First of all, the only people besides Harvard-Yale grads who have anything invested in this ritual are their hangers-on, asshole bloggers (me), or sports writers, who think they have a really great narrative on their hands by writing the same narrative they do every year. Watch. This year's filing by ESPN, penned by one Mr. Tom Lakin:

It is, after all, the 126th installment of a tradition that began back in 1875 with a 4-0 Harvard win. In the years since that first meeting, the legend of The Game has grown. Perhaps best known is the 1968 contest in which Harvard scored 16 points in the final 42 seconds to tie an undefeated and heavily favored Yale squad — a result immortalized in The Harvard Crimson student newspaper by the famous headline "Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29."

In 2008:

Before two of the nation's oldest universities had a field to play on, they were eager to prove which school was superior in the rough-and-tumble new sport of football. Since 1875, the Harvard-Yale rivalry has emerged simply as "The Game."...And with Satuday's tilt at the Yale Bowl the first time since 1968 both Yale and Harvard come into The Game unbeaten in league play, the rivalry game will determine the Ivy title.

And in 2007:

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — The current Yale and Harvard players have heard all about the tradition of the venerable rivalry and are preparing to make some history of their own. Meeting No. 124 is Saturday and the stakes are as high as they get with the Ivy League title up for grabs. Both teams enter with 6-0 conference records. The last time that happened was 1968 and Harvard famously rallied from 16 points down in the final 42 seconds to tie Yale, spoiling Yale's perfect season.

So, yeah: basically, the same shit every year. Big old tradition for people who don't normally care about football to care about football. These people don't have time for football! Between all the awesome regattas and going to one of a handful of schools getting a degree from now maybe matters, football's mostly bullshit to them until they own a stake in whatever team is smashing the Bears this week. To the rest of us, it's interesting only if you've really seen Big or The Dark Knight that many times, and there's nothing else to watch on TV. Because the Harvard-Yale game, as far as football goes, sucks. This is not an opinion so much as it is a general consensus.

This young gentlemen seems to think this year's hyperbolic announcing of the Yale-Harvard game might be a bit much.

As in, straight-up stupid. Because, yes, going to a game in New Haven is just like seeing a game anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon line. You don't need to watch football or sports or even have been to the south to understand this. One palpable difference is: at the Harvard-Yale game, this guy has a better chance at scoring than either of the teams.

Needless to say, the situation in the SEC is slightly different. Like security! At Old Miss, they have issues with people wearing costumes. I mean, sure, Yale has people in "costumes."

But real football games don't mess with things like facepaint, or the asstacular body suit pictured above. Oh no, these guys go all out:

Woah, there, buddy! Went a little over the edge with your sporty spirit, no? Just slightly. KKK guys, showin' up to Old Miss games. At least the Ivy crowd would pick up on this kind of irony, and dress as Marxists, or something. What'd security at the Yale-Harvard game look like today?

OH ZHHOOOZHOOPUPPY.

Yeah, but Ivy Peeps can get hard, too, motherfuckers.

When they're not busy farting out the inevitable air of disappointment over the uninitiated. Observe the sad and sober:

A first-time drinker's disappointment, maybe? Next time we suggest an ether-soaked cloth. Because this isn't exactly the riotous assembly the rest of College Football gets to see every Saturday. Oh no. This is something else. The easily intimidated should gird their loins:

Who's skiing, today, right? The most accurate assessment might come via comparative basis. Granted, your high school football team may not be running world economies, but at least they can run an audible.

There is, however, culture to be had! And Yale-Harvard has a competitive spirit, to be sure. While inflatable bulldogs loom over alumni old and young, the youngest are trying to get drunk enough to black out—but inevitably puking—while rumblings and remembrances of competition not yet had or had too often result in the vicious pejorative shouting of whose school is better. It results in things like this. NSFW, especially if your work has a thing against assholes being incredible assholes and bad apings of The Departed:

And astute observations!

In SECspeak, this translates to EAT SHIT AND DIE YANKEE even though a rival school might only be thirty minutes north of another. Lost in translation, again and again. Other dispatches emerge:

I'm not sure what that means, but then again, I didn't go to Yale. Or Harvard. But I bet it has something to do with the enormous networking opportunities that present themselves at these things. Next year, I'm dressing as this guy and not leaving until I've closed a lower rate on my Visa. Or at least my dry cleaning bill.

But in the end, a winner must emerge. And today's winner was a come-from-behind defeat by Harvard. Let the celebrating begin. With Batman fans:

The Dark Knight would like you to get home safely, you second-rate sissies! A 14-10 victory IN YO FACE. More! The Harvard Law Dean of Students' Twitter Feed would like to feed into your insecurities over and over and over Yalies. Even they gotta get in on the action:

And Yale fans, like any good sports fans, prepare to riot at the failure of their warriors. Cop cars, turned over! Terrible taunting! Emotionally scarring and physically dangerous situations, yes? Yes!

