Eight students from the University of Wisconsin have now been charged with underage drinking based off Facebook photos. And you don’t even have to have uploaded the incriminating photo yourself! According to the article, “Someone else posted photos on a Facebook site of UW-L sophomores Brianna Niesen and Cassie Stenholt holding beer, but they still ended up in court Wednesday pleading no contest and getting fined.”

Is this legal? Yes. Is it ethical? Tough call. I mean, if you’re caught drinking and you’re under 21, you’re clearly breaking the law. At the same time, I’d say like three quarters of my Facebook friends (myself included) have photos—both tagged and untagged—that could similarly get us in trouble with the law. And I don’t feel good about that; it’s not a great feeling to know that yes, it’s possible that a cop is looking at that picture of you downing shots in your friend’s room while pregaming.

Also, if you’re a schoolteacher and your Facebook profile has pictures of (legally) drinking, you can still be forced to resign. The line between responsible monitoring and 1984-esque spying is blurry for sure, but I have hope that when our generation rules the world in a couple decades, stuff like this won’t be a problem because, come on, our president will probably have pictures online of him (or her!) downing a beer and goofily smiling into the camera, just like the rest of us.

Picture courtesy Newser

About 50 students have taken over building Campbell Hall, where they have chained the doors shut and are wearing intimidating bandanas. Naturally, hundreds more (representing various UC campuses) have joined them outside the building, with picket signs and even more bandanas. Hm, this all sounds so familiar.

The group (with no distinct name) has released an audio statement encouraging students “who work two or three jobs while going to school” or for parents who will lose “the prospect of affordable education” to join in on the protest. Their only demand asks that state leadership find “other alternatives” besides increasing UC fees.

According to the LA Times:

“The full Board of Regents is expected to approve a fee hike of $2,500, or 32%, in two steps by next fall. That would bring the basic UC education fees to about $10,300, plus about another $1,000 for campus-based charges, for a total that would be about triple the UC cost a decade ago. Room, board and books can add another $16,000.”

NYU’s tuition is roughly twice the post-increase fees UC students pay. Just saying.

UPDATE: According to the LA Daily News, the UC Board of Regents — essentially the governing body of the UC system — has indeed “approved a 32 percent fee increase Thursday that will push UC tuition above $10,000 for the first time.” The increase comes while the entire UC system is facing a deficit of over $500 million.

Also, one student was arrested earlier for obstructing a police officer (whatever that means). Yesterday, twelve students were arrested while protesting in front of the Board of Regents’ Finance Committee.

The AP notes that “police in riot gear kept an eye on the protesters.”

Also, here’s a clarification of the fee system: All UC  universities are in a public system, thus tuition is hypothetically $0. However, all students pay through so-called fees managed by the UC Board of Regents, the UC governing body established in the California constitution.

UPDATE: Here’s a video of some protesting, with some heated action between students and police:

Compare this to last year’s TBNYU protest in front of Kimmel (for non-NYU readers, Kimmel is NYU’s primary student building). It’s interesting how similar both protests are, except the fact that UC students are wearing t-shirts and sunglasses (not jealous at all). Although, according to a few sources — friends at various UC universities — protests have been occurring regularly on campuses for the past few months:

The LA Times also reports that 40 other protestors locked themselves inside a classroom across campus from the main action. After the Board of Regents approved the fee increase — while protestors were only yards away — “some of the regents were trapped in the building and in vehicles as about 100 demonstrators surrounded the garage. Later, police cleared a path and escorted the UC officials out in a hurry as students chased them.” Here’s an awesome photo of some students blocking a van carrying regents:

The UCSolidarity website is also posting advisories for upcoming protests at different UC campuses, including UC Berkeley, which is organizing a solidarity strike.

Check in for more updates.

Photos from LA Times.

Instead, Fat Cat (Christopher St. & 7th Ave.) encourages bro-ing out in a simpler, more decent fashion. The premise is simple: one massive basement that serves as a pool hall, game room, jazz club, and trendy bar every night. Seriously, you would have to try to be bored here. Although you’ll feel like you’re violating a crucial bro code rule, any visitor quickly realizes that Fat Cat isn’t the ideal scene to get wasted at. Rather, spare the hangover and play some shuffleboard with a PBR, or enjoy some Scrabble with a glass of cheap wine. If you’re alone tonight, kick back on a couch and listen to the incredible live jazz, you loser.

Considering the place fits probably a few hundred on a weekend night, the crowd here is pretty much young, hip New Yorkers who aren’t exactly into clubbing in Chelsea, the types who take the L Train and frequent indie coffee shops (also known as NYU students). Within a few minutes of exploring, you’ll even probably recognize a few faces from your Nat Sci lecture, where you’ll awkwardly make eye contact and Facebook friend them later.

