March 2017

T H E U N D E RG R A D UAT E M AG A Z I N E O F C O LU M B I A U N I V E R S I T Y, E S T. 1 8 9 0

THE BLUE AND WHITE Vol. XXIII No. II

March 2017

Help Where Help Is Due A look into the ways Columbia is responding to student mental health

Knight's Watch An in depth look at the Knight Institute’s attempt to preserve the 1st Amendment in the digital age

Also Inside: E

.T. Leaves Home, Sleight of Speech

DAVID ALEXANDER SWANSON, CC ’17, Editor-in-Chief CAROLINE HURLEY, CC ’19, Managing Editor ESMÉ ABLAZA, BC ’20, Senior Editor VIRGINIA AMBELIOTIS, BC ’19, Senior Editor SAIF MAQBOOL, CC ’18, Senior Editor NED RUSSIN, GS ’19, Senior Editor LENA RUBIN, BC ’18, Senior Editor AARON SU, CC ’19, Layout Editor SHULIE WEINBERG, BC ’20, Online Editor KRISTINE DUNN, CC ’18, Senior Illustrator

Staff Writers NIKHIL DOMINIC, CC ’18 GAGE HODGEN, CC ’19 GENEVA HUTCHESON, BC ’17 JASMINE PARK, CC ’20 UFON UMANAH, CC ’20 Contributors VIRGINIA FU, CC ’17 BEN SCHNEIDER, CC ’17 ALEX SALTIEL, CC ’18 SAIF MAQBOOL, CC ’18 ALEXANDRA WARRICK, BC ’17

Staff Illustrators RACHEL CHIN, CC ’18 NATHANIEL JAMESON, CC ’18 Artists LANI ALLEN, CC ’18 RANA IRMAK AKSOY, CC ’17 AMANDA BA, CC ’20 JIACHEN FENG, CC ’19 NATHANIEL JAMESON, CC ’18 SARAH GALE, CC ’18 WALLACE KALKIN, BC ’18 ANNA KAPLAN, BC ’18 JACQUELYN KLEIN, CC ’19 MATIAS LIRMAN, SEAS ’18 JACK PIERSON, CC ’19 ANNE SCOTTI, CC ’16 ALEX SWANSON, CC ’18 ALEXANDRA WARRICK, BC ’17 KELLIE ZHAO, CC ’19 JOANNA ZOU, CC ’18

THE BLUE AND WHITE Vol. XXIII

FAMAM EXTENDIMUS FACTIS

No. II

Columns

4 Blue Book 6 Blue Notes 8 Campus Characters 12 Verily Veritas 18 M easure for Measure 31 Digitalia Columbiana

Saif Maqbool & Alex Swanson

Features 10 At Two Swords’ Length: U Up?

Our monthly prose and cons

Gage Hodgen

13 K night’s Watch

An attempt to preserve the 1st Amendment in the digital age

Ufon Umanah

16 Sleight of Speech

A double-edged sword

Virginia Ambeliotis

Caroline Hurley

Ned Russin

theblueandwhite.org

20 R esearch R ebate

Advocacy at CUMC 20 Help Where Help Is Due

Columbia’s responses to student mental health concerns 26 E.T. Leaves Home

A conversation with Nick Gjoka

f

cover :

“JJ’s Plato’s Cave” by Jennifer Bi

a

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR There’s a particular sense of dejection on campus around midterms. I myself write this, sleep deprived, writing-hand in partial spasms, and ready for a vacation to a sunny island where I can instagram my future happiness. Speaking of which, stay tuned for the new Blue and White “Bwinstagram” coming soon - it promises to be bwlit. But back to the campus atmosphere, explore on page twenty-two whether Columbia’s infamous “stress culture” is fact or fiction, and see how Columbia is endeavoring to combat student depression.

At the Blue and White, we pride ourselves on taking the time to properly investigate pressing issues on campus, exploring all sides of the debate, even if that debate is as simple as “U up?” (see page ten). We, unlike other campus news publications, do not rely on rogue and unreliable statistics (see page five); we rather rely on the commitment and impartiality of our writers - which is why you should all come and write for us. Indeed, our assembled collection of writing styles and unique personalities almost rivals the world’s largest collection of E.T. memorabilia (see our Conversation on page twenty-six).

This issue is the first which will have been entirely curated by the new staff of this magazine. In proper Blue and White fashion, we have kept the contents suitably zeitgeisty. We explore the nuances in the debate surrounding micro-aggressions on page sixteen, and we look into the possibilities of a cut of Columbia University Medical Center’s federal funding on page twenty-two. I sincerely hope that you enjoy the fruits of our labor. As always, reach out to bweditors@columbia.edu if you’d like to come and write for us!

— David Alexander Swanson

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TRANSACTIONS ARRIVALS Diverse Oscar winners Green Investments JJ’s Cool Zone Blue and White laptop stickers (email us if you want one) Debora Spar, CEO

DEPARTURES Tony the Bouncer Knowledge about Columbia’s Zoroastrian collection Debora Spar, President

Come Again?!

“The only real effort required to seize a Columbia man is to discreetly dispose of all Barnard women in his intimate sphere, lest your spot on his arm be usurped by one of those Core-abstaining sirens.”

– A recent Spectator op-ed

The Blue and White

BLUE BOOK

By the Numbers Here at The Blue and White, we have been inspired over the past couple of weeks by the vast and extensive surveys conducted by fellow campus publications. In tribute and deference to these enlightening studies conducted by other media outlets, we have compiled some of them here for you. We have also added some of our own data!

Sixty percent of Columbia students went to Europe for spring break, while the remaining forty percent went to “do service projects” in El Salvador. Ten students were surveyed!

Two-thirds of Columbia students think mental health services are “not doing enough.” Out of 260 surveyed!

Eleven out of every ten student-athletes were grinding while you were lounging over break.

Every single student-athlete responded to this survey, so that you would definitively know how hard they were grinding.

Ninety-nine percent of eligible graduate students and undergraduate TAs voted to unionize.

Seventy percent of Barnard students can get into EC without being signed in. No Barnard students responded to this poll.

Three quarters of CC and SEAS students regularly sign GS students into residence halls, at least three times a week. 140 students responded to this poll!

Sixty-eight percent of CC students are PoliSci - Econ majors. Twelve percent are Financial Economics majors. The remaining twenty percent study “Sociology, with a concentration in Human Rights and also a concentration in American Studies and also Gender Studies.” This is accurate data from a recent Columbia College report.

One Blue and White editor has spent approximately ten hours in at week intently watching the Animal Adventure Park “Giraffe Cam” live video feed, in hopes of seeing a baby giraffe. 100 percent of the one editor we asked responded to our poll, so the data is very accurate.

Fifty-seven out of 300 Columbia students think the “Carry That Weight” project of 2014 had a “slightly negative” effect on the community Fifty-four percent of all food served at Columbia dining halls comes from within a 250 mile radius.

1,000 - the number of students Public Safety will cram into a pen on Bacchanal, “for their safety.”

100 - the amount of square footage of one Bacchanal pen!

POSTCARD FROM MORNINGSIDE

March 2017

Postcard by Kristine Dunn

5

BLUE NOTES

I

am sure we’ve all wondered at the ghastly mural that greets the intrepid scholar upon entering Butler Library. With its quasi-sculptural 3D components and harsh color palette it’s hard not to notice.

Yet for all its blaring features, few have ever paused to figure out what on earth it’s communicating.

The title gives it away. Videbimus Lumen was painted by Eugene Francis Savage in 1934 as an allegory of our proud motto “In thy light shall we see light.” Indeed, the central figures seeking enlightenment are bookended by two bold shafts of light, which separate them from the malignant forces of ignorance on the other, dark side of Athena’s shield. An essay on South Hall (Butler Library) by Savage, written in 1935, details how he drew heavily from Renaissance motifs, rejecting the modernist artistic approaches that would “desecrate the premises.” For Savage, the mural was supposed to be a depiction of peace, linking good order with proper educational foundation.

At the time of the mural’s painting, Mussolini had been in power for some ten years and Hitler was on the rise. The symbol of both Communism and Fascism are present in the mural, the fasces (the axe

6

surrounded by a bundle of sticks at the top right of the mural) from which the word fascism derives and the hammer at the bottom left. In the mural, however, these tools are not threatening; they are, according to the Columbia Libraries website, regulated by the higher ideals of education represented by “the presence of the olive tree dominating the background.”

The mural stresses the importance of education, linking peace with enlightenment. Over 70 years later, the mural’s message is just as relevant.

— Alex Swanson

“T

attoos are forever.” Those fatal words, uttered so often to me as a child, echoed in my head as I handed over my device over to the Public Safety officer to be engraved. Out of its grimy LifeProof case, my iPhone 6S gleamed dully in the flat light of the International Affairs Building lobby. Officer Morales flipped it over and turned on the machine. A low buzz sounded for a few seconds.

Then he scribbled something on the back in iridescent marker and applied a NYPD sticker before offering it back to me, marked for eternity.

After the NYPD experienced success with its own device engraving program, it partnered with CU Public Safety to launch Operation ID. Through the program, which is free, anyone at CU or its affiliates can get their devices engraved with a unique ID number and registered with both the NYPD and CU Public Safety.

The number makes it difficult for people to sell stolen property to pawn shops and electronic stores, Morales explained. “A lot of times if [the police] catch somebody, if it’s not locked, it’s like, you know, ‘who does it belong to?’ ‘is it his?’…So marking it is a great tool.”

Illustration by Kristine Dunn

The Blue and White

BLUE NOTES He estimates that they engrave roughly 2,000 devices per academic year. “It works, and as a result of this program, the amount of incidents has dropped. Stolen computers, stolen laptops and all that.”

Morales dismisses my fear that the ID program is some Trumpian ploy to monitor the activities of radical Columbia University students. “[Public Safety] won’t be able to log into the phone.

They can identify it, and—you see this form that you filled out?—this form goes into our database. And this database is nationwide. So, we punch in the number and here’s your information there. We call you up, we email you, ‘listen, we found your phone’…

We actually recovered laptops and phones on the New York City subway... They find it with the stickers that we put on it, they turn it over to the local police, and then through that number they can trace it right back to you.”

