Chris Banyas
Editor-in-Chief
So many things of late seem to fall under that broad description, that sad ending to a sad story.
Ich ernannte die Elektrizität/Zum Gebein meiner Sinne/Und bevor ich erregt ausspie/Tötete ich das Morgen/Um zu sehen ob es tiefer fiel.
Perhaps you had a chance to viddy with your glazzies the results of the recent ASISU election…and perhaps you did not.
Here’s the short story: for the executive ticket, that is the president and vice president who will serve ISU over the 2016/17 school year, 205 out of 9,418 eligible voters actually voted.
2.18 percent of eligible voters voted. 2.18 percent. I can’t even begin to express how this makes me feel. If I had a chocolate chip cookie, and I was allowed to eat 2.18 percent of that cookie, I wouldn’t even be able to eat one whole smegging chocolate chip.
“I viddied that thinking is for the gloopy ones and that the oomny ones use like inspiration and what Bog sends. For now it was lovely music that came to my aid.”
Once again, Ludwig Van presents himself, in the form of his Funeral March.
And how well the music encapsulates my feelings is again nothing short of amazing. I want to dash my head against the results sheet until my eyeballs come loose from their sockets, unseeing orbs of jelly quickly orbiting the remnants of my face.
I want to cut apart my face one inch at a time with the same sheet: slowly slicing away at all that makes me a man, a human, the figurehead of my being and point of entry and interaction with my soul, until all that remains are two tiny slits of light, then one, then darkness.
I want to cast myself off the highest pier, voting sheet nailed into my chest so that all who chance upon my crushed and ruined corpse might know the unspoken tragedy that occurred.
What I want, is for other people to vocalize how disturbing these results truly are, and I feel that something as severe and final as a death is what its going to take for this to happen.
There is a certain beauty in death, a serenity, a disconnection from pain and a disassociation from all that binds us to the world of man, along with an equality.
“Pale Death with impartial tread beats at the poor man’s cottage door and at the palaces of kings.”
Ich wartete Jahrhunderte/Und man sagte mir/Daß eine Scheibe Brot überdauert/Ich nähte den Grund ein/Aber konnte ihn nicht erreichen/Es ist nicht das gleiche/Aber wie du siehst, verschieden.
What must be said about this entire affair is that the election was a failure in so many ways.
A failure to adequately publicize the very fact that an election was taking place, a failure to engage the student body in a way to garner MORE THAN TWO PERCENT of VOTERS and a failure on the part of the student body to understand the importance of this election.
And I suppose some modicum of failure is on my shoulders for not actively pursuing what bread crumbs of information I did see about the election. An email was sent out the day of with links to the candidates platforms and speeches, and a banner appeared on BengalWeb announcing the election.
But while I’m all for self deprication, not a single member of ASISU contacted me or any member of my staff regarding the goings on.
What must be understood is that ASISU is directly involved with the money that ISU takes out of your pockets each and every semester and year for student fees.
In fact, the allocation of those funds is one of the chief responsibilities of ASISU.
So why should you care about that?
Allow me to present a scenario to you.
You have two clubs before you: the Anthropology Club, and the Recreational Pudding Pounding Association of ISU. Both of them are applying for funds for the next year, and they both stand to be given the same general amount with which to A) enable individuals to further their education by helping graduate students travel to conferences or B) discover the rupture point of the stomach + large intestine + small intestine against an onslaught of chocolate pudding.
This is a very real scenario that ASISU deals with on a regular basis, and your money, that which is deducted under the auspices of the elusive “student activity fee” goes to pay for this.
I believe that the election should be done over again. And over again, until at least a decent number of students are represented in the vote.
As it is now, ASISU represents some sort of clandestine well of funds from which those in the know can freely dip their cup under the unknowing noses of the students around them.
Do you want several thousand dollars for doing a job that is essentially free of oversight and responsibility?
HAVE I GOT A SMEGGING JOB FOR YOU! JOIN ASISU AND DO AS MUCH OR AS LITTLE AS YOU FEEL LIKE, BECAUSE, SCREW IT! YOU’VE ALREADY GOTTEN THE MONEY! WHAT DO YOU CARE? AND WHY SHOULD YOU, NO ONE ELSE DOES!
