The Postmodern Clusterfuck, and goodbye to it all!

Last week, I saw the end of civilization. Turning the corner of Dodge from Low Steps to 116th and Broadway, I saw a man trudging down College Walk with the familiar stooped gait of someone sending a text message. This guy was enthralled by that even rarer breed, the iPad. I watched him proceed, eyes still fixed on the flashing screen, and walk at full pace into a row of passersby. Not pretty. It was a sad footnote in the history of supposedly connective technologies, but more than that, the man and his iPad were the latest casualties in what I like to call the Postmodern Clusterfuck.

By Sarah Leonard and Kate Redburn | Apr 25 07:43 pm ET

(Other) poets in New York*

When Bollinger stands with hair flapping
Your grandparents all will be napping
We’ll sit there in rows
And stare at our toes
When suddenly there will be clapping.

That’s the sound of your real life arriving
The culmination of undergrad striving
Throw your Red Bull away
Today is the day!
That no more all-nighters need your surviving.

No more tests, no more greeting the dawns
Feeling shunted like somebody’s pawns
This school can be taxing
Now there’ll be relaxing,
In the real world you can sit on the lawns!
Throw a party, no school to say “NO”

By Sarah Leonard and Kate Redburn | Mar 28 07:37 pm ET

Buzz off

The problem isn’t necessarily the technology itself, but us. Our worst competitive tendencies run rampant as we feverishly develop online personas within every social network, and then neglect to consider how else we could be spending the same amount of time.

By Sarah Leonard and Kate Redburn | Feb 21 07:40 pm ET

Postcrypt? Priceless.

Why would the school want to close “one of Columbia’s open secrets” and “an effortlessly cool place on campus”?

By Sarah Leonard and Kate Redburn | Feb 7 07:07 pm ET

Bottoms up!

Instead of running away from the good fights, Democrats need to encourage activist campaigns, allowing good ideas to filter up through the grassroots in exchange for financial support from above.

By Sarah Leonard and Kate Redburn | Jan 24 08:32 pm ET

The frenzied life

Life is not a purposed whole, but a cycle of tirelessly building up our physical and mental capacities before hurrying to obliterate our senses. Could any of this make us happy?

By Kate Redburn and Sarah Leonard | Oct 22 05:25 pm ET

The greatest show on Earth

Depending on how progressives react, the current intellectual vacuum among conservatives can either legitimize irrationality or finally neutralize a failed set of principles.

By Kate Redburn and Sarah Leonard | Oct 8 06:03 pm ET

Hydra 2.0

Our own administration could benefit from replicating Obama’s success, talking to students more openly about why things work the way they do and communicating with other offices so that knowledge is not so specialized.

By Kate Redburn and Sarah Leonard | Sep 24 05:48 pm ET

Pull the trigger

Never have conservatives’ odes to market forces seemed more delusional than now, as the market’s unregulated force sweeps the country into a historic recession. But many elected Democrats are right there with them.

By Kate Redburn and Sarah Leonard | Sep 10 06:49 pm ET

Break out, take over

At the beginning of this school year, we wrote that Columbia activists ought to unite. This ideal hasn’t been fully realized, but we have seen a remarkable reorientation towards needs outside of our marble fortress.

By Kate Redburn and Sarah Leonard | Apr 23 08:50 pm ET