Finally, the cover charge for all these amenities is $3. Before you start complaining, I’ll tell you that I once saw Blake Lively sitting at the bar. Maybe she can get some NYU bros on Gossip Girl. If so, someone tell her that none of them work at NYU Local.

Photo from flickr user absolutwade used under a Creative Commons license.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Snuggie (or the near identical Slanket), then shame on you. The epitome of laughable products, the Snuggie is a blanket with arms attached (aka a backwards robe) for those too lazy to actually put clothes on. Weezer created a hilarious infomercial for their version of the Snuggie, a product you can order for the low low price of $29.99. And they’ll even throw in their latest album, Raditude, for free! Did you catch the part where they sold you their album? Tricky. Infomercial and more after the jump.

My only problem with this infomercial is that of the two items you get, the Snuggie is actually more desirable. If I may volunteer a few unwanted opinions here, the album itself is predictably mediocre and forgettable, and I kind of wish I had never listened to it. Weezer is pumping out some pretty boring pop here, not the good kind that makes me want to listen to it in the dark and not tell anyone I actually like it. The title was suggested by Rainn Wilson, and that’s probably the coolest part about it. I mean this album has a song with the following chorus: “I cant stop partyin…partyin.”

Nice one, what did Lil Wayne help you with that song? Wait a minute…he did? Seriously? The album has a pseudo-Indian feel to it at one point, and everywhere else it’s clear that Weezer has used other talented artists as poignant intertexts. It’s probably best if you just enjoy the infomercial:

My favorite part is around the one-minute mark, where Rivers Cuomo sips from a cup, nervously peering into the horrible abyss that one inevitably sees when wearing a snuggie. Or maybe he was just listening to the album. Your call.

The other day, Jess illuminated the financial gloriousness of being a part time student. This  week, let’s talk about saving a few thousand dollars a year without even changing your enrollment status.  (I know we go to NYU, so I apologize for the whole math thing that’s going to happen after the jump.)

What you’re probably doing:
Cost of full time enrollment/semester (Gallatin): $19,382.50
Credits required to graduate from this fine institution: 128
Credits a typical student takes/semester: 16
(so cost/credit is $19,382.50/16=$1,211.41)
128 required credits/16 credits per semester= 8 semesters of schooling x $19,382.50 per semester= $155,060 (vomit)

What you should be doing:
Cost of full time enrollment/semester (Gallatin): still $19,382.50
Credits required to graduate from this fine institution: still 128
Credits taken/semester= 18
(so cost/credit is $19,382.50/18=$1,076.81)
128 required credits/18 credits per semester= 7 semesters of schooling x $19,382.50 per semester= $135,677.50 (puke somewhat less) PLUS the 2 final credits required to graduate (see below), which will run you between $2,200 and about $3,200 (total), dependent on how/when you take them.

Savings: $155,060-$135,677.50=$19,382.50 (minus what you spend on your final two credits)

For those of you who aren’t really straight up “number people,” here’s what it means:

Full time students pay a flat tuition rate plus registration fee. I’m in Gallatin, so I fork over a rather arbitrary $18,293 and an additional $1,089.50 because apparently $18,293 just isn’t enough. So me and my Gallatin brethren are paying $19,382.50 per semester and typically taking 16 credits at $1,211.41 each.

The thing is, we’re paying for up to 18 credits. And if you actually start taking those extra two credits, you’ll only be paying $1,076.81, thus saving $134.60 per credit. That means saving $538.40 for every four credit class and, instead of feeling guilty every time you start to nod off, you might start feeling guilty only some of the time!

It also means that taking 18 credits per semester from freshman year onward will leave you with 126 credits for the price of 112 by the end of Fall semester of your senior year. So while your classmates are paying another $19,382.50 for a final semester at NYU, you are only 2 credits away from graduation. Obviously, it would be ideal to get those two credits out of the way in advance either through high school transfer credits, a Summer course or a Winter session class (which probably won’t seem as tragic when you’re saving about $17,000).

If you got that crap out of the way in high school, congratulations, you’re home free having paid $135,677 for your credits at NYU instead of $155,060. (Home free has, by the way, never sounded so terrifying). If you came to college with no credits (like those of us who had pneumonia during APs and, umm, didn’t do the make up test), you’ll have to spend another $2,200 or so to complete your final credits. That said, you’re saving about $17,000 and graduating a semester early, so you still win.

