As serious blogger-journalists with clearly nothing better to do with our time, we did not want to jump to conclusions when rumors surfaced that Conan was running into trouble with The Tonight Show and that NBC Universal President and CEO Jeffrey Zucker was considering another late-night shift. After all, both are men of integrity (maybe one more than the other) working in a high-stakes business.  They can’t let collegiate animosities interfere, right?

Not.

Given how the situation has unfolded in the last week, we believe the latest fight over The Tonight Show can now be explained using a Harvard paradigm.  Here is how it goes:

Conan and Zucker both went to Harvard at roughly the same time and lived in Mather House, an undergraduate dormitory for upperclassmen that was “designed by the same firm that built Hitler’s bunker.”  Mather is also known for its plans to take over the student body.  On top of that, Conan, president of the The Harvard Lampoon, and Zucker, president of The Harvard Crimson, are destined to be mortal enemies in an eternal struggle for world domination.  Or something like that.  If NBC wants drama at 10, why not develop a show based on a Conan-Zucker rivalry in college?  (only if Coco and the Chin fails, of course).  It could even be dramedy.

We believe The Harvard Lampoon may be scheming something in Conan’s name.  Stay tuned.

PS:  Let the record show that your editors reside in Mather, are part of the vast Mather conspiracy, and may or may not be members of The Harvard Lampoon and/or The Harvard Crimson.

PPS:  Edit: Addendum: Vanity Fair knows what’s going on.

Alive

Harvard FML: Based on the popular FML, the Harvard Voice designed this site to give students on campus (or abroad, MIT, Wellesley, and occasionally other Ivy League schools) a way to communicate their woes anonymously.  One author at the Bostonist believes that the website’s topics are bland and not indicative of true FML moments.  If you search long enough, however, you will find that Harvard FML houses posts about loneliness and social anxiety that go beyond MLIA “mediocrity.”  The user comments range from empathy to outright meanness, so I think that the site captures the spirit of the Harvard community well.

I Saw You Harvard: Depending on your viewpoint, this website serves as the manifestation of our stalker-creeper fantasies OR as a chance to let that special person know that there is someone in the Harvard universe (hopefully) who cares about him or her.  It’s also great for telling people–in a general manner, of course–that their opera singing sucks or that you saw them eating boogers when they thought no one was watching.  Like Harvard FML, this website is moderated, so the posts never get too risqué.

Lifeline

Bored At Lamont:  The most controversial social website at Harvard, post-Mark Zuckerberg.  The name comes from Lamont library, a place that serves as a general hub for undergraduates who wish to do academic research, study, or fantasize about the person sitting next to them.  Given the apparent lack of moderators, at its height this site became 4chan meets emo meets craigslist. Most posts were about racism (racist), elitism (elitist), sexual orientation/hookups, and depression.  It was unavailable for some time and it has not reached anywhere near its former glory since its return.  Now you know about it.  Make the magic happen.

Dead

The Harvard Idea Bank: A child of the economic crisis, this website was not a social network in the traditional sense.  Rather, it was a way for students, faculty, and staff to submit ideas for budget cuts.  The few legitimate proposals mainly focused on obvious, albeit relatively small, cases of energy waste, such as sprinklers going off during a rainstorm.  Enough joke posts made it past the censors so as to render the site useless.  These orly srsly posts included selling the Harvard Lampoon and getting rid of Dunster House, an undergraduate dorm.  I also posted a few jewels to see if I could make it past the censors.  The Idea Bank probably had no real effect on Harvard’s cost-cutting strategy.  As one of my professors told the class, Harvard’s decision to invest substantially in interest rate swaps meant that the elderly people who proctored exams in past years just could not do so anymore.  It did not matter if the proposal was part of the Harvard Idea Bank.  To be fair, in my case the exam process ran much better with the professor as the monitor.

Terms like licensing, picture exclusives, and video rights are ways for these organizations to have their cake and eat it while maintaining plausible deniability.  CNN would never pay for a news story since it is a respectable news group, but it would pay thousands of dollars for access to pictures and videos.  Same difference?  What is more telling about our present state of affairs is how low these organizations seem to be willing to go to get access to a story that is not really “news” in the traditional sense.  At least I can accept that Schuringa’s account is important because he played a role in what could have been a major terrorist attack.*  On the other hand, when there are rumors that NBC gave $300,000+ to Octomom for an interview and confirmation that ABC did pay a substantial fee for “rights” to an exclusive interview with Octograndma (money given to Radar Online, a gossip website), then checkbook journalism should be seen as a symptom of a larger problem in media today.

Click here to view the embedded video.

* I found it odd that right after a later rebroadcast of the interview the anchors warned that CNN could not “independently verify Mr. Schuringa’s account” at the time.  The fact that they are willing to jump the gun to get first dibs on Schuringa’s account is probably a bigger problem than checkbook journalism in this case.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This clip played before the Avatar showing I attended. The advertisement stands at odds with some of the themes presented in the movie.  Without giving too much away, I am referring to the clip’s implication about one’s service in the military contrasted against the “morally correct/incorrect” choices the main characters in Avatar make.   At first I thought it was a mock advertisement akin to the ones shown before Tropic Thunder or the fake movie trailers between the Grindhouse features.  Now I realize that with a name change (and more Autobots and Decepticons) it could easily be the preview for next summer’s blockbuster.

Spotted on a billboard outside a traditionally black church in Crenshaw, a few miles from where I live.  The ad is more poignant given the high levels of violence in South (Central) Los Angeles.

Well… “Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg taken to hospital” [Reuters]

Now if only he can tell us which lottery numbers to pick… Maybe he’ll just tell us to pick last week’s numbers. [Reuters]

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-----END VANISH MESSAGE-----

Does this mean a repeat of 1812?

The first lecture of the statistical mechanics class featured a remarkable demonstration, which went like this: first we start with some hot water and ice cubes, which were transported to the hall from their respective sources in thermos bottles. The first step is to pour some hot water into a cup; then you dunk in some ice cubes. After a few minutes, the ice melts (don’t forget to take a vote on whether the ice will melt or grow in size). It was a barrel of laughs.

…and in news which is not particularly notable, goats steal cars in Africa. [AP/YAHOO]