__Tuesday, September 14,1999 1 Daily Nebraskan 1 Page 5
v Days in the sun
Joys that lie in Farmer’s Day put Woodstock to shame
I’m bummed. I’m bummed
because I missed a little something
called Farmer’s Day. That’s right,
Farmer’s Day. Screw the Nebraska
football team, I want a parade with
cows.
I suppose the Huskers could be
symbolic of a parade with cows, but
therein lies a deeper level, and I
don’t want to go there, girlfriend.
“What is Farmer’s Day?” you
may be so bold to ask.
Hello!
It’s only two days of (udder) bliss
and euphoria that happened this
weekend in my hometown of
Kimball.
To let ya’ll know how cool
Farmer’s Day is in my eyes, and most
likely my eyes alone, the only thing I
can think to compare it to is
Woodstock of’69.
Not the lame, punk-ass, mosh
pitting, misguided machinations of
Woodstocks ’94 and ’99 - but the
real deal.
Living in the quiet panhandle of
Nebraska as a child, I was all too
often deprived of the typical “cool
things” that other kids in bigger
towns were privy to.
Like I knew that other bands
existed besides Tangerine Dream and
To to.
At least I had enough sense not to
wear oversized belt buckles and wran
glers growing up, although 1 recently
bought a cowboy hat.
Some power deep within me made
me do it. My hick roots are taking over
with a vengeance. They’ve been
ignored long enough.
I will admit that for fun in high
school we used to ride oil wells.
There’s nothing I can think of that I
would rather do than climb up onto one
of those big hammer-head wells with a
Bud Light and teeter for hours ....
... Except maybe cow-tipping. I’ve
only tried it once, but I will tell you big
city folks that you haven’t lived until
you feel a 1,000-pound animal drop
from your touch.
Now, if you’re lame enough to
believe that cows actually just tip over,
you’ve failed my test of animal knowl
edge.
None of these things mentioned
above was as heartfelt and anticipated
as Farmer’s Day.
I would wait patiently for every
September to arrive because it would
be the one weekend where my parents
let me roam the one block, one stop
light radius of downtown Kimball -
alone.
My motto (when I was old enough
to know what motto meant), which I
repeated to myself over and over, was -
“Who needs Woodstock when you’ve
got Farmer’s Day?”
You may think me mad for compar
ing three days of peace, love and music
to three hours of homemade floats,
tractors and silly string, but I’m not.
Take, for instance, peace. There has
not been an altercation at Farmer’s Day
since the great riot of ’38, Mien it was
speculated that the Farmer of the Year
contest was rigged by Farmer John,
whose greed and selfishness threw the
whole town into disarray and got him
thrown into jail.
With every new Woodstock, there
comes a greater fervor of violence that
Neil Young is frankly a little pissed off
about. He wouldn’t have put up with
those kids beating each other up, like at
Woodstock ’99.
I think he would just like to see
them get stoned and keep the peace
alive, man!! (Disclaimer: I really don’t
know what Neil Young would say, I just
know he loves to groove, man!!)
As far as love goes, the celebration
of Farmer’s Day is chock-full of it.
Though nude bodies are hard to find, a
small child on his father’s shoulders
watching the parade isn’t.
Speaking of love and Farmer’s Day,
I remember when I was 11 years old
and there just happened to be a booth
where you could pay money to smash a
pie in some selected person’s face.
My father, being the lovable
accountant he is, was one of the per
sons up for bid that year.
My mother, and about 10
other women who wanted to see
my father “get his,” paid some
mean dough to own the pie.
Since nothing hurts
more (emotionally and
physically) than having
your only daughter
throw food in your face,
my mother gave me the
honor of degrading him in
front of the whole town. ‘ N
It just doesn’t get much £
better than that.
Music will always be the
main issue at every hot shindig.
Though it is said that
Jimi Hendrix’s version of -
“The Star-Spangled
Banner” rocked every- <
one’s world in ’69, I’m sure the KHS
marching band s rendition ot Banda
Excelente” must have brought some
folks to tears.
And even though Woodstock ’94
brought in Nine Inch Nails tearing up
the stage (and a couple of innocent ani
mals), Mike Nuss and the Country
Oaks did their damdest to please the
Farmer’s Day crowd.
They probably weren’t mud-cov
ered (which is symbolic of every
Woodstock), but I would bet my gold
tooth there was manure on each and
every cowboy boot in the crowd and on
stage.
While rain has plagued all
Woodstock festivals, Kimball’s unpre
dictable weather is tradition.
At the great gathering of ’69, only
the answers were blowing in the
wind. At Farmer’s Day - everything
is!!!
So I will stop my whining and
open my eyes, for the answer is right
under my nose. I will grow a mus
tache and try like hell to attend
Farmer’s Day 2000!
©* fours# Xm 2
s ytfj'j sift ’|«« Si^ •
V /
Karen Brown is a junior English and film studies major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist.
Third-party predicament
If Buchanan goes Reform, it could spell trouble in more ways than one
Many a time this past summer, I
would have been elated to hear
someone say to me three simple
words: Pat’s going Reform.
Not that I thought Pat Buchanan
ditching the Republican Party to seek
the Reform Party nomination was a
particularly good idea, for him nor
for the country, but news of his
switcheroo would have made my life
at the time bunches more bearable.
I could’ve stopped making phone
calls.
As an intern at the Buchanan
campaign national headquarters in
McLean, Virginia, from mid-May to
the end of July, I found it my job to
call folks in Iowa to try to convince
them to attend the Iowa Straw Poll on
Aug. 15 in support of Pat.