Having said that, we do support Cooley and Sexton’s decision not to penalize Varadarajan. We believe that every viewpoint from students, faculty and administration is just as valid as any other. We wrote as much two months ago in discussing prospective law professor Thio Li-ann, whose stance on gay rights drew considerable opposition among NYU students: “Intellectual discourse is rooted in conflicting opinions, and for this to happen, people of disagreeing perspectives and paradigms must come together to engage one another … No viewpoint will ever satisfy all sides, but each belief is as valid as any other.”

Way to quote yourself, guys; that argument was so awesome it needs to be heard twice!

Except I can’t get my head around the idea that anyone at WSN really believes that. Each belief is valid? Really? On one side, you’ve got, “Muslims should be banned from the military because it’s reasonable to assume that any given Muslim person is probably a cleverly disguised murderous psychopath,” and on the other side you’ve got, “No, that’s not true, and you’re a dick,” and Washington Square News thinks that both of those views are equally valid?

Time to grow up, guys. “Everyone’s opinion is equally valid” is something we tell to fourth graders to keep them from getting into fistfights over whether or not Batman is cooler than Superman (he is), but I figured by college everyone had abandoned that view. Sure something like your favorite flavor of ice cream is entirely subjective, but the statement “America would be safer if we banned all Muslims from the military” is not. There are good arguments and bad arguments, good views and bad views. Sometimes it’s hard to tell one from the other, but here’s a hint: if your argument involves portraying over 1.5 billion people worldwide as unhinged lunatics because of the actions of a small band of radicals, it’s probably a bad argument. And WSN knows this! You can tell, because earlier in the editorial they wrote, in characteristically tortured language, that Vadajaran’s column “stereotypes an entire culture and paints negative connotations to its beliefs.”

That’s not to say that I think Vadajaran should get fired. Nor did I think Purdue’s librarian or Ward Churchill should have gotten sacked. Sure, in each of these situations, I think the views expressed were reprehensible (or as WSN would say: “paint negative connotations to something something”). But there are issues of academic freedom to consider. If there’s no preexisting policy of conduct, then randomly shitcanning a professor sets an ugly precedent. And if you want to create a preexisting policy that prevents professors from publicly discriminating, I don’t know what kind of rule you could come up with that wouldn’t be too broad and could possibly stifle legitimate debate elsewhere.

Which isn’t to say that the NYU administration should do nothing. NYU prides itself on being a multicultural school, and if they want to paint positive connotations on whatever the fuck it is connotations are painted on, then it’s important for Sexton to repudiate Varadarajan’s column. And despite what WSN says, he actually did do that. Perhaps the editorial board would have noticed that if they got they bothered to read their own newspaper.

In a statement, Sexton said that although he found Varadarajan’s column to be offensive and disagrees with it, he values civil discourse. Sexton said he will not impose a sanction against Varadarajan.

Here’s the exact wording from the statement:

So where do we find ourselves today? A journalist and NYU clinical faculty member has written a piece for Forbes that many Muslims find offensive. I understand how they feel — I found it offensive, too. I am teaching Muslim students now, and I have taught them in the past; the portrayal of Muslims in the Forbes piece bears no resemblance to my experience; I disagree with the Forbes piece and think it is wrong.

That certainly reads a lot like repudiation to me. But I’m not going to insist that WSN messed and should issue a correction, because, hey, their take on this is equally valid!

But once again, NYU trails only USC, which has nearly 7,500 international students on campus. At least we beat Columbia (6,685), albeit by less than one hundred foreigners. Phew, that’s one crowded Bobst Lower Level from being No. 3.

The survey also notes that there are about 75,000 foreign students studying in the state of New York — an increase of 7.3% from 2008 — which is second only to California (again). The top three countries of origin for students are all Asian: India, China, and South Korea. Together, all three countries produce nearly 50% of all international students in the U.S. (and approximately 75% of late-night Bobst dwellers).

In case you haven’t passed Gould Plaza lately, 20.6% of foreign students are studying Business and Management. Engineering, Physical Science, Social Science and Computer Science round out the top five majors.

Open Doors also delves into trends of American students studying abroad. Unsurprisingly, the top destination sites are United Kingdom, Italy, and Spain. Of course, these rankings are only temporary until J-Sex and NYU Abu Dhabi takeover international education.

Despite continuous increase in foreign student populations, the LA Times also notes that the rate of growth might have slowed this semester “conditions and concerns about the H1N1 virus. A related but separate survey of 700 schools by the institute and seven other education organizations showed that 45% of those campuses reported an increase in foreign students this fall, compared to 56% last year.”

