Bwog is so funny when it thinks itself so relevant that there's any sort of anticipation for posts like this.

In other news, I'm loving the new RSS feed in the Leopard version of Mail

I'd rather see all the coalition members starve to death on the steps than Columbia give in to their crazy demands...

Maybe some will die and reduce the surplus population.

water and gatorade allowed? you could survive for quite a while with those two. that doesnt say much does it? real ballers would skip the gatorade, and maybe even the water. people are a lot more likely to be alarmed when your timeframe of survival is a couple of days rather than several weeks (a healthy individual could probably survive weeks with water and gatorade, no doubt)

What the strikers should really do is drink as much water and gatorade as they want, but then withhold from toilets.

Now that's what I call willpower.

to #4, #5, and anyone else calling this lame: if it's so lame, why don't you tell us about the last time you went on only water and gatorade for several weeks? yeah, i thought so...regardless of what you think about their demands (over-the-top, in my opinion), there's gotta be some respect for trying.

this is a bad idea. bollinger will realize that all he has to do is wait until they starve to death and then the problem will be gone.

It's got what activists crave!

of course i havent been on a water/gatorade strike before, and i think it's lame. i think that's just being consistent right?

i did go on a real hunger strike when i was 11 and wanted a dog. i went without dinner that night, didnt have breakfast the next morning and got a puppy a little after noon. i won out because i was hardcore and didnt pussy around with gatorade. grow a pair bitches

gatorade?!? gatorade has calories!! those pansies. also, their demands are dumb. but not as dumb as the fact that they're cheating on the whole "hunger" thing.

Now I understand everyone's shit's emotional right now. But I've got a 3 point plan that's going to fix EVERYTHING

what the hell are you talking about?

children.

So, I like the Core and I think the Manhattanville expansion is a good thing overall. Do I need to go on a hunger strike to make sure these morons don't force Bollinger to abandon them?

where is this "on the recrod info" coming? why aren't the demands also listed in the story, because it obvious that some of the people posting have NO idea what is going on. bwog seems to do a good job at losing track of what students are fighting for when it comes to things like this!

i like to core, too. but in light of recent events...5 HATE CRIMES IN LESS THAN A MONTH...and these are public hate crimes, who knows what else has gone down, i think the core can be used to flourish more free thought. it is known that major cultures is taught from a western syllabus. it is known that past student action is what brought things like the haitian constitution and wretched of the earth onto the reading list. so it needs to be made known that students who truly care about the value of learning, would want core reform out of RESPECT for the core.

as far as expansion. mr or mrs. counterpoint. when 5000 people or more are at the gates homeless because of our school's expansion plan, we will see what counterpoint you are bringing up.

There has been tremendous unrest on campus this semester, these past few years, this past decade. And people here feel psychically hurt by Columbia’s indifference to our heartache, to our struggle, to our rumbling need for a better university. With luck, Columbia will see the starvation of our bodies as a bellwether of our growing desperation on this campus. It’s a shame that Columbia was not more alarmed when we said our minds, hearts, and spirits were starving, too.

we are already starving, people.

BWOG seems to have forgotten...or maybe we just didnt shine our hearts today, eh?

Demands for a more inclusive, responsible Columbia University

The following demands are the result of a number of townhall meetings, forums, and follow-up discussions that have happened amongst a number of students from various communities on campus. While triggered by the number of hate and bias incidents that have happened this semester, these demands are hardly new.

Administrative Reform:

Columbia University has failed to demonstrate its commitment to providing safe spaces for all members of our campus community. The administration has yet to fulfill its avowed goals of making the long-term, institutional changes necessary in stemming the rising tide of hate incidents aimed at students of color, students of faith, LGBTQ students, and other oppressed groups. We demand that the following changes be enacted so that students may hold the University accountable to its purported anti-discriminatory values.

The Office of Multicultural Affairs is an integral part of our community. From student group advising to programming, to building a support network for individual students, the OMA's range of operation requires more resources than that which is granted by this school. The OMA is grossly understaffed and housed in a space that is simply inadequate considering the scope of its responsibilities. Furthermore, the OMA has only a limited purview in working with Columbia College and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. The OMA must have administrative support and a means of inter-school collaboration in order to address issues of diversity on a campus-wide level.

1. We demand more advisors and counselors for cultural groups, students of color, the LGBTQ community and communities of faith, with student involvement in the hiring process of said personnel. We ask that that the Office of Multicultural Affairs be expanded physically and responsibly, and that more support for collaboration between the Office of Multicultural Affairs at Columbia and the Multicultural Affairs Office at Barnard be given by the University administration.

The University administration has failed to facilitate inter-school communication between faculty, administrators, staff, and students alike, resulting in inconsistent responses to bias incidents and hate crimes. The introduction of a Vice Provost for Multicultural Affairs would greatly improve channels of communication between schools and the campus community on issues of diversity. This Vice Provost would be able to facilitate the connections between various schools and implement campus-wide initiatives.

