The Project: February 2006

What? No coverage of local political albatross McPherson surrendering the California election infrastructure to Diebold? Your publication needs a new editorial board.

the project collective has an open call for submissions. we print what we get.

why don't you write it! submissions for the next issue are due march 6th. e-mail to projectcollective [at] riseup.net.

and stop complaining.

Unlike students that can afford to whine in their undies, I have to struggle to earn enough to eat and pay in a town with depressed wages and high rent. The high rents and low wages in part due to the environmental pressures of an excess of UCSC residents.

I can understand why you would accuse me of complaining, instead of joining me in condemming McPherson.

You attempt to create the image that students are sitting around in their underpants in fancy apartments or homes stolen from poor Santa Cruzans and smoking away weekly checks from their parents.

There is no homogenous 'student' menace. Rather, we students have had our fees hiked 79% in the last few years, have had to struggle surviving in a city that increasingly wants to criminalize anything that annoys them, while at the same time, we, and the even more criminalized Latino community, do much of the service jobs and dirty work that makes this city survive.

If it weren't for this University, Santa Cruz would still be the Orange County of Northern California. The sexist California Beauty Pageant would still be here. There would be no 'Keep Santa Cruz Weird,' because it would never have been 'weird' in the first place. And it would be even more racist than it already is.

Yeah, there are problems with the current expansion-driven UCSC administration, but many students have as much of a problem with expansion as non-students do. We watch as valuable programs - like Writing, Journalism, the Languages, etc. - get removed or defunded, while administrators roll around on carpets of gold.

If you are truly concerned about Santa Cruz and the impacts of possible UCSC expansion, the students are a necessary ally. If you are concerned about high rent and low wages, than students are your friends. And if you're concerned about McPherson, than you need to recognize that he's an old Santa Cruz 'good 'ol boy' elected not by students, but by the racist old McPherson/Sentinel network and those that don't know better.

If it weren't for UCSC Santa Cruz would be Orange County? You assume that I am not aware of the Sentinelists? You assume that I do not appreciate the National achievements of UCSC departments? You assume that I do not understand the racist history of santa Cruz? That kind of attitude is an example of the insular, boutique attitude of campus rats.

Are you suggesting that UCSC is not a one-quarter-party-school for out of towners? Are you suggesting that UCSC is the only place where rational political discourse exists? Are you suggesting that UCSC students take noticable action to counter balance their detrimental impact on the local environment?

I am suggesting that UCSC students take their citizenship seriously. I am suggesting that UCSC students try to be relevant. If you were serious about the county saving nature of their presence, then you would too, wouldn't you?