AMPlify Your Apathy

This is a "The Whirling Dervish" piece originally published by Speakeasy May 17, 2006.

For the first time in recent memory, chalkboards and bulletin boards across campus are free from a barrage of advertisements for Student Senate elections.  This is a welcome change from the constant harassment and annoyance of years past, when students could rarely pass a day without being accosted by a group of people in T-shirts representing some party.

There is only one registered party this year, Amp.  It’s appropriate, because Amp consists of the same people that win the elections every year.  This time around, no one is bothering to run against them.  Maybe it is because this group always wins and other people don’t feel like losing.  Then again, maybe it’s because nobody else sees Student Senate worth it.
 
If Amp is running unopposed, why are they still trying to give us newspapers telling us to vote for them?  After all, the only people voting are the people running and their friends.  There aren’t going to be enough people writing Leon Williams in as president to threaten Morgan Allen.  If there is no competition, why the T-shirts?  Is it because they want to feel cool wearing them?

Student Senate has long claimed to represent the student voice.  But why should OU students look to their senator to be their “voice” when Roderick McDavis is an email away and when he makes himself available to the public weekly?  Student senators would like to think they’re doing something important, and some of them are.  Appropriating funds to student organizations is an important task.  Aside from that, it’s all an exercise in hubris. 

After all, it was only in 2003 when Katie Simpson was removed from her position as vice president in the face of student protest, simply because she was in the rival party.  So do these people represent “our” voice or their own?

By the way, the president gets free tuition for the year.  There’s no way to justify that, especially when student trustees get no such benefit.

So let them have their little election and lord over Student Senate the way the kids who were really excited about Model UN in high school did.  In a week, everyone will just go back to ignoring them again.

Redemption for Han Solo
 
From the “long overdue” department, Lucasfilm and Twentieth Century Fox announced the first three “Star Wars” movies are coming to DVD in their original theatrical form.  That means no special edition, no Hayden Christensen at the end or “Return of the Jedi,” the original Ewok celebration song and that Han, not Greedo, shoots first.  Non-geeks probably don’t realize the significance of this, but for those of us that grew up in a galaxy far, far away, this is the best news that we ever could have gotten.  Fans have long complained about George Lucas’ constant tinkering of the movies and the changes made in the special editions of the original trilogy.  It will be not at all surprising to see sales of this DVDs surpass sales of the special edition DVDs, even if Lucas is pulling a Disney and selling the movies for a limited time.

Is it too much to hope for a public apology and retraction of “Revenge of the Sith” to come in the near future as well?

It’s like they don’t have a Father’s Day or something
 
Last year for Mother’s Day, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (say that five times fast) gave away tote bags to women 18 and older.  Baseball teams have long used promotions like this as a way to lure people into the ballpark to spend $4 on a hot dog, so this is far from unusual.  However, someone feels this is discrimination and is suing the Angels for age and sex discrimination.  Well, it’s about time men started to fight back against the injustices levied against them by society.  We’re not going to take this lying down.  If wives and mothers are going to be dragged to the ballpark on the one holiday devoted to them, they’d better not get treated nicely or anything.  That’s just wrong.  Thankfully, the Angels have come to their senses and offered bags to the first 25,000 adults of both sexes.  Then again, the kids still aren’t getting anything.  Looks like another lawsuit is in order.

Postscript: My feelings about Student Senate's ineptness are still intact.  The best part was when a computer security flaw resulted in Social Security numbers going public.  In 2003, the same year they were busy playing politics, a Senator exposed the very security flaw.  Instead of doing anything about it, he was kicked out of Senate and suspended from the university.