The creation of this position would ensure a level of consistency and accountability in the way that the administration addresses bias incidents and hate crimes as well as other student concerns, and would encourage the university to be proactive in addressing issues of campus climate. Columbia would be able to respond to such issues preemptively, rather than reacting to incendiary incidents that reflect badly on our school as a whole. The Vice Provost should be responsible for providing incentives for certain policy changes that will encourage greater communication and interaction between faculty and students, communication and initiatives across schools, and lend continued support for anti-oppression training for incoming students, as well as for incoming faculty and public safety.

2. We demand a Vice Provost for Multicultural Affairs to administer and direct the University's policies affecting students within all the schools of the University.

3. We demand institutionalized, mandatory, full day workshops on issues of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, power and privilege for all incoming faculty, and public safety; and that the training focus on anti-oppression, rather than sensitivity and diversity.

4. We demand that Columbia's Public Safety announce instances of hate crimes when they are reported and issue an annual report of reported bias incidents and hate crimes and how they have been addressed.

Ethnic Studies

Ethnic Studies examines race as a social construction that has been shaped throughout United States history at the hands of forces such as policy, violence, law, and media. It includes an analysis of the influences of gender, sexuality, nationality, and class, as well as a critical look at the power structures that have been prevalent in joining together the elements in the formation of race and ethnicity as we understand it today. Especially given Columbia's Eurocentric Core Curriculum, Ethnic Studies plays a crucial role in providing students with tools critical to understanding the formations of race and ethnicity in the United States and provides us with the necessary knowledge to understand the position of ethnicity and race as projects of power.

The state of Ethnic Studies at Columbia is in a critical condition. The Center for the Study of Ethnicity and Race (CSER) and the Institute for Research in African American Studies (IRAAS) are understaffed, underfunded, and have little autonomous power with which to extend its programming. This program has been denied the crucial resources that it needs to sustain itself. The risk of even further decline will become an even bigger threat unless the power to hire faculty and offer a full curriculum in the University is granted to the Center.

Following it's institutionalization, student voices become powerless in determining the direction of CSER. As a result of the 1996 protests that led to creation of Ethnic Studies at Columbia, students were afforded special positions on the hiring committees of CSER. However, in practice, these positions have had no voting power and little influence, and are wholly symbolic in nature.

1. Given the inadequate number of core faculty present next semester, we demand the completion of 2 core faculty hires per year for both CSER and IRAAS until each has 12 core junior and senior professors, which must be maintained indefinitely.

2. The academic review of CSER and IRAAS must begin in Summer 2008 where the board must include only ethnic studies scholars from outside institutions as well as Columbia ethnic studies majors. The academic review must also research the steps necessary for the creation of Queer Studies, which has historically been placed under Ethnic Studies at other institutions, as well as Native American Studies which must be considered by the university following the review's completion.

3. Interested Ethnic Studies majors collectively, shown through a vote, must be given 1 or 2 votes (depending on committee size) which will be delivered by the current student positions on all hiring committees for junior and senior faculty to increase student presence and determination of CSER's direction.

4. To maintain the integrity of Ethnic Studies and the very possibility of its sustained growth, the CSER and IRAAS must be granted the ability to make hires autonomously. This is not a call for the immediate departmentalization of Ethnic Studies. Rather it is a call for the Ethnic Studies programs to make hiring decision on their own accord, without the need of outside departments to lead the hire. We recognize that this is unprecedented for centers and institutes throughout the University, but see it as a necessary step in creating Ethnic Studies classes and research initiatives that are accountable to the field and on par with peer institutions.

The Manhattanville Expansion and Community Accountability

As students of Columbia University, we find it impossible not to take a stand when our university is actively ignoring the rights of the West Harlem community. Instead of engaging the community in respectful and open negotiation, Columbia is pursuing an expansion plan of disruption and displacement. We believe that the community has a right to affordable housing, living wage jobs, and a prominent voice in any development plan for its neighborhood. We believe that Columbia's plan must recognize the rights of all people regardless of their economic background or race.

The problems with Columbia’s plan are as extreme as they are abundant. According to Columbia’s own statistics, five thousand people would be placed at risk of displacement due to rent pressures engendered by the addition of university affiliates to the area – and this number is likely low. The plan seeks to bulldoze almost every structure in the area – including the current location of the Cotton Club and other community institutions – in order to create a 7-story underground "bathtub" upon which its structures would be supported. The university is planning to create buildings that are very tall, contextually out of place with the surrounding community. The university is also pursuing the use of eminent domain against property-owners who refuse to sell their buildings. While it claims to desire a productive relationship with Harlem, it is functionally colonizing a community and remaking the neighborhood in its own image.

