TED TAYLOR is a senior
news-editorial major and
Daily Nebraskan senior
reporter•
In this world of imperfections,
there lives the perfect person.
She can teach you to make a show
er curtain and your own soap. She can
help you create lavish dishes for every
course that would bring Julia Childs to
tears, and she’s the boss of her own
$ 150-million empire.
Not to mention she does it all look
ing as hip in her role as a new character
on “Friends.”
Her name?
Martha Stewart. (Sorry, Mom.)
An educated, powerful, rich and
beautiful woman, Stewart seemingly
has it all - including the strings holding
discount giant Kmart above water.
As one of her biggest fans, I was
intrigued by a recent Time magazine
article that detailed her business rela
tionship with the store that has been
watching annual revenues slip further
and further below those of their main
competitor, Wal-Mart.
Enter Stewart.
Her new line of bath towels, bed
sheets and paints, the “Martha Stewart
Everyday Collection,” is expected to
generate more than $500 million in
sales this year alone, Time reported.
K-Martha indeed.
The idea of the new line of
Stewartness at Kmart has been called
an attempt by the store, and Stewart, to
let the “normal” people of the world in
It’s a good thing
Martha’s magic enlightens
on a Stewart sort of lifestyle. Others
call it pushing her “not-so-normal”
lifestyle onto the average consumer.
Abnormal because she’s a little
anal.
Abnormal because there aren’t
many people out there like her who
need to prepare an eggplant souffle for
a dinner party of 30.
Abnormal because she sets an
impossible standard for average men
and women who like to dabble in
domesticity.
so say ner aeiraciors.
The detractors who are probably
the same people who don’t know the
difference between a daisy and a daf
fodil and can’t turn their ovens on with
out asking someone to remind them
which knob it is.
But f am one of those who doesn’t
see anything wrong with a model
turned stockbroker turned mother
turned caterer turned media mogul
turned powerful businesswoman help
ing people all over the world how to
turn their houses into homes.
A quote from one of Stewart’s
many unofficial Web sites states that,
“when she smiles, all is peace in the
world.”
And it seems there are quite a few
people who agree.
In six years, readership of her mag
azine, “Martha Stewart Living,” has
risen from 250,000 to about 2.3 million.
Her Emmy-award winning televi
sion show of the same name recently
went from weekly syndication to an
everyday spot on a major network. (It
can be seen Monday through Friday at
9 a.m. on Cable Vision Channel 6.)
So deep down, you really do want
to learn how to make a wreath from
dried sunflowers, don’t you?
Colleagues and friends have
scoffed at the fact that I do (but have
not attempted to). They say, “Ted,
you’re insane and she’s a 54-year-old
freak.”
But I just shake my head at their
jabs and continue to write down recipes
from her online magazine.
People should respect the J. Crew
clad diva of domesticity, in the least
because she’s a pretty good case of how
to succeed in life and business.
She paid her way through Barnard
College by modeling, and used her his
tory and architecture-history degree to
become a stockbroker in the 1960s.
She quit her job on Wall Street to take
care of her daughter, Alexis, then
divorced her husband who had the hots
for one of her former assistants - who
was 21 years younger.
While raising Alexis, she started a
successful (duh) catering business,
then became editor of “House
Beautiful.” It was probably about then
she started her master plan to take over
every kitchen, bedroom and garden in
the civilized world.
The rest is, to borrow her coined
phrase, “a good thing.”
“I don’t run out of ideas,” she once
said. “I run out of time.”
I hope for Kmart and the rest of us
who appreciate her valid attempt at
making the world a little brighter with a
fern-print napkin or two, that will never
happen.
More than just
the blues
Depression can be eased with help
Editor’s note: October is
National Depression Awareness
Month.
Depression is not a weakness,
nor is it a passing blue mood. It is an
illness like any other medical illness
that needs treatment. Symptoms can
last for months and may become
quite severe, sometimes resulting in
thoughts of suicide. Approximately
two-thirds of depressed patients
actually attempt suicide and 10 per
cent to 15 percent-succeed.
The good news is that depres
sion is a very treatable illness with
80 percent to 90 percent of
depressed patients responding to
treatment by the end of one year.
Common symptoms of depression
include:
■ Feeling sad or empty most of
the day, occurring nearly every day.
■ Inability to enjoy activities.
■ Sleep disturbances, either too
much or too little sleep.
. ■ Significant changes in
appetite or weight, an increase or
decrease.
■ Fatigue or loss of energy.
■ Feeling of worthlessness or
inappropriate guilt.
■ Trouble in concentrating,
problems with making decisions.
■ Recurrent thoughts of death.
In addition, college students may
experience irritable moods, failure
to maintain weight and poor school
performance. They may also exhibit
an increase in drug abuse, sexual
promiscuity, erratic class attendance
and not meeting responsibilities.
Early diagnosis and the appro
priate treatment can have an impor
tant positive impact on a person’s
life. Depending on the severity of
the depression, the person needs
either inpatient or outpatient treat
ment. Psychotherapy in combination |
with medication has been shown to i
be a more effective treatment than
either method used alone.