While the database is limited to the United States, the power of a NYPD sticker knows no bounds, apparently. Morales adds proudly, “We actually recovered a computer in Haiti…remember they had an earthquake in Haiti? One of our SIPA students was over there as part of his program here, and his hotel came down. Three months later, they were going through the rubble. They found his computer with engraving on it and they called me up.

Man, I got FedEx to go pick it up, and they brought it back to him.”

— Virginia Ambeliotis

V

ending Machine #131, located in the basement of Kent Hall, used to stock Herr’s Salt and Vinegar potato chips. A few months ago, however, I found myself in the basement of Kent again and browsed the vending machine looking for the beautiful red-andwhite trapezoidial Herr’s logo, only to realize that the chip was no longer there. I quickly emailed an

March 2017

email posted on the vending machine asking where my belovèd Herr’s had gone, and, more importantly, why?

Herr’s Potato Chips were founded in 1946 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania to modest beginnings. Jim Herr, who is now retired yet still alive and has 27 grandchildren and 21 great grandchildren, grew the business to its current state: a well-loved and respected potato chip company that can afford highway-side billboards featuring retired NFL players. According to their website, Herr’s are distributed in 28 states, going from Maine all the way to California and only missing those boring states out in the middle of nowhere like Nebraska and Idaho. For some reason though, I have rarely seen a bag of any of their 37 different varieties of chips, pretzels, cheese puffs, or popcorn outside of Pennsylvania.

Rather than getting an email back from Columbia Vending, I got an email back from Jason Iovino, customer service manager at Compass Group (the self-proclaimed “leading foodservice and support services company”).

“Thank you Ed,” Iovino started, inferring that I would like to be called “Ed” which I definitely do not, “We rotate Herr’s in & out depending on how sales are. Right now sales were down so we replaced them.”

Going to Kent’s basement is not typically enjoyable as it usually involves some interaction with the Columbia bureaucracy therein—the Registrar, ID center, and Student Financial Services are all located here—and is therefore not a conducive snack buying environment. This is terrible place to buy chips, especially a lesser-known brand like Herr’s.

How could sales not be down? I wondered. The salt and vinegar selection was a terrible idea (who can afford walking around campus with vinegar breath?) and the location was its death knell. The odds were stacked against them all along. Iovino did offer me some hope though. “Please let me know which item you were looking for,” he wrote me, “I always like to consider fresh & new ideas.”

I emailed back just an hour after his response.

“I’m personally a big fan of Herr’s Sour Cream and Onion, but I feel like a safer option may be [Herr’s] standard, ‘Original Crisp ’N Tasty,’ blue-bag potato chip,” I said. And now here we are: over a month later and still Herr’s-less, my requests unfilled and my stomach empty.

— Ned Russin

Illustration by Kristine Dunn

7

Campus Characters You might not know the following figures—but you should. In Campus Characters, The Blue & White introduces you to a handful of Columbians who are up to interesting and extraordinary things and whose stories beg to be shared. This issue, we bring you two people with interests in social justice.

If you’d like to suggest a Campus Character, send us an email at editors@theblueandwhite.org.

Jordan Brewington

B

efore becoming one of the foremost student scholars on the relationship between Columbia University and slavery, Jordan Brewington, CC ‘17, wanted to be a chef. After her freshman year, Jordan’s love for cooking brought her to an internship on the set of Chopped, at the Food Network, where she worked at a cubicle among coworkers who “only talked about going to the Hamptons over the weekend.”

“Food shouldn’t be that way,” Jordan realized.

“That’s capitalist food!”

I meet Jordan on a Friday afternoon at Artopolis Café and we talk for almost an hour. The entirety of Columbia seems to be sitting on Low Steps. She, however, has come from a day spent walking through Central Park with friends. We both admit to being filled with joy because of the changing weather. At one point, while describing in detail an essay she wrote in junior year of high school on late-19th century freed Black families, she interrupts herself, making eye contact with a friend who has happened to walk by, and exclaims, “Hello! Hi! I’m in an interview! Wait, I love you, I’ll text you.”

“We’re twenty-two, how could you be tired?”

Jordan asks me. “People stop challenging them-

8

selves,” she says, when they reach senior year at Columbia. “People just do their finance or whatever, they fall asleep.” Jordan is determined to surround herself with people who, as she puts it, are “still awake.”

“At first I was like, ‘I love the Core, I can’t wait to be a scholar!’” says Jordan, tongue in cheek, about her expectations of Columbia. Her passion for history attracted her to the Iliad, the Odyssey. Things changed once she got here: “I don’t want to say it was a violent experience but I was forced to be othered, so much so, that it ended up making me become more reflective.” Jordan recalls.

Jordan found the academic niche she was looking for when she searched the words ‘Black’ and ‘slavery,’ on the course directory, and she found her way into Thai Jones’ seminar, where students used University archives in order to explore our university’s connections with the slave trade. Now, she’s a TA for the seminar, which has become enormously popular in the past couple of years.

Going into the archives for the first time was a formative experience: “I was never intended to touch this,” she remembers thinking. Jordan describes what some archivists have called “reading against the grain” - taking what is presented to you, and creating an entirely new reading from what you find. This is how has approached her life at Columbia: “I had no idea that I would be myself, now, when I came here,” she says, and she means it.

Jordan is the coordinator for the pre-orientation program Under1Roof. (“I loved NSOP,” she laughs, adding, “I wanted to be there for any incoming Black students who were shaky on what they wanted Columbia to be for them.”) She was also the president of the Alpha Delta Phi society. “It wasn’t something I wanted,” she recalls. “But no one else would have been able to lead us otherwise.”

Her favorite moments here are spent in friends’

Illustration by Jennifer Bi

The Blue and White

rooms, especially that of her randomly-assigned freshman year roommate who is now, of course, still her best friend; or walking through Riverside park, by the water, to clear her head. When asked what her favorite place is in the city, she describes not a place, but an experience of a place.

“If you’re on the George Washington [Bridge], coming across, if you’re driving across it back into the city, and you’re about to make that turn into Harlem, and it’s sunset.”

— Lena Rubin

Karim Nader

K

arim Nader, CC ’17, can make himself look pregnant. We’re sitting in the lounge of the seventh floor of Carman as he bulges his stomach and pats it gleefully. Everyone passing through the hallway calls out a “Hey Karim!”; one stops for a quick chat. An RA in a freshman dorm doesn’t sound like a particularly appealing gig, but Karim seems to make the most of it. He respects the space that they share, and makes it something of a home.

He had sprinted down the hallway 15 minutes after our interview was scheduled, frozen yogurt in hand, returning from basking in the alarmingly warm February day. Karim has a friendly demeanor; a lot of his small talk is bookended with exclamation points.

However, there is something deliberate in his words and motions, not in a way that’s calculating or insincere. It is just as if he’s minutely aware of the space he occupies and the ideas he’s imparting.

Born and raised in Lebanon, Karim Nader came to Columbia contemplating a math major, but “heard a philosopher speak once, and was like ‘I want to do philosophy now.’” He enjoys being involved, something that drew him to the Student Governing Board three years ago. Also a member of the Arab Students Association and the Columbia Queer Alliance, Karim is heavily involved in student activism on campus. A few weeks prior to our conversation, he’d organized an event discussing student activism and its merits, a discussion he believed all Columbia groups needed to come together and discuss. He remarks on the important history of activism in Columbia, discussing the larger narratives of student voices, methods of activism, and the expression of opposition. Karim emphasizes the importance of groups from different ideologies coming together through the common belief in the importance of activism, noting that this acknowledgement and meeting of different perspectives is particularly lack-

March 2017

ing at Columbia. On a campus filled with loud voices from every corner, Karim is more interested in making a space for dialogue than in resolute shouting.

He calls it “meta-activism”: “doing activism to make activism easier”.

When asked about his other activities, he talks about his involvement in EAAH (Everyone Allied Against Homophobia), which organized a two-day conference for high school students to discuss activism in their high schools, and “what it meant for them to have a space in their high schools where they felt supported as LGBTQ people, but how to balance that with family and the understanding of their identity.”

He called it “probably the most beautiful thing [he’s] ever done on this campus.”

As an RA, he works to foster a space with a strong sense of mentorship. He’s clearly contributed a strong sense of community to his floor. For our interview we’re sitting in a lounge still lit with fairy lights and with a fake Christmas tree in the corner now missing its holiday stockings for each resident.

A common theme in Karim’s actions on campus seems to be the creation of spaces, an environment to encourage discourse, to be an activist, to be vulnerable, and to become stronger and more knowledgeable from it.

Beyond activism, Karim also loves anime.

A philosopher to his core, he lists a few favorites (Fullmetal Alchemist, Deathnote) as he gushes over the difficult questions and moral dilemmas presented within them. And as far as any advice for incoming/ current Columbia students, he cringes at his own cliché: “It is what you make of it.”

— Jasmine Park

Illustration by Jennifer Bi

9

AT T W O S W O R D S ’ L E N G T H

U 3:32 AM “yeah”

moment we share, I can’t help but fixate on the shallow savannahs, valleys of selfishness and artificial peaks that litter the grotesque landscape of your f you text long enough into the abyss, the abyss character. Last night, in your Carman double, I was texts back also into you. I am indeed up - will you truly inspired by the tenderness, the gentillesse and be my Columbus, my Magellan, my Vespucci, my the bonhomie with which you roused your roommate Bloomberg? Will you come and explore the cavern- and removed the opiate chamber that his sleeping ous trenches of my fatalism, my despair, my emotion- frame sheltered like a penitent Simba in his arms. al destitution? Will you fester in my apathy and allow As the corpse of your roommate maladroitly the stench of my resignation and disappointment shambled out of the room, you were already dimming to mingle with your own carefully cultivated l’eau the lights, already choosing some “tunes”, glancd’esperation? Will you allow me the total dishonor of ing shamelessly at yourself in any reflective surface wincing at your every word, of choking on your overly that crossed your field of vision. Was this why Kurt sensitive ego?

Cobain had to die?

