First, the only reason to declare the neighborhood "blighted" would be to hand it over to the school:

And second, shut up, Columbia:

[Full ruling via NYT]

Yes, it's that Glenn Beck, looking and sounding sort of like a normal, non-crazy person, perhaps bolstering our theory that he's nothing more than a crafty modern charlatan in the process, bragging about having a book on the New York Times bestseller list (Isn't it funny when Times-loathing conservatives get positively giddy when their dumb books make its bestseller list?).

Leaning into the camera looking downright thoughtful, pensive even, Beck says that An Inconvenient Book is "deep" and "smart" and that everyone should read it, even if they disagree with everything he says, so that maybe some sort of common ground can be discovered to make America a more tolerant place for all of us to live in. And then, for his closing, Beck plays the "I have a daughter who loves Harry Potter books and wants to go to Columbia" card.

Now, first of all, isn't it heresy or something for the children of conservatives to read stories about witches and warlocks? And secondly, isn't Beck's contrast in style when he's trying to reach out to people on the left, as opposed to his usual wingnut Fox News audience, absolutely striking? It's fascinating really, like watching an elephant mating with a zebra in the wild or something. You just can't look away!

Vid via YouTube

VentureBeat blogger Eric Eldon, who lives in the hipster San Francisco neighborhood of the Lower Haight and rides a hipster bicycle to other hipster neighborhoods and wears hipster glasses and has a hipster job and is generally in denial about being a hipster, criticized hipsters and their cowboy-boot affectations, just in time for them all to pack up their cowboy boots and fly to Austin for SXSW.

Facebook platform manager Dave Morin, who lives in the San Francisco hipster neighborhood of North Beach and is in such denial about being a hipster he doesn't even realize he should be in denial about being a hipster, packed up his cowboy boots and flew to Austin for SXSW.

Cutie-pie CBS Internet correspondent Natali Del Conte got stalked in Texas by Luke Wilson and Paul Rudd.

Chris Lehmann, better known as Mr. Wonkette Emerita, grokked a fundamental truth about Del Conte and Morin's destination. (Psst, Chris: SXSW has hotels, a complete lack of boot-ruining playa dust, and better food. But other than that, you're on to something there.)

Hipster-mongering Details editor Daniel Peres doesn't read Gawker unless told to, Columbia J-school student James Sims, who we suspect is himself a hipster, wrily noted.

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The Wall Street Journal reports that the job market for practitioners of the dismal science is dreadful. Columbia University isn't hiring anyone this year. Three other colleges have stopped looking for economics professors. Harvard's hiring one professor, rather than two or three.

And academia is one of the few job options left, with investment banks having disappeared altogether. Government agencies are slow to increase their budgets, and competition for those jobs have increased. It's a simple matter of supply and demand, as any economist would tell you.

At Columbia, the Spectator is like the New York Times. Yes, there are problems, institutional and otherwise, but it remains the must-read campus publication. The Blue & White is like the New Yorker, containing book reviews, profiles of campus characters, witty asides, but only read, and written by, an elite group of effete students. When the Blue & White launched the Bwog the year after I graduated, it soon became the Gawker of Columbia.

Campus drama is a bubble, so media drama within a campus is perhaps too insular to take seriously. The tipster's complaint &mdash that the Bwog has resorted to criticizing campus publications &mdash is old news. Josie Swindler (one of my former editors at the Spec) did a fascinating piece on race at the Spectator for the Blue & White in 2006. Swindler took the issue as seriously as the New Yorker would writing about the Times.

But according to the tipster, things are down a notch on the Bwog. The site mocks the Barnard Bulletin's soduku box. (By the way, has anyone noticed the Post's word scramble is totally sucking lately?)

I emailed a friend who graduated after me about to ask about this and she said, "it sounds like a group of sore-losers who want some bigger media attention ... the Bwog was originally almost purely vicious and intended to criticize other students and other publications ... things change when editors change, esp at campus publications."

The bad news, tipster, is that you might be a sore loser. The good news is that Columbia has prepared you for the real world. Or at least the internet part of the real world.

Seventy faculty members have signed a letter protesting the president's tantrum, which "sullied the reputation of the University with its strident tone," according to the letter, which was obtained by the New York Sun.

"You don't invite someone and then take him apart in the introduction," said Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mark Strand, who teaches at Columbia and signed the letter. "I don't understand it ethically, and I don't understand what it accomplished—that was my justification for signing the letter."

They're also more than a little pissed that Bollinger hasn't come to their defense against "outside groups" (like, for instance, the New York Sun!) who attempt "to vilify members of the faculty and determine how controversial issues are taught on campus." The irate academics will present their letter to a larger faculty meeting tomorrow. No letters denouncing nooses and swastikas on campus yet though!

Swastika Painted on Columbia Professor's Door [NYT]

The first is that, having leaned on the First Amendment as rationale for Iranian prime minister Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent speech at the school (the controversial spotlight of which they so thoroughly enjoyed!), the school's administrators may be wary of the appearance of being selective constitutionalists by folding too easily on the Fourth. Hmm. Possible! Unlikely!

The second, (cue swelling conspiratorial background music), is that there is something on that tape that Columbia doesn't want in the public arena. What could it be? Some on the Internets have suggested that Prof. Constantine may have left the noose herself: Making a vague point about the Jena 6? Livening up the stunningly dull academic discourse on diversity and tolerance? Ensuring that the tenure committee will tread lightly come decision-making time?

That's pretty far-fetched. Maybe the tape just happened to catch Columbia president Lee Bollinger in a compromising position with a graduate student. Kidding! Regardless, we're curious about this one. Send your thoughts, hate mail and inside information here.