LETTITOR 2007: The Last Bad Year Honestly, did anyone have.a good 2007? Nearly everyone I’ve spoken to recently, friends, family, co-workers, Benazir Bhutto, etc, all seem to agree —’07 sucked. To many, it was simply a year of muddling through. Change seemed to be on the horizon, but never quite within grasp. Oh sure, we had our ambitious dreams, but the goals were still a few years away from fruition. In the meantime, all we could do was toil, work, and toil some more to get through the nump year that was 2008, and edge a wee bit closer to someplace better. Stephen Harper certainly had one of those years. Stalled in minority- -government land, he got to do very little of what he actually wanted, and instead had to bite his tongue and pretend that “protecting arctic sovereignty” or signing climate-change agreements in Indonesia were the kinds of things he’d always dreamed of doing as PM. Should he ever win his previous majority someday, 2007 will hardly be recalled as one of the golden years of the Harper reign {except maybe by Stephane Dion). Down in the US of States it was more or less the same. Thanks to the January 7, 2007 increasingly awkward nature of the primary system in this era of the 24-hour news cycle, 2007 was not formally an election year, yet it sure seemed like one. With endless debates, attack ads, and pundits deconstructing their every move, by now an exasperated Clinton, Giuliani, Obama, Romney, et al are no doubt eager to leave ’07 eager and just get to the friggin vote already. Here at the OP, our 2007 was a year of considerable muddling through as well. I know I am starting to sound like a bit of a broken record when I keep bringing this up, but our paper remains under-staffed as we enter 2008. I’m planning on launching a bit of a propaganda offensive in the coming weeks to attempt to fix this, and recruit some new people, but the fact remains that 2007 was at times a bit of a struggle for this fine journal of opinion. ‘Of course, 2007 was also the year I became editor, so it wasn’t all bad. Indeed, I continue to be delighted at the amount of goodwill I’ve been shown by students since | took over. It’s always fun to be recognized in the hall by kids you don’t even know and have them praise the work you’re doing; it helps make all the hassles worthwhile. Now if only more of them would actually write for us... In closing, let me just make some predictions for the coming year, which I, as a journalist, am contractually obligated to make. I’m not much of a trendspotter, but I do know student politics. And as far as that goes, keep your eyes on the Canadian Federation of Students in ‘08. With the SFU student union planning a strong campaign to leave the group, and a few sympathetic individuals waging a copycat campaign in Douglas (see my story on Wendy Case inside), students across British Columbia will be finally get an opportunity to voice an opinion on one of the most heated feuds to consume the BC student movement in quite some time. : But anyway, regardless of what happens in 2008, you know what paper you can always turn to keep up to date on the events that affect your life, right? Correct, the National Post. Their coverage can’t be beat. But The Other Press is okay too. And it will even better once you join. J.J. McCullough Editor in Chief of the Other Press Interested in current events? like to lig up dirt? well then, perhaps you should _ BECOME i HE OTHER PRESS” . Reporting! Writing! Actual money! | Earn $240 per month as a student journalist | Email J.J.at editor. otherpress@gmail.com | i :