As Fall break becomes closer and closer I am beginning to care less and less about Your Student Assembly. In short, if you were tested for a sexually transmitted infection at the Student Health Center during the three week period when the SA was not subsidizing tests you now have the ability to get a refund if you ask for one at the Student Health Center. Get to it! You will also be eligible to receive one of 400 free flu shots given during a fair held by the Student Health Center in late October.
The SA has also announced its support for the removal of housing loss as a sanction for first time possession of less than half an ounce of marijuana. It is a common practice of the administration to revoke housing if one is caught with marijuana in a dorm, which means expulsion for freshmen who are not permitted to live off-campus. This is an abusive and unnecessary practice; however, this is all the Possession of Marijuana Sanctions Alteration Act is asking. In order to bring this issue the administrative attention it deserves, a full report should have been done on marijuana sanctions and much more should have been demanded.
To show someone who doesn’t care at all about what happens to students caught with marijuana it is imperative to demonstrate that you care. This bill holds no weight and no room for compromise and will be quickly disregarded by administration.
The SA has once again found it necessary to push through more meaningless code changes. Now, when the administration seeks to appoint students to its various appeals committees that deal with student conduct and honor code violations, those students must be approved by the SA with a 2/3 vote. I’ve seen the SA appoint students to countless positions and committees without a question or a critique and I have no reason to suspect that the students on these committees will not be blindly approved as all others have been. For example, four bills were passed this evening and of the four, only one received a single question before being unanimously consented to. The SA has this delightful habit of giving itself more work when it knows that such “work” will be completely superficial, as are most actions of student government.
Contrary to the opinions of most of my readers, I am not able to spend all of my time concerning myself with the actions of the SA, as online editor one of my many responsibilities is to police the always exciting Flat Hat comment board. While tempted to delete comments mocking my appearance, I did not because I believe in an open discourse, no matter how foolish. I have also been tempted to discard some of the racist, hurtful and simply stupid comments made whenever the Tidewater Labor Support Committee is mentioned. To answer one commenter: No, I will not move to Cuba simply because I believe that every member of the workforce deserves to be fairly compensated for their work.
I don’t care that President Reveley makes less than most college presidents, he still makes well more than he needs. Some people don’t and those people’s jobs are to clean up after asshole college students. Reveley gets to schmooze with the Board of Visitors and then distract TLSC members while the BOV exits through the back door of Blow Hall.
I was completely disgusted at the behavior of my fellow students this evening when exiting the Sadler Center dining hall. The dishwasher was broken so rather than being able to just sit your plates on a conveyor belt that conveniently takes them out of sight and out of mind, students were simply asked to scrape the food off their plates before passing them along to the kitchen staff. You’ve done this before. If your mother had the sense not to raise a spoiled little brat, she’s been making you do this for quite some time.
The looks of confusion and displeasure on so many students’ faces at the thought of having to do a simple task to make someone else’s life a little easier were astonishing. I’m beginning to understand the sheer reluctance that so many students on this campus have in ensuring that decent people can live decently. And consequently, why they would rather see their money spent on Old Crow Medicine Show than on fundamentally improving the lives of those around them.
