I
Opinion
ZM/vNebraskan
Since 1901
Editor Sarah Baker
Opinion Page Editor Samuel McKewon
Managing Editor Bradley Davis
Smooth move
David Spade, student skits
best on separate nights
We thought it was inevitable.
In the spirit of inclusion and school spirit,
ASUN, the marketing arm of the Athletic
Department and the University Program
Council were going to muddle David Spade’s
Nov. 2 appearance at the Devaney Sports Center
the same way they muddled Tom Green’s
appearance at Memorial Stadium a year ago.
It appears we were wrong. It appears some
body has realized that smarmy David Spade and
the full dressings of a pep rally don’t fit together
so well. We thank you from the bottom of our
smarmy, pepless hearts.
If you were at the stadium last year, you
remember the boos that accompanied skits by
various greek houses and student groups. Few
wanted to see these performances. It immedi
ately became clear what they did desire, as a
chant of “We want Tom” grew increasingly loud
er by the second.
It was uniair tor the students in the slats to oe
belittled by the thousands in attendance. It also
was unfair for the event organizers to put the stu
dents in the skits in a position to be belitded.
What exactly did they expect? An east stadium
full ofTom Green-crazed college students to sud
denly become energized by
cross-dressing cheerleaders and
someway football piayers? (Which, by the
has real- way, won best skit)
ized that No. So, this year, somebody
smarmy wised up. The skits and other
David homecoming hoopla will be on
Spade and Tuesday. People who care about
the full skits and Homecoming hoopla
will show. In other words, not
dressings manypeoplewinshow.
of a pep * But, we ask wbich is better?
rally don t Qne hundred supporters, or an
fit together angry mob (which this year will
so we//. include many non-UNL stu
- dents) overpowering 100 sup
porters with sheer hate? You
make the call.
Sounds like the football team, along with van
ous other NU athletic teams, is going to be at the
Spade performance. We’re sure Lil’ Red is going
to be there. (Although we bet that, on strict
orders from Bill Byrne, be doesn’t let anyone
come near his costume.) Cheerleaders are going
to be there. The dance team is going to be there.
That’s all right, we guess. It would be smarter
to separate the two events totally, bringing more
Husker fanatics to the Oct. 31 event and sparing
the men’s basketball team the embarrassment of
being ignored for the second year in a row.
We, do, however, understand the desire to use
the pull of David Spade and the Nebraska foot
ball to create some kind of super pull that will put
many Nebraska students in the seats.
It isn’t working so well, as only around a thou
sand tickets have been sold, a direct result of the
$12.50 student price tag. (Tom Green was free.)
Those that do come, though, will laugh at the
comedic stylings of David Spade. They will have a
good time.
The few that go to the Homecoming pep rally,
will, we assume, have fun, although they may
wonder why more creative means aren’t being
used to pep the actual rally up.
We’ll be happy. Rick Schwieger will be happy
that David Spade will not try to perform sexual
acts on him.
Everyone will be happy. Sort of.
Editorial Board
Sarah Baker, Bradley Davis, Josh Funk, Matthew Hansen,
Samuel McKewon, Dane Stickney, Kimberly Sweet
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±
=t
Neal Obermeyer/DN
Lose-lose situation
As a general proposition, I agree that greek hous
es are free to pick and choose as they see fit.
However, chapters may lose more than they win by
excluding people on arbitrary grounds (e.g. sexual
orientation).
I am an open lesbian now, and I was a member of
AOII (Alpha Omicron Pi) six years ago. AOII did me a
world of good. I also think that the chapter member
ship at the time would agree that I represented our
chapter well through my on-campus involvement
with NSE, Emerging Leaders and the Innocents
Society. In fact, my own chapter helped me earn a
national AOII leadership award.
Around the same time, another lesbian was the
president of a prominent sorority, and another les
bian at yet another sorority was an ASUN senator
and on Mortar Board.
No, none of us were "out” during Rush, so I can’t
speak to whether we would have been excluded at
the time. Had I been fully aware that I was gay at that
time, I might have been hesitant to join the greek
system. The point is this: Greek leaders should be
aware that even an unspoken policy of exclusion can
hurt the excluder as much as it hurts the excluded.
