Consider Yourself Bludgeoned

It is not difficult to find reasons for student apathy for after reading your publication for some months I am bored stiff with [unclear: the] topics you put forward. Your policy of protest for protest's sake has left me with en acute attack of mental indigestion and not even the use of four letter words can avoid the accusation that your paper is deadly dull. Your self-righteous attitude emotionally presented in biased articles has done as much to create the student apathy you try and challenge. Perhaps you should try and follow the truth expressed in the adage "the pen is mightier than the sword" and stop trying to bludgeon your readers into submission.

Your issue of July 12 illustrates my argument. Page after page of woe and misery leads me to the impression that you actually enjoy it. In the nineteen pages of written matter there were only three flashes of humour, two in letters to the Editor, and the bitter humour of the cartoonist Ron Cobb, and these three are the most memorable aspects of the whole issue. Certainly Citizen Pollard's attack on the American policy in Vietnam was thought provoking because his facts and opinion were clearly defined, but what research went into Peter Franks' article on our foreign policy? With a heading more suitable to a 1957 Playboy joke, he weighs into the papers presented with a bias highlighted by the tenor of the sub-headings e.g. Good Old War! Paranoic Fools, Wool Over Our Eyes etc., How he can expect any reader to believe in the accuracy of his report is beyond me, and it is obvious that he is writing not to convince but to add to a present policy of denigrating everything military without knowing exactly why. Cliche ridden articles such as this are not a substitute for accurate reporting.

Finally, why not try and follow the example of Ron Cobb and try and write constructively enough to "leave a trail of very perplexed people with the potential to be humbled by reality". Why not try a little bit of subtlety for a change, yea even satire, for you are killing any enthusiasm for student politics by your dismal outlook.

R.J.Martin