This is a good sign:
The Laurier Freethought Alliance has been recognized!
Today we had our first meeting on campus and while that was going on the Campus Clubs department sat down and discussed the issue with the new constitution and that's it, it's over, it's done, nine months and six days of havoc and a several interviews, we have done it! This is the moment we have been waiting for.
And while Anatoly might be polite about it, one can only hope that the doughbrains at the WLUSU who originally rejected that application subsequently got spanked so hard, they won't want to sit down for the next week or two. Really, stupidity should be painful.
But on the calendar:
As for the LFA, we're glad to be running. February 12th is Darwin Day and we'll see if we can hand out free bananas to people on campus... about 150 of them.
Well, then, I think everyone should take a few minutes out of their day and drop by WLU if they can. Perhaps I'll stop in, and collect my banana.
BY THE WAY, I am going to take issue with Anatoly here:
For a brief time, our tiny club in our little university in a small Canadian town got the publicity of some of the biggest secular blogs online and it was a great experience to have everyone showing concern and atheists, agnostics, skeptics, and the generally non-religious standing up for each other. However, in some cases, the paranoia and distrust of some individuals went to extremes and the complains, which we never asked for, were worded very harshly. And, while I would lie if I said that I didn't think that this attention expedited the process tremendously, it wasn't the thing that did it. The thing that got us club status was sitting down with the key players from their side, discussing what needed to be done, filling out the appropriate paperwork, and getting accepted professionally. I think we have shown that calm, rational discourse prevails in the end and great things can be accomplishes with just understanding what the other side wants and how both can work together without compromising each other's goals. Like I emphasized in my previous entry "cooler heads prevail."
Um ... no, Anatoly, what got things done was not sitting down and acting professionally, it was holding the offending members of the WLUSU up to savage and international ridicule. Lesson number one: if you're going to fight with these people, learn how to fight dirty.
When it comes to dealing with these whackjobs, nice guys really do finish last.
5 comments:
Just heads up that if they're sharing office space with the Planned Parenthood campus group... take the Condom OFF before you eat it...
I think he’s being terribly naïve if he thinks that achieving his goal was primarily due to “sitting down with the key players from their side, discussing what needed to be done, filling out the appropriate paperwork…” I’m certain that not getting overly hysterical about the matter no doubt helped facilitate gaining acceptance for their organization, but I’m sure the sudden bout of reasonableness from the other side was motivated largely out of fear of being widely ridiculed and possibly having the school’s reputation harmed as a result.
Well CC, I'm not gona lie. Without the help of bloggers like you (and The Cord, The Record, CTV, and The Globe and Mail), we would still be in the preliminary stages of resubmitting our application, if even that. You guys really put the spotlight on what really was taking waaaaaayyyyy too long.
However, if we didn't sit down and talk to the Campus Clubs, if we (both Tyler and I) didn't act diplomatically, if we didn't resubmit our application in a professional and formal manner. We'd be nowhere.
So I'd like to think that when it comes to getting thing's done we need both types of people: Those who speak softly and those who carry a big stick and are not afraid to use it in case the opposition refuses to listen to the guys who speak softly. By the way, you might care to note that many of the Campus Clubs people consider themselves atheists or liberal "cultural" theists. So it's hard for me to imagine that this was some sort of a fundamentalist conspiracy to keep the "evil atheists" away.
Anyway, stop by the concourse at WLU between 12:00 and 2:00 on Tuesday if you can. We'll give a banana or two.
many of the Campus Clubs people consider themselves atheists or liberal "cultural" theists.
Mel Gibson notes that some of his friends are Jewish, and so's his agent. So there's no way he could be a Holocaust denier, right?
However, Anatoly, this comment of yours is welcome, because it contains much less of the naivete you seemed to be showing before about how things get done. Multiple choice test:
Speak softly, carry ____?
a) good intentions
b) a comfy chair
c) a card with the words "I'll change anything you want" printed on it
d) a big stick
e) a banana
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