Hopefully, Ms. Narans is correct that greek chap
ters want to look responsible, academically focused
and morally upright. But sexual orientation is not a
litmus test for those qualities - life experience and
depth of character are.
Melissa Castro, ’94
attorney
Washington, D.C.
Stopping the violence
Many thanks go to all who helped make Friday’s
Stop the Violence Against Women Rally a success.
The event proved that students on this campus do
care, do take action and do use their voices.
The Women’s Center would like to thank the 100
students and faculty members who signed the Rape
Awareness Pledge, a simple, small card pledging
their conscientious decision to help end rape and
the attitude of apathy that allows it to exist on this
campus.
The problems of rape, domestic abuse and other
violence towards women will not just go away. The
rally was a good reminder to all that we cannot back
away from this issue - we all have women in our lives
about whom we care deeply.
Anyone else interested in taking an active role in
ending violence against women is invited to use our
many resources. Your
mother/sister/daughter/girlfriend/ fellow student
thanks you.
Amanda Schindler
senior program assistant
Women’s Center
Mo Amigo of mine
Next time you’re waiting to order your lunch
time taco at Amigos in the Nebraska Union, here's a
couple of reasons to reconsider: Amigos is about to
assault the city’s Sunken Garden with trash, odors,
traffic and light pollution.
Despite requests from Mayor Wesely and nearby
homeowners, and attempts to negotiate with David
Pauley, the property owner, Amigos seems hell bent
on blighting the Sunken Garden at 27th Street and
Capitol Parkway by putting up one of its taco stands
on the northwest corner of that intersection.
The city of Lincoln owns the other three comers
of this intersection, and it spends thousands of our
tax dollars each year to maintain them as parks. It
used to own the fourth comer.
In a major planning mistake in 1990, the city
declared the fourth corner “surplus" and sold it to
David Pauley of the Pauley Lumber Company fami
ly, which owns a sizable chunk of adjacent property.
Pauley then saw to it that a supersized billboard was
constructed on the property, glaring its message
down on the garden 24/7.
Amigos and Pauley now seek to further enhance
Lincoln’s favorite outdoor wedding site with a cfrive
thru taco business, complete with blowing trash
and grease odors, traffic backups, exhaust fumes
and plenty of outdoor lighting to add to the garden’s
evening serenity.
After all of the dollars that the university and the
taxpayers bring to Amigos every day, and all of the
money that Lincoln's citizens spent for 90 years with
the Pauley family’s lumber business, preserving this
fourth corner as park land would simply be com
mon sense and corporate and family citizenship.
The city is even willing to repurchase the land at
a fair price. It appears now, however, that money
talks and everything else walks.
That being the case, I plan to say “Adios,
Amigos” and walk over to Amigos’ competitors. I
invite you to do the same.
Robert Ray
psychology
graduate student
Wake-up call from,to Napster
I have this uncanny ability
of rolling over and looking at
the clock about 17 minutes
befcfre the alarm goes off. I
used to like it My body would
nervously tell me that I was
late, but I would always have
that 17-minute grace period to
catch a few more minutes of
rest
Dane
Stickney
inai is, unrn r moveu uniu
the sixth floor of Pound.
Someone, a girl, on the seventh floor listens to
music every morning with loud bass accompanied
with female vocals. Not the interesting kind of female
bass music like Bjork; it’s Destiny’s Child, Pink and
other TRL classics.
I caji hear it thumping through the ceiling. It
serves as a lyrical espresso, making me jittery and
unable to sleep.
Because it’s the same looped songs in the same
order every morning, I can only assume it is the evil
MP3 god plaguing my life. Again.
After living with a roommate for two years, I really
thought living alone would be perfect. I didn’t mind
my roommate at all; he was a good roommate to have,
if you have to have a roommate.
There was really only one thing that irritated me
about him; MP3s. After the fourth time of listening to
“One Week” by the Barenaked Ladies, I was ready to
take his computer and chuck it out of our fourth-floor
dorm room window.
I refrained and talked him into downloading some
not-so-mainstream songs. But it just proceeded to get
worse.
