Deep thoughts
Dailiy headlines stir endless banter
Liberal white man wakes up. Brushes teeth.
Showers. Starts coffee. Gets newspaper. Headline
Reads: “Football great Walter Payton dies at 45
... Family mourns death.”
“Mourns” is skipped over in man’s mind.
Thoughts race through his head: “Walter Payton
won’t be able to read this headline this morning.
Wonder if he read yesterday’s headline? ... He
won’t know what 2000 is like ...” Says to him
self, “Payne Stewart, Wilt Chamberlain,, Walter
Payton ... hmm, not a good time to be a sports
hero.”
Next Headline: “wreckage found in Egyptian
Flight 990.” Under headline man reads: Officials
excited to find...
Man wonders how officials are excited about
anything to do with death of 214 people.
Probably not such a big deal. Man remembers
hearing somewhere that 10,000 people die every
day. Wonders if world death toll was up on
Sunday when Flight 990 crashed.
What about Walter Payton, Payne Stewart or
Wilt Chamberlain? If the overall death count was
down, wouldn’t it be a better day overall, even if
one of them did die?
Thinks, “Maybe every day there should be a
'O section on the number of deaths that happen in
the world, sort of like the Dow Jones. ‘Dow is up
3.5 percent today, but world death toll falls from
10,761 to 9,811. However, heavy flu epidemic in
Western United States promises to push that toll
up in coming days.’ At least that way people
would know who’s really crying. Did anyone
outside Payne Stewart’s family and close
friends cry the day he died? Sort of sick if
they did.”
Coffee pot is beeping. Man looks
over. Sees coffee is overflowing.
Frantically runs to try and clean up
mess. Out of paper towels, no rags
available. Uses old newspaper to
clean up mess. Bums hand
slightly trying clean up mess.
Applies ointment Has to wrap
his hand to cover bums.
Man is late to work. Runs
to bathroom. Too much cof
fee. People try and stop him.
Ask why his hand is
wrapped. Personal headline:
“Stupid coffee incident
prompts local news.”
Man on toilet Three
day-old jtaper still on floor.
Headline: “Pal Buchanan
switches to Reform Party:
GOP member reformed.”
Sounds like he went to a
juvenile detention cotter.
Smells like liberalism
Definitely good for Democrats.
Reform die GOP. Can’t be
Reformed Grand Old Party.
Reformed Old Party? No more
GOP.
Other old papers. Headlines:
“Bush tdkes straw poll in Iowa.”
“Quayle ends GOP campaign.”
“Elizabeth Dole backs out of attempt to be
first woman in the White House; claims Bush
has too much money.”
Man on toilet tired of news.
Wonders if anyone else realizes the election
isn’t for another year. Warders iflXS. shouldn’t
copy England, where campaigning lasts for only a
month.
Man wipes, zips up his pants. Talks to guy in
bathroom about his burnt hand.
Man goes home. New copy ofPlayboy
arrives. Man opens magazine and turns on news.
Woman on TV is saying Bush opponents
beware, Bush is not losing the steam that oppo
nents said he was losing.
Man is turned on by woman in magazine.
Man realizes that over 90 percent of men in the
country masturbate so does not feel guilty. ;
Wonders why there is no coverage on masturba
tion. - 5
he would certainly lose the election. Gore s a
<- Democrat He’s liberal. He’d get away with it He
can masturbate all he wants. Bush is Republican,
his party is conservative, they’d never forgive
him.
Democrats can masturbate, Republicans
can’t.
Gore catches Bush masturbating, gets it on
tape, leaks it to the press, becomes president.
Screw the issues. There’s no coverage on issues. -
Republicans are repressed. Democrats should
take advantage. *
Man goes to local bar to have drink. Friend
Michelle hands him copy of local college paper,
tells him to look at article. Columnist condemns
National Coming Out Week for gays. Man puts
down paper. Orders drink. Michelle asks what he
thinks.
He says he’s sick of hearing about people
’ being discriminated against, based on things they
can’t control. Says he’s tired of issue. Sick of
yelling at deaf people.
Tells Michelle about the time he was with a
lesbian friend, and he bought her the most non
penis-resembling dildo she could find. One of
those silver shiny ones. Knew he wouldn’t be able
to watch. Bought it anyway.
Man says he once let gay friend mired in
slump grab his butt and hold on for a while... to
motivate him, get him back on the scene. Man
says this is true support for the gay community.
Friend Michelle laughs. They talk about his
burnt hand. Her trip to Florida. A few words on
Walter Payton. He was a good man. Death was
sad. They move on.
Man goes home. Turns on TV
Evening news. OOP.
Elections. Seven die in
Hawaii shooting.
Suspected
shooting
plan
gets
Cleveland
students
expelled. Gun con
trol talked about Abortion
protesters harass teens at clinic.
