Cub Pub Scrubdown

Columbia life moves fast, and sometimes we just can’t cover all the events that have been going on. That’s a darn shame, but thankfully our fellow campus pubs pick up the slack with their dedicated writing staff armies. So, in a segment we hope will stick around and a name we hope won’t last, let’s go through these articles. Together. As a family. No you can’t go out with your friends, we have plans. It’ll be just as fun, we promise.

Pictured: "Fun"

Generation Iraq: Last Wednesday, a small cabal of journalists who’ve covered the Iraq war came to the Journalism School to talk about the effect of the war on Americans, Journalists, and Iraqis. It was a really great panel discussion with highlights coming from photographer Ashley Gilbertson, Iraqi journalist Ali Adeeb, and Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman (if she would only get off her iPad). For more check out Laura Kirchner’s article in Capital, linked above.

Herman Cain does Columbia. Everyone has a take on Cain’s presence, and so far it has been pretty good natured. Spec was taken by Cain’s recital of a song from the Pokemon movie while Bwog amused itself with Cain’s silly question & answer session where he discussed pizza toppings. Both occurrences, we should point out, where already predicted in Cub Pub’s own Cain coverage article from last week. All in all it seemed like everyone had fun. See, we promised didn’t we?

CCSC Election Results + Cub Pub Remodel

Spring, time for a new look for all

You may notice that the Cub Pub looks a bit different. Perhaps a bit swankier? Well that’s because the Cub Pub has broken free of its cocoon and emerged a beautiful bloggy butterfly. In plain English that means that this is the blog’s finalized design. There’s also an all new about page! We’re always tweaking and improving things though, and we love your feedback. If you have any suggestions or comments about the website just leave them in a comment below!

In the meantime the Earth still turns and that means that CCSC election results have come in. For sure you already know who won, but Cub Pub has an extensive list after the jump.  However, there is one important detail that you won’t get from any other publication. Both of your new University senators, Matthew Chou and Richard Sun, wrote about their platform here on the Cub Pub. They were two of only three who took advantage of the offer we extended to all senate candidates. Sure, they both ran strong campaigns, but it just goes to show the potential this blog has to get the word out. Congrats Matt and Richard! Next year we hope the Cub Pub receives statements from all the candidates!

Long Overdue Coverage: The Columbia Libertarian Blog

If only political ideologies could be graphed and modeled on a 2D plot

For the past week The Cub Pub has been covering the CPU  debate between the Columbia Democrats and Republicans. However, we’ve been forgoing one political group on campus: CUL, Columbia Libertarians. Last week they had an event as well:  The Young Americans for Liberty’s Civil Liberties College Tour. Several speakers attended such as Bruce Fein, Glenn Greenwald, Jacob Hornberger and Jack Hunter. The event had a huge turn out: around 180 people came to listen to the panel and it’s a shame that The Cub Pub did not have reporters to cover it. This absolutely wil be rectified for future political events on campus, CUL sponsored or otherwise. You can read up about the speakers and the event itself on the Columbia Libertarians blog here.

Speaking of the CUL blog, it has to be the most regularly updated and supported political blogs on campus, besides The Cub Pub of course. This is somewhat unexpected because CU Libertarians are a smaller group on campus than the College Dems and Repubs. The Libertarians’ have published four articles since the start of the semester. That may not seem like much but in comparison the post recent articles on both the Democrats’ and Republicans’ sites are still on SOPA/PIPA.

But there is a larger issue. If you read though all these blogs you’ll find that there’s hardly a single comment on any post. This is a problem. There’s no way to incite meaningful political conversation on campus if so few people are writing it and discussing it. Journals, reviews, and publications are nice but they they lack an online presence where real discussion can take shape. That’s the domain of blogs and that’s why the political blogs on campus are so important. The Cub Pub encourages all political groups to keep their blogs updated, keep the content fresh and timely, keep the conversation going. We have our own work cut out for us when it comes to creating discussion but in this case we are fortunate that it’s a tide that raises all ships.

CTV Debate Coverage!

Last Tuesday the Columbia Political Union held a debate on affirmative action between the College Republicans and Democrats. It was an impressive display from both sides, but if you missed out, don’t fret! We have minute by minute live blog coverage right here. Also, thanks to our friends at CTV we were able to film the debate for your viewing/reviewing pleasure. Want to get a better feel of what went down. or want to relive some juicy moments? Well, we have the closing statements right here, and embedded below we have CTV’s own news piece on the event. Enjoy!

It’s ALIVE!

The Cub Pub is slowly coming to life, being reanimated by the overwhelming bolts of electrical energy that is political discourse. If you’ve found us at this early stage well congratulations. The Cub Pub is looking for opinionated writers (of any political affiliation) come together in the love of coffee and a good, ol’ fashioned scandal.

Speaking of scandals, the Susan G. Komen scandal is blowing up in the media and on the web. For those who have been focusing this week on the 46th Superbowl- a much more pleasant event despite the presence of tackling- Susan G. Komen For The Cure is the breast cancer non-profit group, or at least the best funded one with the pink ribbons. For years Pro-Life groups have been pressuring Komen to stop funding Planned Parenthood, since PP provides breast cancer services. Recently Komen changed its polices so that institutions under state and federal investigations- such as planned parenthood- would have their funding cut. Many interpreted this as the organization giving in to outside pressure and the backlash was almost instantaneous. Komen has since reversed its decision on Planned Parenthood but the damage has been done with both Pro-Life and Pro-Choice supporters losing faith in Komen’s ideology.

You're going to need a bigger tractor to bury this mess... and it won't be pink by the end of it.

For a politically neutral publication this presents a number of issues. Many have been curious about how the new Cub Pub will handle these situations. The Cub Pub recognizes that despite the best intentions of the author, it’s impossible to be completely unbiased. It also makes for uninteresting political discussion; after all the Cub Pub is not a news source, it is a source of political discussion on Columbia’s campus. That means we at the Cub Pub need writer with a wide variety of political ideologies to reflect those of the students at the university. Can Komen rebound our is this an unredeemable misstep? The discussion starts now: tell us in the comments about what you think.

-Zach Kagan, Editor of the Cub Pub