I feel that I should add a slight footnote to the above sentiment: I do not personally know each and every member of ASISU, and I genuinely believe that, while I would say my experience with the entity has been sub-optimal, I do believe that there are members of ASISU that take their job seriously and do actually care about what happens.
I just don’t see them doing a whole hell of a lot. Which doesn’t mean they aren’t doing a whole hell of a lot.
Admittedly I have a somewhat unique stance on this entire thing. Allow me to regale you with another sad tale from my index of woe.
Recently I was “asked” to complete a SWOT analysis of the organization I am the head of, your friendly neighborhood student newspaper, by the ASISU finance committee.
What you need to know about a SWOT analysis is, it is essentially the most demeaning thing that can be asked of you, and even more so due to the lack of involvement, achievement, and a general falling short of the metrics represented within by the body forcing this upon you.
SWOT analyses are, quite possibly, highly responsible for postal workers going postal, and other career employees falling prey to thoughts of despair and workplace violence.
Go on boy, justify your existence. And make it snappy.
Yes, I’ll make that clearer.
It blows my mind that I had to address Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats in a document which would then be presented to a body that itself was not obligated to do such a thing.
I fully intend to generate one for them in the future.
But here’s the real kicker of the thing: the adviser to The Bengal, Jerry Miller, presented directly prior to me and I was able to observe firsthand just how much the members of the finance committee care about what they are tasked with doing.
Of the panel members present during Mr. Miller’s presentation, fully 90 percent of them were, at any one time, seemingly completely ignoring what he was saying. Their attention was tuned to everything but him, to laptops, phones, walls, ceilings etc.
Now to be fair, if I was tasked with sitting through a litany of like presentations, I would probably be doing the same thing by this point.
But the fact of the matter remains that of a panel consisting of ASISU elected officials including your trusty student body president, Mackenzie Smith, and vice president, Kitanna Belnap, their attention seemed to be everywhere and anywhere but on the current presenter.
And my experience of presenting was much the same.
Several members of the committee did engage me with questions. Questions that seemed to be chosen long before I stepped into the room, questions that were held until the little newspaper man had given his little newspaper spiel, his graciously allotted time given him by the mighty members of ASISU.
I was thanked for my time and told that it was clear that I was passionate about the newspaper.
Ich fand dich zuweilen heraus/Um ja mehrmals von mir gesehen zu werden.
And with that, I’d like to return to the topic of the recent election. An election that I knew literally nothing about until the day it was taking place.
Gone were the signs that once littered the Quad, gone were the floods of candidates presenting their case in front of classrooms, gone, gone, gone.
There should be a minimum percent of voters required before any ASISU office is filled. I’m going to just stab in the dark and say 1,000 voters would be about right.
That way, at least around a tenth of the student body would be represented.
Of course any system is going to have its flaws. Of course the onus is not entirely upon the shoulders of the senators and executive members of ASISU for the abysmal showing in the election. Of course there is more to the story.
But the fact of the matter is that the tangible elements involved in the equation, those that should be held accountable for the lack of promotion stand to not be held accountable at all.
Unterhalb, es ist unterhalb/Das verschmutzte Abteil benötigt meine Zeit.
Another wrinkle to this whole story is just how plugged into things student fees really are.
Take something like the Frank Church Symposium.
An academic conference which brings in world-renowned speakers and specialists to our little corner of Idaho is, on the surface, a universal good, right?
Well, the symposium is another thing that is funded in large part by student fees.
Jump back to that freshman chugging chocolate pudding. Should he be given funds over the Frank Church?
And that is not to say that there is no merit to pudding chugging, or any other purely recreational club on campus. These things are needed and certainly promote involvement in one form or another…at least on paper.
Early in my time at The Bengal I had the experience of interviewing a club member about their newly formed organization.
When I asked what they used the student fees given them by ASISU for, the reply was, and I am not exaggerating, “We pretty much buy snacks.”
I won’t go into the whole point system of justification through member involvement that has been in place. I’ll let you get into that yourselves if you feel like being depressed for a fortnight.
Und ich erbrach meine Schimäre/Als sich das kranke Fleisch von mir abwandte.
The point of this prolonged diatribe is this: things are looking far worse than they ever have before at ISU in terms of student representation.
If something is not done now, sooner rather than later, who knows where we’ll be in a year or two year’s time.
Eventually the homecoming bonfire might just be made of hundred dollar bills taken directly from the student fee account…and you would have voted for it.