Last night, amidst the Let me be clear: my availdim lighting and gentle haze of ability tonight is borne of aspirathe shitty bar, as you vacuously tions dashed on the harsh rocks feigned a British accent in your of reality, expectations left in grotesque salmon shorts and tatters by a cruel demon child oversized button-down, you running through my psyche with reminded me of a younger, less scissors. In my search for emoimpressive Winston Churchill, tional connection, I am an archiwith whom I am not at all tecture student on an arduous familiar, but quarter-heartedly tour of rural Poland – you are a pretended to admire for the vast, writhing sea of bland grey sake of civility. Let me be your monotony to my desiccated landbeachhead at Normandy, come locked country. I am prepared and land your waves of disapto be the Helen to your Paris, pointment. In the throes of my desthe Persephone to your Hades, the ffirmative peration, I crave your vapid pseudoStalin to your Hitler. Be my Midas,

By Saif Maqbool intellectualism, your pretentious drive me off the precipice of emoover-appreciation of art, the details tional balance with your cursed of your fináncial internship. touch.

I was reminded then of the first time we met, Four years from now, as the gentle pitter-patter you were chugging “champagne” in the grimy base- of raindrops on the tiny window of my cubicle at a ment of your “literary” society, looking for all the mid-tier investment bank slowly compresses my soul world like the colossal douchebag you are – I was to leave a generic metal cube where there was once a impressed though that your early-onset alcoholism Volvo, I am certain that I will remember this moment has left your innate grace intact. You were like a with vivid clarity and crushing regret. Such is my drunk Roger Federer, every move calculated and plight though, that I cannot help but accede – methodical, and like a sober Lindsay Lohan, every “U are the captain of my ship, move reeking of inebriation and desperation.

U are the master of my soul.”

As my soul continues to atrophy with every I hate myself.w

I

A

10

Illustration by Kristine Dunn

The Blue and White

AT T W O S W O R D S ’ L E N G T H

up?

3:32 AM “I hate u”

Mariah Carey eating a peach. You’re not even close.

I bet your room decor is hideous, too. A poster of Che Guevara, maybe a bottle of a nondescript tequila irstly, it’s “you,” fucking peasant. Secondly, no, brand, and if I’m lucky, way too many pillows and I am not “up.” In any sense of the word. I’m “fairy” lights. The thought of it disgusts me. Who actually asleep. Leo beckons to me to climb onto his even lives in Wallach anyway? weird spinning top as I fall into yet another layer of And also there’s you. You’re like the gum that dream. Maybe I’ll awake soon, but waking and being I can never get off my shoe, or the Ultimate Frisbee up are two very differlistserv I can never get ent things. On any given removed from. I’m sorry, Tuesday/Thursday as my but when I first met you at 10:10 looms, I awake at a The Heights, it was dark cool 9:20 and spend my and it was loud. I could precious minutes perusneither see you nor hear ing memes, before finally you. In other words, it was slipping into something bliss. Subsequent daylight comfortable and gracing and regret have revealed the outside world with my folly, yet still you permy avant-garde finesse. sist with these messages On the other days, I am inquiring into the state of subject to the seduction my consciousness. They get of slumber, engaging in weirder and weirder. Who languorous lovemaking even uses the chat function with that most fickle godof snapchat? Last week, you dess, Sleep, only leaving sent me money on Venmo her bed for when the fire with the description “are alarm blares at 6:30— you asleep?” Btw, I apprecicook your fucking risotto properate the full sentence more than the ly—or when I...just wake up.

69 cents. egative Why should right now be any What is even so special about

By Alex Swanson different? I could - and frequently the vertical pose, the rigid state of do - run a world from my bed, even “up?” I am just as beautiful prone with one eye half open, my face puffier than the fish I as upright. Why have you trained your narrow eye ate on Tuesday, my face looking worse and more tired to only view me as awake, acceptable, prêt à manger, than the trash coming out of EC at any given moment when I am up? You’re in a cave, a cave with a narrow during NSOP. My mental prowess runs thick, even in slit of light illuminating only one side of things, and soporific stupor. I don’t need to be “up” to call upon it’s the ‘Live Laugh Love’ poster above your Twin XL. my powers.

But you wouldn’t realize that, or that I hate you, since I know this might seem harsh, but I don’t like you’re too busy being up and seeking the same in me. you. Not in any way enough to come over to your A read receipt might have worked, but you Wallach single. Maybe you think that cheeky double- seem incapable of processing my distaste for you. entendre was charming, but no, I am not erect. So, to answer your pathetic attempt at inquiry, I am There’s only one thing that gets me going, and that’s neither up nor down. Go to bed.w

F

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March 2017

Illustration by Kristine Dunn

11

V E R I LY V E R I TA S

TOLD BETWEEN PUFFS

K

In which our hero misses the old Kanye

anye had changed. As Verily looked over the waves of the Hudson, tinseled by the moon’s gentle touch, our hero’s mind drifted back to the summer of ‘08, back when Mr. West was the Kanye of the past, a softer, more human Kanye. He missed life back then. It was simple, and Kanye spoke to that. “Heartless” had gotten him through the death of Claudio, his ferret, and “Flashing Lights” through the shattering of his Fatimid ewer. In the turbulence of the hyper-saturated present, Verily missed the piece Kanye had given him back then: a glimmering fragment of a lost idol that he had once cherished and doted on.

Kanye had changed. Yes, there were those nights when a 2-Chainz feature might strike a chord with the opiates swimming around Verily’s slightly rotund paunch, but the stoic message of Kanye’s original chansons de geste was just no longer there. Verily sighed eddying mists into the cool breeze. He was older now than he once was.

His face had grizzled, his hair had greyed, tipped with the frost of Senex, and his eyes were on the cusp of glazing. (A very handsome old man, he reminded himself, before sadness began to ruin his routine dawn reflection).

Perhaps Kanye hadn’t changed; perhaps it was Verily who had slowed down. His adolescence seemed far away; the childhood spent in the Balkan hills among the guzlars even farther. Old Kanye was the last spark of youth he still felt. Perhaps “Jesus Walks” was the helikian cliff which now eroded all around, so as to plunge Verily into the withering, barren depths of old age’s unharvestable sea. Perhaps Verily was now doomed to a Tithonic perdition of inexorable age, surrounded by backgammon, patronizing twats who dropped out of med school to become “carers,” and, woe betide, visits from his shitty, illegitimate great-grandchildren who had somehow traced him.

12

Nay, Verily fought back: he wasn’t old, certainly not yet. 100 was the new 40. Kanye, not Verily, had changed. He missed the old Kanye; who was this Yeezus? Verily had pored over the illuminated manuscripts with the Hospitallers, alas to no avail. There was no mention of a “Yeezus,” not even a corruption of that great prophet’s name. This perplexed Verily, for he of all people knew the sacral onus of namechange. Surely Yeezus could not be part of his same heretical order? Of course not; he hadn’t endured the flagellance or the bison. “Yeezus” was a farce, emblematic of the new Kanye’s treachery to that which Verily once cherished: simple Stoicism. Kanye had sold out.

Verily didn’t even pause to consider “Pablo”...

A brazen ray indicated the nodding horsehair of Apollo’s helmet to the East.

Dawn was approaching. Soon daylight would muddle the ordered perfection of Verily’s Piraeic mind, and so he resolved to wrangle with his ultimatum. A smoke might help.

Verily pulled out his ivory pipe from the inside of his bepaisleyed gown. It looked pretty in the morning light. He remembered the time he procured it on his way, with Dr. Watson, to the inner basin of the Congo. But that was long ago, and oh! how his mid was drifting in the morning air! He lit his artefact. Warm O’s framed the frosty convex of emerging Dawn. A gull flapped sleepily over the lapping wake of a returning Sound trawler.

This was Verily’s most impetuous hour. With a rush in his mind and burning tobacco in his pipe, he climaxed in his thoughts: “I still love Kanye!”

Though a superego might have detracted from the raw emotion of his voice, and his profligate use of autotune had faded into more ominous sound experimentation, there was a spark of that old musician in there, that vivacious rapper from the Chíraq, with whom Verily had (platonically) fallen in love with.

And that love was enough for Verily to incubate. He made up his mind: “I will buy the new Yeezys.”w

The Blue and White

GOING INCOGNITO

Knight’s Watch An in-depth look at the Knight Institute’s attempt to preserve the 1st Amendment in the digital age

By Gage Hodgen

T

he Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University was established last year as a collaboration between the Knight Foundation and Columbia University. With an endowment of $60 million, the Institute is intended to “preserve and expand First Amendment rights in the digital age through research and education, and by supporting litigation in favor of protecting freedom of expression and the press.” Jameel Jaffer, a distinguished lawyer with a broad background in civil liberties and First Amendment protection, was brought in by President Bollinger to be its first head.

Before coming to Columbia, Jaffer served as the Deputy Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a non-partisan, civilliberties advocacy organization with over two million members that works to secure civil liberties through legal and political means across the United States.

While at the ACLU, Jaffer initiated Freedom of Information Act requests that led to the revelation that the U.S. Government sanctioned human rights abuses and torture in the American War on Terror. He was also an aggressive proponent of more transparent and regulated use of drones in the executive branch’s targeted-killing program of suspected terrorists and militants.

Born in Kingston, Ontario, Jaffer came to the United States after he finished high school. Jaffer is not an American citizen, which might seem odd given his passion for advancing American civil liberties as opposed to human rights more generally. When I met with him in his office in Low Library, I asked him where he got the passion to work to protect the civil liberties of Americans. “A lot of the issues I work on are, first, American issues. But [they are] not

March 2017

only American issues,” Jaffer said. “The work we were doing [at the ACLU] really didn’t end at the border.”

He said the same is true for much of the work he plans to do through the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia. “The policies of social media companies like Facebook and Twitter apply around the world, not just here [in the United States]. The debates that we’re having about the proper limits on the freedom of speech or proper limits on government surveillance power are debates that everybody is engaged in. They are not uniquely American debates. The policies of the US government and the policies of US corporations have an effect all over the globe.”

Jaffer finished law school and began working at a large law firm in New York in October 2001.

After 9/11, many of the civil liberties issues he had thought about solely from an intellectual standpoint while clerking on the U.S. Second Circuit Court of

Illustration by Kristine Dunn

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GOING INCOGNITO Appeals became much more tangible. Jaffer began that he is no fan of drone campaign policies for their to do pro bono work assisting undocumented Muslim substance and would likely have remained unconimmigrants who had been rounded up in raids by the vinced regardless of Obama’s supposed legal justiU.S. immigration service in the weeks following 9/11 fication, he asserts that the public should be given and who were being held under policy known as “hold the opportunity to examine the arguments for itself. until cleared.”

