electioneering (1 Viewer)

[saladsurgery]

in case you haven't already seen the posters, flyers, chalking, banners, etc...
the uts students' association (S.A.) start tomorrow (monday 18th)! the polling is on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, 11am-2pm and 4pm-7pm, and voting only takes 2 minutes.

[hang on a minute, didn't we just have elections at uts?]

yep, they were for union board, which has a much administrative / services-based role. the students association elections are a much bigger affair, with more people, more polling areas, and they run for longer. but i digress...

as part of a team called "The Wolf Gang", I'm trying to get onto the editorial team for Vertigo, the UTS student magazine, for 2005. To do this, our team has got to be elected to the position, through the S.A. elections.

The Wolf Gang would like Vertigo to act as a showcase for all the cool creative talent at UTS. We want to make a Vertigo a magazine that you'll enjoy looking at as much as reading. We'll experiment with layouts, proportions, and overall design of the magazine, and publish your creative, critical, and political content in an engaging, appealing format.

i'll be hanging around the polling areas in building 6 and bon marche. so come down and say hi, we've got badges and zines and stickers and cool stuff.

vote [1] the wolf gang for vertigo!

cheers
pat (on behalf of the wolf gang crew - kat, cipi, sarah, darryn, hon, pat)

 

[Lexicographer]

Why all the chalk everywhere? Why the annoying posters and messages on my lovely building 4 doorway? Why the pushy "VOTE ME NOW" people with pamphlets? Why the consistently poor spelling of "women"?

So many questions, so much apathy.

 

[Frigid]

firstly lemme say i really really really loathe the whole concept of a 'womyns' association - it's fucking divisive, and, if it was done the other way round with a whole 'patriarchical, chauvinistic society', i reckon the women (yes i can spell it correctly) of the world would be up in arms. i'm all for gender equality but the whole womyn's movement, womyn-only forums at events and womyn-only membership is pissing me off.

secondly, the wolf gang got my vote coz the debsoc prez is in lingo and i don't like her. oh, and coz michelle (left action prez-candidate) forced me to vote for them under duress.

finally, i'm running for Law Student Society 'Advocacy Competitions Officer'. so all you bitches who compelled me to vote for you this week are gonna feel the other side of the shaft next week. rawr.

look, i want the job, but i hate the whole political campaigning shit. that's why i dun like politics. politics suck. it's all about cocksucking and kissing ass and babies and trying to win votes and shit. why should i compel all my friends (and non-friends) to vote for me? how can they judge whether i am going to do a good job (or not)?

it's just a fucking popularity contest. all of it.

 

[braindrainedAsh]

I didn't end up voting because I felt uninformed so I wasn't going to vote.... however, with the Wolf Gang, can I ask a question? Will Vertigo be open to content that is not from the extreme left of politics? I'm a lefty myself, but as a journalism student I believe in balance and the magazine should be open to contributions from students of all political persuasions. Vertigo is presently quite biased..... I think the political heavyhandedness of the magazine is what makes it not read by the majority of students because it doesn't have something for them in it....

The current style of the magazine is good however I think it needs to be made more appealing and accessable to people who aren't in the humanities or design faculty Some of the content is excellent, and that is why it is sad that the magazine doesn't have a massive readership.

Also, perhaps Vertigo copies need to be downstairs in the union eatery/cafeteria area because I see people flicking through Student Life because it is on the tables down there, maybe if you put Vertigo down there too people would begin to flick through it and hence become Vertigo readers....

And a question.... why was Beena singing about Wolves in my CC2 lecture the other day?? That was actually kinda scary.

 

[Jinglebell]

And a question.... why was Beena singing about Wolves in my CC2 lecture the other day?? That was actually kinda scary.

yeah, that was quite strange, although I was actually mostly shocked that I wasn't particularly shocked...I think I've been desensitised to the oddness of some of the faculty...

I went down this morning because I wanted to vote for *one* position, and got handed an enormous stack of ballot papers, began to wonder what i got myself in for...I must admit, some of the joke (I assume) tickets were quite entertaining, I'm wondering how many votes 'beer & bikinis' will be getting?

