Adrian NorthrupIf a newspaper is a marketplace of ideas, the op/ed section sometimes serves as the complaint department – and I’m the lady behind the desk.
But unlike real customer-service representatives, I get this side of the page every week to come up with ridiculous metaphors and rant at you about pretty much whatever I want. A fair trade-off, I think.
But next semester, someone else will be here, and I’ll get moved to another job. So my ranting time is running short. And with that in mind, there are a few things I feel the need to bring up while no one else can tell me to shut up (except my editors, but they’re cool like that).
First of all, go easy on Parking and Transportation Services. Having to park legally when you’re running late for class is a huge pain (I am The Spectator’s reigning parking-ticket queen, so don’t think for a moment that I’m being sarcastic). But the parking office doesn’t get a dime of tuition money nor student segregated fees (except for buses); it’s funded solely by those who buy parking passes and/or play their luck parking the student lots. Pretty democratic, really. I do have to admit, though, I don’t think raising meter rates is any way to help sell more parking passes.
And as for the students who write tickets for their illegally parked peers, go easy on them as well. Doing what you have to do to get by in college doesn’t make you a sell-out. Hey, I used to be a telemarketer.
Second, we all know that Eau Claire is not a bastion of culture on par with, say, Minneapolis or Madison. But give it some credit. We do have our fair share of aspiring independent filmmakers and bands striving to make it. And the Stones Throw’s recent attempt to open an 18-plus club gives me some hope for improvements to the bar scene.
Eau Claire has the most bars per capita in the nation. But judging from the bars near campus, it seems to be a case of quality over quantity. When the poor, huddled masses of college students are willing to fork over their money to dark, crowded establishments that all play the same music, local bars don’t have the financial need to strive for much more.
If you really want bars to be pleasant places to drink, dance and hang out, sacrifice the convenience of going to Water Street and take your money elsewhere. Or at least remind me of that in a future column when it’s warmer than six degrees outside at night.
But back on the subject of Eau Claire; you can find random things to appreciate if you look around – for example, Jeff and Jim’s. Or a river you can tube down during the summer. Also, in the era of corporate takeovers, we still have an independently owned newspaper and grocery store (disclosure: I work for said newspaper and have done a brief stint at said grocery store).
That’s my final plug for the semester. But I’d like to throw in a few things in closing.
Unrelated point No. 1: I know I’ve mentioned this before, but never take partisan politics literally. Politicians have their own agendas and their own publics to pander to. And the joy of a two-party system is that it requires lumping together certain positions on an array of unrelated issues – abortion and tax policy, for example.
Unrelated point No. 2: Remember that game your teacher made you play in middle school where you sit back-to-back with a partner and explain them how to draw some complicated shape? More often than not, life is actually like that. Even when you think you’ve gotten your point across clearly, make sure you have. Communication is, really, the key to pretty much anything – running a newspaper, getting your students to understand class assignments (if you’re a professor), having a relationship, getting out of a war. So just keep in mind that it’s an ongoing process.
And I’ll shut up now. Good luck on your finals; don’t study too hard and try to get some sleep. And if you get stressed out and need a fresh outlook on life, never underestimate the power of exfoliation.
