Humble hero
Red Letter Day guide offers answers to campus-related questions
MATTHEW EICKMAN is
a senior finance and eco
nomics major and a Daily
Nebraskan columnist.
My editor tells me I’m not doing
a very good job. He says my
columns don’t let you know who I
am.
So, I scrapped all of my ideas. I
chose not to write in favor of
Initiative 413.1 decided not to tell
you to be nice to people.
No political column here. No
moral issues. Just a little about one
of my heroes.
Realize first that I have many
heroes. They include Magic
Johnson, Bill Gates, my father and
the guy who invented the remote
control (bless his soul).
But, I want you to hear about a
hero you may be more familiar with.
He is a Red Letter Day tour
guide.
I admire his knowledge, his ded
ication and his tolerance for annoy
ing questions. I sat down with him
and asked him questions about his
job.
Out of the kindness of his heart,
he discussed some popular ques
tions and told me the answers he is
trained to give.
Because my hero is a humble
young man, he asked that he remain
anonymous. For purposes of this
column, we’ll just call him
C ampustourguy.
Hey Campustourguy, I see fra
ternities, sororities and residence
halls. Where should I live? And
where can I partake in alcohol?
All of your options will give you
a chance to meet new people.
The fraternities and sororities
are kind of cool. You have more
people to share clothes with, and
you will probably have a test file
that makes exams easy.
Some of the fraternities are dry,
and some pretend to be dry. Make
sure you find out if you can get
trashed in your room or if you need
to go off campus.
The halls are cool in their own
ways. You can get your own room or
you can share. Either way, you will
have more privacy. There are actual
ly doors on all the bathroom stalls
so you can read your newspaper pri
vately.
Alcohol is not legal, so
you need to ask your SA
what the best way is to
sneak it into the halls.
It seems this wasn’t cov
ered in the freshman halls this
year, and kids haven’t real
ized that paper sacks may be
an obvious indicator.
Hey Campustourguy, do
you have a student government on
campus? I want to be a politician.
Why yes, it’s called the
Association of Students of the
University of Nebraska. In **
Liituiy, ii is a puwcnui
decision-making body.
Realistically, it serves * r
as the powerless voice of X
the students.
If you want to be a politician,
you may be in luck. See, it used to
be a requirement that you be greek
to be in ASUN. However, the last
couple of years have seen increased
emphasis on involving all students.
In fact, the person who will
probably be the next ASUN presi
dent will probably be successful
because he/she realizes that real
people live in the halls and off-cam
pus.
It’s just too bad that they had to
take a step backwards by disre
garding the Athletic — __
Department in the
Homecoming process.
Hey —
Campustourguy, I’m
thinking of going to UNL
instead of Doane because I
don’t want a liberal arts education.
At UNL, will I be able to focus on
my major area of study?
There are these things called
IS/ES classes. Basically, they suck.
To fulfill the requirements laid
down by the programs, you must
take a diverse collection of classes
that fulfill certain requirements.
UNL has figured out that these
classes make it more of a pain to
graduate, so you have to stay here
longer, so more money comes in.
You then have two options. You
can stay here for seven years, fulfill
your IS/ES requirements, owe
thousands of dollars in
loans, and leave a well-rounded
poor person.
Or, you can take all the classes
in your major, ignore the foreign
language restrictions, drop out and
become a cigar salesperson for the
federal government.
The sales position is actually an
internship, so you may only be paid
with gifts from high-ranking gov
ernment officials.
Kind of leaves you no choice but
to receive a liberal arts education.
At least Lincoln is bigger than
Crete.
Hey Campustourguy, I assume
there are a lot of things to do in
Lincoln. What are the neatest things
about UNL?
UNL offers lots of cool things.
Most importantly, you can use your
student ED to charge an 85-cent pop
before every class. The pop will
then either be paid for by loans or
your parents.
ii you gei screwed into ouyrng
more than $250 of books, you can
get a cool sweatshirt for free. The
sweatshirt can then serve as a stu
dent ID because every student has
one.
You can play intramurals in
one of the best intramural
sports programs in the
nation. If you’re like my
friend TJ, you can even become
a ref and eject players every
game.
If you live in the halls, you will
have free Internet access. You will
be able to download nudie pictures
faster than ever with the fast con
nection.
\ Oh yeah, we also have a football
team.
Hey Campustourguy, I'm from
A Florida and I’m used to warm
B weather. What s it like in Lincoln?
m Hey, you could go to school in
W North Dakota. Any other questions?
’ Hey Campustourguy, one more
question. What s with all this con
struction? I have wood chips in my
sandals.
Oh, that mess over there? That’s
our 15-year plan to recn^^^m v ^
by automatically ^vmg theffl jobs f
on campus.
You will have to pay tor
it, but you may not ever use it.
So it s kind of like life insur
ance or required textbooks
(from the smart-ass at the end
of the line)?
Oh, another future hero in
the making.
mmSmlmm
Crash the parties
If students COMMIT to ACTION, ASUN idea might fly
JOSHWIMMERisa
senior news-editorial
major and a Daily
Nebraskan columnist.