Anyone who is concerned about
depression for themselves, a friend
or a loved one may take advantage
of a free depression screening pro
gram on National Depression
Screening Day on Thursday in the
Pewter Room of the Nebraska
Union.
1 nerapists on stall at
Counseling and Psychological
Services will conduct thescregnings
from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. '
The session will include a pre
sentation on depression by a psy
chologist with time for questions
from the audience, an opportunity to
complete a confidential self-screen
ing test, a chance to view current
videos on depression, and time to
speak privately with a therapist con
cerning the results of the test.
A variety of printed materials on
depression will be also available. For
information call 472-7450.
TODD MUNSON is a
junior broadcasting
major and a Daily
Nebraskan columnist.
I was standing in line at the
union bakery the other day when I
had an idea for today’s column. The
rant started to flow. How can the
union management sleep at night
when they have the chutzpah to
charge 80 cents for a rotten banana?
I could imagine paying that much if
the Chiquita lady handed it to me,
but when it’s self-serve, that’s
ridiculous. Then I realized there
were more important things to write
about than the oppression of health
conscious students.
From my position at the tempo
rary wall/bulletin board, I over
heard the comments of a group of
fellows in T-shirts with some greek
letters on them. “Look at that, stu
pid queers have their own week
now," said one guy. “Week my ass,
it’s the whole damn mpnth,” said
another.
After an hour in line, I made it
over to the poster those strapping
young bucks had brutally lamented.
It was a poster that promoted
“National Coming Out Week,”
",u;ch starts today and is part of
and Lesbian History Month.
Years of watching violent televi
sion has desensitized me to most
things, but the comments from
those jar-heads really offended me.
Now before you lean over to the
person next to you and say, “I knew
that weird Todd guy was a flamer,”
allow me to explain. This isn’t
going to be a column in which I out
myself. One thing I do know is that
I’m not gay. Dudes just don’t do it
for me and my last few dates with
/
Sexual tension
women have terrified me. So if any
thing, I guess you could say that
I’m considering becoming asexual.
Still, their spited comments hurt me
just as they would a gay person.
This past Memorial Day week
end, I met a woman at a local water
ing hole. It was one of those meet
ings you can never plan on, unless
of course you always spill beer on
people. She lived in New York and
was in town for a few days visiting
some family. Over a fresh pitcher of
beer we got to know each other. We
dissected Jhe special edition “Star
Wars” trilogy, waxed poetic about
our favorite “Simpsons” episodes,
and bemoaned our recent breakups.
She was even a Tim Burton fan. At
last call, w'e were off to my apart
ment to watch “Mars Attacks.” Like
the old people in the Miller Time
commercial, we got a little funky
on the couch. Before things got too
funky. Megan began to feel uncom
fortable with the situation. You see,
in her recent breakup, her partner
wasn’t exactly a boyfriend. Megan
was a bisexual.
Needless to say,.I was pretty
confused and weirded-out. What do
you say in a situatjmi like that? My
brain scramblecHor a response and
stopped at a Thanksgiving dinner
many years ago.
I sat at the end of the table with
my favorite cousin. Hungry from
hours of pre-dinner horseplay, we
piled on the food. Everything was
rosy until she loaded up on a
strange concoction. “What’s that
stuff?” I asked. “Creamed com.
Grandma made it special for me,”
she replied. Watching her enjoy eat
ing that twisted variation of com, I
felt the need to label her a sick
weirdo; that is, until she said I was
equally weird for mixing my regu
lar com with my mashed potatoes.
After dinner, we hit the tire swing,
the differences over our respective
vegetable choices behind us.
This turkey day anecdote is a
perfect analogy to my reaction to
Megan’s bisexuality. At first, it was
a bif strange, but I realized that she
was the same person whether
creamed com was on the menu or
not. I certainly didn’t lash out
at my cousin because of her
preference of creamed^ 1
corn over regular
com, so why
should I chastise somebody
simply because their sexual
preference is
different than
mine? If
anything, I
felt the need to
scold myself for being
so stereotypical in
assuming that she was
heterosexual.
For Coming ——- _
Out Week to work
at the University of -
Nebraska-Lincoln, the students
must accept the
Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/'Transgender
Resource Center as they would any
other student group. If you fail to
accept your fellow students sim
ply because your beliefs are dif
ferent, you might was well try
to Republicanize the Young
Democrats, convert the
Navigators to the occult,
fatten up the Strength and
Fitness Club, call for the
drug testing of
NORML, keep the
rock climbing club
the ground... I
could go on - UNL,
has about 200
more clubs, each,
with different
beliefs, but I
think I’ve
made my
point.
This week, when I see my fel
low students have the courage to
declare who they are, I won’t think
of them as strange and twisted,
but as people who simply
enjoy
_\
__ creamed com.
They eat creamed com. I don’t.
That’s our only difference, and it’s
one that I could never judge a per
son’s character by.
Here’s a final thought to ponder:
—-".... --
~ ... .—
Why
would open homophobes, i.e., the
fellows responsible for the idea for
this editorial, choose to live under
the same roof as a few dozen other
guys? Something isn’t right here.