Ivy League

Despite the simmering town-gown tensions in Upper Manhattan, the Cuban restaurant La Floridita, is expanding into a space next-door that is also owned by Columbia University, fully knowing that the Ivy League school will eventually take over both locations. The restaurant's owner, "seated in the shade of a plastic palm tree," tells the Columbia Spectator:

Based on how Columbia is treating me and is dealing with me, I don't feel apprehension.... I feel confident that I will be offered a space in the expansion zone.

All of which proves, if you can't stand the heat, duck under a plastic palm tree.

- Matthew Schuerman

On a Wednesday in December, a young black man sat glum and quiet in a courtroom in Jersey City.  read more »

Rep. Charlie Rangel, speaking at a Crain's breakfast in midtown this morning, shared his thoughts on the draft and some Ivy League students.

"I spoke about the draft at Columbia, Harvard and Brown. These kids don't even know there's a war in Iraq."

It doesn't sound like he's ready to let go of the issue any time soon, despite the near-unanimous lack of support he's received for a proposal to reinstate the draft. And Rangel, a decorated war veteran, will have the ability to make things increasingly uncomfortable for his newly empowered Democratic colleagues every day that goes by without a coherent alternative position on how to deal with Iraq.

-- Azi Paybarah

A good exposé is irresistible, especially if it reveals the ugly side of something pretty and burst  read more »

A good exposé is irresistible, especially if it reveals the ugly side of something pretty and  read more »

On my second trip to Afghanistan in 2002, I heard a lot of stories about the bad old days when the T  read more »

We don't quite know where to start with this help-wanted ad from one of Virginia's consultants, Leonore Blitz, who is "seeking an intern to work full-time at a consulting firm and assigned to work with a client who is a New York City Mayoral candidate, the only female running in the Democratic primary."

Blitz, who was a major fundraiser for John Kerry, certainly has high standards: The job-seeker should be "an undergraduate or a 2005 graduate, preferably from an Ivy League or comparable caliber institution."

And that's not all: "Skills required include...poise and self-assurance."

But what really caught our eye was a certain lack of confidence in Fields's own prospects of making it to November:  read more »

"Length of internship would ideally be through September 20, 2005."

It is perhaps the only place in the world where one can wager that Theodore Roosevelt, John F.  read more »

A year and a half ago, some smart-aleck Yale University students got a lot of media attention for st  read more »

On the afternoon of Saturday, Nov.  read more »

Lots of lurid stories have been written about how hard it isto get into college these days.  read more »

Sideline "reporters" are the bane of televised sports.  read more »

The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy , by Nicholas Lemann.  read more »

Not long ago, a few of us old guys were sitting around after dinner, shooting the breeze.  read more »

(1) A Summons From Cheever . You could think of it as the Skull and Bones of sporting events.  read more »