Bipartisan Students to Launch New Political Magazine in Pryz Today

The Quorum, a new student run political magazine, hits stands today, with the promise to serve as a bipartisan medium to voice the many political ideologies of the University population and the goal to foster the spirit of debate among students.

“We felt something was lacking on campus, especially since politics is the most popular major,” said Quorum co-editor Alex Smith, a sophomore who is also executive director of the College Republicans. “We feel that the magazine is a necessity, given the city and interest in politics at this school.”

From this desire to fill a void, one shared with co-editor Frankie Bustamante, who briefly served as editor-in-chief of The Tower, the Quorum was born. Smith occassionally wrote for The Tower last year as well.

“We figured a school in Washington, D.C. deserves a publication dedicated solely to politics,” said Bustamante. “Georgetown has one, GW has one, American has one. As politics majors who both love politics, we thought, let’s start it.”

The Quorum staff is scheduled to publish two issues this semester and is hoping to produce four to eight next semester. They were allocated about $3,000 by the Student Fee Allocation Board to print the Quorum copies at Kinko’s. The Quorum staff consists of eight editorial board members and 15 active writers with the hope that the more will join after the debut of the first issue.

“We’re not trying to rehash Time Magazine here. We’re obviously going to cover what’s happening on the nation level but we are going to relate it back to CUA,” said Bustamante on the content of their first issue. “Anyone can read an article about the election on NBC News; here you’ll get a student spin. We’ll deal with national news but with a student voice to it.”

The Quorum plans to cover not only the upcoming election, but all types of political topics, from international issues to the environment to student government on campus. Keeping true to its “forum” format, a significant amount of the magazine will also be dedicated to reader feedback.

Both the College Democrats and the College Republicans will each have a page per issue to write about their causes, but the magazines also hopes to serve as a forum for all politically inclined groups on campus, from Amnesty International to Women in Washington.

“I think students here respect the opinions of their peers and I think we are creating a forum here where people can disagree, and have a dialogue,” said Smith.

Smith said they do not want Republican and Democratic pieces right next to each other though. She says that would not produce conversation. They want to ask the hard questions and get feedback from those who disagree and reject the notion that politics is a strict left-right debate.

“For us, it’s about coming up with unique content. It’s like taking something that everyone already knows and presenting it in an interesting and readable way that caters to the broad spectrum of people here at CUA,” said Bustamante.

Previous student-run magazines with political natures, including CUA World and Battle Cry, were typically conservative and no longer exist. The Quorum is seekling to outlive those failed publications and is committed to keeping its bipartisan stance. They even created a bylaw in its constitution that there must be two co-editors with different political ideologies.

Both editors believe the name Quorum, which in its legal definition refers to the number of people required to come together for a certain action, expresses the goal of their publication.

“In a sense, this magazine is a coming together of our peers to produce something, in this case a dialogue devoted to politics that was not there before,” said Smith.

The first issue of The Quorum came off the presses last night and will begin distribution today in the Pryzbyla Center.

2008 Election Morality

Taylor Hall

As I follow election coverage daily, I was surprised and deeply distraught to see on Gallup’s website that McCain is ahead of Obama by a few points! The issues really have not changed. Was it the addition of Governor Palin to the ticket that influenced Americans to change their stances, and if so, why??

The vice president only votes to break ties in the Senate which rarely happens. In any case, McCain would have the final say as President including how many additional powers she is to be given. It all hinges primarily on McCain. Maybe Americans think that McCain, in his old age, will die and that Palin would be a good president. But, if this is the underlying reason for Americans to vote for McCain, then it is clearly the wrong reason. The presidency should not simply be gambled away when people’s health and livelihoods are at stake. But, then again, this whole election seems to be treated by many with this trivialized mentality.

Throughout this election, politicians continue to fabricate, mislead, and wiggle their way free from such head on confrontations and use the strategy of simple denial of the facts at hand as if this whole process in electing a president is a game; they want their candidate to win regardless of the content of his or her position.

Voters shouldn’t disrespect the gravity of the situation this country is in such that they pick a candidate for nonsensical reasons (i.e. picking McCain because of Palin.) You’d think that the failing economy, threatened environment, and mismanaged healthcare system, to name a few, would be enough to fully realize what’s at stake. Life is simply too short not to do the right thing by making the common- sense and conscience-driven decision; the decision that will impact the next four years (I will be twenty-nine!) and ripple on for perhaps the rest of our lives.

In my opinion, Americans need to answer the following question in this election: are you mostly happy with the way this country has been run by President Bush? I think this is an important question to answer when McCain has unequivocally voted with the president 90 percent of the time.

Things to Consider: Unwanted Houseguests

Jessica Carter

In other news, a mouse ran across my face while I was sleeping last week. That is pretty normal, I guess. When you pay $8,482 to $9,162 to reside in the Mills annually, don’t you think Housing should ensure that varmints remain outside your living quarters?

I mean it’s only the third week of school and my apartment looks like it could be featured in a Res Life ad, so it’s not like my suitemates and I are in the wrong. Anyway, kudos to Maintenance for responding quickly to our request for mouse traps. They installed several “glue traps” throughout our entire apartment.

However… the traps don’t seem to work. A few days after the installation, my roommate and I still found mouse droppings in our room. W.T.F. We looked closer and realized there were droppings right next to the trap. Clearly, THAT mouse ain’t stupid; it’s not about to scurry right into our little glue trap only to whimper unmercifully until we suffocate it (or set it free).

So what to do? Well, my suitemates and I got together and brainstormed re: the mouse situation. We decided against going out and buying peanut butter traps because we do NOT want cockroaches to infest our humble abode like the girls have next door. Someone then put the following question on the table, “Do you think Housing will call Pest Control for us?” A knowing silence ensued so we decided to embrace the old adage, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

Unfortunately, I had to eat my words much sooner than I expected as much to my surprise, I met the mouse in the kitchen last weekend. But, that is O.K. because Freddie and I exchanged greetings. That’s right, I named him. How could I not? You see, Freddie has been with us since Day One. He’s now a part of our college family.