ASUN
Candidate’s aspirations fade after elections
Like hope, political aspirations
spring eternal. On March 6, this
coming Wednesday to be exact, we
will have another opportunity to
elect a new student government.
Somebody hold me back.
After almost five years here, I
have absolutely no clue what our
student government actually does.
Well, I know that if you are the
ASUN president, you get to go to
the Huskers’ bowl game. Aside from
that, I’m at a loss.
I’m not against either of the two
parties running. I like some of what
each has to say. OFFICE’S idea of a
community cabinet to consider
university issues and problems is
excellent. It seems like a unifying
idea that would help get many points
of view across.
Some of ACTION’S ideas are
good as well. I doubt that anyone
would be disappointed if they tried
to take on Bill Byrne.
My big hope is that no matter
which group gets elected, they will
be more productive than Shawntell
Hurtgen and last year’s crop of
political wanna-bes. Their idea of a
productive debate is deciding where
to go after a 29-minute meeting.
Maybe this year’s winners won’t try
to single-handedly destroy
Barrymore’s.
Both Eric Marintzer and Justin
Firestone seem to be capable of
doing the job. Both have good ideas
and experience. Their parties seem
to be set up adequately. Even the
issues seem good this year.
And even through all of the even
handed compliments, I wonder, why
I am supposed to care? Like any of
this really matters.
Realistically, if Marintzer walks
into Byrne’s office and demands fair
Jody Burke
“Don’t stand out in
front of the Union and
hassle me. I just want
lunch; you go decide the
fate of the free world. ”
seats for the students, he’ll find
himself out on his butt quicker than
you can whistle the NU fight song.
Firestone wants us to believe that his
party will decrease overcrowding on
campus. Aside from rounding up
everybody whose name starts with
the letter ‘S’ and transferring them
to Iowa State, I doubt he’ll be
successful. In fact, I doubt any of
their ideas will really fly, no matter
who is elected.
As well, none or few of the
people involved are doing it with
altruistic fervor. Most are doing it, as
some freely admit, to “pad their
resumes.” Fine by me, but I just
don’t want to contribute to the
political fantasies of people who feel
they are the next Spiro Agnew. Go
join your organizations, and leave
me out of it. Don’t stand out in front
of the Union and hassle me. I just
want lunch; you go decide the fate
of the free world.
In years past, the students were
treated to a show. Each party would
rip on the other, defame each other’s
character and insult their opponents’
mothers.,
I definitely miss that.
At times I think that the humor
derived from the process is the only
reason to continue this little game of
“Elect Me!” The best campaign
would be one where we send the
candidates into a room and let them
fight it out. Unfortunately, this year
both parties have refrained from
referring to the other groups’ sisters
and aunts as “egg-sucking freaks.”
Take my word for it, a year from
now, you won’t be able to remember
even one speck of the campaign
goals, no matter who gets elected.
Luckily, since it is ASUN, they don’t
have to follow through on them
anyway.
My own personal solution to the
problem of “which resume stuffer
should I send to the Orange Bowl”
has been simple. I enter my own
candidates on the election form. In
each of the past two years, I was one
of the three actual voters. Each of us
was pulled viciously into the Union
and forced to vote.
Ultimately though, neither
Spidcrman nor Napoleon was
elected. Regardless, I felt the wheels
of democracy turn rustily by my
hands — and I had a moment of
. clarity. In the end it doesn’t matter.
The football team runs the
campus anyway.
Burke is a senior English major and a
Daily Nebraskan columnist
Soul
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Vegetarian M »cads to health, peace
What many mid westerners eat is
SAD.
That is, “meat-based eating —
centered on the dead animal — with
few vegetables,” and little day-to
day deviation from this plan. This is
known as the Standard American
Diet. Sounds delectable, doesn’t it?
If you could have anything under
the sun to eat for your next meal, in
what would you partake?
May seem a silly question to
some. But I take it quite seriously.
Every time hunger hits, this
question is confronted. And for the
past several years as I’ve catered to
my every culinary whim, the answer
has not been meat.
I’d feel odd calling myself a
vegan, or strict, vegetarian, because
I can’t say that from this point
forward, I will not eat animal flesh
(meat, poultry, fish and seafood) or
animal products (eggs, dairy and
honey).
I probably could be called a
lacto-ovo-vegetarian who eats no
fish, flesh or fowl but does consume
dairy products and eggs.
My only conviction for eating as
I do is that I try to respect my body
and its needs. So I give it what it
craves, when it yearns for it and in
the quantities that satisfy it.
If tomorrow, a voice from inside
screamed “Big Mac,” I’d nosedive
into the SAD regimen, gathering my
loose change and heading for the
golden arches.
There are many respectable
reasons not to eat meat. Many
ethical reasons are based in a
spiritual belief that most world
religions share. Namely, to respect a
larger force of creation, to do unto
others as we’d have them do unto us.
Henry David Thoreau said that
humans would gradually stop eating
animals, “as surely as the common
tribes have left off eating each other
when they came in contact with the
more civilized.”
Meat-eaters can expect to eat as
/
Kelly Johnson
y “If tomorrow, a voice
from inside screamed
‘Big Mac, ’ Fd nose-dive
into the SAD regimen,
gather my loose change
and head for the golden
arches. ”
many as 900 animals during their
lifetime.
Hindus view the killing of any
animal as a violation of Ahimsa,
thus the sacred cow. The Hindu code
of sarva-bhuta-hita, devotion to the
good of all creatures; says people
should see the life of all creatures
regardless of their bodies.
Buddhist belief is centered on
love and compassion. And so
violence toward animals is a
measure of the regard people have
for human life.
