By SARA PAULSON, ERIN SHULTZ, JAMIE LYNN PERNA, PAUL EPPOLITO, GEORGE ZORNICK, COREY SHOOCK, STEFANIE ALAIMO, DENA-KAY MARTIN, MIKE SCOTT, RICK OWCZARZAK, GENE PARK and ALEX CHENG.
Remember those stories you used to pass around the campfire when you were a kid? Where one person would start them and then the next person would add on a little and the next person would add to that, until finally you had a rad little story on your hands? Well, below you will find a less-than-rad attempt at this technique, compiled by The Spectrum editors. We are like a well-oiled machine; our thoughts are so cohesive, it hurts. Enjoy.
SARA: In my time at UB, I have seen countless students, writers and anyone who felt the urge to use Spectrum editorial space to spout off on their own opinions. This must stop. Column space in a paper is a valuable commodity, not to be wasted on students waxing sentimental on their personal lives or the university. There are more important topics to be addressed.
ERIN: More important things, such as grain elevators and personals. Our coverage of grain elevators and wind power symposiums has been some of the best in the nation. It is time to usher in a new era of information and in-depth reporting. And studies have shown that the personals are among the most popular features in other on-campus publications. From here on out, page 4 will be devoted to the ongoing unbiased coverage of the important news of the day - namely expanded coverage on the Buffalo waterfront's grain elevators and strides in wind power. Page 5 will heretofore be uncensored personals.
JAMIE: By devoting an entire page to personals, we hope to appeal to a wider, more involved UB audience. After all, this is the student paper, and students should have input into each and every issue. Should The Spectrum receive more personals than can be fit on page 5, we will certainly consider allotting back-page space to accommodate the students - no news is more important than which Long Island hottie is raising eyebrows this week in Knox.
PAUL: While we know this decision is likely to disappoint all 10 of you who look forward to reading the staff columns and op-eds, you can rest assured that there will be other items in The Spectrum that will help prove to you how much smarter you are than the paper's editors. While Jamie will surely miss the daily e-mails pointing out how dumb she really is, she will not miss the daily, "Hey, you're the chick from The Spectrum, right? You suck."
GEORGE: Some say there is tragic collateral damage involved in canceling publication of an editorial page - namely, Corey, Dan and Alex will be unemployed. But have no fear, as these young men will now move on to more crucial and important tasks at The Spectrum - tasks such as getting food for assistant campus news editors, doing homework for assistant campus news editors and washing the assistant campus news editors' dirty clothes. They have achieved the position of assistant to the assistant campus news editors.
COREY: Despite the valiant career martyrdom of the editorial editors for the sake of The Spectrum, UB students should not weep. A candlelight vigil will be held in memory of these young heroes at 8 p.m. Tuesday night at the Wilkeson Terrace - pop (sic) and wings will be provided courtesy of CNN lackey George Zornick. Leading the vigil will be Feature Editor Brian Weinstein, who will use the opportunity to discuss how overrated Radiohead and Coldplay are.
BRIAN: Which they definitely are. When Radiohead put out "Pablo Honey" they were a better-than-average rock band with some good ideas. But once "OK Computer" was released, they fell victim to "critical acclaim," which is when Thom Yorke became a demi-god just for moaning into the microphone and making weird noises in the studio. Coldplay, on the other hand, had a good pop favorite with "Yellow," then all of a sudden became the Radiohead prot?(c)g?(c) for seminal rock with piano overdubs. I'm convinced that all people who like bands like Radiohead and Coldplay are just lying and are too embarrassed to admit that they just jumped on a bandwagon in the late-90's.
STEFANIE: Tirades such as the one above are clear reasons why opinion pieces should be hereafter eliminated from The Spectrum's pages. Why does the average UB student care what Mr. Weinstein cares about rock "demi-gods" when it is plainly clear to anyone with any sense of taste that Radiohead's "Kid A" was by far a brilliant work of experimental rock that greatly surpasses any kind of drivel Phish has spewed for hours on end.
DENA: On and on we go about this or that. People complain about student apathy being a problem within the university; I say sometimes students need to be apathetic, or at least quiet. It seems these days no one values silence. If you're always verbally debating one opinion or another, how much time are you actually taking to ponder, update and edit these thoughts? A lack of quiet time with thoughts results in conversational blunders like "What the hell is a fru-it flan?"
MIKE: And behold, another reason why the opinion pieces need to go. Who isn't sick of in-jokes? They are on display in this public forum, but only three people on campus actually understand what's going on - and they all work here. They already know the joke, and they already laughed about it a week ago, and now, for some reason, they feel it necessary to share the joke with the entire student body, which obviously will not find it funny. These people should be forced to drive eight hours in a cramped car with a guy who spends three of those hours on the phone with his girlfriend and the other five hours talking about his girlfriend.
RICK: And people who exaggerate could stand to drop a few of those pesky pounds. If anybody out there is still reading this thing by this point I have less respect for them than I do anybody who plays the sports of tennis or baseball. Honestly, why do you care what other people think about the issues that affect you? If you need to latch onto someone else's opinion instead of formulating your own, then I've got some real estate for sale right next to some grain elevators.
SARA: And that, loyal readers, is what you will be spared in the future.
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
