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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (April 23, 1999)
Happy birthday, Adolf Genocidal mass murder’s legacy lives at Colorado high school TIM SULLIVAN is a third year law student and a Daily Nebraskan colum nist The Trenchcoat Mafia. Why? As most everyone is aware by now, on Tuesday of this week the nation watched in horror as live coverage of a deadly rampage was beamed into our schools, homes and workplaces. Two Littleton, Colo., high-school students - Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris - executed 12 of their Columbine High School classmates and one teacher and wounded numer ous others before taking their own lives. The deadly duo fancied themselves part of a group dubbed the “Trenchcoat Mafia.” They earned the moniker by way of wearing long black trenchcoats, regardless of the weather, and sporting berets with Teutonic crosses, which bear the same symbolism of the mod ern-day swastika. They were featured in their high school yearbook last year. Everyone there knew about them. They were known to be admirers of Adolf Hitler - the man who will (hope fully) be forever known as the most prolific genocidal mass murderer in human history. Klebold and Harris played war games, bragged to other students about their guns and often spoke German to each other. They also made numerous refer ences to “4-20,” Adolf Hitler’s birthday. Thai, on April 20,1999 - Hitler’s birthday - they avenged themselves against the people they hated - athletes, whom they referred to as “jocks,” Jews, African-Americans and Hispanics. When they took Columbine High School under siege, they commanded students from those groups to stand up, yelling “We’re going to kill every one of you.” • Again, the question is why. A lot of people are struggling to find the answer to that question. The media are inundated with interviews of experts of the social sciences who try to answer that question. Listening to the pundits and the experts ova the last couple of days, I kept thinking about my own childhood and teen-age years. I moved around a lot, because I was a military brat. I went to four different high schools and countless grade and junior high schools. I know what it’s like to feel like an outcast. Although I was what I would con sider a good athlete, I found myself ineligible to participate in a lot of sports because of residency eligibility require ments. Typically, the rules for different sports require that you reside in the city you want to play in for six months prior to the season’s beginning - a require ment I almost never could meet. I know athletes were viewed by some as being at the “top of the peck ing order,” as one pundit surmised. But, I never viewed myself as inferior. I found other avenues of expression -1 participated heavily in newspaper and yearbook production, mainly as a pho tographer and sometimes a writer. I found my niche, despite the obsta cles set in my path by virtue of my life situation. Klebold and Harris found their niche in the so-called Trenchcoat Mafia. Absent finding a niche in a non violent, useful, productive activity, they allowed their hatred and jealousy to overwhelm them - to consume diem, if you will. I don’t know how many students attend Columbine High School, but it appeared from the footage to be fairly large. I suspect that no one took them seriously. Not the teachers, the other students, or perhaps more importantly, the guid ance and counseling staff at the school. Had school officials tried to inter vene, perhaps the nation would not be mourning the dead and trying to answer this difficult question. I just find it unfathomable that no one there was able to recognize the Trenchcoat Mafia’s preoccupation with hate and take steps to intervene. Harris made a video at school about his guns. Harris and Klebold both were arrested last year for stealing a car. They showed up once - albeit two hours late and in the wrong place - to fight the “jocks,” bearing swords and brass knuckles. And what of the parents of these kids? Didn’t they know they were rais ing gun-toting, hatred-spewing little Hitler worshipers? What the hell is wrong with a soci ety that ignores - no, accepts - this type of behavior in our youth? I don’t know the answer. But I think it may be found somewhere in the morals and values of the boomer gener ation (of which I belong) - the ones \ raising our Generation X. I think the attitude of the boomers in the ’80s has spread to-no, infested - the hearts and minds of the younger generation. I think the Boomers let themselves succumb to Reaganomics and the self-centered materialism and disregard for the welfare of others that the evil Republican party line espouses. They just don’t care about anyone but themselves. Neither did Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. Conservative values and beliefs - incorporating materialism and self reliance - are tearing at the moral fiber of our country. Its unyielding, unforgiv ing rigidity shocks the conscience. Perhaps Generation X will raise its children to accept diversity and respect the rights of others. Perhaps they’ll be more liberal and tolerant of differences. If we can’t agree on the answer as to why this happened, then perhaps we can all agree on one thing - we have to practice and teach acceptance of diver sity - political correctness, if you must call it that. Only through accepting diversity in our culture can we hope for a violence free society. Remember - Hitler was intolerant of diversity Just say no to Tae-Bo Billy, the Tae-Bo god, leads your body through a course of pain JAY GISH is a senior broad casting major and Daib Nebraskan columnist. Tae-Bo: one of the most dangerous