We all have our own private consolations. Because, really, though, all college football ends in the same result, no matter who it is winning, no matter your school, your degree, your color, age, race, sexual orientation, tax bracket, building clearence, byline or birthright, we really truly are all the same when it comes to the endgame of a football victory: some straight-up homoerotic manlove, as fans rush the field.

Granted, these fans won't be getting arrested today, like everyone else's, but then again, they're not tearing down goalposts, either. Hell, they might get to play on "special teams" for an hour or two. A higher, deeper education, indeed. Note the young man in the left-hand corner of the picture, though: he knows, oh yes, he knows the truth of the situation. Yale-Harvard games, like their students, are just different. In the best ways possible.

Back in August, six lab workers drank coffee from the same coffee machine, and each fell ill almost immediately. One even passed out. They were all treated at the hospital. Investigators found that the coffee had been spiked with sodium azide, a preservative used in the labs that oh by the way is deadly. This news didn't come out until yesterday, when the Boston Herald broke the story. But hey, maybe this was just some sort of accident thing?

"An accident? Sodium azide is a poison," said David M. Benjamin, a toxicologist and Chestnut Hill-based clinical pharmacologist. "Absolutely not."

Whoa, okay, excuse us! Not everyone here is a toxicologist, Mr. Benjamin. Harvard is still being weirdly tight-lipped about the investigation of, ahem, Attempted Murder Most Foul. For PR reasons, doubtlessly—they saw what happened at Yale in the Annie Le case. Although they do note they're "installing more security cameras" in the medical school. So if you med students are gonna fuck there, fuck quick.
[Pic via]

Now, credit where credit's due: a few weeks ago, John wrote:

You do not want to miss the weekly festival of swooning self-regard and misty incoherence that will be Peggy Noonan's "Study Group" for undergrads this year, during her fellowship at the Kennedy School's Institute of Politics.

Let's see how on the money he was. Tipster, take us away:

After about an hour with the woman, I'm happy to report that she seemed incredibly inebriated, and seldom more than a little coherent. Peggy was a ridiculous and hilarious person to speaking with any authority on anything at all.

It gets better:

First of all, she spoke. Exactly. As. She. Writes. She emphasized these fragments by pounding on the desk with each word. Her eyes focused, and and more frequently unfocused. A couple of times she spit onto her brown vest and pretended it didn't happen. She looked older than her press photos. Ms. Noonan spoke in a sing-song, condescending voice reserved usually for developmentally delayed 2nd graders. After she completed a thought, she'd pause and smile, staring at the air in front of her, reflecting on her impeccable delivery and overreaching wisdom. She used baseball metaphors more than twice.

I'll count that as a double. More, please:

She isn't teaching a class. It's a study group. It's just two hours of listening to a woman who should not be permitted to operate heavy machinery.

Sometimes, this job does itself. Here are your Peggy Noonan Goes to Harvard quotes. Someone get this woman to a kegger. Or at least a regatta. I've provided context with them strictly with emoticons. I think, for all intents and purposes, they otherwise speak for themselves:

• "I'm not a brain surgeon. You have to be a professional. I did my best and I didn't kill anybody. I can't remember what the point of my answer is." : )
  
  
• "You know, and the problem with George W. Bush, is that he made the whole world so nervous. Y'know!" :-O
  
  
• "My study group is about being a person who thinks things and believes them and turns them into words that convey thoughts and feelings." : /
  
  
• "You never have to feel that you're not allowed to think what you think." (>.<)
  
  
• "I wasn't sure I could wear mascara every day. One should dress. One should wear mascara when one can." 8<
  
  
• "I wasn't sure I could stay awake all day. This is one of the major stresses of life - making sure you can stay awake all day. I happen to think sleep is one of the most important things in life. Trying to wake up, trying to fall asleep. I don't know why I'm talking about this." :,(
  
  
• "It's not a faux pas to love your country. Its history. Its traditions. Love it. Bring that love into the world. Share it and the world looks at you and says, ‘Oh, I get it!'" :D
  
  
• "My best advice for you is never feel bad about being a loser." :-#
  
  
• "You Have To Let Your Freak Flag Fly." >°,,,°<

There's a terrible recession on, okay, and Harvard has lost billions of dollars, and who is suffering? The Harvard Student Hobos. Consider their deprivations: Athletes must buy their own sweatsuits! Faculty members must buy their own cookies! Students in far-flung dorms are being forced to walk upwards of ten minutes just to reach campus—and they must buy their own breakfasts along the way! Excuse Harvard students for being surprised to find themselves in the slums of Lagos or somewhere similar!

"Students generally feel that if you come to Harvard, for what you're paying, you should probably have the right to a hot breakfast," said Andrea Flores, a senior who is president of the Undergraduate Council. "They want to preserve the things that are at Harvard that you can't get anywhere else."

