This op-ed will defend two things: USU and Senate elections.
The first pro-electoralism tirade might surprise people. Although I was once an ardent USU-election-defender, the course of this year has pretty seriously disillusioned me with the pursuit. I am unconvinced by candidates’ claims to progressivism and unhappy with the Board’s insipid attempts at transparency.
However, I would be tempted back into my errant USU-positive ways by a single-issue candidate running on one simple message: pasta should not be flaccid.
I’m not sure what being a frequent customer of Courtyard Cafe says about my psyche (definitely nothing good). What I do know is that every time I sit down with a bowl of their vegetarian pasta of the day, I am about to be sorely disappointed. The pasta is going to sit limply in my bowl and disintegrate hopelessly in my mouth. The texture of the pasta is best analogised with the lifeless worms left on a footpath after heavy rain.
With that financial surplus sloshing around, why are my noodles sloshing too? The USU urgently needs to hire a real Italian chef as a pasta consultant. Learn the meaning of the term al dente. And cook off your tomatoes and onions properly! Maillard reactions are your friend.
My second contention is also fairly caveated. The Left should run for Senate, and by the Left, I mean Socialist Alternative.
I know SAlt will not take this advice on board, and I think that is a great shame, because they are quite clearly the best people for the job. The unique power of SAlt is that they spurn careerism, palatability, respectability politics, and all other manifestations of cowardice. You might not like them much — but, crucially, they don’t give a shit.
As a humble observer, I feel that they’re being wasted on the SRC. What use is pugilism against fellow students, whose main crimes are wanting to go to class rather than leaflet and being a little too keen to update their LinkedIn.
No, the attitude of SAlt is perfect for a much more despicable set of people: University management. Most SAlt-management interactions currently happen briefly and sporadically on Eastern Avenue. But I ask you to imagine a world where Deaglan Godwin and Eleanor Morley were legitimately elected into a boardroom with Stephen Garton and Mark Scott.
Is that world substantially funnier than the one we inhabit? Hell yeah.
