Walking around USI's campus I find myself wishing I had a big box of sidewalk chalk. One of the primary forms of student group advertising is writing on the sidewalk with multi-coloured chalk like many of us did as kids. Today I saw a chalkvert that said "Liar, Lunatic or LORD: Is Jesus who he says he is?" The chalkvert is from the student christian group, so I think we know which answer they want us to give. Disappointing, really, because I sort of wanted one of those controversial-views speakers to talk about how Jesus was just some crazy guy and piss off half of campus.

The more usual type of chalkvert is for events, like a stand-up comic or a movie night. However, the College Dems and College Republicans also make considerable use of this medium. Last fall I saw plenty of anti-Obama stuff, but strangely little anti-McCain or anti-Palin stuff (I fully expected no anti-Biden stuff because nobody cares). Even now, the College Reps have in their ads such things as "Tired of big government spending? Tired of socialist policies? So are we" and then the time and place of their next meeting. That's a pretty ballsy statement for people affiliated with a party that DID spend huge amounts of money on an unpopular war, and even ballsier considering this is a school with easy access to things like dictionaries, encyclopædias, and possibly even actual hard copies of The Communist Manifesto, all of which could easily define socialism as "not what's going on right now". Calling this socialism is like calling pub darts a sport: some things are similar, but there are too many more differences.