Things that are at Harvard that you can't get anywhere else: Breakfast. Alrighty. The people most affected are Harvard athletes, who must now stumble home from practice and pass out due to lack of nutrients. Luckily Harvard athletes sucked already so nobody can tell the dif. (Except you, Matt Birk!).

"I think the [budget cut] process can hopefully be done peacefully." YEA PROBABLY SO, *snicker*.

As if the name weren't complimentary enough. Naturally, the Sunday Styles is all over this kind of thing, as they're trying to cash in on the breathless outrage that Cintra Wilson's readership will strike back with. Now remember: there are eight Lvy league schools. In fourth grade, when I was a wee Gawker Weekend writer, I created a nice mnemonic device to help me remember: YA BRO! CORNPENN PRINCE HARVARD IN THE BROWN MOUTH BIA (That's Yale, Brown, Cornell, UPenn, Princeton, Harvard, Dartmouth, and Columbia). For extra points, guess which four are regularly written off by the other four; there are multiple answers.

These eight schools churn out the most important people in the universe; these are the people who all think Ayn Rand was right and also, the people who think Ayn Rand was completely full of shit. Our titans of industry! Our politicians! Our innovators in science and technology! Our Keith Gessens! Etc. But what happens when you start tainting the pool of connections with their lessers? Washington University? Ughghghhh. I'm feeling peaked. Alastair, I need to sit down. Hang on to your hats:

Washington U? Really? Yes, that's where the "Plus" comes in (but only if you attended medical school there). The Ivy Plus Society has taken the concept of an Ivy League alumni club - promising communion with fellow members of the elite, or even a leveraging of old school ties - and enlarged the magic circle to nearly two dozen other universities and graduate schools.

Fuck. You know some Freemasons are gonna be pissed. First, slavery's abolished. Then, the new Dan Brown book. And now this?! The founder is some real-estate lawyer from California, blah blah blah, she wants to bring people together. Honestly, sometimes I think the people who put together networking events are compensating for not having robust social lives of their own. Or maybe their lives are too social! Either way, you know they think Facebook is the greatest. Well these people remember when Facebook left Cambridge to include them, too. USC, suck a dong:

Ms. Anderson said that the "plus" institutions - including Stanford, Duke, M.I.T. and West Point - are those with a "natural affiliation" with the Ivies, in addition to top business, law and medical schools. "If you wanted to describe these schools, these are all highly selective, academically rigorous institutions," she said, although social reputations also come into play. "The Duke people are so much fun. There's just some schools you want to make sure you include."

Sadly, the aforementioned Chico State didn't make the cut. The Times subtly notes the entire angle here is as a singles thing, and really, who goes to singles events but Jews and Mormons? Ivy Leaguers meet their people at their typical feeding grounds: Dorrians, etc. Finally, they just cut the shit:

To the cynically inclined, Ivy Plus is a meet market for the pedigreed. One young Dartmouth graduate, declining to give his name, said: "It's a singles party masquerading as a networking event. Look around, it's clusters of guys and girls just staring at each other."

But come on, New York Times. It's obviously not just a singles thing, like every other networking event. It's something bigger than that.

"It's an environment where it's easy to talk to new people and you have some shared common background," said Jennifer Wilde Anderson, the founder of Ivy Plus. "You can say: ‘Hi James, you went to Harvard? My brother went there.' Or, ‘You went to Dartmouth? I remember when we used to sail there and the awesome Dartmouth regatta parties.' "

OH BITCH YOU DID NOT JUST GO THERE. We all know they don't really have regatta parties at Dartmouth. That'd be like talking about the football at Duke: sure, it exists, but nobody actually knows about it or gives a shit. Dartmouth's not Yale enough for that, even though Yale would say they're not Princeton enough for that. GOD. The outraged are already beginning to speak:

This is what you get for promoting the assimilation of Ivy blood, New York Times. There will be wars over this kind of thing. Haven't you seen Demolition Man? This is far from over. Meanwhile, while they're not tazing anyone outside of the Ivy Plus who tries to gain entry (yet), they're still being called out:

Michal Albanese, a sales executive for a fashion trade show who graduated from Brown in 1999, confirmed that the list did breed insecurity in some at the group's last party. A couple of guests were called out for not having gone to Ivy Plus universities, she said, and one gentleman began rattling off his other accomplishments.

"The guy went to, like, Illinois," she said, trying to recall the college.

"I don't remember," she added. "But his friend kept saying, ‘You're not even a plus.' "

Burn him at the stake. Remember Facebook, people. Remember Facebook. Never forget. First they came for the networking events, and I didn't speak out. Etc.

For some ungodly reason, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government saw fit to make Noonan a fellow this year. As part of the application process, candidates are asked to write up a syllabus of the course they will enlighten impressionable young undergrads with. Noonan wrote hers like she writes her column: She poured a glass of white wine, put on some Commodores, curled up in a big comfy chair with a Snuggie, and turned on the crazy.

