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In This Issue

• Water On The Knee
• The Annihilator of Mathematics
• Demonic Speak-n-Spell
• The Fed Interviews Jon Voight
• Letters to the Feditors
• Sam Jenning, or: Eating Children For Profit
• Immigrate This!
• Where In Our Hearts Is Carmen Sandiego?
• The Life and Times of Carmen Sandiego
• Redder Rabbit?
• Good Golly Fucking Gumdrops, I Like Candy!
• The City’s New Hot, Sexy, Superhot Nightclub!
• Where's Waldo?
• Logical Journey into Eugenics
• Think Columbia Sucks? It's Your Fault, Doofus.
• A Farewell to Harms
• A Farewell To Bill
• Tracy Briskit, Fed Queen
• Make Your Own Safe Space!
• Columbia Trail: Safe Space, Bathroom in 347 miles
• Cook with Barney!
• THEY Watch
• The Staff of 21.8
• The Staff of Volume 21

Let’s start on an easy topic: campus security.  I hope everyone pretty much comes down on the same side of this issue, the “I’d prefer not to be robbed, assaulted, intimidated, or otherwise violated” side.

    Having established this, I’d like to know exactly why this year’s big campus safety issue was swipe access.  In practical terms, the debate about swipe access had a lot more to do with inter-school rancor than with security.  Most of the conversations I heard about augmenting dorm access were rife with stereotypes about students at one school or the other, or fear of sexual assault.  Even though many students rightly decried the idea that swipe access would directly result in Columbia men raping Barnard women, or Barnard wymyn raping Columbia women, it was present nonetheless, right along with prejudiced arguments like “Barnard students are not as smart as Columbia students” and “Columbia students have no sense of community.”     

    The real issue, that extending access would blur distinctions between the schools, remains unarticulated.

    Bickering about swipe access distracts us from considering improvements to our demonstrably broken swipe and signature-based security system.  The Butler Masturbator and that creep in the McBain showers are evidence of the need for a security overhaul.  So is the fact that my first-year RA was assaulted by a drug dealer who had been signed in by one his residents.  

    Again, for reasons I can’t quite understand, there is more discussion on swipe access than there is on campus drug traffic.  Is it a problem that we can buy cocaine a few blocks down Amsterdam?  Is it a problem that we can buy cocaine from our friends, at certain fraternities, in the lobbies of our dorms, or at campus parties?  Hey, no one wants to talk about it, so I guess not.  Instead, let’s all get really worked up about whatever trivial crisis is in the Spec today.

    Yes, the Spec. What a piece of work.  Opinion columns for the self-assured and malcontent!  Thankless night shifts for editors!  Pointless filler articles for junior staff writers!  Hey Spec, I think it would be less embarrassing to run fewer pages instead of padding a mediocre newsday with articles about the contents of campus vending machines.

    A lot of old Fed staff members write us to ask that we remove their names from their work because, now that they have real jobs, their articles about dildos or bukkake are somewhat embarrassing.  To Spec writers, I say: is writing a sincere article about the new trays in John Jay any less embarrassing?  It’s not; the only thing shielding you from your shame is the low expectations of the community.

    You know what I found really amusing?  The fact that members of the Spec’s editorial board had to “recuse” themselves from discussing campus elections because their friends were running for office.  It’s no surprise to me that the same sort of people who aspire to nothing more than the near-daily egestion of a resume line-item-and-sometime-newspaper would be in the same social circle as student bureaucrats.

    I have no idea why student government even exists.  You might say, “Well, wouldn’t broad policymaking responsibility allow these chosen few to advocate for the common good of the student body?”  That’s cute.  As far as I can tell, student government exists to put on the occasional party, distribute money to other student groups, and buffer the bitching and moaning of students in general against the administration.  Most likely, this limited role is the fault of the university.  After all, why hire more administrators and bureaucrats when you can trick students into doing that stuff for you?  This might be why people who actually care about the community are involved in direct-action groups as opposed to extensions of the university bureaucracy.  I am also bothered by our assumption that these “leaders” have superior characters or at least the best interests of the students in mind.

    Absurd.  Obscene.  One does not need any particular qualities to be a “student leader” other than free time and unbridled self-interest.  There are exceptions–I’m not trying to burn all my bridges here–but let’s consider, for instance, campaign rules.  I’ve seen people spend hundreds of man-hours discussing campaign rules and poster errata.  I’m not trying to say writing for The Fed is as good a use of time as volunteering at a soup kitchen.  Soup is not nearly as funny or absorbent.  However, can we claim our student government is useful or accessible if the system itself is geared towards busying people with nothing better to do?  We are not led by the best members of our class, we are led by people with no other meaningful contribution to make to the community.

    Speaking of people who aren’t doing anyone any good, we have a lot of pointless student groups on campus.  While I don’t think it is useful to fund religious worship in common spaces when we have a perfectly good chapel, all student groups have a much more legitimate claim to campus space than outside businesses.  Unfortunately, other folks have money.  This is why children can celebrate their birthdays in our student center, businesses can use student spaces to hold conferences and trade expos, and film crews can disrupt study groups and commandeer large portions of college walk.  Being an undergrad entails putting up with a certain amount of bullshit like this.  The drawbacks of being an undergrad, however, ought to go hand in hand with the resources the school promised us in its brochures.

    Our paucity of resources does not receive the attention or discussion it deserves.  I do have one suggestion, though.  Lerner 6 has been a storage space since before my first year.  The wastefulness and indifference evinced by the parties responsible for this situation is appalling.  An entire fucking floor of Lerner, and it’s full of old chairs and moving bins.  If we can’t use it for more student services and club spaces, we could at least turn it into a wicked fort.

    Dear SHOCC: institutional memory.  We need to stop re-inventing the damn wheel every time we rise up to fight the bigots.  Speaking of that, where are all our enemies?  Oh wait, that’s right, campaigns of blame and outrage alienate our target audience.  Being right doesn’t mean not having to condescend to talking out your position.  Republicans: shut up already, you’re not dying on the cross for your ideology.  Last I checked, the Republican Party stood for more than just pissing into the wind.

    Ugh, nobody understands Columbia but me.  I’m going to go to my room and listen to The Cure.