An Aesthetic Overview
by Keven Greven
As the campus newspaper, it is our job to report the truth without taking any sides. All opining must be abdicated in favour of unbiased, apolotical, anodyne, bad, no good, not very good, very bad reporting. That being said, sides must be taken. Battle lines must be drawn. We all have to fight. In the current election for this year’s sabbatical officers, under no circumstance must we evaluate politics. This interrogation will be a moral and aesthetic one. Rather than evaluate any political aims or serious effort any candidates may or may not have put forward, our questions will be: what is each candidate’s Look, does their manifesto make them sound like a lunatic, is their face Weird? These questions and many more will be answered in our Aesthetic Review!
PRESIDENT
It’s a three horse race for the prestigious position of who gets to be caricatured in this newspaper. In a field of strong slogans, Toni Grimaldi Alcina’s “Vote Toni and unify our University” might as well curl up and die. Every year there’s a straw candidate, presented by the reptiles and goons of Foresterhill (no offense) who campaign for more representation for their distant and vile campus. Standing against the forces of this thousand-year darkness we have Cecilia Wallbäck and Matthew Keracher. One representing the out of touch and bougie interests of Bookends, the other representing the out of touch and bougie interests of the Gaudie. Whoever wins, you, dear reader, lose.
EDUCATION
Dariya Koleva is our BNOC celebrity candidate fresh off chairing the third AGM. Her opponent is Abigail Boakye. Both of these candidates bore me to tears and I won’t spend too long on them. Let’s hope that, in a field of inscrutable politics, they’re more successful at retaining votes than Dariya is quorum.
SPORT
Be honest with yourself: even if you are the sort of person to vote for sabbatical officers, even if your brain is poisoned enough to want to engage with the unholy mess that is this university’s politics, you will not vote for a sports officer. No-one reading this will vote for a sports officer. We’ve done market research on this. Most of you are male. Most of you are weak, pathetically weird, low-t PIR broadsheet wannabes who wear tweed to humiliating nights out to Nox or Attik. You’ve never played sport, you never will play sport. Get over yourself. Get a life.
COMMUNITIES
If there’s one thing this field has taught us is that the eternal alliance between the hippies and the communists has shattered. In the red corner Louise Henrard, armed with an association with shared planet and a proposal for a definitely not-gross communal fridge. In the more-red corner, Laura Smith stands, armed with kitschy wordplay and a list of demands longer than the occupation. Derek Gardiner rounds out our candidates looking like Julius Streicher vacuum sealed into a three-piece suit. His performance at the AGM might suggest a less lackluster presence, but aside from the slightly fashy slogan (‘Cut the Waste’) there’s not a lot going on here beyond calls for NUSexit
WELFARE
In complete disregard for convention, I’m going to abdicate the mission statement of this article and focus on a single welfare candidate. Yes, Lewis Michael Crane is clearly wearing a prince charlie jacket and a t-shirt and crying at the same time. Yes, Carmen Ensminger has a reasonable-if-boring list of demands. Neither hold a candle to Alexander Acheampong, whose slogan reads: IN EVERY UNJUST SOCIETY, SILENCE IS A CRIME. I do not need to tell you why this rules. I do not need to tell you why the fact that he’s calling for mandatory blood is testing rules. I do not need to tell you why the highly descriptive subheaders, HEALTH & SAFETY (VALUE FOR HUMAN LIFE) rule. I implore every reader to look over each manifesto and consider their opinion carefully. I also beg you: look over Alexander’s twice.