The most basic problem with Columbia’s plan, however, is its wanton disregard for the basic principle of local democracy, something that the university’s humanistic ideals should hold as sacrosanct. Community Board 9 undertook a democratic, transparent process of many years to create a framework for development that took into considerations the needs of its residents. This plan conflicts directly with the expansion plan, which the university has stubbornly refused to revise. Despite the nearly unanimous rejection of the plan by the Community Board this August, the university is using its political muscle to push the plan through the approval process. The university’s basic principles should not be sacrificed on the altar of profit. We believe that Columbia must concretely apply the principles of the community's 197-A plan to its planned expansion.

As informed and active members of this institution, we refuse to allow the current expansion plan to go forward in our name. We stand in solidarity with the 10 demands made by the Community Board in August and therefore demand that

1. Columbia withdraw its 197-C proposal to rezone Manhattanville immediately.

2. After withdrawing its proposal from the review process, Columbia submit its proposal to Community Board 9 for revision in line with the principles of the 197-a plan.

3. After making the relevant changes to its rezoning plan, Columbia negotiate a substantive community benefits agreement which serves to mitigate displacement created by the university’s presence and addresses job creation, environmental problems and university-community relations.

The Core Curriculum

Columbia's Core Curriculum has been criticized for decades for not only its Eurocentrism, but its marginalization of nonwhite peoples within the West, and the issues of racialization and colonialism. While there have been additions throughout the years of a Major Cultures requirement, and individual texts such as The Souls of Black Folk, The Wretched of the Earth, and the Haitian Revolutionary Constitution, these efforts to remedy the Core have been insufficient in concept and execution. The Major Cultures requirements often take place in large lectures, where contrasting to the intimate seminars of other Core classes, content mastery can take priority over critical thinking, and the texts and themes that have been inserted into CC, Lit Hum, and Music Hum often seem to be tokenized additions rather than incorporated into a transformed conception of the Core. As such, we call for continued reassessment of all Core requirements, not as simply a matter of representation, but in developing a Core Curriculum that does not marginalize critical thinking about racialization, colonialism, sexuality, and gender. The Core Curriculum is not only out of step with Columbia's students, but does not even tap into the resources of the intellectual work done by faculty who address the issues marginalized by the Core in their own work. The inadequacies of the Core Curriculum are not only intellectual problems, however. As the Core is one of the central pillars of a Columbia education, its marginalization of the issues of racialization, colonialism, sexuality and gender further marginalizes and traumatizes students themselves.

In this state of affairs, the University must work with greater urgency and consideration of the decades of dedication by students, alumni, and faculty to reshape the antiquated Core Curriculum into one that represents the values of a diverse, global, intellectually vibrant and just University. Towards that end, we recommend:

1. The reformation of the Major Cultures requirement to contain a course in a seminar format which challenges students to think critically about the issues of racialization and colonialism, global phenomena which also are at the Core of the "Western" experience.

Given that these recommendations have been on the table for decades, we realize that we are saying nothing new, and that more than simply asking is required for their execution. Therefore, we also call for further measures of accountability to students. Given that every Columbia student is required to take the Core Curriculum, we feel that the limited student participation in the Committee on the Core, the Committee on Instruction, and their various subcommittees is evidence of inadequate use of the resources of the student body. We call for:

2. More student voice and seats within these committees, and that their process of selection be better publicized, so that students' passions for changing the Core do not have to flare up in moments of spectacle, but can be incorporated into the constant process of developing the Core Curriculum.

Furthermore, we would like to point out that many Barnard students have similar concerns about the 9 Ways of Knowing and have been involved in changing the curriculum both at Columbia and Barnard. However, we are cautiously optimistic about the initiative shown by Barnard's faculty and administration to address our concerns. We hope that Columbia faculty and administration can look to and communicate with Barnard to think about the ways to best be accountable to student needs, as we all belong to a larger community.

forget to mention the names of the 6 hunger strikers?

this semester, I'd go out a buy boxes of KFC and wave it in front of the strikers Ali G Indahouse-style

of threes. 3 minutes without air, 3 hours without heat, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food. yes these are approximations and there are certainly exceptions but these are the rough guidelines for survival.

fucked up. And there will be hoards of support people surrounding them so don't count on it?

is kinda like food, so you think they could hold out for like 5 weeks?

doesnt that put them thru finals? when they could go home, eat all they want, and come back declaring they've been hunger striking for lik 12 weeks?

fraud?

"Their reference point is the great student hunger sit-in of 1996, which resulted in the creation of the ethnic studies department"

WE HAVE AN ETHNIC STUDIES DEPARTMENT?

REALLY? MAYBE YOU SHOULD INFORM THE PEOPLE OVER AT CSER!

for whoever wrote this, it doesnt sound like you wanted to. ouch, dude.

