Election Results

Word on the street is: Troy Hill beat Robin Cohen for senior class representative, and Jake Siler beat Chris Caesar for off-campus, Clark-owned representative.

Scathed!

My scathing critique of the first issue of The Scarlet in This Is Not The News is being warmly received by most. I'm curious as to what will come of this. It might be awkward to see Alyssa, the editor of The Scarlet, in class on Thursday night. I relish awkward moments.

TINTN has been taking up much of my time lately, and it's been fun. Student Council elections were held today, and there were a couple of races of which I'm interested to see the results. One is senior class rep. Troy Hill, a co-editor of TINTN, is running against Robin Cohen, fellow Ridger and my date to the Junior Prom five years ago. The other race is Clark-owned off-campus rep, between Chris Caesar, my other co-editor of TINTN, and Jake Siler, a fellow CUFS member and all-around good guy.

The third issue of TINTN is the best one yet, in my opinion. Plus, it's leagues better than The Scarlet.

Anti-Semite?

Things have been strange since the last update. Wednesday I had a midterm in my Judicial Politics class, which went reasonably well. My bike was stolen sometime over the past few days, which was a bit of a bummer. And then I was accused, at least by association, of promulgating anti-Semitic propaganda. Strange indeed.

Dave Fialkov, a Senior at Clark and classmate in the above-mentioned Judicial Politics class, wrote an opinion article in The Scarlet (Clark's officially-sanctioned student publication). In this column, Fialkov accused This Is Not The News (the witty, satirical, alternative weekly newspaper I co-edit with Chris Caesar and Troy Hill) of being anti-Semitic propaganda. As I am not running in the election, I was not named in the article. Chris and Troy, on the other hand, were. Being called stupid or a doofus is one thing, but anti-Semitism is some pretty serious stuff. Very unfair, considering that the column was in no way anti-Semitic (nor was it even written by any of us!). Fialkov got most of his facts wrong, which was amusing. For one, he claimed Troy wrote a "condescending non-apology" in the second issue. In fact, Troy did not contribute at all to the second issue, nor did his name appear. Fialkov also claims we made a promise to write an apology for the original "offensive" article, while we made no such promise (nor would we, for we in no way regret the printing of the article, nor do we find it in any way inappropriate).

More on this to come.

The World at Large

I almost forgot there was a world beyond Katrina.

It seems the complete media dominance of Hurricane Katrina has begun to subside, and with the Roberts hearings in a lull, there is acknowledgment of a world around us.

This past weekend there were elections in both Afghanistan and Germany. The Afghan elections were marked by a surprisingly peaceful day, with very little violence (contrary to what many expected and predicted). The ballots will start being counted tomorrow (Tuesday).

The German elections have left that country confused. Incumbent chancellor Gerhard Schröder and his Social Democratic Party received only 34.3 percent of the votes cast, meaning they lost the majority they enjoyed with their coalition partner Green Party. The right-of-center Christian Democratic Union, led by Angela Merkel, received the highest percentage of votes at about 35.2 percent. But their main coalition partner, the Free Democratic Party, failed to get enough votes to achieve a majority. With no clear winner, things are somewhat up in the air. It does seem, however, that Schröder has lost his majority after leading the country for seven years. Mrs. Merkel would be the first woman to hold the position of chancellor. More on this to come.

Perhaps most startling is news of a breakthrough in the multilateral negotiations with North Korea about their nuclear weapons program. A preliminary agreement was announced that North Korea has agreed to end their nuclear weapons program in exchange for economic, security, and energy benefits. Well...not so fast. That was what the media was originally reporting. An article on the Times website dated September 19 ran the headline "North Korea Says It Will Drop Nuclear Efforts for Aid Program." I do not think this made it into the print edition. And then, again on the website, this time dated September 20 (even though it is not yet the 20th), there is an article with the headline, "U.S.-Korean Deal on Arms Leaves Key Points Open." It seems the deal is not the deal everyone thought it was.

So what's the story? It appears an agreement was made, and signed, but that this agreement is vaguely worded and fails to address a date as to when disarmament would occur. The other problem is that the agreement hints at discussions, "at an appropriate time," of a civilian nuclear power plant. The plant, a light-water reactor, would not be able to produce fuel for nuclear bombs as efficiently as existing plants in the country. But President Bush has long held that this was not an acceptable concession. Over the last day the White House has said that the only appropriate time for such a discussion would be long after all existing nuclear plants are shut down and invasive inspections are carried out. North Korea, however, has come out and said the U.S. "should not even dream" it would dismantle its nuclear weapons until it receives a new plant. Thus the problem.

In any case, these are at least signs of progress after months of stalemate. And signs of life in the world around us.

Back in Action!

I've decided to take up my (proverbial) pen again and recommence writing and updating this blog. Much has happened since June 13 when I last updated, and I will not get into the details of my summer here.

I've been back at Clark for almost four weeks now, and things in that regard have been terrific. I am extremely fond of all of my classes, and extracurriculars have been most entertaining.

Of particularly note is the new publication I have been co-editing with Chris Caesar and Troy Hill, This Is Not The News, which has stirred a bit of controversy around campus (certainly our intention).

CUFS is up and running with an exciting schedule of films being shown this semester. This weekend was Once Upon a Time in the West, which I attended Friday night. Some people I was with thought it was a little slow, and boring at times, but I wholeheartedly disagree. I immensely enjoyed this film, and would recommend it to anyone with an attention span.

Anyway, the PLAN is to update this thing every day or two...you'll see how this goal stands up.