Dear Editor,

I know this topic has been receiving a great deal of attention, but I can’t resist.  It’s not time to move on until the students of this university are properly informed regarding this issue.

While many of us know the decision made by the ASUW Judicial Council regarding the various complaints made by Brink/Unangst during the ASUW elections, we haven’t seen a single article, press release or any official notification other than Facebook statuses and text messages regarding the decision. 

If the BI is going to write an article mentioning the complaints, perhaps it’s not too much of a request to publish a follow up article? The matter has gotten a sufficient amount of press coverage over on the opinion page, so it hasn’t been completely ignored by the BI staff.  As of April 25, the main headline on the Branding Iron website is “Still no verdict on ASUW elections.” That article was posted almost ten days ago.

Also, how come we have not seen any sort of official publication from the Judicial Council? While many people disagree with its decision, the council should have published the decision and how they determined such a decision. How can students know for a fact the decision made by the judicial council was fair and unbiased? One can suspect the ASUW elections may have been carried out with a bias when one of the candidates is rumored to be in a relationship with one of the members of the ASUW Elections Committee. Are we sure this same alleged bias has not occurred with members of the Judicial Council? The less transparent and less open it is, the more students will suspect the Judicial Council has something to hide.

Human's inability to commit leads to restlessness

I am frequently struck by the seemingly vacuous nature of contemporary existence. My discomfort can hardly be reduced to an ideological opposition to any one single idea or institution, but I could broadly make the claim that much of our time is consumed by distractions. Whatever your inclinations may be, a distraction can be defined as a participatory (including observational) event which—regardless of its total length of time—diverts a subject’s attention from that individual’s initial goals.

You’ll note the definition I’ve provided does not exclude the possibility of perpetual distraction. In fact, I believe this to be one the most important facets of a fully comprehensive definition of a distraction: it can be either momentary (like an annoying mosquito swatted into oblivion) or indefinite (like an obsessive infatuation with collecting toenail clippings or rocks). Because its definition is relative to one’s original goals, and those goals can change for any number of reasons, it is also possible that a distraction may become a goal, with the occasional nostalgic return to the initial interest now serving as a source of distraction.

Two transitional areas exist in which distractions may have influence on an individual. First, if they can become goals, then a transitional process may occur in which individuals reject wholesale their old methodologies and adopt new ones. Second, if the initial goals are (for some reason) an inappropriate fit for the individual in question, or even counterproductive, then a distraction (such as a hobby) may provide a ready escape from the unfortunate (perhaps temporary, perhaps permanent) situation in which an individual finds themselves.