Published January 11, 2008

Happy New Year kids. And welcome to the first issue of 2008. What an exciting year we have ahead of us. First, later this month, we have the European Finals in team handball. That should turn this country upside down. Later this year, we will be treated to both the European Finals in football, as well as the Olympic Games in Beijing. I am honestly torn over when would be the ideal time to take a summer vacation. It is entirely possible that the Grapevine will stop publication during this time. And, with any luck, we might have presidential elections this year as well, although it seems unlikely, since our current president will probably be appointed by default, since he is the only candidate to have declared interest in the job.

The public discussion over the presidential elections has bothered me though. It is as if the majority of the public would rather skip the whole process, since our current president would likely win anyway, than have anyone run against him, citing the financial costs of staging the elections. This is the message in its simplified form: if the outcome of the election were likely to be one way, we would rather forgo our democratic process and save some money doing so.

Democracy demands financial costs. This is inevitable. It is the constitutional right of every man to run for office in this country, as long as he meets certain requirements of age and citizenship, and we should under no conditions try to curfew that right. This sort of talk invites the danger of slippery slope, and that is a slope we don’t want our democracy to be in. We should rather embrace the idea of partaking in the democratic process.

This issue of the Grapevine celebrates the year that has passed. We look at interesting events from 2007, select the album of the year, and round up some numbers that put the year in perspective. I hope you all had a good year. I did.