My C&M tutor also told us an interesting story about the last time a labor/liberal coalition (i.e. the equivalent of lingo) got control of vertigo, I think it involved the sqandering of funds and a formal printed apology to the student body...

 

[Chand]

There were still left action people around 8 pm!.....dedication. There was a hand made poster in the multifaith room the other day advocating lingo and something abt multiculturalism and unbiased etc...the next day it was in the bin.

 

[Lexicographer]

Well, I voted. As a student of science it is my duty to ensure that all things follow the dictates of entropy (that is, an increasingly random state). So now you know as much about who I voted for as I do.

After reading everyone's replies, I must say that for all the complaints in Vertigo about the VC's new magazine (the glossy U magazine) his has the wider readership. And for good reason. The first is that the stories appeal to students, staff and auxiliary in general. The second is that it doesn't aim to "enlighten" students to a particular political agenda - merely to inform about wider issues. I read both U and Vertigo, but I enjoy U more because it has items that I find interesting, relevant and enjoyable. It also has variety, and decent standards of content. You don't find trash talk about this or that person, just decently written prose.

Maybe instead of bitching about the Vice Chancellor, Vertigo should learn from him. He does, after all, have many more fans.

PS: I agree with WH about the whole womyn's thing. It's just disappointing to see a dozen or so people thinking that by not showering and misspelling a word (or chalking the feminine symbol around campus) they're bringing to light a deep social injustice, oh pity me pity me or I'll hate you and all your kind forever.

 

[saladsurgery]

argh! so much to reply to, so tired/hungover from campaigning and celebrating (respectively)

chalk: it washes off in the rain. be glad you're not at usyd: they use paint.

posters: they do it, we do it. it's one of the stupid things about the elections. in fact, the whole elections are stupid. and you don't get to see the half of it from your side of the blue tape polling line. making back-room deals (and then going back on them), liberal/labor coalitions (!!!), coming in to uni at 8 am, and not leaving till 11 that night, campaigners bouncing around on dexies and 4 hours sleep, and so on, and so forth.

womyn vs. women: etymollogically, the "wo" prefix means lesser (also, cf. woman being fashioned from the rib of man in the bible). so the people who spell it this way argue that there's discrimination and heirachy built into the language (english is one of very few languages that work like this; most others have completely different words for man and woman). and please, don't bring washing into this. it's a horrible generalisation that doesn't hold up.

wolf gang/vertigo: we'll print stuff that is worth printing. granted, some of us might be quite left in our politics, but we've also got strong feelings about censorship, right of expression, etc. and i never actually got to hear beena's wolf song. also, we're really keen to boost distribution, that's something that this years eds were pretty slack about.

beer and bikinis was not a joke ticket. it was a feeder for independent alliance, i.e: all of its preferences flow on to independent alliance candidates. (interesting side note: independent alliance claimed to be campaigning around [amongst other things] womens issues, assault and sexual indecency.) from memory, it got about sixty votes all up, which is fkn horrible.

ahh, good old mr milbourne. he who invited state police onto campus (capsicum spray in an enclosed space without warning, anyone?) at the NDA. he who met with university council in the strongroom basement of chubb security, and voted to increase HECS by the full 25%. great man. and a wonderful magazine, too (sorry, there's some vitriol here).

 

[Lexicographer]

Chalk: Yeah I saw it again today (the paint at USyd), they suck. But the asthma is something nasty on people like me with asthma. I guess the rain thing wins though.

Posters: But so many? You outnumbered all other candidates twenty to one, and frankly it provoked threats of murder (quickly overtaken by acknowledgements of apathy) at the sheer annoyance of seeing Michelle Sparks et al on EVERY F--KING SURFACE. Sure, she's probably really nice, but I can only stand to see a certain face so much.

Womyn: On the contrary, most etymological linguists believe that wo- was a classless seperator - that is it distinguished without diminishing. The word was not linked to the class until later (I'm not going to try the whole "natural male dominance leading to gender role imbalance" because it's still not agreed on) in the development of language. Still, I don't have the time to cite sources so let's not argue about it. The misspelling is what annoyed me, nothing more.

Wolf Gang: You won? Then congratulations, and good luck. I'll continue to be one of the very very few science students who reads your work, and hopefully more will see reason to join me. Please don't disappoint.

