Commentary
Kids lack culinary keenness
My heart sank when I saw the
frcadftng' - - > • i ”7
“Kids health habits shaky, study
finds." . - :
We’djbeen found out.
J scanned the page fbrmugshots
of my children.
/ - After breathing a sigh ofrfeHof
to find our photos notably absent,
i read the article, It reiterated what
most of us already knew: Kids
don^teow a whole heck of a lot
about nutrition, furthermore, they
are not eating their peaches and
peas or brushing their teeth before
bed.
I could commiserate. After all,
our dentist finances his annual
family vacation on the Kubicks’
cavity bill alone.
“Where should we go this year
guys? EuroDisney?”
And as far as balanced meals go,
most of the time I feel like a short
order cook in The Diner From Hell.
“Yuck!”
“Gross, what is it?”
“I’m not eating.”
But just how far down the path to
scurvy and capped teeth had my
children actually gone?
I lined them up on the couch,
newspaper in hand, for a little quiz.
What kind of fruit had they eaten
yesterday?
They responded at first with a
stunned silence and sidelong looks
of panic.
I waited, tapping the paper
impatiently.
“Apple juice and Fruit Roll
Ups/’ my oldest son Justin offered
tentatively.
“Um, carrots?” Joe asked.
“Froot Loops?”
-“Flintstones vitamins?”
Like every decent parent, I felt
the need to prove my children’s
nutritional literacy, even if it took
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some prompting.
“What did you have for lunch,
Joe?”
“Peanut butter.”
“OK. A peanut butter sandwich.”
“NO! Peanut butter.”
“PLAIN peanut butter?” (Had the
Republicans been fooling with the
school-lunch program already?) _
“In a cup!’* he yelled.
“Oh,” I said sweetly, attempting
to get the interrogation back on
track. “I see, did you dip celery in
it?”
His look said, “You, Mom, are an
absolute lunatic.” His voice said,
“No. An apple.”
Bingo. He’d passed. Under the
auspices of the balanced lunch
program, he had consumed a
genuine fiber-filled piece of fruit in
the last 24 hours.
I moved on.
“What kind of vegetable did you
eat yesterday?”
“THIS ISN’T A QUIZ! I QUIT!”
Joe left the room before I got a
chance to ask him if he’d brushed
his teeth last night.
I know I’m not alone, and there is
some small comfort in that knowl
edge.
Like the majority of their peers,
my offspring arc lacking in culinary
keenness andhutritional savvy.
They think pesto is an Italian
word for nuisance and that a
kumquat is a country in the Middle
East.
The newspaper article father- ^
• more stated that the reason half of
reflection on the “poor .•
quality ofbeskheducatian.”
I’d have to agree. My kids seem
to gave gotten much of their liiriited
knowledge on the subject from The
National Enquirer School of
Nutritional Thought.
“Yupk, do you know how
many fag body parts might be in
that soup?” Anna asked one
night at supper. (This from a
girl, who as a toddler ate ants off
the sidewalk.)
“Did you know that if someone is
working and their wig falls off, you
might get a hairball in your
tunafish?” (Only, of course, if the
person is working in a tunafish
processing plant.)
“Mom, there’s a germ on you.
There’s about 100 million germs on
you right now,” Joe told me re
cently, his eyes wide.
“And even if you take a bath it
doesn’t work. They don’t come off.”
I think Joe’s class had been
talking about the importance of
hygiene, and the poor kid got
sidetracked on the prevalence of
bacteria on the human body.
But, all in all, they seem pretty
healthy despite their nutritional
failings.
Now if only I could quit worry
ing about those germs all over my
body.
And the potential hairball in my
sandwich.
And the roach wings in my
Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom...
Lange-Rublek Is a senior news-editorial
and sociology major and a Daily Nebraskan
columnist
Generation X is state of mind
Inner struggles are fun, aren’t
they?
And I’m not referring to the kind
of inner struggle where you say to
yourself, “I can make it to the next
commercial before I go to the
bathroom.” I’m talking about the
inner struggles that take place in the
mind. In my case, there’s plenty of
room for these conflicts.
Usually what happens is that
one of my brain cells takes up an
issue, another will disagree and the
other one will just kind of hang
out, waiting for the next commer
cial.
The latest issue about which at
least two-thirds of my brain cells
disagree is generations.
I’m having a very difficult time
with the theory that it is possible to
lump an entire segment of the
population of a certain age range
into a group. Generation X, for
example, is a very strange concept
tome.
Technically, I fall into this group.
This bothers me. I am disturbed by
the fact that I am legally bound into
this group of Xers, strictly on the
basis of the year in which I was
born, because I really don’t like
anything about this group.
This is where my brain cells
begin their tug of war over the issue.
One cell claims that it is just not
right to stereotype a generation of
people and then secede from the
group because I don’t like the
stereotype.
My other brain cell tells me I’m
right. It tells me in a very convinc
ing voice that the Generation X
person is nothing but a lazy,
disgruntled, Seattle-band lovin’,
goatee wearin’ (mainly the males)
loner who wants to be so individual
and alternative that he eventually
becomes a mockery of those very
desires by his pitiful imitation.
Todd Elwood
I’ve even gone so far as to
develop a test for potential Genera
tion Xers. If you claim that your
favorite color is flannel, if you
replace the word “like” for the word
“said” (as in “I was like, ‘No way!’
and she was like, ‘Uh-huh!’”), and if
all of your friends are named
“Dude,” you can safely claim
membership in the X Generation.
And may I say that I do not wish
to be a member. Actually, my
membership would probably be
cancelled, anyway. I would probably
be rejected from the generation for
having three brain cells. I believe
that this number overqualifies me by
at least two cells, but I’ll have to
review the official charter.
