42 CommentsAs Columbia student groups discover technology, we give you the best of their efforts.
It’s a whole new world for the Dems, reenergized after their elections last month. According to new president Josh Lipsky, next year the group will be putting on three to five events per week, as well as creating dozens of new “umbrella groups” on issues from gay marriage to civil liberties. As part of its hip new image, the new administration has put together a promotional video for its arm wrestling contest next Thursday, featuring the other President Flaxman rocking a tight superhero shirt. “If we, as activists, have to act ridiculous to get people to care about Iraq, then that’s what we’ll do,” declares Elvis-costumed Public Affairs director Jonathan Backer.
Um, good luck kids.
On a more serious note, Asian American Alliance’s incoming president Calvin Sun (who’s going to be busy next year–he’s also Michelle Diamond’s replacement as CC ’08’s Vice President) alerted us to two short videos he directed on eating disorders among Asian Americans. With quickly cut together interviews of AAA members, they’re an interesting window on body image problems specific to that group, although the abstract photomontage at the end was a bit much. Part one here, part two here.
Loading …
42 Comments
@cu dems are amazing!
@good start looks like a great start for the dems. i can’t wait to see what they pull next year!
@Dem Lipsky said at the election that since they’ll have all the new campaign groups (hillary, obama, etc) and umbrella groups that some part of dems will be doing an event nearly all the time. We’ll see if they can actually make that happen.
@good job This looks like a step in the right direction for the Dems under Josh Lipsky’s leadership. However, 3-5 events a week is probably going to prove to be impossible to carry out in terms of logistics, manpower, & funding.
@word up glad to see a competent dems board for a change. let’s see what they can do.
@woah a club with more than 2,500 members, thousands of dollars and the majority of the campus’ support… will host an arm wrestling event… to get the troops out of Iraq…
eh, probably better than bringing the same 2 damn speakers every year (what will we do with out Cong. Nadler!)
@fat man my ego has grown large from feeding off the insecurities of naive little girls. no girl is skinny enough for me!! ahahaa
@paul haggis the score from Crash? Come oooooon.
@new york I’m from the mysterious part of Earth known as… New York. I was simply saying that most girls I know who are close enough to me to admit something like that have said that at some point in their lives (mainly in early adolescence), they’ve had some form of eating disorder.
My point was that, if anything, the video made me feel like eating disorders were less of an issue in the Asian community because they each said they knew of only a handful of girls that had eating disorders whereas I feel like it’s a pretty significant majority among white girls. But as #13 suggested, this is just my own anecdotal evidence, so feel free to correct me if I know an anomalous sample, eating disorder-wise.
@confused i felt that that part the video where he cuts to like 15 different people saying they have friends with eating disorders was actually to show that A LOT of people (at least more than what it seems) have eating disorders. if anything, it was to show that many actually do have eating disorers at Columbia rather than “only a handful.”
at least that was the effect i got when i saw that part…
to each their own
@waat “yes” “yes” “yes” “yes” “definitely” …. “I feel that all people have an eating disorder” – said in the video.
I think the intent was to show otherwise dude.
@still Yeah, possible that I’m getting the wrong impression from the video, but I did watch again and most of them talk about knowing *a* girl or *some* girls who have had eating disorders whereas I feel like if you asked me, I would have said most girls I know have had an eating disorder.
But the “I feel almost all humans have, to some extent, an eating disorder… one could say.” was totally out of context and made no sense to me. Also, wasn’t he white?
@moved As an Asian-American woman, I found that Calvin’s video spoke to my previous experiences (both here and overseas) and helped address issues that I think rarely get any coverage here or in Asia. I want to thank all the individuals in the video for their courage and honesty.
@nappy-headed ho columbia celebrities?!?
@better than Chris Kulawik
@celebrities? HAHAHAHHAHAHA
@DOy He didn’t say all, he said “most.” I agree that saying they “have” eating disorders is misleading. It’s much more accurate to say “most” white females under the age of 18 have experimented with behavior that would be called an eating disorder. And despite what your small sample size might tell you, the majority of girls have either starved themselves for a week when they were 13 or tried throwing up at some point. But you could just google that and see the numbers, if you really cared.
