Former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair to Teach at Yale University
Tony Blair, fresh into his first year of retirement from helming the United Kingdom, will take up a position as a fellow at Yale in the fall. A press release from the university announces:
Mr. Blair will lead a seminar at Yale and participate in a number of events around the campus. The course in which he will participate with Yale faculty will examine issues of faith and globalization. His efforts at Yale relate to the work of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation that he will be launching later this year.
Blair will be a “Howland Distinguished Fellow,” a post once filled by Indira Ghandi. Blair’s son Euan is currently studying for a master’s degree in international relations at the school. In 2006, it was reported that Harvard, Princeton, and Yale all competed for Euan’s affections when he was choosing schools, and in the end he selected Yale, which gave him a full scholarship. A prescient move, it would now seem.
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Jay-Z ‘Took Rihanna Aside’ to Talk About Rumors of Their AffairRihanna said she used to feel self-conscious about the rumors that she hooked up with Jay-Z, but now just ignores them. Observer prepmaster general David Foxley will now be the person to call to get reservations at the Waverly Inn. Billion-heiress Anna Anisimova slept at her mother’s place on Tuesday, which is a good thing because a 400-pound Venetian chandelier collapsed and fell fifteen feet onto the bed at her own place. Rapper 50 Cent has to pay an undisclosed sum to a Post photographer for knocking him down after he tried to take a photo of him. MSNBC accidentally flashed a graphic of Osama bin Laden as host Chris Matthews was discussing Barack Obama. Robert John Burck, a.k.a. the Naked Cowboy, says he has high-profile investments. DJ AM has invited ex-girlfriend Mandy Moore to hear him spin at Room Service on Friday.
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You Should See Pataki Do That Bow Wow Song After a Couple of Sam AdamsA significant portion of New York’s wealthy and powerful will migrate north this weekend for the Yale-Harvard football game. The notoriously competitive teams are both undefeated, making this one of the most important games in history. And a good excuse for getting toasted! Among the revelers will be Governor Pataki, who graduated from Yale in 1967, and who plans to booze it up at his house in Garrison, New York, before taking his party up to New Haven to tailgate. Whoooo! “We’ve got everything ready — great food, good wine and beer,” he told the Sun, adding that drinking the brewski is how he spent a large percentage of his undergraduate years. He’ll mingle with Harvard friends before the game, he says, but when the game starts, it’s all business. “None of us are particularly good losers,” he said. Now that’s a shocker.
Harvard-Yale Game Is Hottest Ticket in Years [NYS]
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‘Times’ Fashion Critic Visits Yale, Talks Up InternetTimes fashion critic Cathy Horyn picked up her Birkin bag and went to New Haven yesterday to address Yale students about her writing and the business of clothes. “I have tremendous amounts of freedom,” Horyn told them of her position at the Gray Lady. “If Armani pulls his ads, no one blames me and I don’t have to worry about it — so I don’t.” (And yet, she regularly orgasms over the Italian designer.) Horyn dug deeply into the intricacies of the business, even letting students in on a little secret: “The Internet is where the action is,” she said. “People are out there who love fashion who aren’t coming from the front row.” Oh! That’s what she must have been doing by going to a college to address some lowly scholars. Bringing fashion to the masses! The Yale Daily News asked junior Michael Huang how she did. “I think that a lot of what people said might have gone over people’s heads,” he said. Oh, dear. Maybe she started with the wrong masses.
Horyn Snubs Fawning Fashion Reviews [Yale Daily News]
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In Which Intel Is Not at All Bitter About Jonathan Safran Foer Teaching at YaleReaders,
Some news! Jonathan Safran Foer will teach a semester of classes to Yale English majors in the Writing Concentration, the Yale Daily News reports. It’s a boon for the program, as it’s rare to snag a young writer at the top of his game. The concentration has long boasted acclaimed poet J.D. McClatchy, Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Donald Marguiles, and Amy Bloom, the author of the recent New York Times best-selling book Away. The instinct is to make a joke about how Jonathan Safran Foer’s second novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, felt like it was written for a freshman creative-writing class. But maybe that’s too harsh. There are probably lots of young Yale students in the Writing Concentration who think that Safran Foer’s insight might just help them become a successful novelist at a young age. Instead of, you know, becoming a bitter blogger, which is what the program did for me.
Love,
Your Constantly Yale-Referencing Daily Intel editor, Chris
Famed Author to Teach Fiction [Yale Daily News]
Trying to Understand the Times Square StreakerIt’s not every day that you wake up in the morning to find a picture of one of your former classmates naked on the cover of the New York Post. But such is the case today with Josh Drimmer, the Times Square Streaker. Drimmer, who graduated from Yale with one of your Daily Intel editors, gave no reason for why he walked up Seventh Avenue with no clothes on, entering a restaurant and jumping on the counter briefly, before getting scooped up by police and sent to Bellevue Hospital for evaluation. An actor and editor at a school newspaper while in college, Drimmer is a playwright and also writes a blog called Excellence Makes Wack Irrelevant. Though Drimmer was not a member of Yale’s infamous Pundits, the prankster group which hands out candy while nude in the library during finals, your editor seems to remember seeing him as a guest at one or two of their naked parties. Which doesn’t necessarily explain why he might walk naked around New York’s most touristy intersection. Oh, wait. The Post already has the answer: He’s a “hipster.” Ah, it’s so simple!
Welcome to Times ‘Bare’ [NYP] (Check out the photo gallery. Seriously.)
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Thy Neighbor’s Wife, and Thy OwnNan and Gay Talese are at work on his and her memoirs about their allegedly open marriage. Jon Bon Jovi is not pleased an energy drink named Mijovi is selling well near his New Jersey residence. Ted Koppel dropped the asking price for his Potomac, Maryland, residence from $4.1 million to $2.3 million. Hillary Clinton complained about the traffic in the Hamptons during her fund-raising stint out east. Stand-up comic Phil Stellar entertained an audience at the Ziegfeld after a movie projector broke during a showing of Hairspray. Meryl Streep says she was kicked out of Yale Drama School for not working hard enough. Gwyneth Paltrow uses face cream that contains snake venom.
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Judith Regan Stopped in the Nick of Time?So who was embattled, mezuzah-violating, rat-metaphorizing book publisher Judith Regan about to sign just before she was fired? According to Mediabistro’s GalleyCat, none other than the most famous power-lifter, tennis champion, tango lover, spy, and Yalie ever to apply for an i-banking job and hit YouTube: Aleksey Vayner.
You know who he is, right? If not, go read up. And then tally another reason why Rupert made the right call.
For Judith Regan, Impossible is Nothing [GalleyCat]
Previous Incident Reported Involving a Fired Publisher [NYT]