I'll just get as close to them as possible and wave and eat said KFC. Can't stop me from doing that, can they?

people in prisons and Gandhi have been known to survive for more than two week on not Gatorade. On college campuses anywhere (Stanford on divestment from nuclear arms, Harvard and UCs for wages of employees) this is always done with plenty of supplemental drinks.

And what actually makes these guys hardcore is that it'll be freezing three nights this week...

informed.

are seriously in need of help, not to mention a moral core.

are more than free to join me. i couldn't possibly eat 6 tubs of chicken.

It would be nice if those commenting would, I don't know, attempt an intellectual critique of the demands that the strikers have, rather than resorting to ad hominems and straw men arguments. How about being a little less sensationalist and more constructive? Obviously, the people doing this care a lot about it, so it would be admirable for the critics to give them some respect.

this way we get rid of campus nutjobs: hey, if they want to starve, let them starve.

Can these students also chain themselves to Alma Mater, so we know they aren't secretly sneaking grub? Forget the Gatorade, this is just some half-assed hungry pledge. I don't buy it!

ordinarily, I'd agree with you but in this case, 1) they are not worth the effort, 2) this problem solves itself.. they starve and we get rid of em

It goes to show just how "informed" these people are that they repeatedly confuse this "Cotton Club" from the seventies with THE Cotton Club from the 20s.

sweet

First of all, if you've eaten anything in the last 6 hours you're in no position to dismiss a diet of diluted gatorade as some kind of cop-out. Maybe if you actually had a spine instead of a trite little mouth you'd have the nerve to go hungry for your scarcely-informed politics.

Why don't you talk about the strike that actually matters...the Writers' Guild! Geesh if that continues we might not have good TV for weeks!

If I have eaten anything in the last 6 hours, I'd not be in a position to dismiss a diet of water and bread, or juice and fruit, or water crackers and canned meat either. But each of those creeps further away from a true hunger strike.

SUPPORT THE STRIKERS!

I'd rather support my appetite and waistline

for the non chicken eating crazies

SUPPORT THE STRIKERS!!!!!!!

SUPPORT THE STRIKERS!!!

SUPPORT THE STRIKERS!!!!!!!!

as a supporter of this strike, I will personally shove that chicken up your ass. actually, that's where you all talk out of...

opponents crazy is great way to kick things off...

I don't agree with most of their talking points. Why should I support them?

i'm willing to SHARE it with you bud.. come and have some.. i couldnt possibly finish 6 buckets on my own

because they are fellow students, part of the community, oh wait, you like to follow guidelines and do what bollinger tells you. must not think for self, must follow core, must not think of others. damn robots

Lets step back and see how difficult it would be to live on gatorade, absent of the hunger pain in your stomach which actually goes away after about 12 hours of fasting.

Typically, the body maintains enough residual glucose storage for about 10-15 hours of fasting, maybe a little less. So if they start fasting at midnight tonight, they would have expended their short term energy storage by tomorrow around 3pm, at the latest.

On top of the short term energy storage (read: glycogen, for you science/biology majors out there) the body maintains fat storage in the liver as well as in the fatty areas of the body, like the abdomen and 'love handles' everyone doesn't quite love. This fat storage is approximately 80x as rich, in the average male, compared to the short term storage. Thus we're talking about 33-50 days (800-1200 hours) worth of excess energy stored in the fat! So, without even EATING anything, these individuals could survive, at minimum and on average, 35 days without any food, or exactly 5 weeks. This all assumes that they would be drinking water, because without that they would die in approximately 2-3 days, as someone stated before.

Another important thing to point out about fasting - the continuous lack of food removes the necessary influx of dietary electrolytes, such as Potassium, Sodium, Calcium and Chloride. These are, mostly, replaced by gatorade (all except Calcium, it seems). Since sodium, potassium and chloride are essential to the nervous system to promote function, we can probably assume that the faster's quest for these (one of the true definitions behind thirst) will be high. This can influence the amount of gatorade we drink.

On a caloric level, each gatorade provides approximately 125 calories per 20oz bottle. This is all in the form of pure glucose, which will mostly feed the brain, but will offset the expenditure of fats and glycogen. Each bottle also provides 275mg of sodium, or approximately 1/7th of the necessary sodium for the body. If we use sodium as a gauge for drinking gatorade, we can assume they will drink approximately 7 bottles of gatorade over a 24 hour period. That amounts to 875 calories, or 44% of our daily caloric intake.

If we take all of this as true, the body will move through its glycogen storage in approximately twice the time as before, now approximately 20-30 hours, and the fat depletion will take even longer! Now it will take approximately 120 days to expend all the energy stored in the fat of the body, maybe even longer!