Herewith, annotated selections from the syllabus for "CREATIVITY IN JOURNALISM, IN POLITICS AND IN LIFE: A Writer's Perspective, a study group led by IOP fellow Peggy Noonan, Tuesdays 4:00-5:30 p.m., Faculty Dining Room."

A writer tries to make clarity out of confusion, to capture reality, to see what is. A good writer is trying to be alive. A columnist says, "I think this is true, I want to tell you about it, please listen to me, let's think about it together."

Oh, lord. I don't think we're thinking what you're thinking, Peggy.

It is often said that writing is a solitary act, and that is true –- it's you and your brain, your soul and your response to something that's happening either in the world or in your head. And you bring to it, to this subject, what knowledge you have of life, and of man, and of history. But at the same time it is not a solitary act if you are lucky enough to have an audience for your work.

OK, follow closely kids, cause this gets complicated and I'm not going over it again: Writing=You+your brain+your soul+the larger of either your response to the voices in your head OR the voices on the teevee DIVIDED BY everything you know TIMES the square root of your audience. WRITE THAT DOWN.

Ronald Reagan was interesting as a political figure in part because when he spoke there was a quality of mutual listening going on, a listening so intense it was like a form of communication. He would make his case and illustrate his points and you'd sit in the audience and think, "Yes, that's true, I agree" or, "Hmmm, I'm not sure."

Or you could think, Gosh, I'm a little chilly. Maybe I should switch to bourbon. Is it four yet? Oh well. This white wine's a little cold, though. Why did I choose the white wine? Oh, I wanted to polish off that bottle, that's right. OK, I'll just finish it off and then warm myself back up with the Knob Creek. I wonder what they would taste like if I mixed them together? My kingdom for an electric Snuggie! You know what's wrong with our culture? No one stands anymore—Ronald Reagan could stand, and he could walk, the way our fathers stood and walked when there were wars and everyone wore hats and carried handkerchiefs. A handkerchief is like a smile—a wry little smile that says, "Everything's going to be OK, miss. You just don't worry, we'll take care of everything." Are there handkerchiefs on the internet? Maybe there are, but I don't think so. I think we need a handkerchief, to lift us up and carry us back to when things like people and dogs and trees really mattered. Why are we always so angry? God I'd love 15 minutes in the back of a car with Lionel Richie. Where was I? You could think that, too.

So: onward, to a writer's life.

Session One:
Introduction: An Overview:
Who I am. Where I am from. What I have done. My career. Being a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan; being young at CBS News when it too was young, and the Tiffany Network, and carried itself like the greatest army in the world, with spirit and élan and pride, and not a small amount of conceit.

No, not a small amount at all.

Session Two:
"What It Is to Work In a White House."
You've seen the television show The West Wing, on which I was for a short time a consultant. You've read What I Saw at the Revolution, or should have, God knows. Is there more to say? Yes. Herein I say it. Here's where I start: What a privelage, what a great exhausting drama, to do what you are doing, which is: Living History.

What an idiot, you are, to do what you have done, which is: Misspell "privilege."

Session Five:
"What It Is to be a Columnist."
"My column? I call it my pillar!" William Safire is said to have said. What columnists are trying to do. Why they do it. How they do it. Why it matters. Our guest will be, one hopes, a great columnist.

Great columnists. Write. In sentence fragments. Because. It's hard. To write complete. Thoughts.

Session Six:
"What It Is to Write A book?"
To write a book is to swing for the fences. Books last. The great CBS News anchor Charles Kuralt once said in my presence, gesturing toward the television, "That doesn't last, but this" – he gestured toward a book case – "does." (Actually if Google has its way maybe this will change; maybe they'll delete us.) But until they do, books are forever. I've written eight. All nonfiction. Let's talk about them, about the writing of them, and let us have as a guest a great book writer.

Let us!

Session Seven:
"Where Is America now, politically?"
And where exactly should it be? I have some thoughts.

No you don't, Peggy. You do not have any thoughts.

Is it good that what was essentially a media monopoly has been broken? Yes. And it's bad, too.

Knob Creek time!

Session Eight:
"Wrap Up Session."
What did we learn? What can we conclude about the writer's life? What interests you about politics? What is good about modern media, and what is bad? Let us talk about journalism, politics, and life.

This woman is a national fucking treasure. There's also a video of Noonan explaining the class, which she apparently confused with an appearance on Sesame Street.

The best part of this video is when Harvey tells the reporter how "Animals. And vegetables. Belong. On the yard!" (At Harvard). And then a little later his eyes flash with excitement and he says how historic this whole cow-grazing business is: "We're gonna hear more about that in about ten minutes here."

He's about to tell you some shit. About cows!

[Boston.com via IvyGate. Pic: Flickr]

Yes, we Americans — and, in fact, all Western dwellers — are taught that we should aim for schools like Harvard, Yale, Brown and, if you must, Vassar. Yet, in a sad testament to our nation's increasingly depressing economic situation, all four of those schools are losing their economic prestige.

