What’s on everybody’s mind is the big news yesterday: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s controversial appearance at Columbia University. What’s not: Palestinian advocate Dr. Hanan Ashrawi’s speech at Cornell last week. Yet both of these events speak to a similar question: Under what circumstances, and with what consequences, should a respected American university invite a controversial figure to address its constituency?

There’s a certain and not so subtle irony, watching the moneyed troves of Ivy Leaguers so deeply engaged in obsequious prattle with the Goldman Sachs recruiters. It’s the Career Fair at Barton Hall last week, and with each forced smile and practiced but firm handshake, you can see the gap widening in America between the haves and the have-nots.

Here we have the elite institutions of America — the very same that recruit from urban ghettos and enlarge endowments to boost financial aid packages, hailing education as the antidote to poverty — making the key introductions that will ensure that the rich become richer.

Some years back, The Sun opinion section employed an Ombudsman who, like the New York Times’ public editor, turned an introspective eye to the happenings of the paper. In the absence of such a fellow, I am compelled to comment on a trend I’ve noticed recently: The Sun’s sudden sexist sexualization (try saying that ten times fast).

It should come as no surprise to anyone that the politics of intimacy are a mainstay in a college paper, but the frequency with which our female columnists have so far grounded their opinions in a language of sexuality is, at least to me, notable. While male writers mention “hooking up” or dating in passing, it’s the females who opine most regularly in erotic expository.

Let’s start with the obvious ones.

No doubt you learned scholars recall Thomas Jefferson’s celebrated paean to the male-to-male embrace: “We hold these… men … that they are endowed.” Or Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 car advertisement, “Four score and seven years ago, our fathers bought … a … [Jeep] Liberty.”

If you’re hip to these ellipses, you might have read Cornell’s Aug. 6 press release with approval: “Cornell University’s ‘Any person … any study’ named nation’s best college motto by magazine.” Read on, and you’ll note vice president for communications Tommy Bruce’s praise for our own truncated slogan, “The beauty of the motto is its inherent accuracy.”

After a summer spent in the confines of a cramped midtown Manhattan office, returning to Cornell was a breath of fresh air. Or so I thought … until yesterday, while making my regular trek from CTB through Ho Plaza, I inhaled swiftly ― expecting a patch of piney-fresh Ithaca air ― when a miasma of second-hand smoke instead nettled my nostrils.

Deckhead:

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For students of Asian descent, education has always been marked by stereotype. First it was the “model-minority” myth, propagated most famously in Newsweek’s 1984 cover story, “The Drive to Excel,” which showcased Asian students as exemplars of minority achievement. After disturbing statistics of victimization, depression and even high rates of suicide emerged, Cornell commissioned a task force to paint what was clearly a more complicated picture of the Asian experience. The Task Force Report, which is now under consideration, unfortunately fights stereotype with stereotype, as it neglects to recognize the enormous diversity within the Asian community.

Deckhead:

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As an over-caffeinated soccer coach in Kicking and Screaming, Will Ferrell tells his aspiring athletes, “I want you to play dirty if you have to, but don’t get caught!” Too often, we take a similar approach to cheating: if you need to copy to get by, then by all means, go ahead — but don’t get caught.

Deckhead:

Agree to Disagree

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A week after President Skorton’s first State of the University address, it might seem crass and hackneyed for a student journalist to once again raise the issue of Jeffrey Lehman’s sudden resignation last year. But the University’s rushed announcement of the capital campaign, coming right on the heels of Skorton’s inauguration, now suggests that it was differences over fund-raising that drove the final wedge between the Board and its 11th president.

Deckhead:

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Tomorrow morning in New York, President Skorton will announce an ambitious capital campaign: to raise $4 billion in five years. To meet this goal, the development office will need to solicit many multi-million dollar contributions, though our real strength, according to the University’s new fundraiser-in-chief, Charlie Phlegar, lies at the “grass-roots level”: in the pockets of Cornell’s 200,000 alumni.