unoriginalname38 – the blog of Dave Cole

Shave the Beaver

I'm not entirely sure about this post, but I think I'm going to make it nonetheless. It will get it out of my system, anyway.

With apologies to those of you who are not interested in my bilious attempt to rescue some shreds of self-worth, I'm going to have a go at the Beaver, the LSE Students' Union newspaper or, more particularly, the people who run the Beaver.

In their infinite wisdom, they have run a joke outer cover to the final edition of the Beaver. I am, it would seem, the proud recipient of an Honorary Beavership. The picture in the middle of the citations declares that this is what we get for messing with them.

I have never pretended to be a pleasant person, but I think my achievements at LSE are reasonable. I'm going to be narcisstic for a moment and put some of them down. The anti-racism officer. The women's officer. The LGBT officer. The Communications Sabb. Other changes to the constitution. The LSE Open debate competition. Society stuff and, strangely enough, I did actually do things on society committees. Extracted a concession from the School to have a student on the panel that chooses the next Director. Oh, and I've done some stuff outside and had mental health issues to keep me busy.

I think that people at LSE recognise my name. People have, on occaision, come up to me outside of LSE and asked me if I was Dave Cole (sadly, I was every time). What a nice message the Beaver has sent out - try and do something good for people, and they will lambast you for it. The Beaver bang on about freedom of the press. With freedom comes responsibility and, while they think it's hilarious and justified and putting down a self-important toss-pot (you really don't need to put me down - I can do it for myself better than you ever could) they might bear in mind that it has consequences for the individuals involved and the community at LSE.

I was stunned that the Beaver would even contemplate the notion of an independent newspaper on Houghton Street. When I put up the idea on propagandasource, I was the son of evil incarnate for even contemplating such a thing.

I could go on about the Beaver not realising the difference between fair comment and outright nastiness, about pursuing some people (not just this year, but in the past too...), about abusing their position, about the lack of females on the staff and so on. I'll limit myself to remembering the last time they posted a threat so blatantly; remember? From the Beaver office window? What was it said? Something along the lines of 'we're going to get you? Meant for the then-Ed&Wel Sabb, but seen also from the counselling rooms? I'm sure I didn't hear anything about the Beaver refusing to take it down.

I would have liked to have kept that Beaver as a memento of sorts of my time at LSE. I'm not going to do that now. That doesn't bother me, but I think that a lot of others will. Maybe I'm being paranoid or obsessive or whatever, but I do not want to be remembered in the manner the Beaver has elected for me.

Rant over. I'm going to mention the SU once more here, in a few days when I post up some ideas for the future. After that, no more. One last thing: it seems a cowardly act to have a go at people in the last issue when they have no opportunity to respond.

xD.

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