Harvard announced today that their endowment amounts to a paltry $26 billion, which is down 30% since last year. Yale also faces a 30% decline: their endowment fell from $23 billion to $17 billion. Brown's also suffering with an endowment that's 27% less than this time last year. Meanwhile, the president of that school's former love, Vassar, sent out a letter to graduates, including this editor, announcing that the storied institution — Jackie O went there!! — has lost nearly the same percentage of its precious, precious piggy bank.

Of course, the schools are trying to put on a happy face. Jane Mendillo, CEO of the Harvard Management Company, insisted that the school's maintaining its fiduciary poise:

In navigating the past year's storm, we developed greater financial flexibility, strengthened our investment team, sharpened out focus and positioned both HMC and the endowment to be robust, steady and, importantly, poised to benefit from growth in the world's economies.

Um, really? We weren't economics majors, but last time we checked, there's no real growth in the world's economies. But, way to teach us a lesson in positive thinking!

So, what does this all mean? On the surface it means that these schools — and others — need to tighten their fashionable belts. On a deeper level, it means that Harvard et al. are fast on their way to losing their elitist charm and becoming poor pedestrian schmucks like the rest of us. And, honestly, it serves them right. Well, Harvard, at least. As Vanity Fair pointed out last month, the school embarked on a wildly excessive expansion plan, one that left them in the whole financially and embarrassed generally.

Rather than revamping dorms and building new graduate campuses, these schools should have been focusing on improving preexisting services, like teaching. (The Vassar president's letter encouraged students to visit a newly redecorated dorm, then discussed how staff needed to be cut. Silly!) The downfall of the nation's premiere schools serves as an indictment, this writer thinks, of the nation's irrepressible desire to link public image with private spending.

But, sadly, we need these schools to make sure our nation's children can compete with international competitors and save us from an even sadder, more pathetic future. Hey, did anyone here read Catch-22? This is kind of like that. Kind of.

1. The Aspiring Teacher's Pet

Dear Dean,
I am passionately interested in Computational Fluid Dynamics, but at the same time I am deeply involved in an international Peace movement known as "Seeds of Peace," as a volunteer as well as a Peer Support Leader. I would like to go to a university where I would have the opportunity to focus on both engineering and leadership development to enable me to influence the peace process between India and Pakistan. If i were to be admitted, is Harvard the right place for me?
My question
- Sahir Zaveri

2. The Current Teacher's Pet

Dear Dean Fitzsimmons,

I'm a current student at Harvard, and I love it here. Thank you for accepting me.

I don't have any questions.
- Julia

3. The Angry White Man (Veiled)

How does Harvard's admissions process reward diversity without committing a type of reverse discrimination against potentially strong candidates who lack any diversity?
- Luke

4. The Angry White Man (Unveiled)

If someone is white, heterosexual, and Christian do they stand any chance of getting into Harvard? Thanks.
- Joe

5. The Angry Rebuttal to the Angry White Man

Dear caucasian applicants. It's extremely interesting how you can all automatically assume that anyone who is colored is automatically less deserving of admissions into Harvard. I graduated from Harvard Class of ‘00.

I'm a Hispanic female with a disability. Neither of my parents finished grade school, much less high school. I grew up in a household where my parents' combined income was less than $30,000. I could certainly have checked off multiple "diversity" boxes, and I did.

But I also scored a perfect score on the SAT's, graduated salutatorian of my class, was class president, went to Nationals in Academic Decathlon, and found time to volunteer. I was able to do all of these things despite my disadvantages. Perhaps that doesn't jive with many of your perceptions of Hispanic females, but you should all stop blaming your inability to get into Harvard on everyone else. Many of my colored classmates happened to work very, very hard to get where they are. They certainly didn't have parents as obsessed and narrow-minded as the ones here on this board.
- JOLT

6. The Crazy Parent

Hello,

My children are in elementary school now, and I am almost panicked about trying to get the "right" education for them in order to go to an institution like Harvard. We are not rich by any means, so we are trying to set a path that will open up possibilities for them. What can we do to get them going in that direction?

Thank You,

George Pfeffer

7. The Guy Testing Out His College Application Essay

Dean Fitzsimmons,

Let me tell you my brief story. I was quite honestly an immature kid not ready for college out of high school. I wasn't a particularly good student in high school, and it followed me to the state school in Alabama I attended for three years, failing most of my classes, and never amounting to much grades wise.

However, since then, I've grown up. I've moved to Atlanta, where I've worked in a Congressional office, worked on the executive board of my local Young Democrats chapter, and am currently on staff for a city-wide council campaign. All the while, I've been going to school full time at the local junior college making all As (with a couple of Bs) and I'm re-taking the SAT in January. In short, I've grown up, and I've put together a record as an achiever in both the classroom and the community since my first try at college.