I hated it. I hated it with a pas
sion. Trust me: the only thing worse
than having to talk on the phone 10
hours a day is having tp talk on the
phone 10 hours a day to a bunch of
cranky, lunatic-fringe Iowans. An
overwhelming majority of the calls
seemed to be to people who either
were over 80 years old and couldn’t
hear a word you were saying or to
people so fed up with political calls
they would rather be castrated and/or
drawn and quartered than listen to
anything you could possibly say.
So,, ever since early July when the
first rumors of a possible Buchanan
Reform run surfaced, my fellow
interns and I eagerly anticipated the
morning we’d walk into the office
and receive a report that Pat had
indeed decided to bolt the GOP and
dive into the wild world of Reform
Party politics.
This would mean Buchanan
could forget the Republican Iowa
Straw Poll and, more importantly,
that we could forget the straw poll
phone calls.
But, in spite of incessant hoping
and praying, that morning never
came, and we carried out our miser
able tasks right up to Aug. 15.
So what does that have anything
to do with anything?
Well, now that I’m completely
separated from the situation, it is
sounding more likely than ever that
Pat is going Reform.
Buchanan said Sunday on NBC’s
“Meet the Press” that he is “serious
ly” considering leaving the GOP to
pursue the Reform nomination. “The
door really is wide open,” he said.
“We are very close to making that
decision.”
Well la di freakin’ da. Now he’s
going to do it. Where was all that talk
two months ago when I was getting
hung up on by Mildred and Orville
and Delmar?
Oh well, I’m not bitter, really. At
the time, I wanted Pat to do the
Reform thing for strictly selfish rea
sons. Now that I’ve severed ties with
the Buchanan camp, I can see that
the political ramifications of a
Buchanan switch, for Pat himself and
for the sake of the GOP and the
nation, would be plenty more nega
tive than they would be positive.
First of all, Buchanan as a
Reformer would be detrimental
mostly for the Republican candidate
(read George W. Bush). According to
a recent Washington Post poll, if a
two-man election were held today
between Bush and Gore, Bush would
receive 56 percent of the vote and
Gore would receive 37 percent.
Add Buchanan to the mix, a more
recent Schroth & Associates poll
suggests, and the story changes quite
dramatically. Bush drops to 39 per
cent, Gore holds steady at 35 and
Buchanan pulls in 16.
One of the only things a
Buchanan Reform run might accom
plish would be to tie up Republican
votes leading to a possible A1 Gore
victory. But I guess that doesn’t real
ly matter to Buchanan. After all, he
made it clear Sunday that he does not
see much of a difference between the
two candidates or between the two
parties. He said the GOP “at the
national level has become a Xerox
copy, basically, of the Democratic
Party.”
“I think what we have is a one
party system in Washington, D.C.
that is masquerading as a two-party
system,” he said. “And I think we
need an opposition party,”
I’d have to say that I can’t com
pletely agree with Pat on his asser
tions, but I can see how he arrives at
them. On free trade and globalization
(monster issues for Buchanan), the
two parties are very similar. A major
ity of both parties’ members and
their top candidates agree on every
thing from NAFTA and GATT to
fast-track trade legislation to contin
ued most-favored-nation status for
China.
However, excluding these trade
issues, Republicans (when they have
the chutzpah to act like it) are still
Republicans, and Democrats are still
Democrats. The Dems still want us
to bow before master “gubmint,”
ensure every woman’s “right” to kill
her unborn baby and shove a gay
rights agenda down the throat of an
unwilling American public.
Republicans, for the most part,
still want te lower your taxes, get the
government off your back and see to
it that traditional Judeo-Christian
values don’t disappear from our cul
ture.
Even though Bush may have
recently taken more moderate stands
on some things than most conserva
tives would like, his record as gover
nor of Texas is a solidly conservative
one.
And A1 Gore is still a tree-hug
ging, sketchy fund-raising goon who
feels right at home stuffed in the
back pockets of teacher’s unions and
wacked-out environmental groups.
So, Pat, I think the parties and
candidates still offer voters two very
different visions for the future of the
country.
Another reason J’m skeptical of
Buchanan turning Reform is that he
would have to place less emphasis on
social issues. One of the key reasons
I agreed to work for Pat is that I
shared his deeply-held, unwavering
beliefs on social issues - protecting
the rights of the unborn child, fight
ing the agenda of militant and mania
cal gay rights activists and protecting
Second Amendment rights.On the
other hand, the Reform Party, when it
does address social issues, is just as -
or more - liberal than the Democrats.
Under a Perot and Ventura controlled
Reform Party, Pat would inevitably
be forced to put social issues on the
back-burner and instead emphasize
most Reformers’ only attraction to
him - his protectionist and isolation
ist leanings on trade. In the process,
he would lo'se many of the supporters
he now holds in the GOP.
Also, while Pat’s in the race as a
Republican, he puts pressure on the
party to address his issues. If he
leaves, the Republican establishment
is not held accountable to its party’s
platform and its dedication to work
on social issues.
Remember the “culture war”
speech at the 1992 Republican
National Convention. With it, Pat
helped spark the conservative move
ment that allowed for the Republican
takeover of Congress in 1994.
Oh yeah, one more reason for Pat
not to go Reform: He, nor any other
possible third-party candidate, has a
snowball’s chance in hell of winning.
History has shown that third parties
simply don’t work in this country.
Ask George Wallace or John
Anderson or even H. Ross Perot.
Hell, even Teddy Roosevelt, one of
the greatest leaders and statesmen
this nation has ever known, couldn’t
make one work. If he couldn’t do it,
my friend, no one is going to be able
to.
Overall, it looks to me like the
negatives far outweigh the positives
(are there any?) here.
I feel compelled to offer my for
mer boss only three simple, humble
words of advice as he contemplates
his ultimate decision.
NO, PAT, NO!
Josh MoenHing is a senior advertising major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist