A little too sarcastic

Let's see...

Personally, I hate seeing bands for free on Lower Sproul. I'm into paying for concerts, seeing movies at full price and prefer complete silence at football games. I can’t stand the singing on Lower Sproul, and would much rather hear the rants of our campus personalities than the voices of our a capella groups. In fact, I would like to propose a referendum that would ban fun altogether.

Let's face it, free entertainment on campus is awesome.

Uh... this is an op-ed in favor of the Student Life fee. I'm not sure you can make the argument that we're getting "free entertainment" by paying a fee.

Or you could spend your $12 on the Student Life Fee Referendum and get more movies, bands you've heard of, big name comedians, more a capella groups and swinging jazz. I don't see why "no" is an option on the ballot.

Ah, yes, the "nobody exists but you" fallacy.

Some have argued that the more than $100,000 that will be freed up in the senate is not guaranteed to be allocated to other student groups. But this referendum is designed so that the groups covered will never need to ask for more money.

Unfortunately if this guarantee were inserted into the referendum language, it would reduce the senate's autonomy and prevent it from doing its job. As a democratic institution elected by the student body, we can trust that the senate has our best interests in mind when reallocating this money. And anyway, if these groups had the audacity to return, the senate would just turn them down with a big smile.

Bull fucking shit. The Squelch guys had no problem putting in language to "reduce the senate's autonomy." If you're so concerned about the Senate's autonomy, why not propose a $12 increase in the general fee we pay to the ASUC?

Apparently, we're supposed to trust the Senate to budget in our best interests. But we need the specific fee, rather than a general fee, because we can't trust the Senate to budget in our best interests. Fascinating.

Secondly, in the last four years SUPERB's budget has been cut 42 percent, while Student Musical Activities (Cal Band, UC Jazz and UC Choral) has suffered budget cuts of 25 percent. Providing entertainment for the entire university for free is not cheap.

The contradiction is still unclear to the writer, a Raeonna Einerson? Are these people this dumb, or just this obtuse?

Don't think of the referendum as spending money on other people but spending money on yourself. So go ahead, indulge and treat yourself to the entertainment offerings of the Student Life Fee Referendum.

Oh, sorry, I didn't need to point out the "nobody exists but you" fallacy above. They went ahead and pointed it out for us. You heard the dude: Don't worry about subjecting other people to fee increases because you want some entertainment. Why should you? They're only your fellow students. Fuck them.

Speaking of competence, these folks were bitching on Tuesday that they wouldn't be able to get an opinion into the paper until Friday. Do they really not know the schedule of the Daily Cal's opinion page?

posted by Beetle Aurora Drake 4/13/2007 12:03:00 AM #
Comments (3)

. . .

Comments:

SUPERB is now so full of itself, it's sickening. It's come a long way from the humble, worthy, efficient operation it used to be.

Did you know, according to a friend of mine who used to work for them when I was an undergrad in 1998-2002, their budget in 1999-2000 was only $10,000 (that's right, ten thousand), plus another $60,000 for the Spring Concert?

Now they get $116,000 a year and they are crying poor, and hating on people who oppose their referendum.

Back in the day, according to my friend, SUPERB was able to be efficient with their budget by not paying bands, and they were able to do that by contacting record labels about bands who would already be in the area for another gig, then booking the bands at the university in addition. The bands would get more publicity out of it. Sure this meant that the top top bands wouldn't be brought to campus but it was a good way to entertain campus.

SUPERB also supported a fee increase when I was an undergrad, but it was a GENERAL increase to the student activity fee, not for it and a couple other groups only.

This opinion piece writer's arrogance is sickening.

# posted by  jimf : 12:28 AM, April 13, 2007

 

Having calmed down a bit, I just reread what I wrote and thought it was too harsh.

I am glad that SUPERB exists (although I don't think they serve graduate students or niche interests as well as they could), and understand that it needs stability and not cuts to its budget -- but, this dedicated fee is the wrong way to go about it, and also, their historical experience suggests they could be more efficient with their money.

# posted by  jimf : 12:51 AM, April 13, 2007

 

"Free is not cheap"

Indeed.

# posted by  J Koo : 9:04 AM, April 13, 2007

 

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