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December 2008

OPINION

THIS TOWN AIN’T BIG ENOUGH FOR THE BOTH OF US

Please, hold us accountable

Panther Post production editor welcomes feedback about our student paper

By Sebastian Baglole Panther Post

HIS IS AN OPEN

letter to the student body

about our open book. Tell us if it’s wrong. It would be fantastic if we could sway past the dismal failure of last year’s output and focus on now.

The Panther Post, as I un- derstand it, is a “new” news- paper. It’s brimming with fresh thoughts and ideas, and new events around cam- pus are happening all the time. Do we have regular Wave attendees in the audi- ence? Many student papers have routine run-downs of some bizarre occurrences at the campus bar from nights before. It turns out to be a fun read, and maybe give us more information on the treatment of students at the school after hours, so if there is a throw-down, we would love to hear about it.

One of the problems we’ ve encountered is the possibil- ity that the staff, small as it is, is receiving less funding to publish and pay its report- ers. The scanty and very re- vealing cheques given to the contributing reporters is not much incentive to contribute more than perhaps several articles, and yet as the voice of the students we should have aS many voices con- tributing to that as possible. This is “crunch time”, and especially around exam pe- riods it’s difficult to encour-

age people to snap newsfeed back and forth when they have haystacks of papers to write and mounds of books to shuffle through to prepare for finals. ;

This is not a cry for a wage hike, but a plea to the Stu- dent Union as well as the students, to feel proud about our publication, because it is impossible to be singu- larly proud of a community- driven newspaper. We also need some support to the

‘people that put in the time

and thought to do their work adequately, just as part-time faculty. members may feel as if they’re getting the run- around sometimes when it comes to fair and equal wag- es, and I’ve seen it happen: everyone needs a sufficient level of funding, to be as colourful, efficient, and pas- sionate about this paper as possible.

Some have inquired about the nature of the alternative campus rag, The Semantic. Not quite a rivalry as some might feel -- the contributors of each aren’t really butting heads with each other. But, a different voice is encour- aged; that was truly the spirit of the Cadre, to express ourselves and _ hopefully yourselves as well, indepen- dently from campus sports,

_as well as the student union:

to fuel the notion of objec- tivity. Another publication serving as the opposition is very healthy for a university to have, to voice separate

views and opinions on dif- ferent matters, and focus on the standards of the papers if one begins to slip.

A newspaper is founded upon a strong and co-or- dinated staff. This year, as you may have noticed filing through this year’s copies of The Cadre — or the Pan- ther Post, as the case may be — that more of the articles concern real news stories. Rather than the increasing amount of “fluff’ content we’ve seen fill these pages in recent years, this year’s staff is set on delivering to students not only news, in- cluding campus-wide, local, national and_ international news, but articles that focus their perspectives on target- ing the student interests as well.

Although, this paper is not only the students’ concern; this university is made of many capable professors, and this is their paper too. So if you, the students and pro- fessors of this school, have a problem with the issues we put out to you, then, tell us! Silence isn’t a keen indicator of the voice of the university body.

I’ll concede that we could use maybe a comic, a cross- word or Sudoku (come on, who doesn’t like the Sudo- ku?) to pass the time before class with.

Fill the letter to the editor space, because in my opin- ion we haven’t been getting nearly enough.

PANTHER POST

Voting is losing its power

By Peter Gardner Nexus (Camosun College)

VICTORIA (CUP) — While walking through my neigh- borhood recently, a member of the Green Party tried to stop and talk to me about what his plans were in the recent federal election.

I kept walking and said: “Sorry, I don’t vote in this riding.” He obviously only heard the first half of that sentence, and replied: “Well, if you don’t vote, you can’t

bitch, man!”

Ever since I was young I’ve been interested in politics. In Grade 3, for a_ show-and-tell presentation, I took in the previous night’s

federal election. And when I~

could vote for the first time in this year’s federal elec- tion, I was actually excited. But the more I talked to people about who they were voting for, the more appar-

ent it was that fewer people

were actually voting to sup- port someone.

Instead, a lot of people were voting against some- one, in this case, the Con- servatives. There were even websites set up to inform people how to strategically vote against Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Strategic voting is a scary trend; it’s getting to be almost as common as voting for the party you want in power. And look where stra- tegic voting has gotten us.

Harper, a prime minister less than half the country

supports, is in power be- cause people were sick of the Liberals. oe

And it’s even more obvious - in B.C., where the Liberals are in power largely because of anti-NDP sentiment. It’s nearly impossible to find _ anyone who likes what B.C. Premiere Gordon Campbell and his Liberals have done.

By voting against some- one, you just end up with another person who you dis- like, perhaps even more.

I’m also finding it increas- ingly difficult to decide what to do for the provincial election in the New Year.

- I’m not happy with any

of the candidates; the sad reality is they are just too similar.

The Liberals have had an awful track record lately, and if you look back a few years, the NDP does as well.

For the first time in my life, I’m really disappointed with the system. Not voting is becoming rather appeal- ing.

It’s not because I don’t care, and not because I’m lazy. It’s because I’m angry and I’m tired of the same

thing all the time. I’d rather

vote for no one than vote for someone I don’t believe in. In the recent U.S. elec- tion people elected Barack Obama not because they feared the other guy, but because people actually believed in him.I don’t see anyone here to believe in.

Peter Gardner writes for the Nexus at Camosun College