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Thursday, March 31, 1383
Daily Nebraskan
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in tails 'dismal, dral
.mesit town'
Id the search for a middle name for our fair city, the
Lincoln Star and Lincoln Convention and Visitors Bureau
received neaiiy 1,500 entries, one of which called Lincoln
a "(.ray. Drab. Dismal Old Government Town."
Well, this government town has a lot to say for itself.
It may not lie the most dynamic, entertaining, intellectual
scenic spot m the map. But it ranks right up there for a
city its sie.
Now take Chicago sort of an appealing, busy,
populous culture center that attracts visitors, businessmen
and academicians. It certainly has its tradition as an "'old
government town.'
Lincoln and Chicago have one thing in common. They
are both caught up m mayoral election campaigns. The
candiates' approaches and campaign tactics, are thank
fully, as far removed philosophically as they are geo
graphically. We should be glad that Lincoln's mayoral hopefuls
stick to relatively harmless, if distracting, ways to grab
our attention. As reported in Monday's Lincoln Journal,
"motorists are being bombarded by political signs touting
candidates in the April 5 primary election."
Turn the page and you'll find that Chicagoans aren't
leaving their political endorsement signs in their yards -but
maybe that's because half of them don't have yards.
It's also partly because Chicago's mayoral candidates
have resorted to disruptive, tattle-tale, wishy-washy
strategies to win over those previous votes.
Chicago Mayor Jane Bryne after losing in the Demo
cratic primary last month, endorsed Democrat Harold
Washington, a black congressman. Then Byrne changed
her mind, withdrew her endorsement and planned to re
enter as a write-in candidate. For this she was criticized
by public officials such as Richard Daley, who in News
week called the move "an appeal to racial divisiveness."
Then, one week later, Byrne again changed her mind,
decided to drop from the competition, and decided
against re-endorsing Washington.
Meanwhile, in the midst of holy week preparations for
Easter, Washington was driven off the steps of St. Pascal's
Roman Catholic Church in Chicago by hostile demonstr
ators. They were proclaiming their support for
Washington's Republican opponent, Bernard Epton.
Epton has relief largely on mudslinging to undermine
Washington. Epton continually brings up the fact that
his opponent was convicted for income tax evasion
more than 10 years ago. Washington has refuted many
of the charges and claims he has paid his dues.
Lincoln is not a part of such a whirlwind of political
activity. Our candidates prefer to publicize themselves
a little more subtly. We may have to put up with a few
"obtrusive" signs, but they should remind us how good
we have it in this "Gray, Drab, Dismal Old Government
Town."
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Not long ago, in this galaxy, in this city, on this
campus, 1 ventured out after dark alone. I rarely do this
because, first, I have no guarantee that I'll find a parking
place, unless it's after 11 p.m. Second, I don't feel safe
walking a long distance from my car to the residence
hall.
1 usually park in a distant, lot or side street. If I'm
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Monica
Osterbuhr
really lucky, I find a place in the Cather-Pound lot, kind
of like discovering gold ore. Even that lot is scary at
night.
When I returned to campus that evening, I drove
around looking for a parking spot and saw the only
vacant one is front of my hall. Legally and properly,
I pulled up beside the vehicle in front of the space. I
began backing into the much-envied parallel parking
stall. Suddenly in my rear-view mirror, I saw two head
lights swerve into my spot. At first I thought I was just
in need of chocolate and having hallucinations. There
was, indeed, a car in my space and it was a big one.
I double-parked my auto right there and was planning
to settle the matter immediately. I frantically knocked
on the driver's window yelling, ' How dare you do this?!"
The female driver looked straight ahead and ignored me.
I knocked again saying I was there first and she had
weasied in illegally. "Why don't, you answer me?!" 1
screamed. She sat in the car, still ignoring me. I could
have ripped off her antenna and chastised her with it but
someone had beaten me to it. She got out of the car
and as she passed me, flipped me off and mumbled
something that sounded like "fish for bass."
The University Housing Office has spoken recently
of plans to develop parts of residence haJls into guest
rooms as enrollment declines. One report in this paper
indicated that the south end of Selleck may be the desig
nated place for housing guests in the future. I have a
suggestion. Why not consider making it a three-story
parking garage instead? You've all heard of Rampark.