I want to transfer to an elite school where I can be truly challenged and prepared for my next step, law school. In all honest, what would be my chances to be admitted to an elite institution as a transfer student on the less than traditional path.
- Joshua Smith [Ed.—Your chances are slim without copy editing.]

8. The Person Dumb Enough to Ask a Good Question

Why is college so expensive?
- sminister

9. The Local Yokel Who Also Wants to Ask President Obama About the Broken Stop Light on Her Corner

Why did you only admit 1 Scarsdale H.S. Senior last year?

SHS is supposed to be one of the best public highs in the nation.

The local newspaper runs the issue highlighting recent grads/schools. I am aware some seniors dont submit their names/schools…but 1 seems low.

Back in 80s, 6+ SHS grads headed to Havard

Worried my school taxes are being wasted!
- $

10. The Sane Person

Dear Dean Fitzsimmons,
Don't you think it's absurd that all these people are obsessed with getting their kids into Harvard?
-John.

[Full Disclosure: We did not read all 788 questions. Feel free, though.]

Today, below a story about how Harvard received federal stimulus money, there appeared an ad signed by Bradley Smith, the holocaust denial movement's one man propaganda machine. Smith believes that future President Eisenhower and others fabricated the Holocaust in a bid to consolidate power and let Jews run rampant, or something. It's all far too insane to even entertain.

Anyway, his insanity was on full display on the Crimson's front page in today's edition, a departure from the school's previous stance on Smith. The blog Kitsch/Posh points out that the Crimson's editorial team in 1994 rejected Smith's questionable marketing campaign because the paper isn't a soap box. It's a news vehicle:

A newspaper is not an open forum, like a street corner or an open kiosk. It's a privately owned organization that sells its space. An advertisement, then, represents a business transaction–not a public statement.
...
We didn't want to sell our space to print a hateful message, regardless of its exact wording.

But that was back in the heady 90s, when selling out political views and general sensitivity was far more important than $1000 or so. Now the university has no money and has to take what it can get. And, of course, go whoring for it, as they're doing with their new clothing line. Gone are the days of elitism, yes, and in are the days of fringe-living and coin scrounging.

UPDATE: Crimson president Max Child pointed us to a newly published apology in which he and his team take full responsibility for what's simply a "mistake" and a "miscommunication"

His explanation:

We did not intend to run the ad-a decision we made over the summer when it was initially submitted. Unfortunately, with three weeks of vacation between submission and publication, that decision fell through the cracks.

Yesterday's advertisement was the result of that miscommunication.

Child understands, of course, that the article's subject matter was highly offensive and promises all the moneys exchanged will be returned. He also made sure to point out that the paper does not endorse all its advertisements. So, rest assured he believes the Holocaust happened. You can also be sure that whoever let this shit run will be fired, tarred, feathered and sent straight to hell.

The New York Times Styles section rightly takes the school to task for the utter ridiculousness perpetrated by a school in financial trouble, one that's only extending its own unique brand of elitism—true, or not, but come on: true—one step further by manifesting it in physical wares. Not that anyone needs to look too deeply into this when they're just flashing their hand, here:

"It's a modern rendition of a classic American heritage," said John Fowler, the creative director. "We want to combine the power of Harvard with the power of a plaid shirt."

Yes: the kung-fu like power grip of an institution becoming less and less relevant with the discovery that a college degree doesn't necessarily lend itself to a fruitful post-college existence so much as it does post-college debt. But Hahhvahhd—with all of its widely reputed Ivy Leage smarts—will use their marketing power to make their brand available to the masses in order to actually make some coin on this thing, right? HBS, where you at?

Oxford shirts start at $165, and sports coats run to $495. The company declined to discuss its projected sales figures.

Heh. Cintra Wilson would be proud. Even better is the official line on this from the school, one that takes allegations of moving their elitist pylons even wider into the field of potential money-givers and high-performance students seeking out results over reputation.

The university, for its part, appears to be growing tired of the attention. "Oh joy, rapture," a spokesman, John Longbrake, said when informed about the subject of this article.

Rapture, indeed! One of the most quotable articles in the history of the Styles section continues when they hit up the Harvard Crimson for their outrage on this. Now: student newspaper, supposed to represent the voice of the students, who are probably pissed off that this education they paid so much for and worked so hard to be a part of is being appropriated by a New York fashion label for mass consumption, correct?

In an editorial last week, The Harvard Crimson wrote that criticism of the line was unwarranted: "It is misguided to blame the university for doing what it can to pay its bills, even if that means allowing Harvard's name to adorn crimson-lined blazers and madras shorts reminiscent of the 1950s ‘good-old-boy' era."

Guess not. Voices of reason, come in!

"Every move to paste the Harvard name on symbols of prosperity, wealth, privilege and class erects a subtle, insidious ‘Members Only' sign at the university admissions office," Peter M. Conti-Brown, a 2005 graduate, said in an e-mail message.