Thus, drinking gatorade HIGHLY influences the body's usage of its natural energy reserves and changes the nature of the so called hunger strike. If you do not eat anything and drink only water, it will take you about 35 days to deplete all of your latent energy storage. If, however, you drink some gatorades as well (7 a day means one ever 2.5 hours... pretty usual, in my opinion) it lengthens your ability to survive from 35 days to 121 days! That is a 3.5x increase in survival time! So, gatorade actually makes your fast almost pointless... at least from a scientific point of view.

Also, one caveat: the body tends to change its energy expenditure patterns when it has a low source of energy. Thus, at a caloric intake of less than 100 calories, you might only be spending approximately 1400 calories instead of the traditional 2000. This shift, which is difficult to anticipate and calculate, was not accounted for above.

Another caveat: the consumption of 800-1000 calories daily is considered an art form which certain individuals strive for. These people live long and healthy lives, much longer and healthier than people who eat the traditional 2000 calories. Thus, even supplementing your life with gatorade will place you there.

The only recommendation I can say involves vitamins - if you do a hunger strike, please take vitamins, specifically your Bs, Riboflavin, Niacin and Folate. If you don't take those critical body functions will degrade and you can seriously harm your body. This has nothing to do with starving but everything to do with making sure you don't shorten your lifespan more post hunger strike.

But, in the end, gatorade greatly changes a hunger strike and makes it seem like it's barely a hunger strike at all, especially given the high caloric content of gatorade.

The end!

If, however, we factor in the gatorade that they will be drinking, things change. Each 20oz bottle of gatorade provides 125 calories in the form of glucose, exclusively. If we can assume that people drink approximately 5-6 of these daily, given their thirst

shit, that last paragraph after 'the end' wasn't supposed to be there - it was part of a draft! disregard!

thinking for myself, and not necessarily parroting the Core or Prezbo, I still don't agree with their talking points

whacha gonna do about that? can your brain even comprehend that a thinking, rational, sane individual might not agree with you?

on the chicken, i'm going to get 2 buckets crispy, 2 original recipe, 1 honey bbq, 1 fiery buffalo.. any objections?

these kids are just a bunch of attention-grubbing pussies. gatorade? it might as well be water and starbucks espresso brownies.

i'd like to see a cat food strike. these kids will eat nothing but IAMS on Low Steps until the administration does something about their demands. that would be some real shit.

the fact that you took the time to figure that out just proves you don't get the point of this AT ALL. take the time to learn 197-A instead. be useful

you obviously didn't take the time to "learn" 197-A. or you obviously didn't take the time to learn a vital little economic concept called supply and demand. one of the two at least...

16, 23, 39, 40, and 41, In other words the same person,

You're an idiot. Obviously your self-righteousness takes greater importance than the future of your university. Despite what you think, in order to maintain competitiveness with Harvard, UPenn and Princeton which all acquired >20, >15 and >5 acres respectively in the last 2 years, Columbia has to expand.

Not only that, the western cannon is slightly more important than the others because most of modern philosophy is based on the western writers. And I say this as a brown man. So don't throw around terms like racist or Uncle Tom (if you were thinking of doing so).

Your "demands" are utterly useless. OMA has never served an incredibly useful purpose. Maybe because they haven't had the manpower. I'll give you that. But unless you want to raise your tuition about $2000 more per semester I suggest you keep your protests to yourself. I think more of us would not like a $2000 increase in tuition than would like to see your idiocy come to fruition.

CHICKENFEST ON THE HUNGER STRIKE!!!!!

Clearly you don't understand the implications of my assessment - that the strike is not a strike and should not be thought of as such. Gatorade undermines your desire to call it a hunger strike as it actually provides enough caloric intake to allow people to survive indefinitely.

Furthermore, I vehemently disagree with 197A and believe that Columbia's expansion into Manhattanville is the only mechanism for our viability and survival throughout the next 30 years as a University. If you had half a brain you'd realize that the establishment of an ethnic studies department would almost be contingent upon a successful expansion into Manhattanville as there is no other place to put a new department right now. Space on campus is so cramped that existing departments are unable to fit the needs of students, yet you want to create a new one? Fuck off! The rest of us who don't care about ethnic studies or are not interested in it should not have our educations compromised for the desires of the few.

Also, science makes a University viable, successful and great. It brings in money. Ethnic studies is a monetary sink. You cannot crowd something out for another thing without ensuring financial support exists there.

If you want to be useful, you'll succeed as a student, go out and get an excellent job and make a ton of money. Through that avenue you can donate $50M to the University to start an ethnic studies department. Going on a hunger strike of something as trivial as ethnic studies is pointless - go out and make a difference instead. If you really want to go on a hunger strike, do it for a viable and good cause, like the fact that thousands of Americans a day die due to lack of health care or that millions of people world wide die from hunger. Those are worthwhile causes, not an ethnic studies department.

First they staged walkouts of their own classes and now they're depriving themselves of food. How far does one have to sink just to satisfy this whole victim stereotype?