This could be Grad-Park. (Park while you wait to grad
uate.) A parking garage on campus could increase requests
for on-campus housing. I propose that the parking spaces
be sold to the highest bidders. The continued revenue
should offset the lost room rent. Furthermore, campus
police would lose their monopoly on parking and may
have to compete with the high-rise parking garage. They
may resort to putting in three- and four-hour meters.
Continued on Page 5
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on aoD ejscuflse im ooivesigaliove research
Addled minds are the devil's playground - or is that
idle hands are the devil's workshop? Either way, I knew
I needed to be wary in my week away from school.
Having a healthy fear of the devil and his wily ways,
I self-assigned myself a weeklong workload of intense
investigative editorial research. It would be a weighty,
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unwieldy task; I only assigned me because I knew I
could handle it.
To avoid giving myself away as a muckraker abroad,
I disguised myself as a vacationer. I applied strokes of
genius to this clever ruse. With quick thinking, I surmised
that, if I attired myself like an idiot tourist bedazzled by
Rand McNally, I could dangle my camera about my
neck without incriminating myself. Hey heh heh, I admit
I snickered.
Next I donned sunglasses; I brilliantly realized that
these are another device for which a fancy is shared by
tourists and investigators - or rubbernecks and gumshoes,
as they are known in the trade. I adorned my feet with
obligatory sandals, dug my clamdiggers out of mothballs,
rolled a bottle of suntan lotion up in the sleeve of my
Hawaiian shirt and practiced gimpy smiles in the mirror
before embarking for Florida.
As you can look up in any sociology text, it is an
unexplained phenomenological fact that college kids
stream to Florida every spring break. Florida is downhill
from most of the rest of the United States, and the centri
fugal pull of the Earth's spinning surely has some bearing,
too.
Some have speculated that the higher temperatures of
the lower latitudes somehow incites the mass migration.
Perhpas, too, it is instinctual, as it is in birds; explana
tions from this school of thought propose a mythic aspira
tion to be a few miles closer to the sun or a residual yearn
ing to see alligators, the last living dinosaurs, and to leap
into the briny sea, the soup we evolved from.
Still others conjecture that students take spring break
in Florida because they were brainwashed at a formative
age by the libidinous films of Elvis Presley and Annette
Funicello. Clearly, the scientific debate continues.
Florida is a limp phallus of swampland that hangs off
the corner of our nation in order to separate the Atlantic
Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. Its chief function is to
serve as a dock for Caribbean refugees and drug smugglers
- bad company for the youth of America .
When I arrived, the state reeked of the heavy perfume
from the blossoming orange groves. Neighborhoods were
steeped in a litter of fallen grapefruit; lawns looked like
the outfields of golfers' driving ranges.
Heedless natives drove expensive cars through boule
vards dense with uncivilized magnolia, eucalyptus, banana
trees and the like. Residents were so sun-poached and lade-da
that they allowed birds, like herons, egrets and
swans, to grow to outlandish sizes.
Sickened, I nevertheless continued my brave research.
1 quickly dismissed weather as a cause for the stut'ent
migration. While I was there, TV meteorologists were agog
about what they claimed was the lowest barometric
pressure the state ever experienced outside the eye of a
tornado; they issued a book of watches and warnings -though
wind, rain and clogged clouds were all that came
of it.
Alligators were out of the picture; 1 saw none in the
toilets, none strolling the streets, threatening pedestrians.
Beaches were out, too ; I was lacerated by the shell
fragments hefted in the surf and, when I saw dolphins
jumping in the air nearby, I knew crazed sharks would
be snacking on my bare legs if I kept my seaside folly up
much longer.
Lots of rubbernecks were swarming to a place called
EPCOT, I overheard oyster shuckers jiving one day.
EPCOT, I found out, was the secret plot "of Walt Disney,
one of the most notorious escapists of all times. It is
supposed to represent the world of the future and, in that
regard, was somewhat insightful - a bunch of mickey
mouse, pricey meals, endless lines, vast crowds and
authorative hands-off technology.
Florida is a tough nut that even I could not crack in a
week. If I am to get to the meat of it, I need more time -another
vacation, heh heh.