Tuesday, April 3, 1034
Page 4
Daily Mebraskan
TIT? O
v
Back in the old days, in the 300s
B.C.E. (Before Common Era), politi
cians played the same games they are
playing today.
An Athenian orator Demosthenes
was his name was a hawk, and
sought war with the mighty Macedo
nian, Philip. Aeschines was his rival in
rhetoric, advocating peaceful coexist
ence with the Macedonian empire.
Demosthenes spent a lot of time try
ing to impeach Aeschines on the
grounds that he was a cohort of Philip,
because he advocated peace. Hence he
must have been a traitor.
Aeschines was wily. Instead of ans
wering Demosthenes' fact-filled har
angues with facts and reasoning, he
attacked one of Demosthenes' compa
triots as a sexual deviant. Demosthenes'
case, needless to say, was ruined.
Nowadays, in these times of Demo
cratic crisis, the two front-running
candidates have deserted the facts
and the ideals, and instead spend their
time nitpicking, insulting and discred
iting each other.
Gary Hart has gone so far as to say
Walter Mondale's attitudes about Cen
tral America would lead to dead Amer
ican boys. He also says Mondale is old
and outdated and tries to discredit
him by mentioning the Carter admin
istration. Mondale has attacked Hart's voting
record on civil rights and oil interests,
as well as his shiny "new" image.
The two candidates harped on each
other throughout a nationally televis
ed debate last week. The Rev. Jesse
Jackson was the only candidate dis
cussing the issues. Hart and Mondale
only complained about early other's
stances. When Jackson asked modera
tor Dan Rather to do something about
the two's incessant bickering, he receiv
ed the evening's greatest round of
applause.
Neither Hart nor Mondale can jus
tify attacking each other. Their atti
tudes are very similar.
But like Aeschines, they think the
best approach is the personal attack.
Back in Athens, Aeschines' ploy mere
ly saved his skin he was not impeach
ed. But eventually Demosthenes did
discredit him.
Hart and Mondale are deeply scar
ring each other and the Democratic
party with their petty, yet damaging,
bickering.
Even with the "sleaze factor" of the
Reagan administration, particularly
the Ed Meese case, the Democratic
candidate will stand little chance
against Reagan.
Without the bickering, the Demo
cratic chances would be slim. With it,
they are positively skinny.
It's unfortunate. With four more
years, and no hope of being re-elected,
who knows what that crazy, conserva
tive president of ours could do. His
social policies will continue to hack
away at the poor and his hard-line
rhetoric will continue to widen the gap
between the United States and the
Soviet Union.
Although neither Hart rtor Mondale
offer fantastic hope, .either would be a
vast improvement over Reagan. It's
sad to watch the two Democrats tear
each other apart, while Reagan smiles
in the wings, waiting to finish off the
torn and tattered victor.
. Chris Welsch
I f t 19SA CHiOKSOTRlBUNE -V ,,1
( C:wi C
f , CERTAINLY Iff I
Customers can be total jerks'
. For years, a basic tenet of business has been "the
customer is always right." What that means is that
even when merchants disagree with a customer's
complaints, it is good business to go along with the
customer and try to rectify the situation.
it
Bob
Greene
These days that philosophy still seems to be in
force in many places. In a recent magazine inter
view, Charles Indermuehle, executive vice president
of a hotel chain called Thunderbird Red Lion Inns,
was quoted as saying, "The guest is never wrong.
That kind of statement, and the philosophy be
hind it, is designed to instill customer confidence in
the business enterprise that endorses it.
But it would seem far healthier for businesses
and for other customers if companies adopted a
different slogan: . .
"Sometimes the customer is a total jerk. When he
is, we don't want his business. We don't even want
him around here."
This came to mind the other day while I was on a
trip to Denver. I flew on a United Airlines jet from
Chicago; en route one fellow passenger was espe
cially obnoxious. He was part of a group that was
taking a ski trip; he was loud and boisterous the
whole way west, always walking around the cabin
and kneeling in the aisles to start conversations and
ordering his drink refilled.
We landed at Stapleton Airport in Denver; we
were still a good distance from the terminal. A flight
attendant made an announcement asking everyone
to stay in their seats until we were parked at the
gate.
Immediately, this man got up from his seat,
walked forward several yards and opened one of the
overhead bins. He started taking his suitcase out. . ..
As travelers know, this is always a sign of the true
idiot. The reason passengers are asked to stay in
their seats is that as long as the airplane is moving,
safety precautions are still necessary. The plane
often moves past several active runways on its way
to the terminal; there are more than 100 people
inside a multi-ton machine carrying highly volatile
fuel, and that multi-ton machine is in motion.
