Welcome back everyone. I thought I would begin our first issue by addressing something I feel very strongly about: censorship. The knife wielded by censorship is indeed a blunt one produced for our “good” far too often. Censorship is never beneficial and can therefore never be of value to its readers. It seems to this author that much of our lives are steeped in a running form of censorship that permeates every aspect of our lives and culture. Whether it manifests itself as the advertising we see around us (as opposed to the advertising we never see), or the routine omnipresent in our American Educational system, there can be one thing said about censorship: it is everywhere whether we ignore it or credit it. I find myself in a unique situation as Executive Editor of The Vermont Cynic. I have the editorial power to censor completely the publication you hold in your hands. I have the power to shape and change that which you read so easily, while most of you would never consider my power nor my inclination to excersize that power. I have always found power to be uniquely disgusting. On the one hand, there exists an incredible responsibility associated with power. On the other hand, there exists all that power. Such is the paradox of a position like mine, because positions like mine attract those obsessed with power and control, who are more inclined to disguise power and control as responsibility and prudence. If power and control could be condensed into physical form I believe it would resemble an aged cheese: delicious and revolting in the same bite. We take a bite from this power only to smell the putrid stench it accompanies, making us gag and forcing us to taste in full the unusual contradiction that is power. One thing can be said for certain about this encounter: we are always left wanting more. I plan on discarding the system that would place us at such disadvantage, and work toward a new ethic that allows us to refuse the temptation of power by handicapping the agent of the system I wish to escape: censorship. My name is Andrew Woods and I am the Editor of The Vermont Cynic.