Turlington Tribune

Once More Unto The Breach

2008-08-04T20:45:00.004-04:00

Lets play a game. What are the chances of the following things happening tomorrow night?

At least 70 Senators show up tomorrow.
There are no points of order during the entire meeting.
The guest speaker takes less than half an hour.
Cecil Duffie grunts.
Sam Miorelli doesn't speak during public debate.
Sam doesn't speak about himself at all.
Kevin Reilly shows up.
Kevin's pants are on fire at some point in the meeting.
Yooni Yi shows up.
Yooni talks about something besides Outfit Alachua.
Kellie Dale gets through an entire meeting without getting flustered.
Paul Drayton shows up.
Someone gives a lengthy goodbye speech.
Someone is called a tool.
Someone is called an obsrtuctionist or a nussance
Someone talks about the blogs.
All of the second readings are passed by acclamation.

I'm going with 32%, 3%, 15%, 100%, 5%, 0%, 72%, 5%, 39%, 47%, 9%, -8%, 97%, 63%, 22%, 56%, and 85%.

Your thoughts?

Impeachmentpalooza

2008-07-30T23:33:00.010-04:00

"Pyrrhus said to one who was congratulating him on his victory, 'If we are victorious in one more such battle we shall be utterly ruined.' For he had lost a great part of the forces with which he came, and all his friends and generals except a few." (Plutarch)
"A fiduciary duty ...is the highest standard of care imposed at either equity or law."

Impeachment results: Unshocking.

Crass, over-the-top comparison by SFL: Check. Now counting down the days until SFL's opponents are likened to war criminals or somesuch.

Opportunist of the week: Eric Wolf.

Big winners: O&B (gained favorable Alligator coverage); MaryGrace Bell (looks better and better as an actually competent SBP); BSU (for saving one of their own after giving Justin Bell and Lewis Curtwright the heave-ho).

Big losers: Ad hoc Gator whip Shire Patel (who should have been running that thing like Billy Flynn); the none-too-subtle-or-successful Kellie Dale (who tried to dissuade the Gator Party, from the chair, from voting to affirm that words in the Student Body Constitution aren't in the Constitution)

Most amusing part of the night: Drayton's use of the non-word infactual in his letter read by Reilly. You need to really try to choose a wrong word when you mean "not true." Note to the SBT/future captain of industry: Try some Safire sometime.

Welcome

2008-07-24T13:40:00.016-04:00

"Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants"-- Louis Brandeis (1914)
"The politics of the university are so intense because the stakes are so low" -- Wallace Sayre (1973)

We're tired of seeing the many words but little thought that come done daily by an uninformed lunatic and a misinformed tool.

RTS announces cutbacks in bus service, even as students pay $73.32 a semester, even when we are in an energy crisis in this country. Students are going to wait longer.

Four law students playing dress-up in black robes throw the 5700-signature online voting petition off the ballot, declaring themselves actual judicial authorities who may interpret the United States Constitution. SOLVe sues the university.

Gator Growl sucks even more than usual, with Jon Reep -- apparently a reality-show Jeff Foxworthy knockoff -- as our headliner.

We see really bad leadership from Gator. We see 150K missing from Student Government Productions, forcing a Kanye West concert to be canceled. We see that, in a state that decided the presidency less than 600 votes eight years ago, a Chomp the Vote executive director is appointed while he's living in Washington--and works for the RNC.

We see self-aggrandizement from a few of O&B.

We see self-importance and sanctimony all around.

Meanwhile -- as InsideHigherEd reported today -- Florida faculty are fleeing to universities in states whose legislatures don't think they can run on air and goodwill. UC Berkeley used $113m and UWisconsin used $10m to keep faculty in-state. Meanwhile, our state legislature utterly fails. We can talk about being a "top ten state university" all we want, but if we don't get enough funds so students aren't told to print out their own syllabuses, we will never get there.

We're not into conspiracy theories or horseshit. We're tired of failure. And we know that SG could be so much more than it is. We can do better, and that's is why we started this blog.

We'll post more shortly.