Column:

A new start this semester

By Dan Friesen

Published Jan. 17, 2006

Looking at this semester's Forum page, you may notice a few differences. Is it a new font? Did we switch to Garamond? No, but good guess. Look at the bottom left column on this page. Notice anything? All right, all right, I'll give you a hint: Look at the name. That's right, we have a new columnist today. And on Friday, all the columnists will be new.

This semester brings with it a revamped, exciting Forum page and not a moment too soon, I might add. We are short four former columnists, leaving only the unparalleled Kim Adams and myself. I thought it might be nice to dwell on last semester for a moment if only because it's an easy first column for the session. What happened? How did this Forum page come to be how you see it today? I think it might do us all some good to review the columnists who are no longer with us.

Lacey Hanson wrote socially responsible, semi-informative columns about Medicaid cuts and campus food drives. She took power to task in her incisive Seventeen magazine column. Her writings were as professional as they were coherent. I suspect she studies journalism.

Robyn Correll gave us poignant yet adorably digestible insights. I couldn't agree more with her column in which she asserts that watching "chick flicks" will help me understand women. Watching "How to Deal" taught me what to do if I were to drive my car drunkenly into a tree with my lady in the passenger seat and leaving her to face her parents at the hospital alone. I learned I can always win her forgiveness if I am there for her when her best friend gives birth to the child she conceived with her recently deceased soccer-star boyfriend. I also learned that Mandy Moore — and by extrapolation, all women — is really cute when she is mad and/or disappointed. Correll also wrote dramatized personal tales that make me suspect she has taken a creative nonfiction class.

Rosa Kwon served as a voice of rationality in the cultural schism between women who dress up for class and those who wear pajamas. Her writing was gripping and formally solid.

Jeremy Goldmeier wrote, well, I actually never got through an entire column of his. It seemed as if every time I tried to read his column, I would get a quarter of the way through it, and then some important piece of business would come up, like alphabetizing my silverware drawer — fork, knife, pizza cutter, spoon. A friend told me Goldmeier's column was OK.

I, on the other hand, spent my semester ranting about things I don't like about women on campus and holding court about my masturbatory habits. I did no research and put in almost minimal effort. I think I spent more time answering hate mail and having meetings with the editorial board about "borderline libel" than I did actually writing. I had people try to get me fired. They suggested that I should be expelled.

People say an opinion page should reflect the voices and views of those who read it. I suppose that means the MU campus is more interested in my penis than they are in Lacey's love of Chipotle, Robyn's "aw-shucks" down-home wisdom, Rosa's compelling human interest columns and Jeremy's ... again, sorry, I am not really sure what he wrote about. Well, beloved public, I will not let you down this semester. Tell you what. Play your cards right, and I might even publish my critically acclaimed "Treatise on my Taint."

To the new columnists: You have your work cut out for you. You are stepping into huge shoes. Huge, fucking shoes.