OK, final tally, after some suggestions:

1 x Extra Crispy

2 x Original Recipe

1 x Honey BBQ Wings

1 x Fiery Buffalo Wings

1 x Popcorn Chicken

dude, don't short change the fiery buffalo. That's a classic and you know it. Nothing will make those fools cave in faster than a traditional buffalo sauce done to perfection with a blend of 7 different peppers and a hint of vinegar. This flavorful combination equals an extra KFC kick!

Seems as though people are pretty pumped about the hunger strike.

I enjoy the Core because it helps me understand the oppressive world we live in and how it was created.

The list of demands seem to imply books will be dropped from the canon and others will be added in. That doesn't sound like equality, it sounds like a power shift.

[external link to www.spring.org.uk]

I don't think that students here need to advocate for the introduction of a new department. There's plenty of ethnic and regional studies here already. That said, a strike would be fun. In an ideal world, a large number of students and faculty would participate, giving us all a decent vacation.

was never a fan of the popcorn chicken.. will switch it for another fiery buffalo.

Wouldn't it be nice to have another GSAS strike? I'd love to see that fat inflatable rat again!

Tell me about it. Virginia Woolf, for instance, is quite oppressively irritating.

Grad students of Columbia, unite! Take leave of your classes and recitation sections!

i think to remove female oppressmenters from our Core, we have to remove Virginia Woolf, Wollstonecraft, and Austen

i suggest as replacement the comic "V for Vendetta", the movie "Superbad", and Dodd's "The Intelligent Investor"

wait, your education will be compromised if there is an ethnic studies department? the world will end? you already said you don't care about it, so it wont affect you.

and we shouldn't follow the desires of a few? let the masses decide and don't pay attention to minorities? I mean 1984 was a good book, but ya didn't need to take it literally.

and chicken people, ya'll know too much about bad food. go feed the homeless with that chicken if you want to tell your grandkids you actually did something with your life

This was all good and fun until you start talking about the only Canon that matters--financial texts. Benjamin Graham, the most respected name in securities analysis ever probably, wrote that book, not Dodd. (Though Dodd knew a few things too but please don't make an error that egregious again.)

when it comes down to it, if i have to choose between an ethnic studies department and the downsizing of a current department or no ethnic studies department, i choose the latter.

and the desires of a few should not impinge in a negative way upon the majority. especially the vast majority, which this group of people has failed to realize is approximately 90% of the student body.

what you need to know about capitalism was said by K marx folks.

It will be affected since it would draw funding from other departments, or necessitate an increase in tuition.

Minority views may be wrong, like most people here seem to think. Unless you can convince a majority, they should not be acted upon.

I'm glad we got all these loonies under control.

I'm going to overeat to protest racism. I'm going to binge and it will make me vomit and it won't be fun. I am awesome. Then I will encase my foot in concrete to protest racism more. All you haters: when was the last time you did something this unfun for a cause? I am making a difference.

that the only people who support the strikers are the strikers themselves.

No, we're all contributing to the spectacle.

Here's how this hunger strike is going to go down.

Kevin Schollenberger and Jewelnel Davis are going to come out to wherever this hunger strike is going on and offer the stikers some nice Columbia branded fleece blankets and free Gatorade courtesy of JJs. They'll ask the strikers if they'd like to show their list of demands to President Bollinger, at which point they'll be escorted into his office anteroom, where a Columbia Catering table will be set up with a modest selection of free sandwiches. They won't mention anything about it, but it'll be there. Bollinger's chief of staff will warmly accept their list and tell them that the University is deeply committed to their concerns and that the President will be sure to take their list as an action item. Then she'll check her Blackberry while she waits for them to awkwardly show themselves out. The sandwiches lay waiting.

no, let's let the loonie minority decide that the solution to Columbia's problems is simply hiring professors and enrolling students based on color (read: racism, either way it flies) instead of merit and by creating department upon department focusing on gay rights or south pacific islanders or what? how the heck is graduating Columbia with a major in LGBT studies gonna get you anything but a spot at the end of the unemployment line?

I'd rather some educated professionals shape Columbia's course offerings instead of dumb college students who have nothing better to do (ie. go to class, study, try to contribute to society in a tangible way, and, oh, right, not waste their rich daddy's money by failing out of school and blaming it on the so-called elite majority).

You know, people think I’m into sports just because I’m a man. I’m not into sports. I mean, I like Gatorade, but that’s about as far as it goes. By the way, you don’t have to be sweaty and holding a basketball to enjoy a Gatorade. You could just be a thirsty dude. Gatorade forgets about this demographic. I’m thirsty for absolutely no reason. Other than the fact that liquid has not touched my lips for some time. Can I have a Gatorade too, or does that lightning bolt mean 'no'?

you got it

OK, they want to have a strike - they've got the right; more power to them. And if the university wants to ignore them, that's fine too; more power to them.

