Columbia student protesters demand Gus Palastine be freed
Columbia University students spray painted “Free Palastine” on the steps of the Heinrich Himmler Student Resource Building yesterday. The Ivy League students lack many things, not the least of which is the ability to spell. Upon returning to the student encampment, the poor spellers were met by an unhappy group leader.
Griff (returning with his can of spray paint in his hand): We did it! We spray painted “Free Palastine” on the steps of Himmler Hall.
Kaitlyn (Griff’s partner in the episode): It was, like, cool and stuff. We used really black paint.
Ed (Section E student protest group leader) You idiots! You spelled Palestine wrong. It’s with an “e”, not an “a”. Now it looks like we’re completely moronic.
Griff: More so than when we demanded humanitarian aid for ourselves?
Ed: Uh, well…
Kaitlyn: How were we supposed to know? I mean, I haven’t spelled anything without auto-correct since, like, ever.
Ed: We’ll be the butt of every joke on Instagram now.
Griff: More so than before?
Ed: Uh, well…
Kaitlyn: Hey, I’ve got an idea. Maybe, instead of protesting against the Middle East thing, you know, the thing we don’t know anything about, we claim we are demanding that Gus or Remy Palastine, spelled with an “a”, be freed.
Ed: Who are they?
Kaitlyn: Who knows? Who cares?
Ed: Freed from what?
Kaitlyn: I don’t know. We’ll just make it up.
Griff: Yeah. Maybe we can say that some guy named Gus Palastine was an Uber Eats driver in the Bronx and the police picked him up because he had a bunch of unpaid parking tickets or something. Now he can’t do his job.
Ed: Job? What’s that?
Griff: It’s like when somebody pays you to do something.
Ed: Really? Wow. When did they start doing that?
Kaitlyn: Like back in the eighties or something, I think. My dad has one. My mom used to have one too. Now she just works for the government.
Ed: Um, we can say this Gus Palastine guy is in police custody and we demand he be freed. But why? I mean, why do we care?
Kaitlyn: Um, maybe – and I’m just thinking out loud here – maybe it’s because we need him to deliver humanitarian aid to us.
Ed: That might work.
Griff: What if the media finds out there isn’t any Gus Palastine in police custody?
Ed: Really? You’re going to go there? The media is on our side and they don’t investigate anything. I’m not sure they would even know how.
Griff: Oh, yeah. I forgot.
Ed: That sounds like a plan. Great job, Kaitlyn. Although, if you guys could spell we could have avoided all of this. Hey, where are you going now?
Kaitlyn: We’re headed over to the Dean’s office. We’re going to spray paint “Kill the Zionists” on her office door.
Ed: How are you going to spell Zionists?
Griff: S-c-i-o-n-i-s-t-s. You know, just like it sounds.
Ed: Give me the can.