Parking for one
Lone biker requests that all other
_students drive to class
rarkmg - it has reduced me to my lesser self
and has made a mockery of me.
Although my friends at East Campus
Landscape Services don’t know it yet, I have
done a bad thing, something unthinkable to
landscapers or those who simply care for the
sarth as if it were a part of them.
I don’t know, and I don’t care where Jesus
would have parked, because he failed to help me
find a spot that day, but keeping Jesus’ ignorant
attitude in check I was forced by the hand of the
devil to lock my bike to a tree.
Some of you may ask, “What’s the big deal,
Adly McBeal?”
Well, I’m not Ally McBeal, and I didn’t care
about the error of my ways at the time. But
pecause I was caught, I care a hell of a lot.
It’s just that I was in a frenzy to get to class,
and my judgment was clouded by the thought of
ny teacher making me stand in the comer, whip
ping me senseless for being tardy.
Actually that sounds like just the type of
punishment I know and love.
When I got back to my bike there was a note
pn brown, bark-like paper, as if the tree, in a dis
play of self-sacrifice, had ripped off a piece of
ts flesh and scrawled in sap the words, “Don’t
ock your bike to trees.”
I came to find out that a landscaper had writ
en the note. But hey, if miracles like Michael
Bolton selling millions of records have hap
pened, then trees can read and write as far as I’m
concerned.
It’s ostensible to me that this was not at all
ny fault but part of the ongoing parking mad
less that has plagued the campus heavily this
rear.
I have the solution, dear flock.
My fellow bike riders must drive to class to
pve me room on the bike racks. That’s all there
Karen Brown is a junior Engl
a Daily Nebras
fcfc
Actually that’s not all there
is to it, because you could
boat or ski to class as
well, but that may be
detrimental to your boat
or your skis.
is to it.
Actually, that's not all there is to it, because
you could boat or ski to class as well, but that
may be detrimental to your boat or your skis.
Better stick with driving.
I can’t wait any longer for the first signs of
winter. Students have never failed in becoming
whiny, lethargic sissies who can’t stand the sub
zero wind chill and a little ice on the streets.
I want driving, and I want it now.
Sure, / could be the one to drive to class, but
I don’t want to be backed up from the garage
lines all the way to heaven, left to jive with an
unsympathetic Saint Peter who ain’t payin’ for
my ticket fare.
Don’t worry about the air pollution that all of
your cars will emit, it’s not like the environment
comes before self-satisfaction in America.
Don’t worry about the lines in the garages or
on your face from stressing about traffic. Just go
to class an hour early, and you’ll have no prob
lems.
And keep encouraging your friends to drive
every chance you get because, despite recent
studies, biking uses up as much fuel as does
your car. Just trust me on that one.
It’s also true that biking doesn’t keep you in
shape. It’s a myth that I am here to squash. You
bum as many calories flipping on the radio and
flipping off bikers as you do pumping your legs
for three miles.
The only thing I ask is that if you see me
pedaling my butt around, don’t hurl insults, and
don’t hit me with your car. Both of these hurt
emotionally and physically, and you’ll probably
make me late for class.
ish and film studies major and
kan columnist
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, ■ DAILY NEBRASKAN ■ PAGE 5
Guest
VIEW
£Habla espanol?
El ‘boom’ del espanol
no solo un asunto cultural
zaitor s note: i ms is the Jirst in a
series of occasional columns presented in
Spanish. Recent census data show that
Hispanics are the largest minority group in
Nebraska, and at UNL, Spanish is the most
popular foreign language class.
Sin lugar a dudas, el idioma espanol ha
venido tomando una fuerza sorprendente
en los Estados Unidos. Ningun lugar de
este pais, por pequeno que sea, ha escapa
de ha la influencia de la lengua hablada
por espaiioles y latinos. De una u otra man
era, cualquier norteamericano ha estado en
contacto con el idioma, bien sea a traves de
amigos hispanos, la radio, el cine, la tele
vision o las clases de lengua extranjera que
debe tomar en la escuela.
Sin embargo, el “boom” del espanol no
se reduce solamente a las canciones de
Ricky Martin y Enrique Iglesias que hoy
suenan en todas las emisoras, o a la presen
cia de Jennifer Lopez y Salma Hayek en
algunas peliculas norteamericanas. Por el
contrario, ademas de cultural, el idioma de
Cervantes se ha convertido en un asunto
politico y economico en la tierra del “Tio
Sam.”
En la arena politica, A1 Gore y George
W. Bush, han tornado cursos intensivos de
espanol durante los ultimos meses, con el
proposito exclusivo de llegar mas directa
mente a una comunidad hispana que,
segun el ultimo censo de 1998, es de 30.3
millones de habitantes. Para muchos anal
istas, los hispanos podrian ser uno de los
potenciales politicos decisivos en las prox
imas elecciones presidenciales.
Para el sector economico, la comu
nidad hispana se ha convertido en un mer
66
Los hispanos podrian
ser uno de los
potenciales politicos
decisivos en las
proximas elecciones
presidencies'y
cado-objetivo de gran importance al cual
no se puede desaprovechar. Han visto la
necesidad de llegarle al cliente hablandole
en su propia lengua. Es una estrategia de
mercadeo que permite aumentar las ventas
y cautivar mas consumidores. Ya es facil ir
al supermercado y encontrar productos con
nombres e instrucciones en espanol, o 11a
mar a una linea 1-800 y solicitar informa
cion, no en ingles sino en el idioma de
Castilla.
Y obviamente en lo cultural, la influen
ce latina se hace mucho mas evidente en
nuestros dias. Hay de parte del norteameri
cano una atraccion mas fuerte por la musi
ca, la comida y las tradiciones hispanas.
