today's rant: student gov't sucks, originally 4/3/07

i wish i was about to make this up.  i could never think this shit up.

please allow me to give you the back story of the stony brook undergrad student government (USG).  as of a few weeks ago, there were three contenders for the USG presidency:  a guy named joe, a guy named ramoul (the incumbant president), and a girl whose name i can't remember.  to start out the degeneracy of the presidential race, ramoul said that he was withdrawing from the race for "personal reasons".  whether or not his reason was genuine is beside the point, as he wouldn't have been eligible to run anyway.  he and the girl were later disqualified for posting election flyers during a special lecture given by tiki barber at stony brook.  apparently, that's a no-no.  it makes the student senate poop their pants.  therefore, joe won by default.

now, to the main part of our story, boys and girls.  all the students on campus got an email from the campus administration about controversial flyers pertaining to the presidential campaign.  the email claimed that candidate whose name was on the flyers denied making them.  it didn't make much sense until one of the school newspapers went into more detail.  the flyers that were referred to were a picture of the student president, ramoul, with his arm around a monkey.  underneath was a quote that said "is this the kind of person you want as usg president?  vote for joe".    at first glance, it looked like joe, a white guy, wanted to associate ramoul, a black guy, with a monkey.  it was later found out that ramoul and a friend who was a USG senator put the flyers up with the intention of making joe look like he put them up.  yes, he put a monkey next to his own picture and made it look like someone else did it.

it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, but the bottom line is that a black guy tried to make a white guy look like a racist.  end result:  ramoul and his friend was impeached and kicked out of the USG.  the worse part is that the members of the USG still can't figure out why voter turnouts are at record lows.  i'm sorry, but when you've got people in an elected position with the maturity of a guinea pig, that doesn't spark a lot of confidence in the system.  don't get me wrong, i love a lapse in maturity as much as the next person, but c'mon.  you can do better than that.  is that something that you really want on your resume?  "Served as USG President for two years before being impeached for forging a hate crime."

i really need to pick up these rants.  i'm down to one a week.  i'd appreciate suggestions.  graduation soon, lookin for a job.  who wants a physicist?