Never thought I'd get to write one... but now, years later, I get to share some final thoughts with my alma mater @Bwog http://t.co/6uVjJeFk
Bio: Mark Hay attends Columbia University where he is the Editor-in-Chief of Awaaz: The Voice of South Asia and the Columbia Political Review, and writes for Bwog and the Blue and White.
On any given dry day, 1.3 billion gallons of water flow off the streets and down drains into New York City’s sewage system.
Most of the time the system works flawlessly, and invisibly, and so sewage gets less attention than other infrastructural issues, like transit and communications. Plus sewage is just gross. More
Posted on May 15th, 2012 9:48am
In the spring of 2009, Columbia University opened two foreign outposts. There wasn't much fanfare at the time—the ribbon-cutting ceremonies garnered less coverage than, say, each of the university’s expansions into Manhattanville.
Last year, just as quietly, Columbia opened two more centers, in Mumbai and Paris. And later this year, Columbia will open a center in Istanbul, with a center in Santiago hot on its heels.
By 2012, according to Kenneth Prewitt, Columbia’s recently minted vice president for global centers, the university intends to have centers operational in Rio de Janeiro and Nairobi. This, all of this, is only Phase One. More
Posted on September 16th, 2011 11:36am
Usually it’s a matter for concern when a waterway reaches a toxicity level measurable in parts per billion. In some places in the Gowanus Canal contaminants compose up to 4.5 percent of the total mass of sediments. More
Posted on October 26th, 2010 1:30pm
Over the last week the sprawling, awkward conversation about the “Ground Zero Mosque” got a lot bigger. There were the statements from President Obama that officially invited every politician in America into what had been a regional debate, and there was an unsolicited endorsement of the development from militant Islamic group Hamas, which prompted questions about the non-American Muslim view on the debate and its possible consequences. More
Posted on August 19th, 2010 8:12am
As Carroll Gardens becomes home to one of Brooklyn’s yuppiest Restaurant Rows, a sort-of Division II Manhattan for recent college graduates and a single-family brownstone dream for magazine editors and downtown types, it’s perhaps unsurprising that, finally, the Scotto family power-base is thinning out. More
Posted on August 10th, 2010 8:52am
It hasn’t been easy to characterize Muslim reaction to the controversy around a proposed Muslim-led community center at Ground Zero, even for people who make a study of such things.
“[American Muslims] all come from radically different cultures and social backgrounds,” said Professor Peter Awn, Dean of the School of Graduate Studies at Columbia University and an expert in the role of Islam in the politics and societies of modern Muslim populations. A Brooklyn resident and former Jesuit priest with strong ties to the local Muslim community, Awn spent three years before and three years after 9/11 conducting a large study to determine the size and character of Islam in the five boroughs. More
Posted on August 9th, 2010 7:59am
Representative Anthony Weiner has broken his uncharacteristic silence about the Ground Zero mosque, but rather than issuing an official statement to the clamoring press, he produced a brief letter to Mayor Bloomberg applauding him on his speech.
Emphasis here must be placed on the word "brief." The letter contains six measured and reserved sentences, much less than commentators expected from a man who last week shouted himself to the edge of an aneurysm attacking Republicans in the service of a bill to provide healthcare for early responders to the 9/11 attacks. More
Posted on August 6th, 2010 5:06pm
Breaking an awkward silence on the matter of the “Ground Zero Mosque” over the past weeks, at least a small number of New York's House and Senate delegation have pivoted off Michael Bloomberg’s instantly historic pro-mosque speech on Aug. 3 to voice their own support of for project.
Of 12 House members whose districts are mostly or entirely in New York City, and the state's two Senators, three have praised Bloomberg's speech and another has issued a statement supporting a Landmarks Preservation Commission decision to deny landmark status to a building the mosque is supposed to replace without mentioning the mayor's speech. One has issued a noncommittal statement. And nine have balked, entirely: one no-comment and eight non-responses to requests for comment. More
Posted on August 6th, 2010 8:33am
Love Story’s world is one in which literacy is a thing of the past. The protagonist, Lenny Abramov, has come to an America on the brink of collapse, where literature is met with disdain and where every citizen is hooked into a device called an äaut;pparäaut;t, the invasive and sinister descendant of the iPhone, which taps into the biometrics of its wearer and broadcasts to the world his heart rate, emotions, even his "fuckability rating."
But Shteyngart's novel is satire, and therefore is very serious stuff. Shteyngart is railing against not a fanciful, metaphorical future but one dangerously plausible and close.
“It’s set slightly in the future, when people can no longer read," he told the crowd. "So next Tuesday is what we’re shooting for, I think." More
Posted on July 28th, 2010 8:48am
Past the gamut, last night, ten or fewer patrons milled around the “Rubbers” exhibit, a third of those in “Action,” and few stayed very long. This is perhaps a reflection of the fact that he exhibit is...challenging. “Rubbers” is a text-heavy exhibit, with most of the artifacts serving to frame or illuminate a PSA-style narrative. It even includes a PSA, one of the only audio-visual components, although it is a unique one. Corners of the exhibit meander into tangential territory, abandoning condoms to discuss HIV, STIs, and sex education. More
Posted on July 14th, 2010 7:16am