A lot of NYU students (read: overachievers) came to NYU with a few credits already under their belts, either due to college courses taken in high school, or transferable AP credits. As graduation creeps closer, you probably have more credits than you realize (check your Degree Progress Report on Albert to see how many you have). If you have 117 credits or more, you’re eligible to enroll as a part-time student for the spring semester, which will make your tuition a lot less expensive. I’ll use the numbers my parents and I crunched to demonstrate just how much you can actually save.

Tuition

Each school has a different tuition price. I’m in Gallatin, so that’s the tuition price I’ll be going off of here. Gallatin tuition for 12-18 credits is $18, 293, and per-credit it’s $1,078. For easy math’s sake, let’s round those numbers up to $18,300 and $1,100. Anything less than 12 credits is considered part-time, and means you pay per credit. At the end of this semester, I will have 120 credits, which means I only need eight more to graduate. So:

8 credits x $1100 = $8800

Compare that to $18,300 and you see just how much you can save. Depending on how much you get in scholarships (and how much they’re willing to still give you once you’re part-time), even paying per-credit for 11 credits pays off at $12,100.

Loans and Scholarships

After doing this math, my next concern was that I’d lose some of my scholarship or loan money. A quick call to the financial aid office meant I had little to fear. Call them (212-998-4444) and they’ll be able to tell you exactly how much aid you’ll still be eligible for. I had a $8,000/year Gallatin scholarship, and they told me that as a part-time student I’d still get half of that. $4,000/semester divided by 2 is $2,000. So now I only owe $6,800 (plus fees, which are the same price per point for part-time and full-time students). All of my loans stay the same, which means I had the choice of letting them be disbursed and having extra cash on-hand for after graduation, or canceling them and having less debt after I graduate. I chose the latter, but either option is good: it’s kind of a win-win situation.

Health Insurance

Another thing to consider is insurance. If you have NYU insurance, then you’re good to go until August; it still covers part-time students maintaining matriculation. If you don’t have NYU insurance, here’s what I did: I’m currently on my father’s plan, which states that I can be covered until I’m 21 or no longer a full-time student. As such, I’m covered until April (when they check again to see if you’re full-time or not), and after that I’ll have to go on COBRA, which–depending on your parents’ plan–will have a set monthly premium. Mine will be $600/month starting in April, which is A TON, but still way less than paying full tuition next semester.

You can also get NYU health insurance for spring semester even if you don’t have it now. All you have to do is prove that you were dropped from your parents’ plan, and you can enroll in NYU’s plan, which is $1205/semester. The good thing about NYU’s plan is that you can extend your coverage past August if you have yet to find a job with benefits. The maximum extension is six months (until February 2011), and though the numbers aren’t available yet in the handbook, you can call Student Health Insurance Services (212-443-1020) for the estimate. You can discuss with your parents which option would be cheaper, since it depends on their COBRA premium.

So, to recap: if you need 11 credits or less to graduate, it’s seriously worth investigating going part-time your last semester. I’m personally saving a shit ton of money, and so are a few of my friends whom I’ve told about this plan. Go! Investigate! In the grand scheme of $180,000, $10k may not seem like a lot, but when you’re still paying off loans ten years from now, it’ll be a major help.

5 – Gojira
AKA GODZILLA! It’s the movie that spawned nearly every giant monster killing rampage ever, so how could it not be on the list? So maybe it does give everyone in the world a terrible idea of what Japanese Cinema has contributed to the world, at least it’s still better than Cloverfield. This movie is still such a cultural phenomenon, that to this day we still have movies hearkening back to the genre created by that lovable lizard, such as Big Man Japan.

4 – Donnie Darko
An emo kid played by Jake Gyllenhaal is told that the world will end fairly soonish by a prophetic bunny rabbit named Frank, and he then tries to discover the secret of time travel in order to stop it from happening. Along the way, he wonders what the point of living is numerous times, and waxes philosophical about the anatomy of a Smurf. It’s one of those movies you have to watch more than once, but only if you have ADHD, a disorder which is very common amongst students during finals week, apparently.

3 – Fight Club
The first rule of Fight Club is that you don’t put fight club on your top five lists. This movie, while much less ambiguous than the book, charts the end of the world from the perspective of Edward Norton and Brad Pitt, who creates (grammatical spoiler) an army of nihilistic men by means of enrolling them in their cheery social club. I’m sure a single tear crawled down Kevin Smith’s cheek when he realized Fight Club made better use of a song by the Pixies than he could ever hope to.