Mr. Conti-Brown served as the undergraduate director of an extensive outreach effort by the admissions office to broaden Harvard's appeal to students from poorer backgrounds.

The barriers were often psychological, Mr. Conti-Brown recalled. "We were going up against 400 years of history," he said. "Without a doubt, licensing preppy clothes with the Harvard brand is a move in the opposite direction."

If anything's made evident by all of these conflicted Ivy League opinions, it's that there's still a healthy amount of discourse on the campus of what to do when you (A) need money and (B) have a reputation you need to shed that you're hard to part with because, hey, even though you're progressive, you still want the power, or at the very least, an impression of having it. So the final question comes down, then, to what it looks like, and if it's even worth buying. You be the judge:

The Ivy League Loan Shark look's gonna go far this season. Not exactly the high fashion of a "hot tranny mess," but perfect for a night in A.C. Buy!

The New York Times says the fancy school for healers was forced to rescind this policy that it put in its handbook and everything, after somebody there, from among the throngs of smart people, figured out it was dumb:

The policy says: "All interactions between students and the media should be coordinated with the Office of the Dean of Students and the Office of Public Affairs. This applies to situations in which students are contacted by the media as well as instances in which students may be seeking publicity about a student-related project or program."

All because they didn't want their students talking to the NYT about how shitty ethics are these days, among doctors! Although the school's dean tried to blame the policy on "the growing prevalence of Twitter." Seriously.
[Pic via]

For those of you who don't know, Gravity Summit describes itself as a "bridge" between social networking media and business leaders. Basically, it smacks business leaders upside the head and tells them to use Facebook, Twitter and all those other sites to help make money. We're not sure what kind of money MC Hammer makes these days, but he has amassed more than 1.3 million followers on Twitter.

Perhaps it's because of his reality show, perhaps it's because of his camp value — regardless, people are getting regular updates about his happenings. And he knows what that means: there has to be a way "to sell those people something." Indeed.

That's why we've compiled a list of seven famous people from all walks who would be well-advised to get their tweets in gear to sell something, reclaim their formerly glorious profile or simply satisfy our selfish desires.

First up, Pete Rose. The former coach of the Cincinnati Reds was banned from baseball for betting on his own team. Pretty shitty. And against the rules. There were rumors recently that the ban, which prevents him from Hall of Fame entry, would be lifted, but those rumors were put to rest by baseball commissioner Bud Selig. If Rose were to get himself online and sell himself to the masses — maybe, just maybe he can get back into America's good graces.

Remember Michael Alig? Alig, the club kid who became infamous for killing his drug dealer and hacking him into tiny little bits, used to know about all the trends. (And, more importantly, be known all over town.) If he could somehow convince prison officials to grant him internet access, Alig could get a tidy online following ahead of his scheduled March 2010 release.

Oh, Burt Reynolds. He was hot, then not, then hot again and now, well, he's appearing in Not Another Not Another Movie. Sad. Now, Burt actually has a twitter page, but it hasn't been updated since November 25, 2008. For shame! One of the keys to Twitter is regularity. Considering the inactivity in your career, we're sure you have time. Go forth and tweet!

Okay, let us explain: most of the people on this list are infamous for one reason or another. Jo Beth Williams, the star of Poltergeist I, its sequel, The Big Chill and many other wonderful movies, is not necessarily infamous. Nor is she as famous as she should be: the most recent thing in which we saw her was an E! special on horrific Hollywood murders, on which she discussed poor Dominique Dunne (Dominick's daughter, who was strangled by an estranged boyfriend). Yes, there are other projects, but there should be more!

Rather than focusing on regularity, she should instead use Twitter to spread her political and/or cultural views. We suggest she start with a memory from her former soap, the soon-to-be-late Guiding Light. Time it with the news, Williams, grab a small headline or two, and then start letting your tweet flag fly.

Joan Collins remains a household name, yes, but so does Burt Reynolds. We guarantee that if Ms. Collins were to start tweeting about her private life, which we assume remains quite titillating, she would be all over the gossip rags, where she belongs. Plus, we're sure this woman can think of something to hock.

Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer pops up every once in a while to offer some thoughts on the current economic situation, but we know he loves the limelight. And Spitzer, who hired whores, as you know, would do well to get on Twitter and start offering pithy political opinions. If you do that, Spitzer, you'll be back on top in no time. Just stay away from Collins. She'll eat you alive.

Finally, Paul Reubens. The former "Pee Wee" has been working relatively steadily since getting out of prison and, in fact, has another Pee Wee movie set for a 2011 release. Regardless, "twitter" could be the magic word for him to claim a new fan base and ensure the world never forgets. Or, at least, remembers until the next person spouts out their 140 character musings.

The "mid-career" adult program is for both ambitious politicians and private sector titans looking to become ambitious politicians.

