By Ben Riggleman

Hello, Beacon readers. My name’s Ben, and I have the privilege of being this year’s managing editor of The Beacon. The buck stops on this (metaphorical) desk: if something in this paper grinds your gears, you can let me have it at benjaminsriggleman@smccme.edu.

Let me give you a rundown of who I am and what this column will be.

First, I’m pretty new to this journalism thing. I began volunteering for The Beacon just last fall, as a copy editor. That entailed keeping us relatively typo-free and consistent with the Associated Press’s style guidelines, which I was learning from square one as I went. Soon, despite many protests that I didn’t like writing, I began doing that, too, and by spring semester I was writing something in every issue. Still, I’m most at home copy editing, and I’ll probably keep doing it as long as I’m with The Beacon, since nobody has shown any desire to take my job. (If you’re interested, shoot me an email at benjaminsriggleman@smccme.edu!)

I’m starting my second year of Liberal Studies this fall; I plan to transfer and major in philosophy. But I’m not a pure egghead: I have a little experience in the electrical trade, having spent a gap year and two months last summer working in my uncle’s business. For a little while, I thought I’d pursue SMCC’s Electrician Technology certificate, but I now think I prefer being behind a desk to crawling around in poorly ventilated attics and sledgehammering 10-foot ground rods. (Don’t get me wrong, though; I have great respect for the trades.)

What is this column? Ordinarily, it’s an editorial platform, in which I will take an informed stand on some current issue, either at SMCC or in the world at large. So ordinarily it will be more substantial than what you are reading now, and will use fewer “I” pronouns. Whatever I write about, I’ll try to keep it relevant to you.

The Beacon does not have just one voice, so I don’t pretend to fully speak for it. Ultimately, every issue comes together out of the diverse worldviews and experiences of its writers, influenced only a little by the politics of the editorial staff and faculty advisors. But that is not to say this paper lacks a character or a spine of its own: We have certain principles we consider basic, among them that we do not tolerate — or print — bigotry.

(I won’t pretend we, the staff, are not a little left of center on average. But don’t let it deter you from speaking your mind in this section. We welcome student opinions from across the political spectrum.)

This column should not get unduly political. “Politics is the mind-killer,” as the artificial-intelligence theorist and blogger Eliezer Yudkowski puts it. Anyhow, even in the age of Trump, there are ways of addressing political issues that avoid the divisive language, the “snarl words” and dog-whistles, associated with contemporary politics. This is a little easier when the issue at hand is local.

Well, that’s it for this first installment. I’m sure there are important topics I could have editorialized on in the space of this rather long-winded introduction, but oh well — there’s always next time!