Man shakes his head. Abortion, elections, gun
control. Wonders, why are they issues? Why are
they still talked about? The answers are too obvi
ous.
Turns offTV Brushes teeth. Falls asleep.
Wakes up. Brushes teeth. Makes coffee. Reads
paper. Goes to work. Goes to bathroom. Goes
home. Turns, on TV Jacks off. Goes to bar. Goes
home. Brushes teeth. Falls asleep. Gets up.
Brushes teeth...
Trevor Johnson is a junior secondary education and English major and a Daily
Nebraskan columnist
The color of money
Greed becoming demise of capitalism 1
-?— ■ ■ ■ ■■ ■ ■ ■ ■ ■■■■■ ■■■■■■■■■■» > *
L.___
Once upon a time I thought greed was get
ting away with an unfair trade of baseball cards.
A good decade later, greed is something far
different - a way of life in a capitalist world.
And people are getting nothing but greedier.
You don’t need to look any further than news
headlines to see the evidence of it. No, not the
Page 1 headlines of the Wall Street Journal. Not
even the covers of Money, Wealth or Fortune.
Greed can be found in the Page 8, odd head
lines that make their way to the printed page just
because they’re interesting enough to warrant
coverage.
Like Oct. 28’s Reuters wire story about how
Coca-Cola, already one of the most wealthy cor
porations in the world, is experimenting with
vending machines that would raise the price for
a Coke as the temperature outside increases.
So if it’s 60 degrees, you may pay 85 cents a
bottle. Ninety degrees? Make it a buck.
Greed? You bet. Coca-Cola says it’s a simple
matter of supply and demand - but I hardly sus
pect that there will ever be a
shortage of Coca
Cola due to a
heat
Shawn Drapal/DN
wave.
And heck,
. ^ jvhen it only costs
you a nickel a bottle to
make, perhaps you should just lay die hell off of
us poor and thirsty college students.
Or how about another Reuters wire story
from the very next day. An auction was held to
sell some of Marilyn Monroe’s prized posses
sions. More than $125 million was spent on
Marilyn possessions - many of which woe
absolute junk.
Marilyn Monroe junk, you say? Impossible!
She was a legend, the original sex symbol.
He says that one man will
continue to want without
limits - however many
times he can fulfill that
desire until the game is
over.
Nothing of hers could be junk!
Yeah, right. Would you pay $222,500 for six
color snapshots of her pet dog? I sure wouldn’t -
no matter how good her dog might look. It’s her
DOG, people, not the dress she wore to sing to
the president in, not original photos taken of her
that appeared in Playboy. We’re talking about six
color photos of a dog!
Other pieces of junk that sold for big bucks
included handkerchiefs for $12,000 and make- .
up compacts that went for $35,000.
Now why anyone would pay $ 12,000 for a
piece of cloth an “American Legend” blew her
nose in is beyond me.
— But greed seems to be a pretty good reason.
The people at this auction had money to bum, a
hunger for Monroe possessions and an inability
to stop bidding on six snapshots of a dog origi
nally valued at $600.
A final Reuters wire story from Oct. 28
might just seal the deal on greed.
This time, the story comes from Hungary. It
goes without saying that the men and women
living in Hungary aren’t materialistic people
who try to boast the best lawnmower on the
block.
Just ask Attila' 'Whisky” Ambrus. This man
robbed 28 banks before being put in jail. In
July, he managed to escape.
Here’s where the story gets interest
ing. In an Internet poll, 1,008
Hungarians hoped “Whisky”
wouldn’t get caught. Only 91
, thought he should wind up
behind bars.
And while Ambrus was
caught on Oct. 27, many
Hungarians saw him as a
hero. Kind of like Robin
Hood - except he kept
every cent he stole.
What does
“Whisky” say about
greed? Perhaps more
than you might
think.
He says that one
man will continue
to want without
limits - however
many times he can
fulfill that desire
until the game is
■ over, - . .
And in the
process people might
love him for it
It really says a lot
about the excesses of
capitalism. Each of us
wants more - more com
pact discs, a bigger TY a
better car, a bigger house.
And a healthy economy, like
Hungarian citizens, urges us on.
We want and want until we
run out of time and die.
men our relatives want ana want
over our last will and testament*
And while I’ll never denounce'capital
ism - it is, after all, the most stable economic
principle in the world -1 will say this:
We’ll reach a point where we and everyone
else want too much.
Companies will have tried to take too much
from lA, the government will have tried l|o take i,
too much from us, and we. too, will have taken |
too much with the help of pieces of plastic and
personal checks.
A healthy economy and capitalist desires
don’t last forever. Like Marilyn Monroe, her
dog, an empty Coke bottle and a Hungarian
behind bars - all things are sure to come to an
end. j
When it does, hopefully we won’t be digging ]
into our pockets, searching for something that
just might not be there.
Kasey Kerber is a senior news-editorial majorand a Daily Nebraskan
columnist