2 – 28 Days Later
In this apocalypse movie from Danny Boyle, people get too close to strange monkeys and then turn into evil zombies angry people. The survivors learn to value the things in life that are truly important, like cheeseburgers. This one wins out over other zombie apocalypse movies, because it focuses more on the fact that the world is ending than it does the monster element. It was also far superior to its sequel…

1 – Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
You can’t fight in here, this is the War Room! Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 Cold War comedy, in addition to being a very bleak apocalypse movie, is arguably the greatest political comedy of all time as well. Dr. Strangelove teaches us all about our precious bodily fluids, how to deal with drunk world leaders and (most importantly) how to deploy a Hydrogen Bomb correctly.

Photo from Flickr user G Crackle under the Creative Commons License

Nobody should be surprised to hear former New York mayor/failed presidential candidate/potential future governor of NY/blood-sucking specter of doom Rudy Giuliani express the above views. Stomping all over civil liberties and the rule of law is his job! It’s just unfortunate that, also unsurprisingly, the entire Republican party has mobilized behind him, to say with one voice: Due process for me, but not for thee.

For example, there’s the house minority leader claiming that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is being granted a trial by jury to appease “liberal interest groups.” And there’s another failed presidential candidate, John McCain, shaking his wizened head from side to side to express his disappointment.

Now you’re probably wondering: Is Joe Lieberman in on the grandstanding too? You bet your sweet ass he is! Dude could smell an opportunity to wrap himself in the neocon flag and condescend to the proles if it was twenty miles away and buried under a heap of garbage, which he would undoubtedly burrow into like a mole to get to the sweet stuff.

If I’m going over even my own high standards of incivility here, there’s a reason for it: when it comes to Eric Holder’s announcement on Monday that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would be tried in a New York City court, there is no reasonable room for disagreement. If you think the man should be placed before a military tribunal instead–or better yet, not given a trial at all–then you’re an idiot.

For one thing, neither KSM nor any of the 9/11 hijackers and plotters are soldiers. And they’re not “enemy combatants” either, which is a legally ambiguous nonsense term coined by the Bush administration as a thin justification for trampling habeas corpus. They’re common thugs and murderers, and they should be treated as such. To behave as if they’re something more is, as Matthew Yglesias points out, to accept their own ludicrous narrative.

What this means is that while KSM may count among the rankest sacks of shit that humanity has to offer, he still has rights. He’s just as entitled to a trial by jury as any other criminal or non-criminal. The idea that Giuliani, Lieberman, Boehner, et. al. are espousing that these rights are special privileges that can be given and retracted by the state has more in common with the political philosophy of totalitarian regimes like the Taliban than it does any of the ideals the United States was founded on. I hate getting into insipid pissing matches over who loves America more, but in this case there’s no room for ambiguity: if you have any faith or understanding in the principles this country was founded on, then you accept the premise that everyone has the right to legal representation.

It’s a perfectly human reaction to not care about that and just want revenge. But it’s wrong, and I don’t think that’s even what the strong pushback on this is about. Sure, indirectly it is–the core constituency of the Republican Party is people who don’t give a rat’s ass about due process and just want to see some blood. But Giuliani and his coterie of crypto-fascists have enough legal experience (i.e. more than a failing grade in a high school civics class) that they should know better. Hell, I’m pretty sure they do know better, and are just cynically appealing to the worst instincts of their supporters for a little extra press coverage and a couple more fundraising dollars. It’s shameful, obscene behavior, and I hope that they’re all thanking the ghost of Patrick Henry each and every night that the same basic liberties they’re currently playing political foosball with allow them to go on TV and blithely condemn some of the most basic legal and philosophical touchstones of our civilization.

Because make no mistake: to create a populace controlled by fear and undermine what makes our country so strong was the intention behind the 9/11 attacks, and these fucking clowns are going on FOX Sunday and cheerfully helping that process along. It’s sickening.

Which is not to say that the Obama administration is free from blame in this matter. But their problem is the exact opposite of what their critics are making it out to be: what the Obama administration is really doing that’s so dangerous is picking and choosing which terrorists get to have a civilian trial based on who they think they can get a conviction for. In effect, this is only marginally better than depriving all of them of the right to trial by jury, and it’s unacceptable. Each and every murderer in our custody should face justice by due process.

You’re probably wondering at this juncture why anyone thinks it would be a challenge to convict any of the terrorists in American custody. Torture was likely a factor in the decision; even with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the treatment he faced in American custody will probably play a role in the trial. For others, it’s not inconceivable that it could get cases tossed out entirely.

But you don’t pick and choose who gets to keep their rights based on a cost-benefit analysis. And isn’t it funny that the people publicly opposing fair trials for people who were tortured because the torture itself weakens the case for conviction so greatly are the same ones who cheered on torture in the first place? Their disregard for human rights has already fucked us all over, but they just can’t help themselves.