Obama repeatedly claimed that the strikes were obviJaffer’s first experience working in civil liber- ously legal, yet he never provided the legal justificaties led him to begin working full time for the ACLU. tion of that claim. Jaffer said that to him it was not As a new attorney there, Jaffer filed several Freedom made clear what law allowed for the strikes and he of Information Act requests. When the Abu Ghraib repeatedly called for the government to disclose its photos depicting mistreatment of prisoners at a U.S. justification. “If we are going to be killing thousands prison in Iraq were leaked of people overseas, the pubto the press in April 2004, lic should know who we’re the ACLU litigated the case Each of us now carries around killing and why we’re killing to compel various governthem.” a surveillance device in our ment agencies to promptly Jaffer authored a release documents relating book, released in October pocket. Those kinds of things to the torture regime. The 2016, entitled The Drone have real implications for First Memos: Targeted Killing, documents released eventually allowed Jaffer and the Secrecy, and the Law, which Amendment rights.”

ACLU to show that the polipresents a compilation of the cies of torture “had been legal and policy documents sanctioned at the very highused by the United States est level, by the Justice Department, by the White to justify the drone and targeted killing program, as House, by the CIA, and that the abuses were all a well as a lengthy introduction in which Jaffer argues result of the same set of policies.” that Americans have given up some core principles of Jaffer did not contain his criticism to the Bush their democracy for the illusion of safety. administration alone. Specifically, Jaffer warns that One of the things that most surprised me about the precedent set by President Obama in his use of Jaffer’s book was on the back cover—the first praise an extensive and quasi-secret drone campaign to on the dust jacket is from Edward J. Snowden, the conduct a targeted-killing program with little to NSA leaker who, among other things, revealed the no oversight is dangerous, especially in the current secret NSA surveillance program of the United States political climate, and leaves such claimed executive on its own citizens and who is now avoiding prospowers open to vast abuse. ecution by the US government and living in Russia.

Jaffer said that Obama drastically expanded Snowden says of Jaffer’s book, “This investigation the drone program, from just a few killings a year in shows the dangers of investing government with the the final Bush years to thousands, and created a legal power to kill suspected enemies in secret. Jaffer and framework that supposedly justified killings that his team perform a lasting public service by exposing “until recently, most Americans would have thought the ‘targeted killing’ policies … [and offer] a much of as political assassination.” Jaffer cedes that if needed corrective to the linguistic manipulation and we acknowledge the necessity of a targeted-killing official obfuscation that have made these policies posprogram, it is laudable to create a codified system of sible.” When I asked Jaffer how he viewed Snowden’s standards to guide that system. However, he objects leaks, he responded, “His disclosures served the pubthat in doing so the Obama administration normal- lic interest. He sparked a necessary debate and disized a protocol that has killed thousands of people, closed information that showed government abuse.” and perhaps as many as a thousand civilians, without Jaffer’s work with the Knight First Amendment ever presenting evidence of the threat posed by the Institute focuses precisely on many of the things targets of the program to either a court or the public. revealed by Snowden’s disclosures. Jaffer told me, “I “It is crucial that the public know what is being recognize that the government has a legitimate interdone in its name,” Jaffer said. While Jaffer admits est in keeping secrets sometimes, but I don’t think

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The Blue and White

GOING INCOGNITO that enforcing that rule categorically, in a way that leads to the prosecution of people whose disclosures are so necessary to public debate, would be a good thing.” One of Jaffer’s primary goals for the Knight First Amendment Institute is to combat the official secrecy doctrine that Jaffer believes is over-broad in its classification of information as secret and keeps the American public from being adequately informed about what the government is doing.

I asked Jaffer, “What are we entitled to know about the government?” After a pause, Jaffer responded, “In a democracy like this one, the legitimacy of the government turns on public knowledge of government activities. We have, or are supposed to have, popular sovereignty; ordinary citizens have a role in deciding who governs them and what the government’s policies are. That whole system relies on ordinary citizens knowing something about government activity.”

“At a minimum, they have a right to know what the law is and how the law is implemented.” A functional democracy requires an informed public, or at least a public informed enough to make reasonable decisions about its leaders and policies of its government.

Our conversation turned to the chilling effect which government surveillance has on the freedom of expression within the United States. Jaffer said that surveillance chills “the willingness of individuals to dissent, or to engage in communications that are necessary for anyone who wants to form political opinions. You need to be able to have private conversations without worrying that every conversation is being swept up into a massive government database.”

It is obvious how this crucial political activity, which the First Amendment protects, is discouraged by unregulated government surveillance.

Part of the change regarding surveillance, especially the surveillance most worrisome and chilling to Americans citizens, is tied to the development of ever-more complex surveillance technology. The broad purpose of the Knight First

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Amendment Institute is to advance and develop the First Amendment’s guaranteed freedoms of expression and of the press in a new, digital age.

Jaffer spoke to this fundamental change in technology and how it necessitates a new wave of First Amendment protections: “Technology has challenged many of the premises of the Supreme Court’s major First Amendment cases. Much of what used to take place in the public square now takes place on proprietary networks [i.e. Facebook or Twitter].

The entities that have most control over what speech people hear are social media companies that could not have been conceived of twenty years ago. Each of us now carries around a surveillance device in our pocket. Those kinds of things have real implications for First Amendment rights.”

The Knight First Amendment Institute was established to deal with new, digital era threats to the First Amendment that the courts have not yet grappled with. One of the things that Jaffer hopes to do through the Institute is address those questions of new First Amendment doctrine. But, Jaffer notes, the atmosphere of First Amendment questions has drastically changed since the Institute’s inception.

“We now have an administration that seems especially hostile to First Amendment rights. We have a responsibility to address those more immediate threats even as we make sure not to lose sight of the deeper structural issues that were the original reason for the creation of the Institute.”

It is encouraging to see Columbia University organize the Knight First Amendment Institute to take such direct action to counter the threats to free speech posed by the Trump administration’s apparent disdain for the First Amendment and to give attention to the long-term implications of the development of technology on freedoms of speech and the press in the digital age. Both are sorely needed if America is to preserve the civil liberties and freedom of expression that Americans enjoy and take for granted.w

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MACRO-DISCUSSION

Sleight of Speech Is the study of micro-aggressions a double-edged sword?

By Ufon Umanah

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student assuming two men know each other because they’re both gay. A student describing Harlem as a sketchy neighborhood where they might get shot. A professor trying to comfort a sexual assault survivor by telling her to focus on the beauty of Ovid’s language in the Metamorphoses.

Perhaps only a decade ago, these incidents may have been waved aside as innocent mistakes or slips of the tongue. But an academic article written in 2007 by Teachers’ College professor Derald Wing Sue vitalized the idea that these phrases were more than unfortunate wording; they were rather something much more sinister that could have negative ramifications on the health and well-being of marginalized communities. Sue wrote that these statements could be more accurately described as “microaggressions.”

Now, a decade out from the original study, the language surrounding the identification and elimination of microaggressions has dominated the public discourse, with various op-eds, blogs, and research adding to and improving on the original findings.

Colleges and universities across the country have already developed the infrastructure to address the new face of bigotry.

But if one asks professor of psychology at Emory University Scott Lilienfeld, the research behind microaggressions may be incomplete.

The Fault in Our R esearch If you ask Lilienfeld, the issue is not the general concept of microaggressions and “it’s crucial not to toss out the baby with the bathwater.” As he wrote in his paper, “Racial and cultural insensitivities persist in contemporary America, including college campuses… There [shouldn’t] be any doubt that prejudice at times manifests itself in subtle and indirect ways.”

Instead, Lilienfeld argues that the concept “has received little critical scrutiny.” This lack of scrutiny has left “a daunting number of critical scientific questions, both conceptual and methodological,

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unaddressed and unanswered.”

Sue raises similar concerns. “Research should be more precise in operationalizing what microaggressions are,” he says. When I asked him about Lilienfeld’s research, Sue remarked that “people are confusing microaggressions with any snub or insult that they encounter,” and that they don’t “view microaggressions in context.” The stereotypical experience of bullying that many K-12 students go through exists in a different context than the racial harassment people of color go through, for example.

Lilienfeld raises a lot of concerns, from the methodology of the research to how the term microaggression is oxymoronic.

But given the conversations about the state of mental health at Columbia spurred by a cluster of suicides this academic year, one “speculative” claim sticks out in context. Lilienfeld writes in his review that “a heightened attention to microaggressions may sensitize minority individuals to subtle signs of potential prejudice… predisposing minority individuals to… become more likely to experience negative psychological reactions following minor perceived provocations;… [and] become more likely to perceive themselves as emotionally fragile.”

Unintended Consequences The speculation can be rooted in two claims.

First, psychology in popular science has a history of being misconstrued. For example, Lilienfeld writes, “once the concept of dissociative identity disorder [multiple personality disorder] took root in popular culture, it began to alter how certain people viewed themselves.” In a quest to find people who may have not been correctly diagnosed, psychologists found themselves using ‘truth serum’ to possibly induce false memories. In a more recent trial, Lilienfeld writes, “investigators provided participants who had experienced trauma in the context of a serious physical injury or assault with a selfhelp pamphlet that described modal psychological

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MACRO-DISCUSSION reactions to the trauma.” Compared to a control that received no information, the data showed participants exhibited “nonsignificant trends for worse PTSD and depression outcomes.”

Second, Lilienfeld fears that there has been “a substantial increase in the number of false-positive identifications of statements as microaggressions.”

This is derived from the concern that microaggression theory “seems to fall prey to the pitfall of embedded political values.” For Lilienfeld, two identified types of microaggressions, “myth of meritocracy” and “color-blindness,” stand out in this regard.

Identifying political disagreements as microaggressions only exaggerates the fears Lilienfeld expresses over negative confirmation bias.

This, along with other concerns, leads to Lilienfeld’s main conclusion. Because the identifiable benefits of microaggression-based training programs do not yet outweigh the risks, a moratorium on programs “which… inform students and faculty that certain statements and actions are microaggressions to be avoided, and which encourage students and faculty to identify them” is “prudent” until the research can be verified scientifically. Such a call automatically draws controversy. It could mean massive changes to programming from the Office of Multicultural Affairs and other programs across the country.

