Editorial: FurloughFest: complete joke

Campus holds resistance that proves to be lack-luster attempt to fight back.

Published: Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Updated: Wednesday, October 21, 2009 12:10

This week is furlough week at California State University, Fullerton, yet students are still on campus.

Students from CSUF staged what they are calling, “FurloughFest” yesterday through tomorrow.

The fest consists of student facilitated workshops, discussions, and live music and entertainment.

All of this is supposed to be their form of a resistance towards the statewide budget cuts to the education system. Their Facebook page shows it to be more of a party then a petition.

The Hornet went to the event yesterday and we seemed to know more about what was going on then the students who were participating.

This event seemed to be the classic case of “oh a line, I’m going to stand in it because I have nothing better to do.”

The fest was supposed to show “the man” that students on the CSUF campus will not stand for furloughs and budget cuts. With workshops on how to play music better live and how to be a sex master, they sure are showing the establishment how hard these cuts are effecting college students.

The headlining activities include: dodgeball and hide-n-seek and ask those planning to attend to bring there own ideas. Heres an activity idea, right hand on brain left hand on horrible idea.

How can these students expect to be taken seriously by anyone who has any pull in changing the current educational climate by making complete asses out of themselves and every other college student with grade school ideas of a sit-in. Just because you have a tent and sleep on campus doesn’t mean that you are showing how bad these budget cuts have actually effected us.

This resistance had great promise, there are actually a few workshops that show intelligence and true attempts in continuing education without the presence of professors.

However, the sanity of these activities was vastly overshadowed by the pure idiocy of the majority of careless events. What should have been an awe-inspiring exhibition of intelligence and meaning has turned into something as cheesy and demeaning as a company picnic.

If CSUF students really wanted to portray a united student body against the shredded remains of the California educational system they should have cut the circus act and focused more on the educational aspects.

Something has got to change with the college system and this event was only a hindrance in our chances to take steps toward a happy medium.

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DanDantheworldrevolvingman

Fri Oct 30 2009 04:54

It has nothing to do with me, my friend. The world does not revolve around me. It does, however, revolve around good reporting and accurate representation of events by the media. 10 minutes at an event and then an entire editorial devoted to bashing it does not signify good reporting to me, or anyone.

bigGame

Thu Oct 29 2009 23:46

actually, dan im not a member of the Hornet staff. My brother attends that school so I read and check out the site to see what is going on. You can also find some of my comments on the daily titan buddy. so dont get ahead of yourself "dan". why should this writer apoligize on the front page? simply because you didnt like the article? im baffled. amazing. should the dallas morning news write an apoligy for what they write about the cowboys, because im sure jerry jones doesnt like half the things they say?do me a yourself a favor, look in the mirror, and tell yourself this, the world does not revolve around you me.. repeat it acouple of times. see if that helps.

Dan

Thu Oct 29 2009 20:09

Haha. Bigtime must be a member of the Hornet staff. He's putting up such a heated defense. This article is completely biased and off base. To cover an ENTIRE event, you need to attend an ENTIRE event. It was totally ignorant, and slanderous on the part of this rapidly declining paper to do otherwise. I suggest a written apology on the front page and a serious revision of style. Maybe the Hornet should define what it means to report as well. You can't take 10 minutes of an event and turn it into the whole thing. Absurd.

bigGame

Thu Oct 29 2009 13:46

you see what I mean. I give you my opinion and you get all offensive. lol thats what I mean by "kids" and will continue to use that word. I wasnt trying to attack anyones charecter. You get all offensive because a reporter wrote an article on events that occured. dont do things that will make you look dumb and immature, and you wont have people writing the truth about you. Yes you should probably stick to graham crackers, nap times, cookies and milk and watching space jam. Its ok to be a kid, but there is a time and place for that. You need to learn that.

Your name

Thu Oct 29 2009 03:22

are you writing a movie review? did you really use "lackluster" to describe an event like furlough fest?

James

Wed Oct 28 2009 15:39

Why the negative connotation on being a kid? And how exactly do you think of yourself as an adult? As sterile? As "realistic"? As devoid of any joy? As unimaginative? As "playing the game of life"? And how exactly is ad hominem (that's attacking a person's character rather than their argument, i.e. calling them "kids") the behavior of an adult? If being an adult means the above, I'll stick to graham crackers, dodgeball, hide and go seek, climbing trees and naptime.

BigGame

Wed Oct 28 2009 14:14

this was a good article. the negative comments that were left im sure were written by some of the KIDS that attended the fest. Your ideas are not always the best. Get over it. I agree with the writer on this one. cudos.

James

Tue Oct 27 2009 22:59

How can students be taken seriously? How can this editorial be taken seriously with such egregious spelling and grammatical errors? Use your editors, or have some Furlough Festers correct your article son.

"more of a party THAN a petition"
"we seemed to know more about what was going on THAN the students"
"those planning to attend to bring THEIR own ideas" (now, that's an embarrassing mistake)

Stupid.

lila smith

Tue Oct 27 2009 22:45

why can't a party be a protest too? are the two mutually exclusive? is it possible that one can protest with extreme enjoyment, that there are other forms of protest beside the ones we have historically accepted? does it help anything to knock people who have at least tried to do something in resistance to the budget cuts, even if their resistance doesn't conform to your idea of protest? why have you never written something this insulting, heated, and bitter toward those who put us in this budget mess - why have you chosen fellow students for that attack?

steve

Tue Oct 27 2009 22:38

rarely have i ever seen an article more poorly written than this. i am a student at FJC who attended the furlough fest. i remember when the hornet showed up - they stayed for a very short amount of time and left. so this article was written after a very short amount of time spent at the event and a considerable amount of time fictionalizing it. there were many different workshops that had nothing to do with becoming a 'sex master'; there was a workshop on Zapatismo and the persecution of marginalized communities, there was a workshop/visit from students from UCSC who discussed forms of resistance to the budget cuts, a poetry reading where many students shared their favorite poetry, a writing center tutor-in, a course on ableton music production.....so in other words, WHERE WERE YOU? if the event was not to your liking then there is no one to blame BUT YOURSELF. the call was put out to any and all, and its driving idea was that everyone was to choose their own level of involvement. so if the stuff you think would've been better wasn't there, its YOUR fault and not that of anyone else.

you seem so angry that your perfect ideal of protest wasn't magically in place when you arrived. what, are you waiting for resistance to come to you? for the protest to pick you up at your house with a little honk outside your front door saying "come on in, time to go!" ? well that's never going to happen. you have to take things upon yourself but i don't know why i'm bothering writing all this to you since you're obviously the type to just complain about things instead of actually doing anything yourself.

beside all this, what a truly counter-productive article this is. on top of the many blatant lies about the event and the bitter attitude that pervades the entire article (what, did no one talk to you while you were there? someone say something mean so you devised this as your little revenge?), there were never any demands made. so what did you expect? no demands made because it is already ASSUMED that we are against the budget cuts. if people try to come up with demands we'll be stuck in an endless meeting since everyone has such a different idea of how to move along. furlough fest was just the NAME given to the SPACE to be transformed by those INVOLVED. get it? really simple huh? you're a tool.....

Tara

Fri Oct 23 2009 17:26

This paper has really become a complete joke. What happened? If you are going to try and make other people sound stupid, stop giving workshops and events human characteristics. Ignorance. Maybe you could expand your focus past sex toys and the positions of love making as well.

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