Thomas Jefferson, one of my personal heroes — and one hell of a legislator — once said, “Power is not alluring to pure minds.” If Jefferson were to sit in on some of the backdoor politicking currently going on in the Student Assembly, he would think that our minds are as dirty as a New Jersey sewer. Thus, when I evaluate the actions of the S.A., I like to follow the logic of a different politician: the ancient Roman judge, Lucius Cassius, who would repeatedly ask himself, “Cui bono?” which literally means “To whose benefit?”

Olamide Williams ’10 told The Sun yesterday that he would be stepping down from his position as executive vice president of the Student Assembly. The decision is a result of a breach of S.A. charter, which mandates that the vice president should not miss more than three meetings consecutively, and that six missed meetings in total result in a removal from office.

The possibility of using paid tickets to close the Convocation Committee’s funding gap generated a heated debate during yesterday’s Student Assembly meeting.

The Sun has spilled much ink on the Student Assembly’s decision to reduce Cornell Cinema’s part of the Student Activity Fee and the subsequent affirmation of that decision on appeal. The issue has ruffled feathers, and I want to give readers my idea of how it all played out.

The strongest aspect of the coverage is that after reporting the story, The Sun’s pages served as a forum for people on both sides of the issue to be heard. The weakest, however, is that the news coverage — and even some of The Sun’s own editorial product — was somewhat underreported, missing important facts that could have provided better context.

To the Editor:

Re: “The Berry Patch: By-line Funding: It’s Simple, Really,” Opinion, Nov. 4

Although The Sun correctly identified the need to publish information regarding the allocation of the Student Activity Fee, it did a disservice to the Cornell community by turning the piece into an anonymous, factually incorrect, satirical piece of prose. By blatantly admitting that the writers spent no more than “three-and-a-half minutes digging through the annals of the Student Assembly Charter to bring [its readers] the facts,” The Sun did more than disgrace its duty to report truthfully and thoroughly — it demonstrated a complete lack of respect for its readers. Not verifying facts often results in The Sun unfairly representing organizations on campus and regrettably losing credibility among its readers. Just last week, The Sun incorrectly reported that the Student Assembly Finance Commission influenced the cut in the funding of the Cornell Cinema.

To the Editor:

Re: “Assembly members defend decisions,” Letters, Nov. 3

Some Background:

The Student Assembly invited Cornell Cinema to apply for activity fee funding in the late 1980s. At that time, and since its inception in 1970, the Cinema has been a hybrid organization, run by a professional staff, with students serving in an advisory capacity and as employees actively engaged in the organization. There are legions of Cornell alums who were involved with the Cinema as students and consider that involvement to be a significant part of their Cornell experience.

I attended exactly three films put on by Cornell Cinema last year. In descending order of theater packedness: The Dark Knight; Waltz With Bashir; L’Enfant Sauvage. The first of these films was, well, awesome — as in the biblical sense of the word (not the contemporary, frater-natural lexicon). Waltz With Bashir was gripping — as in this graphic-novel looking thing gripped my throat and coerced me into caring about a massacre I had never heard of. L’Enfant Sauvage was boring — as in I was bored. The 18th Century frog doctor and his feral friend left me squirming in my seat before the Twizzlers and popcorn were all eaten.

When I made my debut in the Opinion section, I advocated a different type of diversity: diversity of thoughts and ideas. Since then, I have avoided that topic, as I consider it too much of a cliché, but a few years later, the time is now ripe to revive this concept with a new twist.

No matter who they side with, those who fail to consider the diverse array of perspectives in composing their arguments are destined to produce poor sketches of their own arguments.

To the Editor:

Re: “In Defense of Our Cinema,” Opinion, Nov. 2

Thanks to The Sun, I’ve heard the different sides of the Student Assembly vs. the Cornell Cinema funding controversy. I like to believe that I am unbiased in the subject. Have I attended movies and programs at the Cornell Cinema? Yes. Have I waited on line to attend an event at the Cornell Cinema only to be told I was on the wrong line and the event is now full? Yes. Have I applied for and obtained funding for a student organization from the Student Assembly? Yes. Have I been told because I didn’t correctly state an estimate in my budget that I was not getting funding? Yes. It’s safe to say that I’ve had a good and bad relationship with the Cornell Cinema and Student Assembly.

Correction appended.

Last Thursday, the Student Assembly rejected Cornell Cinema’s appeal of a 22-percent cut in their byline funding over the next two academic years. This decision, which will seriously compromise one of our University’s most important cultural institutions, was a triumph of bureaucratic ineptitude and willful narrow-mindedness.