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In This Issue

• Consent is Sexayy
• You Scan My License, Heights, and I'll Trade Your Margaritas for Drugs
• Club EC
• Barack Obama: Exclusive Interview!
• An Open Letter to the Chick Sleeping Next to Me
• A FED Guide to Celebrity Legal Problems
• Columbia's New Admissions Policy: Fuck All Y'all
• Drawn to Columbia. Quartered Too?
• Top 5 Do's For Next 9/11 (Excerpted from Cosmogirl)
• One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish
• A Tale of Woe and Infinite Sadness
• The Typical Suburban Housewife
• Bollinger's Free Speech Fetish
• The Muppets Take America
• The Priorities of American Media
• The World Leaders Forum is So Gay
• Coming Soon To a Bookstore Near You!
• THEY WATCH
• Got Meth?
• The Staff of 23.1

Emma Rosenberg

The crusade for equal animal rights was dealt a devastating blow yesterday, when, in a shocking display of indifference, the Columbia football team’s head coach announced that the team would not be pursuing consequences for the players recently linked to illegal campus gambling rings for Siamese Fighting Fish.

Just days after horrifying details of the organized aquatic death fights surfaced, the team released a statement, petitioning the accusers to remember that Columbia athletes have a long, proud tradition of balancing out the grading curve and providing the Ivy League with some “diversity of talent.”

“Our athletic tradition is what sets us apart from the rest of the Ivies. Without our playmakers, what more would we be than just another NYU?” His remarks were met with strong resistance from animal activist groups, especially when he added, “Really, people... what are a few fish if it keeps the team focused on their game?”

Campus authorities were alerted to the players’ activities when a freshman stumbled upon a late-night fish-fighting tournament and, in a terrified, drunken frenzy, called CAVA. When questioned as to why he phoned a volunteer ambulance, as opposed to a more appropriate response unit, the freshman explained that it was the only campus phone number he programmed into his cell phone because it was the “only Columbia service [he] ever had to use on a weekly basis.”

A thorough investigation has revealed that the majority of fish were purchased on Facebook Marketplace and held captive in different dorm rooms on campus where they were fed a medley of mashed shrimp, moldy wheat germ smuggled out of John Jay Dining Hall, and the remains of their competitors. Two weeks prior to their scheduled fight, the fish would be given “fight names” and the betting would begin.

“We take turns naming them. When it’s my turn,” remarked one sophomore new to the sport. “I pick names from books we read in Lit Hum... well, mostly just the Iliad because that’s the one I actually read. My first fish was named Hector. After he won, we tied a string to his flipper and dragged him around a little to keep it faithful to the story. It was actually really educational. I don’t see why people have a problem with it.”

Several members of the fighting league reminisced about the few fish that have refused to fight. One fish in particular seemed very popular with the students. Named “Wally West” after the Flash of comic book fame for his red color, he presented a problem for students immediately when he chose to eat his own droppings rather than his daily feedings. When placed into the fight tank with a fish named Optimus Prime, Wally swam to one corner and just stopped moving. Frustrated gamblers thought, at first, that the fish was dead, but when they removed him he was still moving. To make an example for the other fighting fish, the jocks attempted to drown Wally, without success.