With the proposed new Biological Life Science Whatever-the-fuck-says-the-English-major building swooping in as the replacement for the building they tell me is called Shanklin, several members of the community who I’m assuming haven’t gotten laid in a good long while if ever are banding together under the banner of Shanklinistas. Or so I think. The Argus could be making shit up, but let’s give them the benefit of the doubt as the legitimate news source they claim to be. Anyway, the call for Shanklinistas resulted in large-scale confusion last Sunday at the Shanklinistas Unite! rally. While it did bring in many greasy-haired bio students, it also brought in a large smattering of Latin American guerilla militants.
For those of you unaware of the political climate south of the border, here is the back-story. In 1988 Nicaragua the Latin American debt crisis had reached extremes where people’s houses were being repossessed, water and electricity being shut off, and their children were being taxed based on the number of limbs they had. The people were in dire straits. Coincidentally, that was also a big year for Dire Straits, a Nicaraguan favorite. So, they turned Dire Straits into their anthem and took to the streets, led by political activist/guerilla fighter/ship-in-a-bottle connoisseur Ignacio Shanklin. His militant followers, evoking his philosophy of “stuffs to the peoples,” dubbed themselves “Shanklinistas.”
Zoom forward to present day as some dorky white kids were trying to get a petition signed. Who expected all of a sudden for a smoke bomb to go off and a bunch of beleaguered Nicaraguans to open fire on university officials. North College looked like it was pulled from the set of “Full Metal Jacket” by the time they got through with it. Eight dead, twenty-three wounded. It was a dark day for Wesleyan.
“Honestly, this is so embarrassing,” said Ernesto de la Sol, a Shanklinista leader. “We really thought that it was a call to arms, not something to, what is it, save a building? Jesus, we flew a long way from Nicaragua. But still, our bad.”
The Shanklinistas made amends by looting and destroying Williams’ science facilities.