But this guy, with the plane rolling along, was
babbling away and struggling to pull his suitcase
down.
"Sir," a flight attendant said, walking up to him,
"we're not stopped yet."
"I know, I know," he said, and patted her on the
shoulder. He kept wrestling with his suitcase.
"Sir," she said, her voice becoming perturbed, "I
have to ask you to sit down right now.
And then the man did something fairly amazing.
He grabbed the flight attendant and kissed her.
Her face turned red. The man's wife who had
been sitting and watching all this said to the flight
attendant, "Don't mind him. He's like this all the
time."
. The flight attendant appeared so angry that she
probably wanted to throttle the man. But what she
did is say, "You devil."
She didn't say it because she meant that he was
being cute and devilish. She safd it or so it seemed
because if she didn't say something to defuse the
situation, she was in danger of losing her cool and
really going after the man.
Now, I could imagine what was going through her
head. Here was a man purposely violating safety
procedures. (By the way, this was precisely the kind
of jerk who had the plane hit a bumpy stretch of
runway and knocked him off his feet would be the
first to file a lavsuit against United.) When he kissed
her, he also violated all rules of acceptable social
conduct.
But if she had told him exactly what she was
thinking, he was the Mnd of guy who also might have
complained to. United's corporate headquarters
about the "inexcusable rudeness" of a flight attend-.
ant. So she said, "You devil," and let it go.
Continued en Pg 5
Flatulent aliens battle
with whoopee cushions
Once upon a time, on the planet Large Special, in a
universe semi-parallel to ours, in a galaxy not sur
prisingly quite like ours, two societies, Erks and
Blottsdamjln, vied for planetary supremacy.
Erks had a red flag, Blottsdamjln a blue. That, as
far as anyone knows, was the sole difference between
the warring peoples and was the major bone of
Christopher
Burbach
contention in their conflict.
Blppphht Boot, first president of Blottsdamjln,
set the precedent for relations between his nation
and the land of Erks with this message he had
inscribed on a nerve gas whoopee cushion he sent to
that country's chieftain, Earnest Eek: "Your flag's
red, ours is blue. That is why we hate you."
Eek's reply, "Blppphht, aauuugh!" followed by
silence, was taken as a refusal to negotiate. Thus
was begat the Fluff War, which saw both sides
develop larger and larger stockpiles of increasingly
lethal whoopee cushions.
The race reached a point of 'overfluff ; that is, each
side possessed terrifically larger amounts of the
deadly weapons than it needed to wipe the entire
planet from the annals of the living.
Why? Earnest Eek II explained it. "It's the recur
rence factor. You see, these weapons are completely
out of hand. The Fluff War is beyond any hope of
control It will certainly end in the cessation of the
existence of this planet and all aboard, which, con
sequently, will spell the end of the nerve gas whoo
pee cushion as a weapon of war, which conse
quently, will guarantee the universe against the
recurrence of this horrble evil. Besides that, Blotts
damjln has blue flags. Ours are red "
The Fluff War was, as you may have by now sur
mised, a rather sticky dilemma for the inhabitants
of Large Special However, it took a back seat to
what appeared, at least on the surface, to be a game
designed to consume inordinate amounts of sick
leave accrued by fat rich old male inhabitants of the
planet.
This 'game' was called Killthealienwiththebloat
edstomach. Based on a Risk board which fell,
through a time-space-recreation warp, from our
own world, Killthealienwiththebloatedstomach was
a contest between the two superpowers of Large
Special to see who could plant the most of their
particular shade of flags on the proper soils of var
ious poor nations. Extra points were given for each
inhabitant of each poor nation who was impaled on
the flagpools.
Earnest Eek said this of his strategy, "Speak softly
and carry a big flagpole." The Erksians rushed in and
stuck as many natives as they could right away, then
continued to compile points by training the natives
to do it to each other.
The Blottsdamjlnians, however, were more subtle
in their approach, which Blppht Boot described as a
plan for world unity. The Boot plan, at last reckon
ing, was much more effective than the Eek plan,
although the latter scored heavily.
The inhabitants of Large Special, while fun crea
tures very adept at assassination, are not consi
dered to be among any universe's more intelligent
life forms. In fact, they are, or were, regarded as
quite stupid. It isn't much of a surprise that they
went the way of stupid species.
The moral of the story is . . . Blpphht aaauiragghhh
Once upon a time, on the planet Earth, in a uni
verse semi-parallel to ours