Minutemen, minutemen. What heady times those were. Stages were rushed, lives changed, definitions for "Kulawiking" determined. Indeed, it was only after many long and trying months of op-eds, town hall meetings and general soul-searching that we were finally able to go about the difficult business of trying to move on with our lives.

Or did we? Via Spec, at least one person is nostalgic for Minuteman-mania, and who can blame him? I think we'd all agree that Minuteman didn't receive get enough attention around here. It's not like it wasn't discussed ad nauseum for months on end, or covered top-to-bottom in the campus and national media. Hell, it's about time we were reminded of the mayhem that went down last year. Maybe Bill O'Reilly could do a one-year anniversary special this October 4th? Pretty please?

As for the invitee: he's kept himself busy the last six months trashing our dear president, appearing on Lou Dobbs, and taking on everything from Mexican trucking to his fellow Minutemen. Gilchrist might have been cast out of the Minutemen in disgrace, but Bwog suspects he's still got plenty of fans here at Columbia...

Over the past several days, the Bwog has recieved a steady stream of drivel decrying the Minuteman protest. In the interest of depicting what kind of statements are coming out of a particular subset of American society today, we've reprinted a few of them. The really long ones have been cut down a bit, but otherwise they're posted as written.

Communist? We Prefer Anarcho-Fascist

I am exercising my first amendment right to blast you for your riot against the guest speakers invited to your university. Since the administration at your college is too chicken chit to have a "contact us" tab on the Columbia web site..this blog is all I could find to respond to. 98% of American citizens are against illegal immigration. It is causing a burden on our social programs (of which I am quite sure most of your minority students need) and also causing diseases and urban sprawl. We are NOT for it..and we applaud the Minutemen Project and also The Minutemen Civil Defense Corps. Did your parents raise you with any sort of good values? Obviously not. I realize you are young..and will do idiotic things for awhile...but whoever was involved in the riot should be expelled from the university. I would not donate one thin penny to that college until all the participants of the riot are expelled. Now, if you can't behave yourselves and get the education that the taxpayers are probably footing the bill for, pell grants etc...then perhaps you should leave college and join the military and do something productive for you country. If this is the sort of citizens Columbia University is turning out..perhaps someone in New York should shut it down. Shame on all of you who participated in the insanity..and shame on those of you who condone such piss poor behavior. Dig? (feel free to print this on your communist blog)

The quality of these is worse than ever, but the sound works -- you can hear every attempted objection, interrupted stutter, swallowed point, and of course, the O'Reilly bellow. Avi Zenilman of The Blue and White, Chris Kulawik of the Republicans, and protest organizers Eva Fortes and Monique Dols took on the Fox Network tonight. Did they succeed at shifting paradigms of the multimedia conglomerate, or did they unwillingly play their stereotypical roles and submit to the machine?

We report, you decide. Check out IvyGate for more cogent analysis.

Eva and Monique on Hannity and Colmes:

Meanwhile, Mr. T makes everything better. Quotes from O'Reilly's later delirium-inducing interview with the star member of the A-team after the jump...

Ok. Bwog wants desperately to elevate the conversation about the Minutemen Mania-- and we hope you've gotten that impression from our coverage thus far. But sometimes, bwgossip bears such delicious and tempting fruit, that we just can't help eating from the Tree. We hope new viewers to the site don't call us terrorists for posting this, but...

A worthy Bwog fan sent us a drinking game, to enliven your Friday night in front of the tube watching Fox News.

Drink every time O'Reilly mentions his book "Culture Warrior," "far left loonies.""SPs", or the "no spin zone."

Drink every time someone starts a comment with "Let me interrupt you there," "You're missing the point," "Well," or "Ok, but."

Drink every time Columbia is accused of being "Ivory Tower,"far left" or "out of control."

Drink every time someone inappropriately references the Nazis, the fascists, the terrorists, "a million Mogadishus," or the President of Iran.

Drink every time Avi flails, stutters, winces, gesticulates, pantomimes, or mumbles.

Drink every time Avi stops a given sentence and starts over. Drink again if O'Reilly doesn't interrupt him.

And finish your drink if anyone mentions Mark Foley, a loofah, or Nicholas Murray Butler.