So, I got pretty worked up last
Wednesday.
The Daily Nebraskan ran this
story reporting that student leaders -
among them Sara Russell, president
of the Association of Students of the
University of Nebraska - wanted to
eliminate parties.
Of all the sick, sick, sick ideas. I
was just plain outraged. I was like,
“The J-Dogg will not stand for this!”
And then my ex-girlfriend
showed up and read the article, and
said, “Josh, you bonehead. They’re
just talking about getting rid of the
party system for ASUN elections.”
And then she slapped me around
a little and said, “And drop this ‘J
Dogg’ thing, you freak. You’re white,
and you’re from North Dakota.”
Normally, at that point I would
have reminded her that Fargo is the
birthplace ol Pras ol the Fugees -
whose full name, after all, is Bjorn
“Pras” Odegaard - but I was too
interested in this AS UN thing.
I mean, I’ve been here four years
now. The ASUN party system is pret
ty much a way of life for me.
I’m accustomed to seeing posters
and newspaper stories flashing bold,
catchy, completely capitalized party
names at me - names like ACTION
and NASA and AC/DC.
And I confess, once my room
mate and I even led our own party,
albeit briefly. No, seriously - we
were the EXIT party because we fig
ured we wouldn’t have to hang up
many signs that way.
The point is, before last
Wednesday, I’d never imagined elec
tions without the party system. And
when I did think about it, it seemed
like a good idea, but it raised some
significant concerns.
And I’m talking significant con
cerns here, folks. There are minor
concerns to consider too, of course.
Like, what is the function of the
greek system, if not to govern our
student body? And, if we eliminate
parties and a bunch of greeks still
win, what are the hundreds of other
students who didn’t make time to
vote but still feel oppressed going to
bitch about?
But those concerns are trivial.
I’m worried about things like, if
we get rid of the party system, who’s
gonna vote?
Should ASUN make a go at the
no-party plan, I predict a low, low,
low voter turnout - as opposed to the
merely low, low turnout we’re used
to.
If there isn’t one greek party, the
fraternities and sororities can’t mobi
lize en masse to vote for it. We’ll lose
a great big chunk of the potential
electorate right there.
And should that be the case,
there won’t be a lesser of two evils
for the rabid, um, non-conformists to
mindlessly band together and vote
against.
So I see almost zero voters. No
biggie, though. There’s something
more important to consider.
I’m betting on a lot fewer candi
dates too.
See, us humans, we’re social ani
mals. By and large, we hate doing
stuff by ourselves.
If your friends aren’t thinking
about running, or if nobody in your
house is thinking about running, are
you going to give it a shot?
It’d be a lonely business. Like I
said, my ASUN party disbanded after
ohe day in the race, so I don’t know
firsthand what it’d be like. But I bet
making posters and fliers is a lot
more ftm with 40 or 50 other people
than it is with just your roommate.
My next concern follows logical
ly: If we lose all these potential can
didates for lack of camaraderie, the
£
only people left over will be, like,
these bold, do-it-yourselfer, lone
wolf types.
They’ll be nuts. They’ll believe
that they alone, without the support
of a whole gaggle of other folks, are
fit to lead the University of Nebraska
into the future.
So they’ll probably be conceited
bastards.
And, that said, they’ll probably
all be running for president.
Seriously. Trust me. ‘Cause if the
J-Dogg isn’t an expert on conceited
bastardness - well, then no one is.
So we’ll have, like, five or six
separate people - at least - vying for
the honor of leading our student
body. And probably some of them
will have toadies running for vice
president. I hate toadies.
But honestly, I think there’s some
solid reasoning going on there. (Of
course, naturally I do, because I just
wrote it.) We’ve got ASUN spots that
are still unfilled this year, and last
year’s election was supposed to have
been pretty successful.
So truly, if you’re a conceited
bastard - as we’ve already estab
lished you are - and you’re running
for ASUN, are you going to cam
paign for “Senator of the College of
Human Resources and Family
Sciences” when you could be queen
bee of the hive or alpha male of the
pack? I bet not.
All these concerns aside, I do
want to give a big thumbs up to the
members of ASUN’s COMMIX
party who have been bold enough to
suggest dismantling the party sys
tem.
Please, gentle readers, allow me
to wax corny for a moment.
The folks in ASUN are faced
with a pretty whiny and apathetic
constituency - a student body that is
often heard muttering about greek
control of student government but
rarely seen making the effort to do
something about it.
In spite of all this, some of our ,
ASUN representatives have taken the
time and trouble to try to change
things, essentially to rebuild the elec
toral process from the ground up, so
that some of them may very well
have trouble getting re-elected next
spring themselves.
I want to send them a shout-out
from the J-Dogg.
(And if that doesn’t get me into
Sara Russell’s pants, I don’t know
what will.)
And I hope they do decide to
, abolish the party system, because I
am 100 percent in favor of a revolu
tion, baby. It could be a flop or it
could be the best thing since cyber
pom, but we’re never going to know
if we don’t try, like that little engine
that could.
And if we do try it, and it does
work, hey - let’s have a big party.
J-Dogg out.