It’s my favorite time of year again – Student Association election season. A time when I can just sit back and let the hacks, I mean candidates, do my work for me. Why spend hours trying to find fresh new parallels between President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg and Louis XIV when the oh so politically savvy wits of SA candidates turn up such stellar column fodder?
Representation You Never Believed Possible – because I spend so much of my time sitting around waxing philosophical on the potential manifestation of SA representation.
It’s Time to Have Real Students Represent You – yeah Phil Meisner and Caity Leu have really just been masquerading as GW students. Oh, wait. I guess something like that really did slip by the Joint Elections Committee – Ed Meinert.
Don’t even get me started on the Valentine’s Day messages: Dear Mary, I love you so much I think we should pull a fast one on the Joint Elections Committee and endorse so-and-so for SA president. Those idiots at the JEC will never see through our carefully crafted facade. – Will
But rather than completely trash the SA elections before the candidates have a chance to start tearing down each others’ posters, I figured I’d simply touch on the subject and then move on.
The latest craze to hit GW’s campus is GWopoly – the GW-inspired version of everyone’s favorite how-the-hell-are-we-ever-going-to-keep-from-going-insane-with-bordeom-on-this-rainy-summer-afternoon board game Monopoly. Truly the greatest thing to happen to the Parker Brothers classic since you could buy the Death Star, GWopoly is a game that has captured the hearts and minds of students and faculty alike. I think I saw someone’s mom walking around with one. But I just don’t think that GWopoly encapsulates the true spirit of GW.
One thought I had was to contact the people who make the bubble hockey games and see if they could make one with basketball players. That way GW students could step into Penders’ shoes and have a chance to smack Rhode Island around themselves, playing Mark whenever they wanted. There could be a release so that you could take the bubble off and throw crap onto the court. And a student section that you could empty for added realism during women’s games. Maybe some complementary keys so that you could tell Temple when to start their bus. OK, so maybe this game wouldn’t be all that realistic.
Another possibility would be a Risk board modeled after the administration’s property acquisition policy. I came up with the idea of GWRisk one night with Alan Elias. Those of you in the Residence Halls must all know Alan, he’s president of the Residence Hall Association, the group that works so tirelessly to advocate the concerns of students living in residence halls. What? There wasn’t any sarcasm in that statement. The RHA works diligently for you, the student, never yielding to the administration. OK, so maybe there was a little sarcasm in there. All right, all right, it was dripping with sarcasm.
On the GWRisk box we can slap a Napoleonic picture of SJT’s chest covered in millennium medals, one hand tucked into his coat, the other brandishing a sword, all atop a rearing hippo and at the head of a charging army of Colonial Cabinet Members.
For the board you just have to divide Foggy Bottom up into various continents. Everything west of 22nd Street becomes the Americas. Between 22nd and 20th you’d find Europe, Asia, and Africa. No doubt some fool will try starting in the Marvin Center but like Europe, it’ll prove impossible to hold. Down in the Australia corner are Thurston and Mitchell – that’s where the smart player will sit, building up before exploding onto the FSK, Fraternity Houses, and University Yard equivalent of the Asian landmass.
Of course building up massive armies in GWRisk will lead to overcrowded classrooms, a shortage of housing, long lines at J Street. You’ll just have to distract your troops with bonfires and three-cornered hats.
