.

These drunk kids wandering around with a "green toy handgun" and a half-empty bottle of Malibu that they filched from the trash caused the entire campus to be on full lockdown for 90 minutes. The lesson for Princeton students: Don't leave behind anything dangerous that could be used for mischief by your inferiors.

[CentralJersey.com. Pic via]

What a shock that Marcus Epstein, an employee of America's most racially sensitive former congressmen (he also works for Bay Buchanan!), would've ever done something like this:

"On July 7, 2007, at approximately 7:15 p.m. at Jefferson and M Street, Northwest, in Washington, D.C., defendant was walking down the street making offensive remarks when he encountered the complainant, Ms. [REDACTED], who is African-American. The defendant uttered, ‘Nigger,' as he delivered a karate chop to Ms. [REDACTED]'s head."

Yes, well, that was in the distant past! He is a different man now! Epstein was going to attend law school at the University of Virginia, to prove how smart and not-racist-anymore he is now (??), but, uh, UVA's dean of admissions says that that isn't going to happen. Maybe because he neglected to include that criminal conviction in his application?

Sometimes I wish that just one time in a situation like this Obama would walk up to the microphone and say, "you know what...screw all y'all!" But a boy can dream, can't he?

In a related story, Hillary Clinton gave the commencement address to graduates of NYU at the new fake Yankee Stadium. She also took batting practice and hit 5 out of 10 pitches over the right field wall.

Clip via Youtube.

Hah, no, we're not. No, instead NYM is just exposing this kid—who goes by "Maximilian" of course—to the ridicule and vitriol of people like us, who decorated their own dorm room with empty whiskey bottles and cigarette ash.

This kid, though! He is going places! Really terrible places!

Maxamilian, voted "preppiest in class" at Choate, "has a sincere love for Stubbs & Wootton slipper shoes and melon-colored pants."

Look at everything about this paragraph!

When other 15-year-olds were going to lacrosse camp, Sinsteden worked for David Easton, a neoclassical decorator in the Albert Hadley/Bunny Williams school. After his first year of college, he interned for Moss and still works for her one day a week. "I finish her sentences," he says. "And she reads my mind."

No, New York. That is not what "other 15-year-olds" were doing. Other 15-year-olds were playing Xbox and texting lewd photos of themselves to one another and getting high and maybe working at the ice cream stand at the park. Also, Maxy, anyone can read your mind. Your mind is a 30-year-old novelty book. Look, we're reading your mind right now: "I'm a tool."

Still, we cannot fault his one gesture toward the sacred duty of a guy not to be THAT fucking guy:

It's not unusual to find twenty friends crammed into Sinsteden's room, enjoying the contents of his well-stocked bar.

Ah, college. Anyone with liquor or drugs is tolerable for a night!

Make sure to check out the slideshow! It features this immortal phrase: "The tie-backs are repurposed ascots."

Nyle, who's graduating from NYU this spring, told NYU Local that he made the video cover of Lil' Wayne with a $2,000 grant from the school and it took 30 takes to get right. His plans for after graduation: continue to pay rent by throwing parties in his Bushwick party loft and try to make it as a rapper. Or, from the song: "I ain't stressin' this recession if it leads to a depression / It won't be in my mind, I'll be all right / As long as I'm surviving off of beats and rhyming / Then I don't mind surviving off of eating no ramen." Ah, youth.

There were two arrests, according to the AP, after NYPD cops blocked the group from reaching Kerrey's home. That comes on the heels of yesterday's arrests of 22 students after the cops rather brutally shut down a brief occupation of a New School building and then totally got caught lying about it.

The cops initially insisted that pepper spray wasn't used in yesterday morning's operation, telling the New York Time's City Blog yesterday that it was "untrue that pepper spray or mace was used in effectuating the arrests." When that was challenged, a spokesman later clarified that he meant no pepper spray was used to arrest people inside the building. But after being shown video footage of actual pepper spray actually being sprayed into the occupied building by actual cops, an NYPD spokesman offered this gem of a quote to the Times this morning: "Now, once I see it, I know what is going on."