But is the research as deficient as Lilienfeld claims?

The Small Slits of Words Given only a few pages to respond to Lilienfeld’s research, Sue started his response with an African proverb. “The true tale of the lion hunt will never be told as long as the hunter tells the story.” He later writes that the more “we try to achieve internal validity… the greater the possibility that we move away from real-world phenomena.”

In his original study, Sue referred to his experience riding on a private plane with an AfricanAmerican colleague. After being told they could sit anywhere and after three white men sat in front of Sue, the white flight attendant went to Sue and his colleague and asked if they could sit in the back to balance the weight of the plane.

As he described it in the paper, that incident caused Sue to “feel [his] blood pressure rising, heart beating faster, and face flush with anger.” It could be

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an innocent mistake brought about by a reevaluation of the seating situation, or it could be a deliberate choice to discriminate reminiscent of Jim Crow.

Either way, when Sue confronted the flight attendant, she was incredulous, denying every allegation with a “rational reason for her actions,” and leaving Sue with “a sour taste in [his] mouth.”

This illustrates the two-folded issue with microaggressions: both the event and the response.

As Sue would put it, “if you’ve ever experienced a microaggression, it places you in turmoil, anger, and frustration… you’re always in a state of psychological vigilance when microaggressions occur and it takes a toll.”

This isn’t to say that scientific research has no place moving forward. “You need both,” as Sue would say. But to him, a moratorium on the microaggression programs would be disastrous. “The campus climate for white students might be affirming, but it is not true for people of color and LGBTQ individuals.”

Without the programs in place now, whatever progress made might be lost, having major consequences for those populations.

M acro -Discussion As of this writing, it is unlikely a moratorium would gain traction at Columbia, but there may be ways to find common ground.

Vice President of the Black Student Organization Braxton Gunter hosted trainings on addressing microaggressions are only effective in so far as they give these individual experiences context.

They need to be executed in such a way that exposes and educates—in such a way that alludes to history and demonstrates a genuine investment in the livelihood of others.”

Lilienfeld, in some ways, agrees.

“Microaggressions should be the starting point, not the ending point, of campus conversations… ‘Let’s talk about this and try to better understand each other.’ That can actually be the opening of a constructive dialogue.” And the body of research is starting to address some of Lilienfeld’s concerns, namely, “examin[ing] how microaggressions affect psychological adjustment in everyday life.”

Until then, it is likely the “thousands of people talking about the fact that they experience a campus climate [that is] hostile and invalidating” will serve as evidence enough for Columbia students.w

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M easure

for

M easure

Le fleuve de Héraclite

C’est le mien, c’est le mien, c’est le mien Un fleuve coulera en temps Héraclite était un homme mais n’est pas dans la présent Où est-ce que je serai quand je m’assieds dans l’eau ?

Je vais penser en baignant mais le passé est seul un morceau celui je ne dois pas tenir J’aimerais savoir ma signification dans le monde J’aimerais aimer les derniers et future ans étendent Je suis Héraclite et je suis le mien Le fleuve de temps C’est le tien

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— Ned Russin

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M easure

for

M easure

Egg Bread, Twin Braid To braid a bread begin by moving upwards, melting lines of yeasted dough of meticulous blending by moving upwards berating the shape of dough of meticulous blending which rises in leavened breaths creating the shape by the way this works according to form which rises in layered breaths at first, and the way this works according to form is the second becomes the first, and third becomes the last the second becomes braided, tug of the yeast at the third becomes the last while moving upward, braided, each tug of the yeast finishes the line while moving upward; to braid a bread, begin. — Joelle Milman

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FIGHT THE POWER

Research Rebate CUMC stands up for the Affordable Care Act and research funding

By Virginia Ambeliotis

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ix weeks into a presidency that has rejected the science behind climate change and announced plans to overhaul the current healthcare system, morale in the medical community might appear to be low.

At Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC), that assessment is largely sound. News of a potential repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has garnered pushback from the New YorkPresbyterian Hospital and students, faculty and staff at CUMC, who have organized events to discuss the consequences that a repeal could have on themselves and their patients.

In an email sent out to colleagues in January, the deans of the four schools at CUMC stated “...as healthcare providers ourselves, we strongly believe that all U.S. residents should have access to high-quality, affordable health care and be able to obtain health insurance that enables them to pay for it. The Affordable Care Act (ACA), while not without its problems, has been highly effective in moving the country in that direction. Any effort to repeal and replace the ACA should maintain or enhance health care coverage for all. We are prepared to work with any and all elected officials to ensure that any proposed plan achieves this goal. We are, however, opposed to any plan that does not.”

On March 8th, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), of which CUMC is a member, criticized the alternative bill the G.O.P. has drafted to replace the ACA, which received the approval of two House committees the following day.

The open letter to Congress expressed concern that the proposed American Health Care Act “could lead to tremendous instability for those seeking affordable coverage” and that the changes to Medicaid it calls for could “result in both the loss of coverage for current enrollees as well as cuts to a program that provides health care services for our most vulnerable populations, including children, the elderly and disabled.”

“I’m always nervous about what Washington is going to do,” Ross A. Frommer, Vice President for

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Government and Community Affairs and Associate Dean at CUMC. He describes the future of the ACA as “precarious” but emphasizes that CUMC is taking steps to prepare for whatever happens. “We’re certainly hanging on, paying close attention to it.

[We’re] certainly working through the AAMC, our trade association, spending a lot of time on what effect [a repeal] could have on the medical centers, on the health-teaching hospitals, on our physicians, on our patients.”

Despite the President’s known contempt for Obamacare and the House and Senate having Republican majorities, the future of the ACA and other policies that affect the biomedical research community remain unclear. The path ahead for CUMC faculty who do advocacy work, then, will center on the same objective it has prioritized for decades past: supporting and securing funding for research.

Before the passage of the ACA, lobbying efforts for the CUMC centered mostly on securing funding for agencies that conduct research but also pushing back on legislative efforts to curtail certain programs. “This goes way back a little bit, but certainly we were opposed to any restrictions on stem cell research,” Frommer says. “We’re very concerned about any restrictions that could come about on fetal tissue research. We want the opportunity for our scientists to do the best possible research they can, and any efforts which would put a crimp in that...we’d likely, can’t speak to every specific example, be very concerned about.”

For policy matters, Frommer’s team adopts a lobbying strategy “usually in the form of letters to members of Congress or the administration [that] we will sign ourselves, or co-sign with a large group.”

When CUMC issues statements, they “tend to focus more on the research itself.”

Columbia, like other research universities, funds much of its work through governmental avenues. Support for some programs, like its research on spinal cords and stem cells, comes from New York state, but is “not on the same level in terms of dollar amount” as federally funded programs, Frommer

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FIGHT THE POWER explains.

Congress passed the the 21st Century Cures Act, A substantial source of federal funding for which allocates funds supplemental to the NIH budbiomedical research at CUMC comes from the get for cancer research, the BRAIN Initiative, preciNational Institutes of Health. Frommer character- sion medicine and other broad areas. izes the agency’s importance to research institutions Whether similar developments will occur in as so great that CUMC’s advocacy work revolves the future remains to be seen, and Frommer says around promoting the NIH’s interests, even though he doesn’t expect his office will shift focus from Columbia researchers only lobbying for the NIH anyobtain grants from them time soon, explaining “[t] after completing a “rigorous “‘I’m always nervous about what here is great bipartisan supapplication process”. The port, bicameral support for agency distributes grants Washington is going to do,’ Ross the NIH…[b]ut obviously using a “merit-based and A. Frommer, Vice President for given the current budget peer review” system where and the current picture and Government and Community researchers, sometimes in the current stated plans of conjunction with faculty Affairs and Associate Dean at the administration, there is from other universities, subcause for concern, so we are mit extensive applications CUMC. He describes the future monitoring it, we are talking for funding. Says Frommer, of the ACA as ‘precarious’ but to our delegation about it.” “[t]he payline, which is basiIndeed, the presidenemphasizes that CUMC is tak- tial administration’s forthcally success rate, is very low, depending on who you ing steps to prepare for whatever coming fiscal year (FY) talk to, anywhere from 10 2018 budget is expected to happens.” to 20 percent success rate in offset increases in spendterms of grant applications.” ing on defense and national As lobbying for NIH security by reducing fundfunding is, for Frommer, “one of the most important ing for other federal programs; biomedical research if not the most important issue [he deals] with” in seems a likely candidate for cuts.w his job, he monitors activity in Washington closely to track proposed cuts to the agency’s budget, which has oscillated over the past few decades. During the five-year period from 1998 to 2003, NIH funding doubled from roughly $13 billion to $26 billion. In the 16 years that followed, “funding was essentially flat” and “the buying power of the NIH actually fell”, most painfully during the budget sequester of 2013, forcing the agency to eliminate hundreds of research grants. The tables turned in December 2015, when Congress passed a budget for the 2016 financial year that would increase NIH funding by $2 billion, or six percent.

Book Culture 536 West 112th Street While the budget increase is not enough to between Broadway and Amsterdam bring agency funding back to the level it occupied Monday-Friday 9am-10pm before the recession, the NIH and their supporters Saturday 10am-8pm celebrated the measure. Getting funding for research Sunday 11am-7pm 212-865-1588 is a tricky endeavor, as advocates have to contend with politicians who promise leaner budgets but also bookculture.com more funding for schools and other infrastructure projects. In November 2016, the biomedical research community had its purpose validated again when

March 2017

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OVERSTRESSING STRESS

Help Where Help Is Due A look into the ways Columbia is responding to student mental health concerns

By Caroline Hurley

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omeone recently asked me what the hardest thing I have ever had to accomplish was. Without hesitating, I responded with, “Surviving freshman year of college.” The 2015-2016 school year was undoubtedly the most challenging time in my life to date.

I spent most of that first semester napping in my dorm room and isolating myself, and came home for Christmas to deliver the news to my parents that I was transferring. Homesickness, culture-shock, imposter syndrome, adjustment issues, loneliness – call it what you want, but I’ll just go ahead and call it “depression,” because that’s what it was.