After Avi makes his TV appearance on the Factor at 8:00 pm, stay tuned for sophomore Eva Fortes, the creator of the Protest the Minutemen Facebook Group, on Hannity and Colmes at 9:00 pm.

We gave you Kulawik, we gave you Khan, and now we give you Karina, one of the main protest organizers (Bwog's feeling alliterative today...though that one is quite unfortunate, considering the subject matter...)

Karina doesn't represent everyone who rushed the stage or protested behind the barricades, but she was on the front lines. This is what she has to say.

Do you think people were surprised by the force of the protest?

Why would people be surprised that there would be such a strong response from Latino student groups and....people of conscience? This is an organization that wants to take it upon themselves to physically stop the flow of illegal immigration. This is an organization that takes it upon itself to torture and harass and intimidate and kill people who are coming here to work. (Karina clarifies: they are not a legitimate authority, they are racist vigilantes with no training or credentials). So why would people be surprised that there would be a strong reaction?

I don't think people were so much surprised by the protest outside as the violence inside.

We were surprised by the violence inside, actually. We knew that when we went on that stage and held up that banner, that public security was gonna come up to us and ask us to leave, that maybe they would have pulled us off the stage. What we didn't know was that the Minutemen and the Republicans were gonna take it upon themselves to beat up our members. So I guess this kind of goes in line with the type of viglante violence that is proposed and is enacted by the organization they brought.

Do you think it might have been more effective in terms of presenting your side of the story to wait for people to challenge Gilchrist in the Q&A session?

No, I don't think so. We wanted to speak for our families, and for the people who couldn't be in that room. We were planning on holding a banner behind him and away from him that said, say "no to racism." And we knew that there was going to be press, and there were going to be pictures, and we wanted people to know, we don't support these people. We wanted that to be in the backdrop. We didn't stop him from speaking. I firmly believe that. He could keep speaking, but we're going to stand behind him at least with our banner. If he's going to go around the country and say yeah, I spoke at Columbia University, coming to speak at Columbia is going to give his organization a lot of publicity, and there's going to be pictures involved, and we want people to know that no, we're not okay with what he's saying. That this turned out the way it did, it was completely...I don't know.

More from Karina and the whole outraged press release from "Those who rushed the stage," after the jump.

Update 7:00 PM: Bwog has confirmed that Kulawik will appear at 9:00 tonight on Fox News' Hannity and Colmes with Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist, while opening speaker Marvin Stewart will appear on the Bill O'Reilly Factor at 8:00 and 11:00 PM. Protesters were asked to appear on The Factor, and one accepted, but declined shortly before the taping.

Campus, city and national media have already spun the Minuteman Brawl of 2006 into a harbinger for Armageddon, and Bwog would like to level the conversation a bit. Starting with the source, President of the College Republicans (ex-College Conservatives President) Chris Kulawik himself. In an early morning interview, he told Bwog why controversy follows him everywhere, what he saw, and why he brought members of a vigilante border patrol to campus in the first place. Below is a summary of the interview with choice Kulawik quotes.

Over the summer the Republicans sent out about 40 invitations to different potential speakers and elected representatives. Kulawik said the invitations "got a pretty decent return rate," and Gilchrist and Stewart got invites because Columbia students are "pretty far removed from the immigration debate," and Gilchrist is "on the front lines" and would be "a different opinion from what we're used to on campus."

Stewart and Gilchrist were flown to New York and put up with College Republican funds—Kulawik is not sure if student activities money went into planning the event.

In anticipation of student reaction, he forwarded a link to the 600+ member Facebook group protesting the Minutemen to Public Safety, which he said must not have predicted the extent to which the event would escalate. "In the wake of Ashcroft, the ISA, protesters, and Chicano Caucus were better prepared to mobilize."

As for the when the rumble broke out; "It was really hectic up there... I can't tell you how scared I was...The [protesters] were looking for a fight...I really felt that my personal being was in danger... they literally staged a premeditated attack."

After the event, he called an emergency College Republicans executive board meeting and said administrators also had a huge closed door meeting. As of 9:00 this morning, he had not yet had any communication with administrators.

He noted being "concerned" about future speakers deciding not to come to campus, and said he was worried the event would keep others from joining the College Republicans.

"Not only does it set back the university, it sets back the movement of mature debate."