I am amused. There is definitely a hierarchy in play here - but as Jones points out repeatedly in his book on the Presidency and the separation of powers, power is epiphenomenal. Legitimacy is derived from the people and not from the seat that is occupied. The majority of people need to be happy in order to preemptively quell revolts/boycotts (NOT THAT THIS WOULD EVER HAPPEN, Professor Eismeier!) and to create a following (how else would legislation be successful?).
Of course, in our case, Maximum Leader has the power of the pen on the grade book – just goes to show that my Forced Blogging Theory has stood the test of time (over a year, Thank You, Thank You. Time to publish?).
If my voice were to be heard, however, I would say this: I would also second (well, third) Charlie. I generally put in a considerable amount of work into my posts (think, write, edit, repeat – after all, my name is attached to the post). Lately, because of flood postings (as in, posting 4-5 articles everyday without the poster's input), I am being forced to simply post links to articles in order to keep up. This shouldn't be the purpose of our blog. The articles already exist in cyberspace- why should any of us get credit for posting them? Like Stephen said, I read them anyway. I think that the excess of links on our blog is detracting from its quality - people want to know what Hamilton College students think, not what articles are available online. If anything, we should have a daily cap on the number of links without student input.
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The Maximum Leader reminds his subjects that they are not in a contest with their colleagues. There are many roads to success. You are not required to read or comment on all posts in our sumptuous buffet. Excellence is regular contributions with thoughtful pithy comments.
I agree with Sanjana in the feeling of pressure to keep up with the frantic pace. Sure Lenin said there is a quality to quantity all on its own, but Lenin was a crackpot! Look at how well his revolution turned out. What I'm saying essentially, is that in its current manner the blog represents an evil communist dictator. Who said the Cold War was over?!
Borrowing a phrase from Kim Il Sung, I prefer to think of it not as a dictatorship but all of you being under the care of the Fatherly Leader. Blog on.
I think this is an interesting situation that the coup d’état the Maximum Leader, and to a larger extent the academic world, has placed over the extracurricular activities of the subjects. It is indeed a challenge for both parties and very much entertaining. My encouragement to my peers is to ban together and make this experience meaningful. Let us not post to death but post in harmony.
therefore we must blog our way to freedom.
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