Beer and Bikinis: That it was a stealth feeder option makes the whole thing even funnier! But it goes even further to confirm what I was saying the other day - the only people who really vote are the ones that care, and they're all SA types. Not that I have anything against them, but only the hardcore activists care enough about this stuff to vote. Everyone else seems to have more pressing matters at hand.

The VC: Now now, get it right. It's Professor Milbourne, and no less! Also, I think it's more sensible to invite state police (who have actual procedures) on campus than to demand our five-strong force of rentacops to handle (guessing) three hundred pissed off Design and HSS students. No accountability whatsoever for the methods employed, while the police justify everything as standard procedure. He's a clever man, that one.

 

[saladsurgery]

i agree really, the whole election is a bit of a joke (hence the elections vertigo cover, if you saw it). it's one of those things that's been really built up over the years: stuff happens because it always has. which is a bad reason. there's been suggestions to ban elections advertising until, say, 3 days from the start of the elections. which is a good idea, cos it cuts down on paper use. stuff goes up, it gets torn down (by security or devious opposition), it gets postered over. (for what it's worth, i know that all the left action propaganda was printed on recycled paper, and re-used/recycled if possible)

i'm too tired to argue for the continued existence of a women's space (notes: there's also a queer space and ethnocultural space at uts), aside from the fact that white straight men still occupy most positions of power in society. so make of that what you will.

although it's true that a lot of SA people vote (well, they all do), voter turnout tends to range from 8 to 12% of the uni population. which isn't too bad, i think.

re: rentacops and the chancellory occupation: if you're sticking by chalk and asthma, you ought to consider capsicum spray. i'm not asthmatic, and it plays havoc with my throat/lungs. from what i understand, the circumstances in which the pepper spray was used (in an enclosed space, and without proper warning) went against the restrictions on its use in australia. but it's old news, and not the issue, really.

ps. yeah, we won. something like 1500 votes to their 800, so it was pretty good. i'm excited; we've got a year and a budget and a magazine to play with. it'll be fun.

anyway, i'm really tired. and i'm gladder than you it's all over, trust me

 

[Soma]

Yo Pat, who was running Vertigo previously?
Also, did you guys get some type of printing allowance for the campaign?

I don't see why Vertigo has to be political anyway? Surely an editor could be chosen purely on journalistic capabilities and submissions printed according to their individual merits and relevance.

 

[saladsurgery]

vertigo this year was being run by a bunch of writing/journo students, like it usually is (i was friends with some, and so did occasional covers/illustrations).

it's always going to be a bit political: it is, after all, the sa's magazine (and as such, at the very least, is required to print officebearers reports, which are always going to be quite political). also, a lot of the contributions they get (i think) are quite political. that said, there's a lot of really poor stuff that doesn't get printed.

the arguments around the crazy articles in vertigo usually centre around the importance that marginalised voices get an outlet, etc. i mean you can read book reviews in the smh, etc etc. it's sort of a pity that we don't have an equivalent publication to usyd's UR, which is published by their union (in addition to their SRC's weekly "honi soit" mag). that tends to run mostly apolitical "human interest" stories -- stuff that's easy to read, general fluff. i suppose that fits with U: a bit, but that's not a student mag (as opposed to UR).

the politics of the magazine are, in part, decided by the elected editors (the other major factor being of course the recieved submissions). two years back, vertigo was won by a combination of apolitical/right wing students, and managed to offend a lot of people, as well as being a very boring blah-flavoured magazine, comprable to those random free magazines full of sneaker ads you find in cafes. in short, i think vertigo is political because if it wasn't, it'd just be another U:, and then we'd have two uni magazines serving exactly the same purpose.

(every candidate gets 20 bucks worth of printing money from the sa. we all pooled ours, and chipped in 10 bucks each for extras like t-shirt printing and chalk and food and stuff.)

 

[MoNNiE]

Congratulations to wolf gang towards their appointment to the student association.
Though I was fairly amused by the amount of paper being used and the rather intriguing drawings on pavements and walls (esp. the sideway access of building one facing the bon Mache building...). However I guess all the hard effort you guys/girls placed into this campaign paid off

 

[Lexicographer]

Yo Mon, congratulations on 1000 posts.