And even though at the time I thought nobody understood how I felt, my situation was not at all unique. Most students will experience similar feelings at some point during their time here. Recently, these issues of depression and mental health on Columbia’s campus have taken center stage in the wake of seven student deaths in the last academic year alone. Three students died in January, and one student died in each of the months of September, October, November and December.

Identifying the Treatment Columbia has seen seven student deaths since September 2016. Some have referred to the crisis as a “suicide cluster,” or when a high number of suicides occurs in a geographically and temporally close space.

Dr. Madelyn Gould, a Professor of Epidemiology in Psychiatry at the Columbia University Medical Center is one of the leading researchers on suicide contagion among teens and college students. She

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believes questions of classification of Columbia’s crisis are entirely unnecessary.

“I think it’s not necessary to try to classify a student death as a ‘cluster’ in order to intervene .

You don’t need to classify it. One death is enough for a university to want to respond to the needs of students. Really, no deaths – you want to respond to the needs of students before anything happens,” she says in a recent interview.

These tragedies have left students and administrators alike searching for answers and asking how our community could have possibly fallen so short in these seven cases. Many have been quick to blame Columbia’s infamous “stress culture,” such as the New York Post, who in a February 2nd article on the student deaths found fault with “fiercely competitive academics and inadequate campus counseling programs.”

This impulse to retroactively identify and remedy problems in a community in the wake of suicide tragedies is common, says Dr. Victor Schwartz.

“When a campus is facing a series of challenges like this, it’s not unusual for everyone to second guess everything,” he says.

“When a campus goes through [these tragedies] it really is useful to evaluate all your systems and services when you’re reacting reflexively. But it is not always useful to change things just to change things.”

Dr. Schwartz is the Chief Medical Officer at the JED Foundation, a nonprofit that works to promote mental health advocacy and reduce suicide rates.

“Our primary focus is college campuses but we work in the high school, teen, young adult arena to provide mental health services,” says Schwartz in a recent conversation. The JED Foundation, based in New York City, was founded in 2000 by Columbia alumni Phil ’63 CC and Donna ’65 GS Satow. It is named after their youngest son, Jed Satow, who committed suicide in 1998 while a freshman at the University of Arizona. Phil Satow is now a special adviser to Dean of Columbia College, James Valentini, according to a recent email from the dean.

As far as the concrete changes Columbia has

Illustration by Jiachen Feng

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OVERSTRESSING STRESS made so far in response to the student suicides and year period,” he says. mental health concerns in general, all Columbia To illustrate his point, Dr. Schwartz points College staff members have received gatekeeper, to recent suicide clusters at Tulane University, which is supposed to train people to be able to rec- Appalachian State University, and the University ognize at-risk individuals. Of this new training, Dr. of Pennsylvania. In November, Penn saw its twelfth Schwartz says, “As a general thought it’s definitely suicide in under four years. Because of the percepvaluable to train as many people to notice students tion of high stress levels at Ivy League universities, it who are struggling.” can be easy to conceptualize this as an “Ivy League Executive Vice President for University Life problem.” But Tulane saw seven student deaths in Suzanne Goldberg has continued meeting with the the 2014-2015 academic year, the same number Mental Health Task Force, and recently released a that Columbia has experienced this year. Also in the letter on February 2nd detailing the concrete steps 2014-2015 academic year, Appalachian State saw the Office of University Life nine student deaths, three has taken and will continue of which were officially ruled to take to address mental suicides.

While any student death is health concerns. One of “It’s not 100% clear the main new projects for that what is going on at problem, there is an assumpthe office, according to Columbia is unique in tion being made that Columbia Columbia. There have been VP Goldberg’s letter, is a “mental health week” this other suicide clusters at elite is an outlier. But it’s not clear spring to raise awareness of colleges and non-elite colresources that the office says that Columbia sits outside other leges.” are “used in large numbers.”

Dr. Schwartz does schools [in terms of suicide Additionally, the point out that it is hard to University Senate Student rates]. It’s not statistically outside quantify suicide rates among Affairs Committee released what you would expect for col- college students because litthe “data-driven recommentle data has been compiled leges over a ten-year period.” dations” that they sent to on the subject, but there is President Bollinger. One of enough data to determine their recommendations that that Columbia is not alone in was different from the Office of University Life was seeing a high suicide rate in a year. for President Bollinger to be more active and visible in facing this crisis, especially when it comes to Permitted to H ave Fun undergraduates.

“It is critical for students to hear more often But even though the recent student death tragfrom President Bollinger, especially in times struggle edies may not put Columbia statistically above averfor the community, as he is seen by students as our age, this answer does not seem to satisfy when it chief University leader and provides vision for our comes to talking about our peers, ourselves, and the campus community in ways that other offices can- struggles students are facing here. Columbia stunot,” they wrote in their report. Currently, notifica- dents often talk about the stress culture that exists on tions of student death are sent by email from the dean campus – a Spectator feature piece that ran last April, of the student’s college. titled “Are Columbia students the most stressed in But Schwartz still cautions against reactionary the Ivy League?” hypothesized that Columbia’s rigpolicy changes, as well as thinking Columbia is expe- orous course load, Core Curriculum, cutthroat comriencing a unique crisis in its recent suicide increase. petitive attitude, and the administration’s supposed “While any student death is problem, there is “War on Fun” all lead to Columbia students being an assumption being made that Columbia is an out- the most stressed-out in the Ivy League. lier. But it’s not clear that Columbia sits outside other Dean Grabiner, Barnard College Dean of First schools [in terms of suicide rates]. It’s not statistically Years and of Academic Assistance, believes that much outside what you would expect for colleges over a ten- of the stress culture comes from what students bring

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OVERSTRESSING STRESS with them as first years, though she does stress that She says that “the average everyday conversation is she is speaking only to her knowledge of Barnard and not about how fun it is” here, and that a “culture that not Columbia. permits itself to have fun” would likely improve stu“People go to high schools where they’ve dent perceptions of stress on campus. worked hard and they have focused on a lot of their achievements and been in a lot of clubs and had to Overstressing Stress have had a high GPA in order to get into a college such as this, and it’s hard to turn off that high level But are Columbia students really the “most when you get to college and everyone’s like, just calm stressed in the Ivy League”? There are no statistics to down, just focus on learning. To just turn that off like definitively say one way or the other, and as noted in a light switch is not something that’s easy,” says Dean Spectator’s article, the number of factors that contribGrabiner. ute to student stress level are wide-ranging. Having Dean Cristen Kromm, of Undergraduate the most strained students in the Ivy League is cerStudent Life, echoes tainly not a coveted title by Grabiner’s point about the any means, and wanting to difficulty of the First-Year designate it to Columbia is She says that “the average transition. “I think there is often seen as contributing to everyday conversation is not something very real when it’s the problem. Students braga lot of students who have ging about who has more about how fun it is” here, and always been able to do the tests and papers, and who things that they wanted,” that a “culture that permits itself got less sleep creates a culshe says, referring to the to have fun” would likely improve ture that, in a twisted way, typically high-achieving rewards these harmful selfstudent perceptions of stress on care practices. students who matriculate to Columbia each year.

Dean Kromm does campus.”

Suddenly when students are not believe it is correct to not able to do everything say that Columbia students they did in high school, or struggle with academics experience the most stress in the Ivy League. At for the first time, it becomes difficult to enjoy their meetings with her colleagues from the other seven time here. And if they were anticipating the best Ivy League schools and Stanford, Dean Kromm says four years of their lives, the struggle is all the more that the conversations they are having are the same jarring. in regards to the amount of pressure their respective “There is something that we all should be students are feeling. talking about in terms of what impact that has,” Speaking about this pressure, Kromm says, “I says Kromm, referring to this First-Year transition think it manifests itself in different ways, but when experience. we compare ourselves to other very high achieving, Dean Grabiner continues, “If you’re the first self-directed kinds of students, again its experienced in your family to go to college and you’ve worked differently, but it’s similar.” For example, she says, really hard to get here, you can find that you feel a lot space is something that Columbia students experiof pressure and feel like you’re supposed to be happy ence differently, without the sprawling lawns and and supposed to be successful. If other people in your large student houses of Cornell or Dartmouth, so family have been to college, they may look back on it there is less room for activities and relaxing. with great joy and rose-colored glasses and say, ‘oh When it comes to the crisis Columbia is curthose were the best years of my life,’ forgetting this rently experiencing, Dr. Schwartz does not think the part of it. Forgetting the part of it where it’s hard and stress culture can be pointed to as the cause. In fact, the part of it where you’re not happy yet.” in a February 2016 article for Psychiatric Times, Dr. Aside from the First-Year transition, other Schwartz cautions against oversimplifying the causes factors contribute to stress levels that permeate all of suicide. But of the relation between suicide rate four years of life at Columbia. Dean Kromm wishes and stress that many on Columbia’s campus are curstudents would allow themselves to have more fun. rently drawing, Schwartz says that it “feels intuitively

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The Blue and White

OVERSTRESSING STRESS compelling to say the stress is what’s challenging dents are high-achieving and may not have ever faced people, and there may be levels that are unhealthy, mental health issues before. Dean Grabiner recogbut it’s not so clear that’s what’s leading [to the cri- nizes this aspect of the community, and says, “Part of sis],” says Dr. Schwartz. “It turns out when you look what I try to do is normalize the idea of seeking help,” at undergrads [sic], academic stress and failure are especially in her work with First-Year students. relatively infrequent signs of suicidal behavior.”

Dr. Gould emphasizes seeking help as the most Regardless of whether or not stress culture has important step, but acknowledges that it can also be contributed to the recent student deaths, students the most difficult thing for students to do. still want to see changes in how Columbia addresses “The main thing that I really want to emphasize student mental health concerns. Ana Kioko, CC is that there is help for extreme distress and anxiety, ‘19, is well-aware that the crisis at Columbia is not and that I would hope that friends could recognize it a unique occurrence. Kioko is from Philadelphia in friends, or in themselves, and talk to someone they and lost a friend at the University of Pennsylvania trust about it. Recognize that you can get better. If it to suicide. Just because what is your first time experiencing Columbia is experiencing is these feelings, it’s really hard not unique, and stress may not to even appreciate that you Students don’t need to be contribute to it, is not reason can be better with help.” enough to disregard student mental health expert to recogLike Dr. Gould, Dr. concerns, she says.