@Hey Did anyone catch the subtle sexism in the beginning of the video? Nice one Dems, way to subtly stick it to them women-folks.
@ahem I would like to draw everyone’s attention to the all-time best heart-warming arm-wrestling extravaganza, Over the Top, featuring Sly Stallone as misfit intellectual trucker Lincoln Hawk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FHwv3T4ens
@Assassin Peddle your pop-culture wares elsewhere, hipster. You probably weren’t even born when that film was in the theaters. But that’s okay, take credit for “discovering” it.
@dems looks like the dems are actually trying to change their image. funny video is a great start. let’s see what they do next year.
@perfect amazing video!
it’s refreshing to see anti-war activists take a page from the colbert/stewart handbook and stop taking themselves so seriously
this sounds like the perfect way to reach apathetic students and bring to their attention the immoral deaths of the hundreds of thousands of iraqs that the US has killed
@are you serious? I think it’s more likely to make it look like the Dems are trying waaaaay too hard.
@good point why try hard to bring attention to the disaster in iraq in order to get the troops home, it’s not like it’s a big deal or anything.
@ummmm What about the thousands of US Soldiers that the Insurgents have killed?
@Mathematics Spock sayeth, in Chapter II: Wrath of Khan, “The needs of the many outweight the needs of the few.”
Get with it jerk.
@also part of the campaign.
@DownwithCS Not half of that Spec article is true. Do not trust the Spec/Calvin’s brainwashed buddies!
@Red Herring Damn Spec and their Zionist propaganda about CS. They’ve hornswaggled us all!
@LoveIt I just laughed for like 5 minutes straight. I love this.
Can we arm wrestle Prez Bo?
@Fools Didn’t you see the Spec article about CS? He doesn’t do this shit for you, he does it for his friends! So stop hating, haters.
@DownwithDems But your candidates are providing funds for more war while mouthing half-baked promises desiring a non-immediate end to it. Your goofing off while this occurs is morally obscene.
@Keep shouting. That’ll bring ’em home.
@UNICEF = United Nations (International) Children’s (Emergency) Fund. They’re not funding the war, fool.
@but if we all took a stand and just walked out on college walk right now and said that this war must end, we could generate enough fairy dust to bring the troops home NOW!
@shira that video totally blew my mind.
@not sure I’m not what the average person would consider “asian” seeing as how i’m “white”, but I didn’t really get it. Asian girls are concerned with their appearance and feel pressured to be skinny and tall just like all girls? I had just sort of assumed that all girls in America felt that way. If anything I feel like it’s less of a problem in the Asian community because they’re all saying they only know a few girls who had eating disorders, whereas most white girls say that they’ve had an eating disorder to some degree at a point in their lives.
@Huh? “most white girls say that they’ve had an eating disorder to some degree at a point in their lives”
Umm…”most”? Where on planet earth are you from?
@Uhhh A planet where people apparently have a passing knowledge of psychiatric or psychological literature? Or perhaps one where the poster has gathered anecdotal evidence from females about youthful body-image issues.
You know. That planet called earth.
IN the immortal words of Bun from Jay-Z’s “Big Pimpin'” — “Go read a book you illiterate son of a bitch, and step up your vocab.”
@Commenter #9 again Actually I asked where on planet earth you were from. Not what planet you were from. So your answer to that question was wrong, or perhaps you were too blinded by rage to bother to answer it correctly?
It is ridiculous to state that most white girls have had some form of an eating disorder at some point in their lives. I haven’t. My friends haven’t. I might have known one or two people in high school, college, and other parts of my life who have. But you know there are a few people in this world who maintain a healthy weight by eating what they want to, remaining active, and exercising regularly. Not all of us (white girls that is) have to resort to starving ourselves, and to say that we all have is just absurd.
@Anonymous The producers wanted to show that Asian American girls are struggling with these issues like any other American; it’s just that so few of them speak out about it since it’s a particularly taboo topic to discuss within that community (think cultural/family pressures), especially when compared to the average American that goes through these things.
C
@amazing it looks like i voted the right way in the Dems elections