Judaism also has a tradition of
consideration and kind treatment of
animals, and many Christians follow
Jesus’ example and pay consider
ation to all creatures, great and
small.
So, in the name of religion, many
people devote their entire culinary
persuasion to vegetarianism. But
there are still other reasons including
economic, health and environmental.
Dr. Patricia Johnston heralds
vegetarianism as “providing a diet
that is nutritionally adequate,
protective against chronic diseases
and deficiencies and sufficient to
supply the world’s increasing
population whilst also being
ecologically responsible.”
Any of these could justify eating
a vegetarian diet. Further, more
people apparently are finding due
cause to give up meat.
Customs are changing with time,
as Thoreau said they would. In
Britain, the vegetarian diet had
100,000 adherents in 1945. It has
more than 3 million today.
Stephen Conner of the British
Vegetarian Society said, “Unprec
edented in both speed and scale,
vegetarianism has transformed the
way we look at food, and the way
we look at ourselves.”
Leo Tolstoy said that by our very
natures, human aversion to all
killing is strong. But greed overrides
that instinct. Thereby, people
disregard that which is most natural
to them.
And Thoreau said, “The faintest
assured objection which one healthy
man feels will at length prevail over
the arguments and customs of
mankind.”
The traditions in this agricultural
Mecca prompt many of us to eat
meat. For whatever reason, my
nature has spoken through a faint
objection to meat. And by eating
only that which I crave, I’ve fallen
toward vegetarianism.
Next time you find yourself
staring blankly into the cupboard,
about to indulge in another can of
Spam, ask yourself: Are you hungry
for what you’re about to eat? Does it
nourish your soul as well as your
body? Are you hearing the voice and
message of your appetite?
You might be surprised where the
answers will lead.
Johnson is a senior news-editorial and
English major and a Daily Nebraskan
coinmnht
Dole obstructs pack
with his campaign
WASHINGTON — When
Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole
made it clear a year ago that he
intended to seek the presidential
nomination, a longtime leader of
the Republican Party, a man of
Dole’s own generation, told me:
“I wish he weren’t doing that. His
intentions are good, but he is
going to cause us a huge prob
lem.”
The reason, he said, is that
“Dole may not be strong enough
to win both the nomination and
election, but he is a big enough
figure so that no one else in the
party may be able to get around
him.”
The speculations of this
Republican chieftain stuck in my
mind, but never made it into print.
Now a year has elapsed, and the
spectacle in the Republican
primaries is confirming that
hunch. Dole does in fact present a
huge obstacle to anyone else
winning the nomination. And yet,
the shakiness of his performance
raises real doubts about his
capacity to deliver the White
House back into Republican
hands.
To measure his impact on the
race, you really have to go back a
year when other Republicans
were deciding whether to run.
Many have blamed Sen. Phil
Gramm of Texas, with all his talk
about the millions it would cost to
run in the 1996 primaries and his
boasting of his own ftmd-raising
prowess, for supposedly intimi
dating others from running.
But Dole was something else
— the last political survivor of the
fabled World War II generation, a
man whose office gave him
unlimited fund-raising ability, the
“heir apparent” to the throne of
Nixon, Reagan and Bush, and a
figure that most of the other
potential candidates genuinely
liked and admired.
If the contest had been entirely
within the next generation of
Republicans, the office-holders
between 40 and 60,1 doubt that
so many of the political stars of
that generation — Jack Kemp,
Dick Cheney, Bill Bennett, Dan
Quayle, Newt Gingrich and a
covey of governors — all would
have decided to wait for another
year. Running against each other
would have looked like a fair
fight. Running against Dole was
another matter. He occupied so
much territory — as the legisla
tor-in-chief, the senior partner in
the congressional leadership, the
man who was always on the TV
talk shows, speaking for the party
as well as himself — that he
crowded most of these other
wanna-be’s off the field.
The result was that the
challengers who actually entered
the race were mainly light
weights, men who, whatever their
abilities, brought little in the way
of national recognition or well
known accomplishments with
them. It is hard to imagine, for
example, that had Kemp (the first
choice of 1992 delegates for
1996) or Bennett (the author-hero
of cultural conservatives) or
Quayle (the former vice president
David Broder
“Dole does in fact
present a huge
obstacle to anyone else
winning the
nomination. And yet,
the shakiness of h is
performance raises
real doubts about his
capacity to deliver the
White House back into
Republican hands. ”
and rehabilitated champion of the
“Murphy Brown” battle) entered
the race, that Patrick J. Buchanan
could have emerged in the way
that he has as spokesman for the
populist conservatives in the party
and the winner of the New
Hampshire primary.
Absent Dole, it is hard to
believe that the entire moderate
conservative wing of the party
would have been represented only
by Steve Forbes, the man with the
flat tax and slash-and-bum
commercials, and former Tennes
see Gov. Lamar Alexander, a man
who conceals his creditable
government record in a vain
attempt to present himself as an
“outsider.” If Forbes still had
decided to run, it is doubtful his
campaign would have been as
negative as it has been. The only
rationale for his TV assault tactics
was that Dole had to be cut down
to size to give anyone else a
chance.
With the field he actually
faces, the resources of money and
political support his Senate
position helped him obtain, Dole
ought to be able to sustain his
favorite’s role and collect scores
of delegates in the two dozen
contests now popping up on the
political calendar.
But for any Republican
watching Dole campaign on the
same day and within a few miles
of President Clinton in Iowa and
New Hampshire, it was hard to
avoid the sinking sensation that
your guy is badly overmatched.
Anything is still possible in our
politics. Seeing what has hap
pened already, only a fool would
try to guess the remainder of the
1996 script. But so far, that
Republican chieftain’s warning
looks ever more serious.
(C) 19%, Washington Post Writers
Group
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