Schwartz also highlights the nize when someone is having crucial role that friends can “I don’t think students are expecting play in encouraging someone difficulties.”

CPS (Counseling and who is overwhelmed to seek Psychological Services) to help. “Students don’t need to have answers to all mental health issues, but they’re be mental health experts to recognize when someone also not communicating to us how they are working is having difficulties. Either they’re telling you or to actively try to change things,” Kioko says, adding, you get a sense that something has changed. Really “I don’t know if I would go to CPS if I had a problem. the simple thing is to look for change.” According to I might just go home.” CPS representatives declined both Dr. Schwartz and Dr. Gould, changes to look to comment for this story, citing “patient care” as the for include not sleeping, not keeping up personal “primary focus of the staff” at this time. care and hygiene habits, increased drinking, social This is not to say Columbia has been unrespon- withdrawal, or pressured speech. sive in the wake of student deaths. In addition to the He adds that it might feel awkward or difficult gatekeeper training and mental health task force set to bring up mental health with a friend, but that it up by Dean Valentini, the Office of Undergraduate ultimately shows care; “I think the other big impediStudent Life is increasing programming to hopefully ment is that they’re uncertain – they don’t want to get students more involved and to help them enjoy brooch the subject. It’s really important for students their time here. This year, Undergraduate Student on campus to know about the resources available to Life will host a concert to coincide with the annual them.”

“Surf and Turf” night on the lawns, along with Outside of Columbia, there are resources increasing programming that they have already been available to those in need 24/7. The national Suicide doing, like study breaks in Lerner.

Prevention number is 1-(800)-273-8255, and is available all hours of the day. In an age where many R eaching Out people prefer texting to talking on the phone, there are crisis mental health text services available. To But programming, working to decrease stu- access, text “CONNECT” to 741741. dent stress, and increasing counseling resources Additionally, resources specific to New York can only be so helpful. Eventually, it comes down to City are plentiful and just a text message away. NYC recognizing a need for help. This can be difficult as Well is another 24/7 crisis support service, accesstigmas abound about what mental health treatment sible at 1-(888)-692-9355 or by texting “WELL” looks like, especially on a campus where many stu- to 65173.w

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T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N

E.T. Leaves Home A conversation with Nick Gjoka

By Ned Russin After years of being recognized for his out-of-this-world assemblage of E.T. memorabilia, Nick Gjoka—father of two, professional mountain biker, vegan, devout fan of Morrissey, and world’s largest E.T. collector—has decided to start selling off his collection. Gjoka, who is originally from Northeastern Pennsylvania and now resides in Atlanta, GA with his family, has been collecting E.T. memorabilia for as long as he can remember, amassing thousands of items. Ned Russin, GS ‘19, spoke with Gjoka over the phone on an unusually warm day in February.

The Blue and White: Just to start off, do you remember the first time that you saw E.T.?

Nick Gjoka: I don’t remember the first time I saw the movie, but I remember opening a specific E.T. [toy] from my grandfather, which kind of set off the whole thing.

B&W: So that was the first piece of memorabilia that you got?

NG: I don’t know if it was actually even the first piece

that I actually got but that specific E.T. talking toy I just remember for some reason. I remember opening it in my grandfather’s den on Christmas and I always had a connection with my grandfather because of that. I mean, he passed away so I always felt a connection I should say because of that memory and that toy. Now I’ve given my son that toy. Actually both my kids now.

B&W: Was it that toy that really set you off on buying E.T. stuff?

NG: I think so. That and the fact that my parents are also collectors of antiques. I was always going to flea markets and yard sales. And on top of all that, it was easy presents to get me when I was four, five, six years old because it was out everywhere, you know? It was like, “Oh I’m just going to get him E.T. toys.”

B&W: So then did you get into the movie through collecting then?

NG: I guess so. Here’s the thing: I’m straight edge so I’m not burnt on drugs, but I’m burnt out of my mind.

[He laughs] I don’t remember everything, but my mom said she took me to see the movie when it came out. I was four years old when it first came out and it came out again—well in some theaters it actually stayed the whole year—but it came out again in 1985.

So I don’t know if she took me during the ‘85 showing, which I would have been seven which would have made more sense, but I don’t remember. She must have taken me when I was four years old, I don’t know.

There’s always been a connection, it could be because I did see and don’t remember seeing it,

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Illustration by Jacquelyn Klein

The Blue and White

T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N I just felt a connection. I don’t know, but the collection started to build because I had a little collection because people would buy me stuff and then when I actually started collecting on my own that was late teens. I would be at flea markets with my parents and I would see an E.T. or something and I would pick that up. I’d be like, “Can I have $2 to buy this?” and I’d buy it. In my late teens I started to look for it a little bit.

B&W: What made it switch from it being a hobby to being something that you actually wanted to pursue?

which VH1 episode you’re referencing because I was on it twice.

B&W: You were?

NG: Yeah, the first show was called Totally Obsessed.

B&W: That’s the one that I’ve seen.

NG: That one’s like super old. That one’s from the 2002 release.

B&W: Yeah, I remember watching that one at my NG: The hunt for it. The hunt for them. Like trying parents’ house with my brother, Alex, because he to find E.T. items. It’s excitobviously knew you and so ing. Like looking for anywe watched that together. thing. I think that’s one of Here’s the thing: I’m straight NG: One of the first times the main reasons why people collect. They want to have edge so I’m not burnt on drugs, I went to Universal Studios everything that’s known. was after that came out and but I’m burnt out of my mind.” I got to ride the ride, and They want to be a completist. They want to complete it was probably the third or the collection. And then the fourth time I was riding the hunt for it. Digging around in an old antique store, ride and some girl was like, “Wait a minute, wait a or at a big box at a flea market, and just covered with minute. Are you the guy from MTV?” and she started a bunch of other junk, you see, at the bottom, this… bugging out. She was telling everyone. The ride actu1982 E.T. kickball or something, you know? ally got held up because she was freaking out. Then I was at the ride and...actually you know what I did get B&W: Yeah. And also, was there a switch when you something from it. One of the employees emailed me decided to go from collecting to having the biggest maybe a week later and said, “Hey, I heard you were at collection ever? Or was that something that just came Universal. I wanted to meet you. I’m sorry we won’t be naturally? able to meet in person, but do you want anything from the ride? I’ll give it to you.” And I was like, “Wait, NG: I think it came naturally because I didn’t even what?” I didn’t want to ruin anyone’s ride experience, know that my collection was that big and people but he said, “No I’ll just give you something small, would be like, “Yo, you’ve got a lot of E.T. stuff. Like, like a flashlight or something,” and then he ended up you’ve got a really big collection.” And I didn’t even giving me.. Have you ever been on the ride before? think it was because I was still hunting for everything. I didn’t know that many other E.T. collectors B&W: Yeah, yeah, I have. so I didn’t realize I had one of the biggest ones at the time. I don’t think the switch turned off until I had NG: So the cards that you get with your name on it, to pack it all up and move and I was like, “Man, this you know they program your name on it? He gave sucks.” me a stack of cards. Like there had to be a thousand of them. Brand new, they were never used. They B&W: For a while now, there have been interviews were never in circulation. They were old ones from with you on places like on Vice and VH1 document- before the 20th anniversary, so they were just siting your love for E.T. and your collection and stuff. ting around. So he gave me those, and then there Did you get any good finds from that exposure? was another Universal employee that I met through eBay, that I bought a sign from... and then we started NG: Not really collectible-wise. I don’t really know chatting outside of eBay. You know the sign that says

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T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N how long the queue is? How long the wait is? I have Dee Wallace, but that was at a horror convention. that sign. I have some other signs and posters from B&W: Where do you keep your collection now? And that ride and anytime I would want to go to Universal do you have any proper storage or cleaning precauhe would get me in for free. He actually gave me an tions that you take, or do you just let it live? employee badge with my name on it and the E.T. 20th anniversary edition of it. So I guess I did get stuff NG: I was just letting it live until just the other day. from that, and then there was another time.

I moved the last piece of the collection to my shed in

So the last time I was on TV for the 30th the back yard, because I’m starting to...I mean I’ve anniversary, Universal Studios contacted me and actually started to sell it already, but I brought it all flew my wife and I up to New York. They flew us home so I can sell it. up, put us in a $500-a-night hotel, I met Henry Thomas—the guy that plays Elliott in the movie—and B&W: How does it feel to start letting go of that I did a bunch of interviews. kind of stuff? What is it that They gave me a bunch of makes it OK to go from havsigns from the office and a ing the world’s largest E.T. I didn’t even know that my col- collection to starting to let bunch of Blu-ray DVDs and a sweatshirt and some other lection was that big and people go of things? stuff like that, which is rare would be like, Yo, you’ve got a NG: It’s sometimes emostuff. The posters were just made for the Universal office lot of E.T. stuff. Like, you’ve got a tional. Because some of the so I’m the only person who stuff I remember getting. really big collection.’” has them. They sent them to Actually, I remember getme instead of throwing them ting all of it... well most of away. And like the sweatit. And some of them I even shirts were only given to people who worked on the have the receipts from. I’d look back and it’d just remake of it, or to some of the Universal employees. remind me of those times. So it does get emotional, And I got flown out and put up in a hotel and stuff. I and many of the pieces actually have sentimental did get some stuff, yeah. That was a long answer. value to me, I am actually holding onto for a while.

The rest are just cool collectibles. I’m finding stuff B&W: I was interested to see if anyone from the movie that I didn’t even know I had. I just got an offer the was aware of your collection and it’s cool to know other day from some guy who wants to buy this piece. that you met the guy who played Elliott through your They’re almost like headshots of E.T. They’re cool, collection. but no one has ever seen them before until I posted them the other day on this E.T. forum. People were NG: Yeah. I met Henry Thomas. And the guy who bugging out. He hit me up outside the group and was plays the older brother, him and I talk on Facebook. like, “Hey I want to buy that stuff from you.” I have some production stuff that I might be the only one B&W: Do you still talk to him? to have.

