CornellWatch

After a marathon 17-hour session of bargaining, negotiators for Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit and representatives for Local 2300 Union of Auto Workers reached a tentative agreement for a new 3-year contract yesterday, the exact day that their previous contract expired. Had they not reached an agreement, TCAT bus service might have been suspended until a new contract was agreed upon. Thank god, because the drunk freshmen coming back from Collegetown tonight seriously need bus drivers to harass.

Read the rest of this entry »

Radar, the magazine for “smart people” who dabble in pop culture, has recently, in one fell swoop, both insulted and inspired starry-eyed Cornellians. A lot of people are up in arms, to say the least, about the magazine’s “unfavorable” ranking that dubs Cornell the runner-up to the “most overrated” college in America (Harvard took that honor… overachieving bastard), among other meanish things. Consider Sun columnist and possible crab person Tony Manfred, who decided the best way to rage against the rankings machine was to fight fire with fire: “Imagine dumb people trying to be smart, perverts trying to be sexually mature, bush-dwelling paparazzi giving journalism a try — this is Radar.”*

And then there’s those brave souls who have said pish posh to Radar’s snarky commentary and transcended petty adversity. Like blue-blooded** Eclipse (the supplementary section of the Sun that has been converted into a pull-out “magazine”) editor Leigha Kemmett, who embraced the magazine’s “unique and engaging content, content that [she] actually wanted to read” despite the fact that the issue she picked up was the one that slighted Cornell.

In any case, I’ll stop this crappy-trend-story-lede nonsense and cut to the chase, sort of: our feelings about Eclipse magazine. It wants to be like Radar, kind of? And the cover story, the unfortunately headlined “Rating the Rankings,” is basically a rumination upon the current status of Cornell’s rankings poo-poo (dropped from 12 to 14 in the U.S. News & World Report, the most overrated item in Radar).

Read the rest of this entry »

We’re very sorry to have to tell you that the well-meaning people over at the Ithacan ran a story in the Accent Section about us. Somehow they just kinda snuck up on me and asked some questions, and I’m really at a loss for how they got that picture. In it, I think I was saying something to the extent of, “What are you people doing here? Please, our little rag is not worthy!”

In all seriousness, though, we’re indebted to the Ithacan, especially to Accent Editor Edon Ophir and writer Maggie Hibma, for covering us. Now maybe we merit a Wikipedia page. Last time we tried to put one up some meany-poo editors called us a “non-notable student publication” and promptly deleted our page. We’ll show them now!

Your heroin’s not coming this week, sorry.

Ruh roh! Seems like the liberals on campus are pissed off about something… what’s new? Just kidding! That’s the kind of joke only a writer for the Cornell Review (or the defunct Cornell American, which joined forces with the Review last year) would make, which brings me to the point: a diverse array of campus liberals marched around Barton Hall today at Clubfest armed with signs* and indignance because of some nasty little racisty things the Review said in their welcome back issue.

After the group snowballed up and down the rows, they made their way over to the Review’s table and chanted a little about how Cornell must make them go away. And then some guy with a loudspeaker started talking, but I wasn’t really listening. There was a CoPo keeping the peace WHILE sucking on a lollipop (such talent!), and I tried to take a cell phone picture of him but I fucked it up. Anyway, their specific gripes (which a sweaty guy with a clipboard distributed before the “march” to random tables including Kitsch’s, urging us to fight the good fight with him) are after the jump. Also after the jump: why their gripes don’t really make too much sense.

[UPDATE (9/13): Before I get a flood of angry commenters, I want to let people know that I do not support in any way or form the Review. I am sorry that this post comes off like I'm shitting on activists, I'm not. I respect what you're doing here but believe that it's a bit misguided and needs to get its facts straight concerning the Cornell name and ask the administration to do something about the Review with a legitimate claim (aka please check their masthead for a disclaimer, I don't have a copy handy). Please take this into consideration before you post comments.]

Read the rest of this entry »

Republican blowhard John McCain announced that Alaska governor Sarah Palin will be his running mate in the 2008 Presidential Election. Is he trying to court disillusioned Hillary fanatics, a good deal of whom are female? More importantly, why are Alaska and Delaware, the 47th and 45th most populous states in the union, in the national spotlight? Everyone knows Delaware doesn’t exist. And Alaska? You know what they say about states with big land masses.

So you probably have heard that some University admintard(s) decided to erect a draconian fence that blocks entry to the path down to the Fall Creek gorge (the one where everyone lays out on the flat rock below the Suspension Bridge) and pranksters have been cutting holes through said draconian fence. And you probably have been wondering, “WHODUNIT?” or rather “WHO IN THIS GOD-FORSAKEN ADMINISTRATION DUN IT?” MetaEzra’s Matthew Nagowski certainly has. A source* informed CornellWatch that, probably like every other legalish administrative decision ever, it seems that a “consensus” was reached during a large meeting between the “University Council Office” and key administrative figures. But when was this meeting convened? Who exactly presided over this august body? And, perhaps more importantly, what is the University Council Office? Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday countless Schedulizers were really pissed off about how this Registrar assclown totally got all up in their favorite online schedulizing tool’s grille, and so they sent lots of angry emails whose phrasing would probably have been wildly inappropriate in person. And now the Schedge is back! Click through for a screengrab of their felicitous salutation to their personae gratis: we the users. We like you, Schedulizer, we really like you.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Registrar’s office has apparently made it impossible for Schedulizer to function, or something.When you log in to the Schedge, the entreating missive at left comes up and explains that “Cornell has made it prohibitively difficult for us to maintain accurate course information.” And even though the good peeps over at Schedulizer (holla back, Ross) have tried their darndest to work with the Registrar to resolve this timely and adequately, “the Registrar has been unresponsive.” The Registrar so tied up in its own red tape that any soul brave enough to venture into cubicle-y abyss comes out with empty answers and the nagging desire to set Day Hall on fire? Unheard of. It seems this whole shebang is due to the switch to the decidedly sucky PeopleSoft, which (not unlike many a beer goggled hook-up) appears pretty and wholesome and kinda cute but in reality sucks giant monkey balls.

This makes times quite trying for we students who did not write down our schedules before 1:30am the night before the first day of classes. And since some unnamed students did not get all the classes they wanted and a bag of potato chips in PreEnroll, some unnamed students are kinda pissed off. And so this colors their decision to send what would normally be a very peaceable and professional email to the evil-sounding UnivRegistrar@cornell.edu. After the jump, the offending email.

Read the rest of this entry »

Cornell instituted a new Just the Facts system last spring, and student reviews were glowing… perhaps even explosive. Today at 10:30am (at least it’s not 6), we faced the beast that is PeopleSoft again.

So how’s it doing the second time around? Let’s let the people talk for themselves:

Read the rest of this entry »