This may be a cruel exaggeration,
but the simple fact is that some of
those characteristics are believed to
be fact by some people, and I do not
want to be classified this way. But
apparently there are some people
who enjoy being viewed in this way.
Some people in the Generation X
don’t mind being moody recluses.
Some seem to want their lives to be
a Nirvana video, and this is strange
behavior. At least it is to my second
brain cell.
Where does all of this leave me
and my three brain cells, though?
It semis that many people claim
membership in Generation X, or any
neatly named generation, for the
pure fact that they can call some
thing their own. It’s as if they
become more of a complete person
by signing onto a stereotyped age
range.
I simply cannot do this. I feel that
all three of my brain cells evolved to
what they are today in the ’80s.
Yes, the “Decade of Greed.” The
only problem with this label is that I
do not consider myself to be a
greedy person, even though I grew
up in that decade.
Sure, I would someday like to
own a house with a two-car garage,
have a perfect, high-paying career,
raise 2.3 healthy children and live
happily ever after (Gimme, gimme,
gimme). But does this make me
greedy? And if it does, is it because
I claim membership to the vile and
evil decade known as the Reagan
years?
I doubt it.
So here I am without a generation
to call my own, and that’s just fine
with me.
I’m not a hippie. To me,
Woodstock is Snoopy’s small
yellow friend, and the strongest drug
I’ve tripped on is NyQuil.
I’m not a yuppie. I have no
portfolio, and I am certainly not a
professional anything.
I’m not a baby boomer. I don’t
even remember when Elvis was
alive.
And, dude, I’m like, not a
Generation Xer.
I feel that everyone has a right to
claim membership in a generation,
but for me, I believe it is all just a
state of mind. You can ignore the
stereotypes and be anything you
want to be.
At least that’s what my third
brain cell told me after the commer
cial break.
Elwood Is ■ scalar Eagllsh aad sociol
ogy major aad a Dally Nehraskaa colam
alst
White House druggies
given special pass»
■ • V' •• •- " . ■. . , ■■ "•
There was some interesting
mittee looking into drug testing.«.
— The director of the White , ;
Rouse Office of Administration,
Fatsy Thomasson—who, with '
Hillary Rodham Clinton, picked
many of the senior people in the
Administration—admitted under
sharp questioning by Sen.
Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) that 11
White House staff members have
been enrolled in a special random
drug-testing program because of
concerns about “recent drug use.”
She had previously mentioned
the figure in a written response to
the inquiries of Rep. Frank Wolf
(R-Va.), but this was the first time
details were mentioned at a public
hearing. '
Thomasson did not elaborate
on what she meant by recent drug
use. And she revealeid that
volunteers without adequate
security clearances have been
given access to sensitive areas in
both the East and West Wings of
the White House.
Who are these volunteers? One
can only speculate. It’s safe to say
they aren ’t from the traditional
values-promoting Family Re
search Council.
Such access contradicts
testimony Thomasson gave to the
subcommittee last year. At that
time, she denied that any volun
teers had access to the West
Wing, where the Oval Office is
located.
Under the White House’s
color-coded security system, blue
passes allow access to both the
president’s and vice president’s
offices. Now Thomasson has
acknowledged that some blue
passes had been issued to
volunteers.
Even those with short-term
memories may recall that last
December, while Newt Gingrich
was the Speaker-in-waiting, he
suggested that the reason so many
people working in the White
House had delayed getting their
official access passes was
because they had used illegal
drugs. For such persons to submit
to the background checks
required of all pass applicants
would have meant divulging that
drug use, a possible denial of a
security clearance and the passes
and bad publicity for the adminis
tration. So they were given
temporary passes instead.
Gingrich quoted a “senior law
enforcement official” as saying
that up to 25 percent of White
House staff members had used
drugs as recently as within “four
or five years” of joining the
Clinton staff.
The media and the Democrats
Cal Thomas
outbid each other in outrage.
Editorials spoke of character
assassination and worse. White
House Chief of Staff Leon
Panetta said of Gingrich, “His
charges are absolutely false.
There is no one in the White
House who uses drugs. If Newt
Gingrich has evidence to the
contrary, he ought to tell me
about it, he ought to make it
public, and I’ll fire them.”
Does being enrolled in the
random drug-testing program
because of recent drug use meet
Panetta’s test? One eagerly awaits
to see if heads will roll.
When Rep. Wolf raised
questions about the delay in
finishing security clearances for
all White House staffers, the
administration stonewalled.
Wolf s investigation of some staff
members uncovered cases of past
drug use and drug convictions,
years of unpaid taxes, unpaid
debts and financial irregularities.
All of these could have been
grounds for denial by the Secret
Service of a permanent pass.
The right pass allows the
holder full access to die White
House, including the president
and vice president and any papers
one might see lying around. Such
access ought not to be provided
to “volunteers” who have not
received the proper clearances.
Neither should it be granted to
people who have not cleared the
usual FBI backrgound checks.
Wolfs office requested a
General Accounting Office
investigation into the pass matter
last year. It is ongoing. A con
gressional source, who wishes to
remain anonymous, says the
investigation was hampered
because of the “slow and painful
response of the White House.”
Things picked up, the source
says, after the November election,
and White House compliance is
said to have improved.
How many White House
staffers who ought to have
permanent passes still don’t have
them, and why not? What’s
holding up their clearances? Have
they submitted the required
paperwork? These and other
questions should be answered
immediately.
01995 Los Angeles Times Syndicate
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Mike Luckovich