You also can't shove people for videotaping you in the course of your police misconduct! City Room finally posted this video from the New School protest that was crushed by the police earlier today. When you watch it, keep in mind that the NYPD's spokesperson told the NYT it was "untrue that pepper spray or mace were used in effectuating the arrests." Liar:

At around 11, riot cops stormed the occupied building and started pulling out the protesters and arresting them. It looks like this occupation—the most reasonable one so far—is now over. Note to protesters: an end like this is far, far better for your cause than, say, the pitiful fizzle that happened at NYU. New School prez Bob Kerrey just sent out this email to the student body:

Subject: Announce from President Kerrey Concerning today's Break In at 65 5th Avenue

April 10, 2009

A Note to the Community

On December 15, 2008, an unofficial student organization calling themselves the New School in Exile occupied the cafeteria at 65 Fifth Avenue, barricaded themselves into the room, and issued a set of demands. Early on the morning of December 16, a group of students and non-students broke through a fire exit on 14th street and entered the building.

Although the occupants had violated a number of important security rules, the university made the judgment they were neither an operational or a security risk. Accordingly, we did not file a complaint with the New York Police Department to have the occupants removed. Instead we entered into a process of negotiations with our students and reached agreement on a list of demands including amnesty for all involved early on the morning of December 17. The students left peacefully at that time.

In January, this same unofficial student organization issued a public threat to forcefully shut down the university on April 1 unless the President and Chief Operating Officer were removed. Following this they were caught stealing an entire edition of the student newspaper on account of a story they regarded as unfavorable to them; and subsequently they vandalized the university's presidential residence.

During this time the university has allowed and accommodated every peaceful protest, teach-in, and demonstration. We have enforced our rules governing such events in such a way as to permit protests, so long as they don't endanger the safety of other members of the community or destruction of property.

This morning's illegal occupation of 65 Fifth Avenue was joined by a number of New School in Exile students as well as individuals without any affiliation to The New School. Their claim that this was a simple political protest is false. Their entry into this building was forced, they removed a man who was cleaning the building, took his phone, injured a security officer, and did physical damage to the building.

Accordingly, in this case the university asked the New York Police Department to remove and arrest those who were trespassing on our property. We suspended, pending administrative review, all New School students who were a part of this action.

The New School prides itself on civic engagement. We have been and will continue to be a refuge for open and critical political debate. Students and faculty who choose to peacefully and passionately oppose the policies of the university will have their rights to do so protected as strongly as we protect our right to safely and securely operate our university.

President Bob Kerrey

[Pic: yee.doris' Flickr. If you have video of the alleged police pepper spray rampage, send it here]

The University of Maryland student union was going to play a film called Pirates 2: Stagnetti's Revenge, a reasonably big-budget fuck flick based on those pirate movies from the Disney people but with fake tits and bad jokes instead of Johnny Depp and bad jokes. (And with explicit sex, obviously. It's probably shorter than those damn pirate movies too.)

Why were they doing this? Well, for one, it's hard to get people to show up at the Student Union for anything these days, because the student union is pretty gay.

As the student union theater program director explained:

Students have been wanting to show a triple-X movie for some time, and she was waiting for one that wasn't too violent or degrading, one that had a plot.

Ok, sure. Why not. What's the harm?

Well one killjoy in the Maryland State Senate got wind of this plot to have students actually pay for pornography and he was not pleased!

Sen. Andrew P. Harris (R-Baltimore County) called it "shocking" and offered a budget amendment: Any public university that allowed the screening of a triple-X film would forfeit state funding — about $424 million next year in U-Md.'s case.

Hah. Nice one, Andrew Harris. Strip a major public university of public funding because its student-funded activities committee was going to allow adult students to buy tickets to watch an adult film. Yes, wonderful. But why, Senator Harris?

"Pornography is not fun. It's poison," said Harris, who told his colleagues that he is the father of three daughters, the eldest of whom is a college senior.

Look, most porn "is not fun." But there's a whole world of it out there, Andrew!

While the Maryland State Senate was debating this important issue, elementary school classes kept wandering in on tours, as in a hilarious farcical movie or something.

While another senator was pressing Harris about why his amendment did not apply to double-X or single-X films, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) noticed that a group of third-graders had arrived to watch the action from the Senate gallery.

"Can we move to another amendment?" Miller said. And then: "We welcome the students from Plum Point Elementary School."

As debate on the other issue wrapped up, he told the children: "We're waiting for you to leave the room. We've got to talk about bad stuff."

Later, another senator was citing research that pornography makes men more angry at women who flirt but refuse to have sex. A group from Hollywood Elementary School in St. Mary's County then arrived.

Hah. The hilariously punitive budget measure probably would not have passed, but the school decided to cancel the screening anyway, just to be safe. So good work, Maryland State Senator Andrew Harris, you have saved these college students from ever seeing poisonous pornography.