Past recipients of master's degrees in Public Administration at the Kennedy School include Mexican President Felipe Calderon, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Mongolian President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Judd, who has a Bachelors in French from the University of Kentucky, is an actress known primarily for always being in a mess of trouble, in movies. Once she receives her degree, she'll join this august list of people who are currently running and destroying the world, and also Katherine Harris and Bill O'Reilly.

Ahem:

His father is Terry McDonell, the editor of Sports Illustrated, and he grew up in the kind of gilded New York household where Joan Didion, Jay McInerney and George Plimpton were drop-in guests. His godfather is Morgan Entrekin, the publisher of Grove/Atlantic, who bought Mr. McDonell's first novel, "Twelve," when Mr. McDonell was just 18. He heard news of its acceptance while cruising home in the carpool from Riverdale Country School, where he was president of the student body.

So that was his upbringing, and now he is a young literary success. His first novel was about "the downward-spiraling adventures of some druggy New York private-school students over Christmas break." His third novel—on sale Wednesday!—"ingeniously combines elements of a le Carré or Graham Greene-like international thriller with a campus novel set at Harvard, from which Mr. McDonell graduated in 2007." Yes, of course.

He has already published "a brief memoir" of his time at Harvard (well, it was published in France). That time, it seems, was colored by a certain "detachment" from the escalation of the war in Iraq—a war arranged and waged by Ivy Leaguers, you see! Conflict! (He also published a second novel, about, according to Wikipedia, "a 19-year-old Harvard student who is deeply affected by time he spends in Bangkok working as an intern reporter.")

The movie version of his first book (the one about private school kids taking drugs) is filming now, in the West Village. Batman Forever auteur Joel Schumacher is directing it! "It's sort of like Margaret Mead," Joel Schumacher says. "For Nick to have written this at 87 would be staggering. I keep asking myself how could he know all this at 17?"

Speaking at the Martha's Vineyard Book Festival, his first public statements since meeting with Crowley, Gates also said that his and the Cambridge police officer's families may dine together and joked that he'd even help Crowley's children get into Harvard.

Heck, it looks as though that annoyingly over-hyped "beer summit" may have actually done some good after all!

Lucia Whalen, the Harvard Magazine fundraiser who called in the report of a break-in at Gates' house after she saw two men forcing the door open, makes it very clear that she wasn't sure a crime was being committed—she apparently had been urged to call the police by another neighbor she passed on the street, and didn't seem to want to be involved at all. From the call:

Whalen: I noticed two suitcases, so I'm not sure if these were individuals who work there—I mean, live there.

911: You think they might have been breaking in?

Whalen: I don't know, because I have no idea... I don't know if they live there and they just had a hard time with their key, but I did notice that they kind of used their shoulder to barge in.

911: Were they white, black, or hispanic?

Whalen: Well, there were two larger men. One looked kind of hispanic, but I'm not really sure. And the other one entered, and I didn't see what he looked like at all.

So the possibility—even likelihood—that Gates was just trying to get into his own home was present at the very inception of this whole kerfuffle, and somehow he still wound up getting hauled off to jail. We're sure that the absence of a racial description in the call will be played as race-blindness on Crowley's part—if he didn't even know the suspects were black going in, how could he be stereotyping?—but we'd remind observers that his police report made reference to "what appeared to be two black males" entering Gates' home. Crowley sources that information to Whalen, whom he met standing outside the residence when he arrived. But if Whalen refused to answer that question to the 911 dispatcher, we wonder how she came to change her mind only minutes later, when Crowley arrived. Or did Crowley try to put a thumb on the scale when he wrote the report by IDing the suspects as black, so that his initial suspicion of Gates would seem more justified?

One thing is clear: We owe Whalen an apology. Relying on Crowley's report, we called her a racist for dialing 911 just because she saw two black men struggling to open a front door. It's obvious from the call that she didn't know that they were black, that she was calling out of an excess of caution, and that she expected that if it was their home, then a police officer would simply check their ID and be on his way. Which is what should have happened.

At around noon today, the same time Sgt. Dennis O'Connor, president of the Cambridge Police Superior Officers Association, gave his press conference trying to push back against perceptions that the Cambridge cops aren't exactly racially enlightened, Harvard student Seth Bannon spotted this cop pull up to a deli on Massachussetts Ave. in what appears to be his personal SUV with a hilarious license plate: WHY-TEE.

We asked Bannon, who first Twittered the picture, to tell us more:

I was eating breakfast at the Gourmet Express Market and Deli (1868 Mass Ave, Cambridge), when around NOON the black SUV pictured backed into that space and parked illegally. The police officer pictured exited the SUV, walked into the Deli, ordered a sub, got back into the SUV, and drove off. I took the picture as the officer was getting back into the SUV.

I'm not nearly as disturbed by the (entirely unnecessary) illegal parking job as I am by the utter crudeness of the plates, especially in the aftermath of the Gates debacle.

I've attached two additional photos I snapped. In one you can see the officer holding the delicious sub he purchased.

Cheers,

Seth Bannon