--Mark Twain

Okay. Before moving on to what happened on Friday, I think I'd better give y'all some background. Given that pretty much nothing ever happens in my life over Saturday and Sunday, I've got an extra entry in which to do that. :-)

So. I began attending college back in the spring of 1997, four semesters back. From the moment I began attending, I knew that I eventually wanted to be part of the campus paper. I stopped by their office shortly after I started class, and briefly spoke to the humor editor, who told me to e-mail him whatever I wanted to, but ended up not doing anything more that semester. I didn't have any ideas offhand, and, anyway, I was still getting the hang of both the college in general, and the paper, reading the latter each week to get the feel of it. (And to read the news and columnists.)

To be honest, I didn't have an especially high opinion of the paper at the time; in fact, my official position was that "It's dreck, but it's our dreck." But it wasn't that bad, and, anyway, I wanted in.

The following semester, I joined the staff. I started by writing a couple of book reviews and offering my services as a proofreader. By the end of the semester, I was the Copy Editor. Or, as the Opinions Editor took to calling me, "You Bastard," an appellation I wore with pride, signifying as it did that I was doing my job properly.

The semester after that (spring 1998), was quite possibly the best one the paper's had in recent history. Alas, the Copy Editor had three classes on Thursday -- which was also deadline day, when most of the paper actually got done -- but I still managed to get some stuff done, both in copyediting, and around the paper in general. It was at this point that I began writing my weekly column in the Opinions section.

Now, this is not to say that all was peace and love and harmony at the paper. A few rivalries were firmly in place, none of which I'm going to get into here, and I got into a major argument with those at the top of the editorial chain, with regard to a new policy they imposed. Specifically, it was decreed that nobody on the staff of the paper would be allowed to be at all active in either of the campus political parties, even to the extent of helping somebody put up a flyer promoting a particular candidate for the student government. The claim was that, otherwise, the paper would be open to accusations of bias.

To make a long story short, I almost resigned, but didn't, because the decision ended up far out of my hands anyway, and I decided to wait until we voted on our new constitution, which, as of this writing, still hasn't been written. I did, however, write a blistering article on the matter, in the second installment of my column, telling the public about the new policy, and explaining just why I felt it was both a bad idea and downright immoral.

Nobody ever suggested that the column in question not be run. One staffer did gently suggest that it was ungentlemanly on my part, a feeling with which I disagreed, but that was the extent of the fallout.

(I also got the policy restricted to the Editor in Chief, Managing Editor, News Editor, Features Editor, and Copy Editor. Still a bad idea and a downright immoral one, but at least the damage was minimized.)

Anyway. Last semester -- fall 1998 -- realizing that I didn't have time to do much copyediting, I switched to Literary Editor, which basically meant that I put together a page of poetry most weeks. My weekly column continued, for that matter. And the Opinions Editor dropped out somewhere along the line, and I took over the section. And finally, I proclaimed myself King of Filler. :-)

This multitasking was necessary in part because we'd lost a bunch of staffers after the spring 1998 semester, and hadn't managed to replace many of them. So a small core of the "old guard" was holding the paper together. About five of us, really.

Of those five, one graduated, and the rest of us got a bit worn out. So I was a bit concerned for the fate of the paper during Winter Break.

But I realized that I didn't really have time for the job, either. More to the point, I wasn't very well suited for it. I'm all too familiar with the Peter Principle. I knew I was a good Opinions Editor, a good columnist, and would be a good Copy Editor, if I had time for that. Administrative stuff, on the other hand, was not my strong point. Neither was anything at all that involved money. In short, I was more valuable to the paper staying where I was. Which, at the end of the semester, meant Literary Editor, Opinions Editor, and columnist.

I saw the handwriting on the wall, and resigned from the Editorial Board shortly before that happened, retaining only my weekly column.

See, we'd had our differences, to put it a bit mildly. He was charging ahead, changing everything in sight, and, as I saw it, determined to make every single mistake those of us in the "old guard" had already learned from, and even some new ones. And I realized that if I hung around, I'd only be battling him for the next few weeks, until I ended up resigning anyway. So I decided to save us both the trouble.

Besides, I was tired, and trying to do far too much. Something had to give. And the paper was, in fact, rising from the ashes, with a steady flow of new staffers at last, so I felt that I could afford to leave; the paper would survive without me.

I did keep the column, though. 'Twas the least of the jobs I was doing, and the most rewarding from a personal standpoint.

That third category is what seems to have gotten me into trouble recently. It's always been part of my column; as mentioned above, my second-ever column was devoted to protesting one of the paper's policies, and I continued to question what I disagreed with in the paper, and praise what I liked about it, and plead for more volunteers for the staff, as time went on. And, until I resigned, I was even more active behind the scenes, putting in my two cents about any policy changes, when they came up.

However... barring one or two quickly-patched-up misunderstandings, nobody involved made the mistake of taking my attacks on their positions as being personal attacks, or personally motivated. Heck, by the time this semester came around, my greatest ideological antagonist on the staff had also turned out to be my best friend still there, and the one whose opinion I respected most. I'm perfectly capable of disagreeing with somebody and still staying on the best of terms with said person.

The same, alas, cannot be said of the new Editor-in-Chief, 'twould seem.

And that's the background for the next entry.