35 CommentsIt’s their first major activist event of the year and Columbia Dems, in an effort to increase funding for children’s healthcare, are taking advantage of the famous Price is Right gag now that Bob Barker has retired. Bwog had newbie reporter Justin Vlasits see the spectacle.
This afternoon at the Sundial, the Dems brought out a crudely constructed Plinko Board and invited students crossing Low Steps to play a butchered version of the game and afterwards call congressmen King and Walsh (both R-NY) to vote for the conference version of the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
“Tell Congress to get its priorities straight!”
“Tell Bush that the Price is Wrong!”
“This issue is totally nonpartisan issue,” said Jonathan Backer, Media Director for the CU Dems, reminding passers by that the original bill in 1997 was a collaboration between reactionary Utah Senator Orrin Hatch and super-liberal Ted “Chappaquiddick” Kennedy (whom Backer interned for this summer).
However, the event failed to draw massive crowds, due to the Plinko board’s shoddy construction and a lack of creative free food. Pegs were unevenly spaced, pucks got stuck in almost every game and the Dems were not even prepared with a Plinko stick to properly unlodge them. Worst of all, players couldn’t even win, all of the slots at the bottom of the board were dedicated to alternative ways to spend the $7 billion that the club says is necessary to maintain the program for the next five years.
To make a bad thing worse, the meager chips and salsa were obscured by throngs of club members manning the Plinko board. The Dems should learn from a more successful gimmick in the guise of progressive activism: CQA’s delicious and plentiful Queer Sushi, which attracted an enormous line in Lerner 555 last Thursday.
Backer said that this year the club’s vision was to get students more engaged in activism so that they could bring about a tangible change in policy. Just no more game shows, please.
Loading …
35 Comments
@also... Seriously people, if you’re going to comment more than once (yes I’m looking at you #16/#26), at least make some attempt to fool the tracker; we can all see that you posted multiple times to drum up support.
@after all this time give this reporter credit: the dems actually got sympathy in the comments for once. that’s an achievement
@too bad feeling sorry for yourself doesn’t count as sympathy.
and CHIP. we got the food/acronym pun (excesses like money for a war we are fighting [regardless of whether you originally voted for it] and not being taxed at 35% are certainly as uncontroversial as you make them seem). you still lose.
@Funny, among reasonable people, the facts that taxes are too low and the war was a bad decision actually are not controversial, but I think you’re trying to sarcastic.
@yeah cause everybody who disagrees with you isn’t reasonable. Good job deamonizing honest people asswipe.
I’d love to see you point to a poll that says americans think taxes are too low.
On top of that, I’d also suggest you take back your strawman/blow up doll to the confines of your wein double because I didn’t comment on the merit of the war, but instead that suggestions that cutting funding for soldiers fighting for it is actually a pretty poor idea. Then again, people so reasonable as you don’t need to read.
@C.H.I.P ok, you all are not getting the word play. the point of it was that it was for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, you know C.H.I.P. Thus, the snack was chips (and dip b/c the dems are nice) and you play plinko, which involves dropping a chip down a board. the point wasn’t about food, and it wasn’t about winning, it was about shocking you about regarding how if we got rid of some of this government’s excesses, we could afford to pay to insure children’s health, and then having you- newly shocked- to call the congressmen and tell them that this is unacceptable. the point was the message, not the food and not the game.
@dude i was there – i don’t generally like dems events, and this one was actually pretty good. the article really mischaracterizes things, first off its a fucking telethon: its a couple second time investment to play the stupid game, then you call your congressman, and peace — it’s not a sit-down-and-eat discussion on gay issues
bwog is (in general) great for its snark – but that much bullshit from a hipster freshman who most certainly hasn’t earned the right to sound like such a self-assured prick – i expect better from you bwog.
@the sand is strong in this one.
‘he hasn’t earned the right to be snarky, waaah, waaaahmbulance
get of mah lawn youngin!!!’
@So I guess you’re older as then it’s ok to sound like like a self-assured prick? Maybe he was just a little too clever for someone so “new”?
@i think that this is a good article, and the people who are whining about meanness need to get some perspective. bwog is *way meaner* all the time to people who aren’t dems. despite the disclaimers, i suspect its just hitting too close to home.
@columbia bwoggers crying about meanness?
somebody’s got some sand in their vagina (and i guess the frosh finally discovered this site)
@min still hard to say how many calls are considered “massive”; don’t see anything mean said; just clever writing and someone’s opinion. thought that’s what bwog’g is supposed to be…easy to critize when you don’t type who you are; at least he had the !$&* to.
@wow seriously, bwog, teach your freshman how to do it correctly. no one likes nastiness; you get read because your reporting is usually on point and witty. this was neither.
i’m not usually a supporter, but congrats to the dems for what looks like a successful event, despite the criticism. nice to see them actually doing something rather that just making noise.
@Haha ” Just no more game shows, please”
BURN.
@furn Ted “Chappaquiddick” Kennedy.
How clever!!!!1111111111
@Republican I have to say that even as a republican who thinks that this was a typical misguided and stupid big government pushed by the dems, this reporting was by far one of the worst I have seen at bwog. Even the dems should just be ridiculed for their foolish ideas – no one here appreciates meanness.
Go work for the spec prick.
@wow This bwog reporter is a real douchebag. Bashing the dems is fun and everything, but this is just a little ridiculous.
@hmph I expect a bit more from bwog. I need some snark to go with my critique. bwog is supposed to be deliciously mean, not just plain ol mean.
@Justin should go by his initials on all subsequent bwog posts.
@cute Bwog should hold snark workshops for its freshman reporters.
@you know what else is an achievement? posting under different names and successfully fooling bwog’s readership into thinking that your cause is hawked by mroe than one person
full disclosure: i’m also #3.
@if i were a congressman, i’d hang up after ONE call from a self-righteous, entitled, hippie college student
@oops that was meant in response to #6
@if you were a congressman and you were picking up the phone at all, then your interns must have been on their lunch break.
@Or you might be Don Payne.
@yea... that was... …. typical.
@oops typical comment was meant for the bitching about multiple posts by a multiple poster who has no life except bwog…
@well it could have been a public computer.
i also called and got cut off and hung up on! hooray!
@i called Congressman Walsh around 1:30 and his office nearly hung up on me because they’d gotten so many calls from Columbia studensts that day. so Bwog, i beg to differ that the event “failed to draw massive crowds”
@Yay! I called! I wonder if the bwogites did?
@good show Getting 200 phone calls to congressmen on this campus is an achievement…. but it’s typical of unexperienced bwog reporters to try to make a name by sassing successful events for a lack of free food and forget that the point was broader than that.
@nope... That event really did suck.
@why isn't one of those seven options a cross-the-board tax cut?
@balla and the Fed cut 50 bps off both the fed funds and discount rates! my portfolio’s boomin today! Wish I owned some of that 5% gaining Goldman
@fyi In other news…Schapiro 14 may have bed bugs. Housing employees said the room(rooms?) in question tested negative for presence of the unfriendly creatures (how does one test for the presence of bedbugs?) but they’re still being cautious and replacing a mattress and treating the area. I think this is 4 straight years of bedbug infestations at Columbia (likely a longer streak)