EDITORIAL

To the editor,

I would like to start by saying that the Memo is a breath of fresh air for a jaded and cynical mature student. A real university should have a real student publication that discusses intellectual, political, and cultural issues. There are so many important politicians, activists, or writers who got their start writing for the Harvard Crimson or Cambridge’s Varsity. We have CANTA , an embarrassing teenybopper abomination that is a but a shell of its former self. I understand that many UC students want a simple, non-confronting, and funny thing to thumb through while they’re at lunch with their friends. At least they’re not on their phones, right? Some of us want a little bit more and the Memo is on the right track.

Now that I’ve built the base of my compliment sandwich, it’s time to lay down a few slices of cheese. The weakest link of issue No.5, by far, is Noah Everard’s “The Tendrils of U.S. Imperialism.” The overarching argument that the US is an imperialist behemoth is not one I would argue with. The prose, however, is so melodramatic and cringeworthy that I could barely make it through the fifty seven metaphors packed into the first paragraph. The kicker was the painful build up to what I imagine was supposed to be the article’s big statement, that “the USA is the largest terrorist state in the world.” That is a hell of a claim, and Noah’s evidence for this is… an Encyclopaedia Britannica definition of terrorism? Surely you guys can do a little better than that. Again, I don’t necessarily disagree with the claim itself, but why not engage with actual literature or scholarship on this issue rather than making thin assertions. Noam Chomsky, for one, might be the foremost USA-as-terrorist writer of the last 30 years. A lot of Noah’s article echoes his key points. That makes me think either he’s just naturally as astute as the great Gnome, or he simply read his first Chomsky book and quickly cobbled together this article in a fit of excitement. If it was the latter, that’d get him into trouble for a little thing called plagiarism.

Now, some lettuce. This one is less of a criticism than a suggestion. I would hope there is at least some discussion behind the scenes about engaging with other voices in the student scene. We lefties may look at a National voter and see them as an alien species whose values could not be further from our own, and they might look at us and see a bunch of filthy shoeless hippies, but we each can’t deny that the other exists. I saw as many students visiting the Young Nats tent on Club Day as any other politically affiliated group. There is no benefit to isolating ourselves and sitting comfortably in an echo chamber, and I fear that is what the Memo is doing. Maybe reach out to some conservative student voices and see if they would like to contribute? Give them a chance to read the editorial or some of the articles before they come out and provide their own rejoinder. It may end up being that both sides just circle and talk around each other. But at least there would be a discussion.

Finally, the salt and pepper (it’s a sad sandwich, sorry). Get rid of the crossword. If I wanted fun I would pick up a copy of CANTA. There I can squint to try and read some white text on a green background and finally learn what my star sign says about my favorite PALS flavor. I’d rather the Memo stick to something with a bit more substance. If you want to add fun, get a cartoonist on board.

I’m happy you’re here, and I’d like to see this thing take off. I hope you take the criticism with an open mind. Even if some of the content could improve, the fact the magazine exists at all is a fantastic step forward.

- Old Man Yelling at Clouds.

Send your letters to editor.thememo@gmail.com