phrases in the English language... er, the Korean language... OK, I don’t know where the phrase conies from, but trust me, it’s bad news. For those who are Amish and don’t know, Tae-Bo is the latest fitness video craze. Women all over the nation are purchasing the video, which features a big, mean dude named Billy (also known as Son of the Terminator) who teaches them how to kickbox the air. I recently acquired a copy of the Tae-Bo workout. I won’t say how I acquired it, but let it be clear I did n’t pay $49.95 for it (Broadcasting majors do learn something use ful.) Well, after weeks of letting the video sit unwatched, I finally sacked up and fed Tae-Bo to my roommate’s VCR the other day. For those of you who don’t have the money, means or desire to live the Tae-Bo experience, let me describe mine for you. Minute One. I am introduced to Billy, the Tae-Bo god. It’s immedi ately clear that Billy has been hitting more than just the air in front of him -like possibly the steroid bar at the local weight room. He’s also perfected a camera-friendly snarl. Surrounding our fearsome leader are about ten very attractive, very fit, women and apparently no men. Ha, Ha, even Billy figures he needs window dressing to keep my attention. Billy tells me to start “walking it out” My response is delayed because I must first stop my knees from wob bling in fear. Minute Three. Billy starts us out with a couple of short jabs to the front. Good. This is pretty simple. He counts them in two groups of eight: eight up, eight down. Eight up, eight down. The problem comes when 1 discov er Billy has selective amnesia, neglect J ing to count up or down at sporadic intervals. Billy, my body likes very much to know how many times it’s going to have to do each little movement. It doesn’t like swinging any limb when it doesn’t have to. Yes, that’s right, I found myself addressing my Tae-Bo host directly in my mind. Cut me some slack; I was a prisoner of war. Minute Five. Billy moves into kicks. The first kick he asks for appears to be about a black-belt level maneuver. I can’t figure out whether the power is supposed to come from my thigh or butt muscle. The result is an unfortu nate in-between. Tae-Bo has introduced me to searing hip pain. Minute Six. Billy either gets embarrassed about his irregular count ing method, or he’s lazier than he looks. About every other move, he stops counting, apparently in expecta tion his harem will do it for him. He has begun the habit of abandon ing a move entirely and wandering back into the crowdof women. At one point, he screams at one of them to count. Geez, Billy, they’re there to help your video. Shouldn ’tyou be nice to them? MihuteTen. Jump kicks. Oh my God. I remember an interview I saw with a woman in kickboxing class, in which she said, “Oh, I love it that I’m learning real kicking techniques that I Could use.” ^ Yeah, right, lady. If anyone less than Billy tries to use one of these jump kicks in a real situation, it won’t be your foot cracking a mugger’s jaw. It will be the pavement cracking your tailbone. After I do each move the required sixteen to forty-eight times, Billy com MattHaney/D^ mands me to repeat it “double time.” I believe this means that I, along with everyone in the video, is supposed to swing my limbs twice as fast. At the rate Billy started the video, this is humanly impossible. It’s made even more frustrating by the fact that the editors of the video throw every “double time” session into an outrageous strobe effect. You know what it looks like dancing under a strobe light? I have the distinct suspicion Billy’s girls aren’t moving quickly at all, and that the strobe light covers up their slacking. You losers better NOT be slacking. You ’re getting paid to do this. Billy himself takes every strobe effect as a chance to. once again, aban don the workout and drift into the back ground. Minute Fifteen. The video now requires long combinations of punches and kicks. I ve got to keep up with the double times. Can’t let Billy down. Yes, I was thinking that Tae-Bo is an early form of mind control. Minute Sixteen. Billy tells me I can go get a drink of water and take a break, if I need to. Yeah, right, Billy. The second I do that, you reach out of the screen and strangle me for being a weakling. Billy has increased the harassment of his co-Tae-Bo fighters. I am shocked when he actually GRABS a woman’s ankle in mid-kick. The look on her Aj face tells me that it was not rehearsed. I bet they add wa another grand to her con tract to make up for that. W/// Minute Eighteen. Billy £/Z/ implores me to squeeze my abs jr when I kick. Gotta do it. Can It > jy disappoint Billy. Minute Twenty. What am I Wj thinking? Screw Billy. He s not ML the boss of me. I look at the J clock to mark exactly when ‘‘ a l thirty minutes will be up. Tae-Bo may be infinite, but I have my limits. I watch as Billy becomes more and more a cari cature of the high school track coach from hell. He departs from the typical aerobic instructor habit of encouragement, instead barking out, “Get those knees up! Work it harder!” No, not Coach O’Brien! I suppose next we ’ll be doing down-ups in the mud. I want my mom. Minute Thirty. No more kicks, no more walking it out, dammit I’m done. I grab some iced tea from the fridge. Minutes Thirty-one through Fifty. I’m watching “The Simpsons” while Billy the Banshee stays stuck on the VHS tape. I conclude that he and his entourage can’t be real people, but must actually be .lifelike marionettes controlled by a crackhead. Minute Sixty. I resolve to tell the world about my torturous Tae-Bo expe rience. I must spare everyone else the pain. Don t thank me. Knowing you won’t make tlie same mistake I did makes me happy enough.