Week 3 / Topic 2 Voting!

[aggienaut]

Tribal Inequalities

   At the close of this poll, the bottem 4% of Tribe 1 will be knocked off, 2.4% of Tribe 2, 2% of Tribe 3, 5.6% of Tribe 4, and 3% of Tribe 5. This is because the last person is being knocked off of each bracket and they consist of 25, 41, 51, 18, and 33 writers, respectively.
   Now I'm sitting very pretty since all I have to do is be better than at least one of the 50 other writers in Tribe 3, but I sure am glad I'm not vying with only 24 others, or a mere 17 in the unenviable position of Tribe 4.
   What did these writers do to put themselves in such danger? Merely have smaller friends lists!!

   I submit to you that THIS MAKES NO SENSE, and that the people with smaller friends lists should NOT be penalized. If anything, the people with the bigger friends lists (which again would include myself) should be the ones things are stacked against.

   I think the contestants should be divided into brackets of 33 or 34 each, based solely on friends-of size (no moving people around just because they got a lot of votes for their friends-of size, if they're good for their size they're good for their size).

/rocking the boat


   Having read through the writers in my bracket, I would like to recommend to the commentariat that the following entries are highly worth reading:
On the Topic of Things They Don't Care About:
lifeinamarble - Apathy Alert Table
boxsofrain - E. coli and S. pyogenes
hexkitten - Donkey Noises and How to Avoid Them
ka_crow - "My Apathy, Let Me Show You It"
sabbysteg - Things Sarah Palin Didn't Care About, But Should've
mshades - Some Observations Gleaned From Time Travel
darkprism - [Some Fictive Prose]
and of course...
emo_snal - The ITS/IT'S Rule (well that wasn't my official entry but I think I liked it better)
   So go forth and read these excellent entries and then vote for them.


Note to LJ-Idolators: While I've read all of Bracket 3 I've read very few of the other brackets. I hope to get around to it but in the mean time please advise me of entries I should be aware of! And again feel free to promote yourself in the comments!
   

Completely Unrelated Picture of the Day

Fun with sepiatone at the Irvine train station

Comments

Re: Getting Political

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Hmm sounds typical. Kinda reminds me of how when I was involved in student government in college people would run for senate "against the establishment" and portray a very reformist "with me it'll be a fair government!!" image. Sometimes they cheated like hell because they thought the ends justified the means, but sometimes they ran really clean campaigns you can really believe in -- but once they got in power it was always the same. Suddenly they were giving their own friends all the important positions and THEY were holding all the meetings behind closed doors they had railed against, and funnelling money to their own fraternity's fundraisers. The worst blow to student faith in student government came when the most promising "reformer," who ran a very clean campaigne and got a lot of people to really believe there was going to be change, turned out to be the worst of them all once he was in office.
   Fortunately I was there to pull them down to reality as the Chief Justice =D

But yeah the story of malcontents thinking they're fairer than the establishment and then turning out to be totally self-serving is age old. Unfortunately.

Re: Getting Political

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

Very good analogy. I'm former SGA myself.*g*

I also served as Chief Justice in the Statewide organization. Community college level, but come on, state wide!*g*

Re: Getting Political

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

Then you know the shinanigans people try to pull!!!

Statewide organization? There was not statewide org for the University of California schools, though I did my best to start a "intercollegiate judicial federation" to foster interaction between the courts so we could learn from eachother's experiences and give advice / share stories of the ridiculous things student politicians try to get away with.

And because I can't resist linking to relevant things: the days of yore: life on the court

Re: Getting Political

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

Very nice.

The state organization was pretty much handcuffed by the combining of student activities fees with non-student activity fees from schools who didn't have one. Which meant that it couldn't lobby. Which sort of missed the point of the organization.*g*

While I was there though I was Chief Justice.

At campus I served a couple terms Legislative Representative for the SGA, and at one point came with 10 votes of becoming President. (heh, yes I'm still bitter.*g*)

We were able to take an administrative controlled group who's main thrust was car washes and community service projects and in 3 years turn it into an organization that was meeting with members of the state legislature and had actual language we helped draft in several bills. I'm also proud to say that I was involved in getting the first Student member of a President's Cabinet in Florida community college history. (Which isn't as good as what the university system tends to have of course, but the community college system is usually so far behind anyway. . .)

Re: Getting Political

[emo-snal.livejournal.com]

My accomplishments were limited only to within student government, but I like to think I threw a serious wrench into things while I was at it!

Our student gov't was "serious business" (lol), with a $9.3 million dollar budget, a fleet of busses and other student run businesses, etc. Citycouncilpersons would actually come to senate for an endorsement. In their frenzy to model themselves after the US Gov't they gave justices the closest thing to a life term they had: four year appointment. So I was appointed Chief Justice my second year (over many people senior to me! muahaha) and they had to put up with me for the next four years (yeah I was on the five year plan, I'd have dragged six out if I could!!) !! once again: muahahaha. During that time my accomplishes mostly consist of squashing closed meeting policies, requiring information be made public, informing the senate of a wide variety of powers they thought they had but didn't... generally it can be summed up as really pissing off the senate. They tried and failed to impeach me three times. Good times. (=

Re: Getting Political

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

Good for you!!! That was the goal of where we were heading when I left. I've heard they've gone down hill though. You have to *fight* for that sort of power and influence, no one in the administration is going to hand it over.

When people try to drag you down you know you're doing something worthwhile!