SOME POST-ELECTION THOUGHTS

"The truth will out," Gary Olman wrote in a recent post on his blog, and for once he has proved prescient. For the second election in a row Dave Israel's entire slate was elected, not a single malcontent having made officer. The only mals to get in got in because there were ten open positions on the Executive Board and exactly ten candidates.

Marc v said it right in his blog post when he wrote: "It's only those who do nothing that make no mistakes . . . . They try to convince people here how bad Dave is when they are really the bad ones! I have lived here in CV for thirteen years and I have seen how Dave has made CV a much better place to live, and the crew he has picked to be with him."

I have a suggestion for the malcontents: Try being helpful for a change. Realize that we all make mistakes and try to build up rather than tear down. This is within reach of some of you. Being the UCO president or being the editor of the UCO Reporter is a tough job. You do your best, but you cannot please everyone and you make mistakes.

If you are a "hard core" malcontent, one of those who (to use the term of an outsider, Frank Cerabino) have "vilified" Dave and others, you are in a little different position. You should not expect to come right back tomorrow into the good graces of those you have offended so grossly and with such venom. Healing takes time. Expecting to return immediately into their good graces would be presumptuous.

By the same token, as the "winners" in the election, may none of us gloat. God forbid. The kind of warring we have had ill befits us as a community. We won't always agree--that's normal. I don't always agree with myself! "Yes men" aren't the answer, but a kindness and a cooperative attitude underneath, I believe, will go a long way.

P.S. When Phyllis Richland, after first thinking she had won and then realizing she had not, went up on the dais to congratulate Dave, that was a class act, Dave told me afterward. It could not have been easy.