It's amazing Why is everyone so threatened by a hunger strike?

Oh, shine a light. You cannot possibly be serious - MORE bureaucracy is going to prevent racism at Columbia? Forcing people into patronising anti-oppression training is going to help? No thank you. Not all of us white people are bumbling morons.

you've basically just rejected any aspect of huistorical conditionality s well as any value of democracy in favor of technocratic authority..... just be clear on the intellectual foundation on which u stand....

brought the communists to power in Russia and China, Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Syria, and Bush in the US buddy

i'm all for authoritarian technocracy.. because I know that I'm advantaged and privileged enough to join the establishment

what are the names of the students who are striking?

claiming gatorade/water is a crazy thing to go on, i've done it for liquid diets to make weight a boatload of times

You'll drop weight and it might suck but you can definitely get by (not to mention most people can survive at least 2-3 weeks without food biologically)..after the first day or so you also start needing less food and it becomes easier (we all know they'll stop after 5 days tops)

And for people saying address the substantive issues (these strikers/shoccers/etc who are always the same people behind this and apparently asked their friends to speak out on bwog against teh general anti sentiment), these three college students are such attention whores that instead of debating peoples substantive points (ex..see the posts several down where one of the 'shoccers' asked bwog to delete those posts critical of their pseudo movement) they're staging a half assed 'hunger strike'

To those comparing them to gandhi, etc it is f'ing pathetic that you're so haughty and arrogant to even say that. Those people consumed nothign nutritious to protest outright injustices of slavery, occupation, etc---not incredibly complex, muddled issues of expansion/the proper way to ensure philosophical education

And don't try to throw the 'bunch of swastikas, junk scribbled on bathroom walls and a noose' thing into the same conversation. its legitimate to be disturbed by that. However, we still haven' t learned who perpetrated the acts and their intentions (for example look at GW, where there two latest hate crimes were both hoaxes)---and even more infuriatingly the absurdly tenuous connection between those incidents and for example the core/expansion (which existed before and will exist after these hate incidents and are not directly relevant just because they happened concurrently) reeks of iraq 9/11 type connections. It is NOT an argument to say this is happening at the same time so its connected without establishing some type of reasonable casual effect.

By the way Joe and Victoria. You two have exposed what type of lax idiocy supports this movement. While Joe has exhorted us to think for yourselves and don't follow teh masses, his compatriot Victoria has kept on posting 'support the strikers' in block caps and he has resorted to exactly the type of ad homs they supposedly condemn. And Joe, in a move which shoudl result in automatic expulsion from columbia, claimed that the theme of 1984 was 'supporting the masses and ignoring minorities'. First, lets assume that we can take the book at its most literal level--how the heck did they ignore the minorities? they violently dealt with them you retard! cliff notes do not equal reading a book. and yet you failed to even comprehend the cliff notes.

1984'd is the new godwin'd

To summarize, thanks hunger strikers for again creating another retarded, extremist, over the top spectacle that detracts from relatively decent points because of your inability to consider the ramifications of your actions—sometimes you have to wonder whether they’re on the payroll of kulawik

As usual, nobody gives a shit about you dumbass protesters. Grow up already and stop defacing the name of old Alma.

and well done, mate

I for one would very much like to read and respond to the list of demands in a suitably rational fashion. Unfortunately, copying victoria's verbose comment showed that the demands are an 8-page single-spaced, 2100-word document with 13 distinct demands. To respond to each of these in as much verbosity, err…detail, would require writing my own 2000+ word essay. To expect people who work full-time to have time to digest all of this and respond in kind is really more than a bit absurd.

If you can't express your point more concisely, you come across as crazy. Remember that part of what made Marx and Engel's Manifesto so widely read was its masterful concision.

They want a major cultures seminar about "racialization" added to the core? Wow. Never gonna happen. But if it does...SENIORS!

I admire them. I eat all day long, especially when I have to study. I could not imagine going on a diet, especially during the school year (actually at any time during the year...)

Huh? everyone's arguing about whether you can survive on gatorade or not, if they shouldn't be drinking it? of course you can survive, to a certain point. i don't think they want to die, i think they want to strike for as long as possible. living on gatorade and water and sleeping outside is NOT COMFORTABLE by any argument and if they were trying to "sneak calories" there are much more effective ways of doing it. a couple hundred a day doesn't make any difference they are obviously not doing it to prevent more hunger and only to dilute possiblities of creating lasting damage. i don't really think gatorade is the focus, though

shouldn't we repect students who are putting themselves out there to try to change something they (and we should all) care about?

yes if you're not going to be helpful at least don't put people down for trying. i admire that they are going to do this

people do obviously give a shit, meaning the tactic is working. STEP ONE, THEY HAVE INCITED DEBATE! even if it is about chicken, it'll evolve

Snaps

but WHO the FUCK are YOU to PREACH to us on what we should and shouldn't care about?

these clowns are worthy of MOCKERY and CONTEMPT.. and after their entertainment value is exhausted i will go back to my homework and ignoring them.. they have incited amusement, not "debate"

i notice that those against the strike, while claiming not to care, are using the most vulgar, aggresive language...oh well.

very cute 91-94, having a little pro-strike convo with yourself. just adorable.

you suggesting that people who purposely do things to incite a spectacle under the purported intention of fostering debate should be applauded simply because they put themselves out there?

