Cyrus Farivar

If you know my friend Rachel Rosmarin, you might also know her brother, Ari, who has been immortalized in this week’s issue of The New Yorker. We ran into each other on campus today. Ari Rosmarin, a nineteen-year-old Columbia junior who mans the front desk, gave Ezili the telephone number for one of the protest organizers. A little later, a fabric importer who works in the area popped in to say that he thought the civil libertarians were misguided. “After…

That’s a slogan that I saw on a hair salon called Ghetto Fabulous in Crown Heights, Brooklyn on Friday — my first initial foray beyond the confines of Manhattan. Crown Heights, a 50 minute subway away, is more or less divided along the Eastern Expressway, with Hasidic/Lubovitch Jews to the south, and Jamaicans/Guyanese/Trinidadians/Surinamese/Haitians to the north. Should be a neat community to cover this semester. I spent nearly two hours walking around there just getting an initial feel for the…

Go Bears! Associated Press Monday, August 16, 2004; 1:11 PM ATHENS, Greece – American Natalie Coughlin won Olympic gold in the 100-meter backstroke Monday night. Coughlin, the only woman ever to swim under 1 minute in the event, finished first in 1 minute, 0.37 seconds. Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe, who swims at Auburn University in Alabama, earned the silver in 1:00.50. Laure Manaudou of France took bronze in 1:00.88. Manaudou had won the 400 freestyle Sunday night. Coughlin, of Concord,…

Philly is a cool place. In a nutshell from these past few days: Thursday: Pizza with Sarmad at Sal & Carmine’s, Farmer’s Market on Broadway Friday: Crown Heights, Dinner with Peter and Veda at CafŽ de Bruxelles in the Village, Belgian beer rocks. Saturday: Philly via Chinatown bus. Chez Giselle. UPenn, Downtown Philly, Liberty Bell, Jim’s Steaks (Philly Cheesesteak), Nap, Dinner/Jazz at Ortlieb’s Sunday: Sleep in, Phillies game, Saw Matt & friend Diane, Caribbean Festival @ Penn’s Landing, Chat with…

This proves what Kerry, Edwards, Clinton and even Al Gore in the last campaign have been saying for years: Fully one-third of President Bush’s tax cuts in the last three years have gone to people with the top 1 percent of income, who have earned an average of $1.2 million annually, according to a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to be published Friday. The report calculated that households with incomes in that top 1 percent were receiving an…

Why can’t our public officials be funny all the time? On Thursday evening, the Bushes were joined by Schwarzenegger inside a hangar decorated with large U.S. and California flags. “It’s fantastic to be with all of you here tonight to salute our great president, George W. Bush,” Schwarzenegger said in his brief introductory remarks. “I just want you to know, President Bush, how hard I’ve been working for you here in California. “I’ve been organizing Republicans for Bush-Cheney. I’ve been…

Bad news: California Supreme Court Voids Gay Marriages in San Francisco (NYT, August 12 2004) Optimistic caveat: Mr. Newsom had argued that he could order the licenses issued because he believed the state ban on same-sex marriage to be unconstitutional. The justices today did not address the constitutional question, which is the subject of a separate lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court. But they did say that should the existing marriage law ultimately be found unconstitutional, “same-sex couples then would…

That was a direct quote from Prof. Tucher who gave us a lecture today on journalism history. She was talking about a TV story she heard about from the 1970s about how bras are dangerous because someone died wearing an underwire bra when she got struck by lightning there are sometimes, both today as well as in the past, really silly news articles. The best one from the early 19th century was, right when newspapers were first coming out in…

Reuters, August 9 2004 Since “The Terminal” opened in the United States in June, reporters have been lining up to meet him at his makeshift airport home, passengers stop to take his photo and fans send him letters — addressed to “Alfred, Terminal 1”. “I might be famous. But my life hasn’t changed at all. I’m still sitting here, and not in some fancy flat,” Merhan said. The soft-spoken, balding man says he received more than $300,000 (162,813 pounds) from…

I think I just almost got mugged, in plain daylight. I was walking through Morningside Park, which is just east of my apartment, separating Columbia’s hood Morningside Heights, from Harlem. I had a few hours between when our latest orientation session got out and the evening discussion about media coverage in Iraq and decided to go for a walk in Little Senegal. I was on my way back, talking to Matt “Boring Matt” Bunczk, a friend from Senegal who I’m…