There’s a lot of posters I didn’t even know I NG: Yeah I actually just sent him a picture this morn- had. I forgot that I started to collect E.T. posters from ing. When I go up to New York I’m probably going to all the around the world. I was like, “Damn!” It’s fun meet him and his wife. And then Henry Thomas, who to open the boxes up and check what I have, rememplayed Elliott, he has a band that’s kind of Radiohead- ber what I have, remember where I was when I got it, ish, I don’t know what you consider it, but he is you know, whatever, but for the most part in the end also a Morrissey fan, so him and I bro’d down over it’s just collectibles that I’m selling to make money to Morrissey. I don’t know if I should be telling people put aside for the kids, for more bikes, and to go see this, but he kind of had this little stalking moment Morrissey. [Laughter] Stuff like that. with Morrissey in a store once and he told me the story and we were laughing and bugging out. It was B&W: Since you’ve had so many pieces and you still awesome. And I’ve met the mom from E.T. as well, have so many, what, to you, makes something memo-

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T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N rable? What makes it interesting and sets it apart from all the other things that you have?

NG: I want to say there’s like different levels. Some of them are because of sentimental, like [my first talking E.T.]. That one I’ll never get rid of. My kids can do whatever they want with it, but I’ll never get rid of it. And then there’s other pieces that are rare, like production photos. I kind of want to keep [them] because I’m the only one who has them. But I think I could get a lot of money for them. There’s those two reasons, and then the other is just the coolness. Just the artwork. There’s this one artist that did art for a lot different movies, but he did stuff for E.T. I love his stuff. Some of his stuff I like more than the others because of it, you know? And just the rarity. I have an E.T. toothbrush. It’s so weird. You’re actually holding E.T. and there’s a toothbrush coming out of his head.

B&W: You talked about meeting people through your collection, I wanted to know what the E.T. community is like. Are most of the collectibles coming from other collectors or people who had memorabilia at the time, or is it more a mix?

NG: It’s definitely a mix. Mostly it’s just people who find E.T. stuff in their basement or a flea market and try to sell. E.T. is known around the world, so people always assume that it’s worth something. There’s a whole new group of people that are starting to collect it based on this one E.T. forum that I’m on, and it’s like younger kids. Kids that are in high school. It kind of surprises me.

B&W: Are you well known in that community?

NG: Yeah [he laughs].

B&W: Are you an authority on the matter? Do you have the information on the rarity of items or their authenticity?

NG: Yeah, yeah. People still hit me up. I still have iloveet.com, for some reason the site’s not working right now.. Now I get private messages on Facebook or even through Instagram, people find me on there and hit me up with a question. A lot of time, people find E.T. stuff in their attics or in their garage or at a flea market. It’s mostly younger people hitting me up asking about values. I am kind of still an authority

March 2017

on it.

B&W: So how long have you been selling your collection for now?

NG: Maybe five years.

B&W: Oh really, that long?

NG: I mean it’s been for sale for at least six years, like the whole collection, but I haven’t really been pushing. Once in awhile, I’ll grab something out of the E.T. room and list it. The past year, I’ve been really selling it more. I’ve been actually selling it at this thing called a “Hipster Yard Sale” down here and it’s basically just hipsters that buy vintage junk. I make more money selling at those things than on eBay. There’s no fees and all that kind of stuff. But now I’m really going to push now that I have it all here. My wife, while the kids are napping or at school, is going to list maybe 10 things a week. I’m just going to put it up as a Buy It Now for a set price and when it sells, it sells.

B&W: Where was the collection before? Was it up north?

NG: No, no. It was down here. I had this space that I rented from this guy, he has a Hot Rod warehouse, and upstairs there’s three bigger office rooms. One of the office rooms I had and I had it all set up in there.

It was just collecting dust. That’s the whole thing.

I’d rather collect memories than collect dust, you know? I’d rather collect memories with the money I can make off it than collect the dust. I’m not doing anything with. I don't see it. It’s not really benefiting me. I got a good ride out of it. It will always excite me seeing the movie and it will always excite me, like, “Wow there’s E.T. again.” I’m done with it.

B&W: What was the moment that you realized that you beat the game and it was time to give it up?

NG: I think probably when I had my first kid. Or when I found out I was going to have a kid. I was like, “I don’t need this stuff anymore, I have one of the coolest things in the world coming now in a few months,” so I kind of started getting rid of the collection. And then I actually started to sell it and then after I decided that, that’s when Universal hit me up

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T H E C O N V E R S AT I O N about coming up there and doing the press junket and stuff for the 30th anniversary Blu-ray. There was one more interview six months later, but that was the last hurrah. I’ve gotten a couple different offers to go on some TV shows and stuff like that, I guess I will, but to show it off it’s just too much. I don’t have time for it. Having kids is, like, life changing. It’s crazy.

simple, just a neighborhood thing. Just ride around on Halloween. So the next year is when we did the Halloween parade, the actual Halloween parade in the city. Just friends that know that we did it were like, “Ah, I want to join.” The loose requirements were: you had to have a BMX, had to have a red hoodie, and I could hook you up with the crate and the E.T.

B&W: Do your kids like E.T.?

B&W: You supplied your own E.T.s?

NG: They like the image of it, they’ve never seen the movie yet.

NG: Oh yeah. For myself I had the most legit one. I had this latex, rubber mask. Well it depends on what year. One year, I had a latex, rubber mask. It was very B&W: Do you have any big plans when you’re going to legit, I think it was from the same mold as the E.T. sit the family down and watch it puppet from the movie. So for the first time?

I used that, and one year I used this E.T. life-sized That’s the whole thing. I’d rath- clothes hamper. So I was NG: They haven’t seen it yet and we haven’t really planned er collect memories than collect using the most expensive what age we’re going to show ones, and the other ones it to them yet. I think it might dust, you know? I’d rather collect would either be just cheap be soon then. [My son’s] going memories with the money I can halloween plastic masks or to be five. my girlfriend at the time make off it than collect the dust. sewed up these printed B&W: And you saw it when you I’m not doing anything with. I E.T. faces and we would were four so it seems like the iron them onto this kind don’t see it. It’s not really bene of E.T. head she sewed right age. Do they like the toys and everything? ting me. I got a good ride out of together that we attached, somehow to these crates. it.”

NG: Yeah, yeah. They both We told people to just recognize E.T. and say “E.T.”. bring a white sheet or a Of course my four year old can, but my daughter turns blanket and if they could find a crate that would be two next month is already like, “E.T.!” great, too. Most of the time I had all that stuff.

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B&W: So you’re definitely raising in an E.T. friendly home.

NG: [He laughs] Not intentionally, but there area couple E.T.s floating around. It’s inevitable.

B&W: I want to talk to you about your Halloween Ride in New York. When and why did that stop happening?

NG: It came about, I guess it was 2001, my buddy and I were like, “Oh I’m going to ride around with a BMX and a E.T. in the front.” We both came to each other and said the same thing and were like, “Wait, what?”

Him, myself, and I think there was one other dude the first time, just rode around Brooklyn. It was real

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B&W: Finally, I just wanted to ask what do you still find worthwhile from E.T. that still keeps you interested and still keeps it in your life how ever many decades later at this point.

NG: I would say it’s just a good, classic family-friendly movie. Especially for the people that consider themselves outsiders, and I guess divorce is so common these days it’s not a big deal, but back in the day it was a big deal. And I think a lot of kids probably could really feel what Elliott was feeling. They had someone to connect with. I feel like you can use that same idea in life today. A lot of people don’t feel that they belong to something or they feel left out from their family, and they can find some kind of good feeling from watching that movie.w

The Blue and White

DIGITALIA COLUMBIANA These excerpts were culled from documents left on Columbia’s lab computers. We encourage our readers to submit their own digitalia finds to us, via email, at bwgossip@columbia.edu.

Today’s topic is authenticity. Authenticity is something that we generally value in, for instance, art or the objects that we buy: some people want to see the real Mona Liza, not a replica; some people want a genuine New Era cap, not a knock-off; some people want to hear a singer’s true voice, without Auto-tuning or lip-syncing. We also value authenticity in ourselves or other persons: “To thine own self be true!” But it isn’t always clear that we agree about the meaning or value of authenticity. e Thu, Feb 16, 2017 at 10:57 AM To: ocr@edu.org against illegal library ban. Medically harmful and literally dangerous.

As a direct result of that little stunt the NYU neo-racists pulled yesterday (hiding behind but authorizing and emboldening that skanky little bitch [] to illegal ban me and then lie about me publicly) such severe memory and concentration problems that today I kind of almost got hit by a car crossing the street against the light without realizing I was doing so.

She cited “extensive discussions” with the President’s office to justify the ban and lied and said it was for code of conduct violation but did not cite specific violation. When I pressed her further she kicked me out of the library.

Sending medical documentation separately but due to medical exigencies dating to when I was fighting major depressive disorder (unipolar) as an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, it is medically necessary for me to use the Bobst Library--ie, it is salutary for me in the same way a dog is for a clinically depressed person. The NYU library is like my service animal. Although the animal is really a chimp. e

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Kid Cudi’s “Pursuit of Happiness” describes the journey one takes to achieve happiness. Play the music video and discuss its main ideas and images about happiness in small groups.

Suggestions for playing the video: · Play the entire video (4:56), then discuss. · Play up to (3:14), pause, then discuss before playing the rest. · Play the entire video, then play it again, pausing at certain points (e.g., 3:14) to discuss.

Some key questions for discussion: · How is the pursuit of happiness depicted in the music video? · Is that a good depiction of how to pursue of happiness? Why, or why not? · What, if anything, is missing from Cudi’s pursuit of happiness in the video?

Some more questions: · What does Cudi mean when he says “that everything that shine ain’t always gonna be gold”? What, if anything, is something that shines and is always gold? · What is “it” that, once Cudi gets it, he’ll be fine? Is it happiness, knowing “that everything that shine ain’t always gonna be gold,” or something else? · The song opens up about drug use, having no regrets, and living life to the fullest, but then it takes a quick turn when Cudi sings “Tell me what you know about dreamin’ dreamin’…Rather lay awake in a bed full of sorrow”. What is Cudi saying hear, and how does it relate to the song’s depiction of the pursuit of happiness? · At some points, Cudi seems to suggest that happiness matters even more than life itself: “If I fall if I die know I lived it to the fullest.” But why, if at all, should we think this? ‘me,’ “by the pheasant king who was formed first.”w

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