Entre las lenguas extranjeras ensenadas en
las universidades, el espanol es la mas
solicitada por los estudiantes.
Todo esto hace parte del “boom” his
pano que seguramente sera de mayor ben
eficio para todos, pero sobre todo para el
mercado y los politicos.
Horacio Perez-Henao is a graduate student in modern languages and
literature and a guest columnist for the Daily Nebraskan.
Falling down
As a republic, America is doomed to fail - though it may rise again
“*V11 LJvmvuim^ uujypviivu.
It’s the sight-unseen rider to “happi
/-ever-after.” But, the fact is that
ever-after” happens, and it happens
orever.
I’d like to tell you a story that you
nay or may not believe. I believe it.
Vhatever opinions I do or do not have,
bis must be one of the only black
riiite, concrete ones that deals with the
ecular world.
America is failing - that is the
beginning, and that is the unfortunate
nd. This nation, diverging from the
thic it was built on, will die: happily
ver-after.
Such is the fate of republics, they
ay. But not this one, not America, is
le common retort.
Because in America we have not
et deteriorated because we are so free.
Ve can do what we want and the theo
y is that all is fair game and no liberty
> too outrageous, too desultory to be
xtended by that glorious masterpiece
the Constitution.
In the latter days, the credo seems
) be: Do what you want - but don’t gel
vau^iu.
Compare this to the similar Civil
War ethic when the great American
tragedy of slavery was believed to be
the ultimate end, the thought was that
America would die of its own maligned
political theory.
The American ethic of today has
mutated into an unrecognizable heap of
hedonism and corruption, and yet this
nation of ours remains the last bastion
of strength in the world.
Still, mortality among governments
is 100 percen,t and coupled with the
ability America has to foiget its history
and plunge headlong into the anti-ethi
cal capitalist wash, the death knell rings
softly.
America should long for the days
of yore when we remembered what it
was like before we were overwhelmed
by such things as the technological rev
olution. A sense of history in this
overextended age is lost.
And so we say that all good things
must come to an end.
There was a time in American his
tory where we isolated ourselves, for
better or for worse, from the rest of the
world. America was more concerned
with its own economy and political
problems, and the American people
seemed more focused on each other. It
was an American Eden.
In 1918, America was tired of war
in Europe and ended it. Since then out
side problems have becomean
American specialty.
n-ALcpi lor me repression nra, me
interior dilemma never seemed to be
any such thing. The problems were
oceans away. In the nation itself there
was a certain unsaid solidarity - it was
Us against Them.
Then, with the decline of the Cold
War and the gradual lifting of the Iron
Curtain, American enemies started to
disappear and what was once an exter
nal, faraway problem was starting to
get solved.
Suddenly, America could now
afford to be isolationist and it was
forced to be, to a certain extent. But the
American Eden was gone.
A wealth of new American prob
lems presented themselves, social
problems, most of them dealing with
freedom and liberties, honorable and
necessary struggles to be won - such
were the Civil Rights movement and
the liberation of women.
Still, something, somewhere,
sometime happened, and now we are
mired in ethical questions that should
be easy to answer, if indeed we still
appeal to that grace that is stamped,
ironically enough, into our money.
And if we cannot look there, then
maybe we ought to start an American
12-step program. Let us at least submit
to some other power, higher than our
selves and higher than any freedom
conferred by any government.
There has to be something that
should work in our souls to tell us that
owning assault weapons and aborting
any type or me is somenow wrong.
But if we can commit these acts,
because the Fall of Humanity in the
Biblical Eden so condemns us, then the
aforementioned demise is more easily
understood. We are all bom to die,
whether human or nation; this decline
in ethics is unavoidable.
Yet if this be our lot in life, can we
not at least try to act in accord with
some higher law?
Have we become so depraved that
it shows through that much? Have we
foigotten what it means to love, to
serve, to feel? Have we all been swept
away in a fervor of far-reaching liber
ty?
We’re all guilty of it, none more
than I am after this conundrum that I
have created - deriding the government
and ethical system because I can, as
granted by the First Amendmen,. chief
of sinners, though I be.
That being said, should the
Constitution restrict freedom - some
thing that it has not done since the 18th
Amendment? And in what context
should it seek to bring a stronger ethi
cal fiber to its people? Is it worth a
change at this point in time?
The Founders of America played a
mean trick on us in concocting their
masterpiece of political science. They
could not see the liberties we would
take more than 200 years later and how
we have exploited the Constitution.
They could not see that archaic
ideas like the freedom to bear arms
would be muddled by the mvention of
mass killing apparatuses and those who
would use them in schools, in churches
and in the workplace.
Or perhaps they knew all too well
that they were fathering a disaster.
America is based on the reminis
cence of failure, and that is the beauty -
that it can delay the inevitable, buffered
by the grace of God that abounds and
saves all in spite of itself
But if we foiget the failure of those
republics that came before and foiget
the virtues and morals on which
America was founded, then the time
will soon come to rethink our current
liberties.
However, after looking at all this
that I have sermonized and extrapolat
ed upon in this discourse, I would say
that I have always found for expanding
freedom. I may never indulge myself in
certain liberties, but I rest easier at
night knowing that people can and do.
The American ethic is sensational
ized. Suddenly everybody is a gun-tot
ing loner or a violent pro-lifer.
The key to the American ethic is
what Americans do best - diplomacy.
Finding that mean between those who
overextend themselves and those who
enjoy in moderation is our great check
and balance. Eden was never a possi
bility.
Say it in a positive way that
America was bom to die, but then also
to live again, when the time comes for
change.
Adam J. Klinker is a junior English and history major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist.