I spend a lot of time in these columns talking up the efforts of the underprivileged and underappreciated people all around this campus, but this week I think it’s time I give some long overdue praise to my colleagues on page four. Opinion writers are the ugly stepchild of The Diamondback, and it’s high time somebody stepped up and gave us a little pat on the back.

Now the general consensus among journalists is that the opinion section is the easy way to go, and in principle, not really journalism at all. While I have to admit that we are doing little-to-no reporting in these columns, I think it’s pretty damn unfair to call what we do easy.

In fact, what we do every week is what other journalists have to do when there is no news.  True, I’m not out interviewing congressmen (though Malcolm Harris probably is), but I also can’t fill 99 percent of my columns just telling people what happened either. I’m sure many of you think that pulling 550 words out of our asses every week is a breeze, but I assure you that after an entire semester (or in many of our cases, several semesters) of talking about random issues, the well runs a little dry.

On top of our never-ending search for relevant content, let’s not forget the feedback. Outside of the handful of drunk dudes at the bar and maybe the guy from Ratsie’s, I can’t remember a time when someone went out of their way to compliment my work. What I can remember, however, is the literally dozens of pages of anonymous slants that have been posted this semester about me and my fellow opinion writers. Thanks a lot, John Q. Douchebag, for lighting up the message boards with one-liners telling us we suck. We all appreciate the calculated feedback, really. Don’t take this as me being bitter, either. When I write a whole column talking about an awkward handshake I witnessed, surely I deserve to be called a dumb-dumb, but when Matt Dernoga writes a really intelligent article about environmental preservation, I don’t think he deserves some goober calling him a crazy hippie.

I don’t want to get hung up on the online comments though, because honestly, some of the feedback is pretty intelligent — and occasionally even makes a point or two. I do, however, want to draw attention to the fact that despite our efforts, our work will inevitably be considered less impressive to future employers than our fellow writers in earlier pages — and yet, we soldier forth. Let’s face it, my crazy ramblings (combined with my inability to remain clean shaven or sober) were always going to put a damper on my chances of impressing a boss-to-be. But whether or not you read their stuff, there are some incredibly talented and promising writers in this weird little crew of ours, and they need to be recognized.

It would be just shy of sacrilege if I finished this article without throwing some props to the boss, right? Now Rob Gindes doesn’t need me to pat him on the ass (though he’d love it, I’m sure), but come on, his job is a bitch.  Along with writing columns, he also has to juggle all the outlandish flakiness of a staff full of eccentrics, and anytime we screw the pooch it means his head in the stocks. Add in the fact that when he takes the time to apologize to the student body, all he gets is an army of anti-everything hater monkeys lining up to throw their turds.

Yup, this job is a piece of cake.

Mike DiMarco is a senior English major. He can be reached at dimarco at umdbk dot com.