Cool.

When the republicans bring David Duke to speak or hold an illegal immigrant round up game then i hope you'll support them.

And where does this valor end in your opinion? Will you throw a party for me if i slash my wrists cause i'm sick of the food at john jay for dinner(or if you're goign to bring out a seriousness argument, if schip or something isn't signed)?

a spectacle, but it is making us have this conversation which i don't think you and i have ever had. sometimes spectacles are needed when there is no response to more subtle tactics, and more subtle tactics were tried, right? i won't throw a party for you slashing your wrists just like i wouldn't be happy if one of them got actually sick, and i believe they will stop before that. anyways, this tactic differs from the immigrant roundup example in that they are not going to be hurting anyone but themselves. but i do applaud anyone who puts themselves in a place where they might get criticized for sticking up for their ideas (as long as this doesn't involve hurting others).

i don't think "fostering debate" is their main purpose

for all the people against the demands these protesters are making and/or all the people who think this hunger strike is sort of weak (gatorade? seriously?) I say we all eat lunch right in front of them everyday (hopefully their hunger strike will require them to sit outside low or something for the whole time so we can all grab lunch and sit around them on the steps and just be cruel bastards)

that this is only hurting themselves so its ok is absurd. Hunger strikes inherently act as an accusation against those who committed the purported injustices that their moral wrong is what has caused teh hunger strikes. It's the unfair actions which have provoked others to hurt themselves to bring attention to the situation.

By the way, you're argument is disturbing. You're essentially sayign that if you're argument and views can't provoke debate the old fashioned way (you know--actually containing enough merit to cause people to examine it and discuss its validity on its own) then you can continue to escalate provocative actions to try to bring your point to the forefront. It's a short skip from that logic to SDS bombings and then to Bin Laden's boys protestign western imperialism by bombing the twin towers. Not to mention that we aren't having a conversation about the actual merits of their argument--we're having one over their tactics, spectacle and lack of respect for their peers. Its particularly sad because you again don't understand that there's nothing to it. The point is anyone can create a spectacle for their cause. Homer Simpson went on a hunger strike when the Isotopes were moving to Albequerque. Heck, the westboro baptist church could all go on a hunger strike to bring 'debate' to their retarded views about homosexuality.

And please consult a dictionary before using the world 'subtle'.

nobody around here wants to oppress you. really. ok, maybe there are a few nutjobs, but on the whole...no. you bring it on yourselves with your asinine behavior and immature demands. and then when nobody takes you seriously you call it "marginalization" and "oppression." you're like that goofy, awkward kid at the high school dance, the one who makes a fool of himself on the dance floor, and then thinks everybody's laughing with him, not at him. guess what? everybody's laughing at him -- and everybody's laughing at you, too.

1) the "bias" incidents on campus? probably just a shit stirrer looking to raise hell in a very liberal place. on the whole, columbia is a very liberal campus, if not one of the most liberal. seriously, find me some institutionally sanctioned bias incidents. or find me some evidence that the recent incidents are part of an overwhelming trend as opposed to exceptions to the rule.

2) daylong workshops would be a waste of time. don't believe me, go attend a mandatory workshop on diversity elsewhere or a sexual harassment training workshop. come back from it and tell me with a straight face that it wasn't a joke...

3) race bias is outmoded. it's all about class these days. HOW CAN YOU NOT SEE THIS?

just sad how cruel people are being here, to quote 102. honestly, if you disagree with the demands, or the tactics, that's ok, but there's no reason to be so hurtful in your language or in any actions you may take.

91-94, 100, 101, and 106 are ALL THE SAME PERSON!

LAME

3rd point I may consider if and only if the 6 protestors are all white.

"i notice that those against the strike, while claiming not to care, are using the most vulgar, aggresive language...oh well."

And I notice that those that support the strike are the ones that post 4 comments in a row and respond to themselves to feign a larger support body than actually exists... oh well.

To answer your last question, because they are wealthy and feel guilty about not being able to identify with other members of their affinity group (pick one) as a result.

110 was in response to 105, but my pull down menu is too slow

chicken idea.

2xOriginal reciepe

2xFiery BBQ

1xExtra Crispy

1xHoney BBQ

chicken.

your comments are fowl

checken!!! checken!!!! bawk bawk bawk

6 buckets, 1 for each protestor. to be placed in front of them and