After class, I’d walk into the room to hear “One
Night in Bangkok,” followed by “Eye of the Tiger,”
which came right before Weird Al's "Amish Paradise.”
That right there is my reason for why Napster
should be shut down. It allows crap music to be strung
together with more crap music creating an atom
bomb of retread hits and one hit wonders that res
onates for years and miles.
Case in point: On my way to the bathroom, I
walked by a door that is always open. In the room is a
pearly white computer tilted just a bit. Facing it is a
black leather chair with an indentation from a fairly
large, burly, black-haired guy who sits there for hours,
typing, listening, looking.
Whatever. He’s got these big speakers attached to
his computer. When they’re not spitting out machine
gun fire from some computer game, they’re blaring
MP3s. His collection almost puts my old roommate’s
to shame.
There’s “Walk Like an Egyptian,” various Britney
Spears tunes and, of course, Weird Al. Every once in a
while, I can hear Third Eye Blind along with some
Dexy’s Midnight Runners.
Any invention that combines stale '80s classics
with the current collection of shallow Top 40 hits
needs to be stopped.
There’s a critical time of the day for everyone.
For me, it’s when I’m standing next to my window,
peering out to see if people have long or short-sleeved
shirts on.
The sun is usually peering through the clouds, and
the floor is cold on my feet It’s at that moment that the
first feels of the day fills my body.
Call it Qi or Karma or whatever. A good or bad feel
at that moment carries throughout the day.
Everything is important The smell, the tempera
ture, the feel of a new day on my skin, the sound. If one
thing is off, the day is off.
For the past few days, my day has started with
Destiny’s Child singing, "Say my name, say my name.”
Then the words become jumbled behind the bass
bouncing through the ceiling. And, of course, the
catchy jumbled sound never leaves my head.
Give three
cheers for
do-gooders
Binder?
Check.
Prim and
proper, just like
they taught you in
high school, with
the class name on
the side inside the
clear plastic
cover.
Notebook?
LjMKL_I
Jake
Glazeski
unecit
It’s filled with copious notes for
above-mentioned class; a spiral note
book with the University of Nebraska
Lincoln seal stamped in gold across the
red cover, perfect as perfect be, not a page
ripped out, not a bit of paper sitting way
ward in the pages....
She settles back against the card
board box, which will be her home for a
few hours, and she takes out a pen. A sign
nearby explains that this, cardboard
architecture at its finest, is Shantytown.
It’s intended to raise funds and visibility
for Habitat for Humanity.
She thinks, “Gee, philanthropy isn’t
that bad.”
Indeed. When all you have to do to
help others is sit next to a cardboard box,
sit in a hot tub, jump on a trampoline or
take tours around campus, it doesn’t
seem that bad at all
That is, until tragedy strikes and your
cardboard “home” blows into Broyhill
Fountain.
Oh yes.
When that happens, your feelings of
righteousness are not so easily earned.
You have to do legwork and get your mes
sage out in order to raise the funds that
you had hoped to raise by sitting and
doing your homework. Robbed of a sym
bolic gesture, you are forced to do some
thing real.
That’s when philanthropy sucks.
Fortunately, most of our philan
thropic brothers and sisters on campus
needn't worry about such unforeseen
disasters.
They can build their sense of well
being and brother/sisterhood by doing
the same thing their brothers and sisters
have done in the past - and sit in a hot
tub.
I’m glad to know the world is being
bettered by their worthy efforts. It makes
me very warm and fuzzy inside. Really.
I grow weary, after my long career as a
cynic, of cutting off from myself the quick
and easy satisfaction of helping others
while doing something that is seemingly
pointless. I want to help. I like trampo
lines.
Unfortunately, I have a bad knee. So I
need to find ways that I, in my philan
thropic aspirations, can help those in
need/want/discomfort
There are a few essential factors that
must be included in any such philan
thropic endeavor: 1) The activity must
serve only a nominal benefit to myself. 2)
The activity must give me adequate time
and ability to socialize with other do
gooders. 3) There must be a very colorful
bin for “donations.” 4) It must be a worthy
cause, involving non-controversial
groups (read: sick children and old peo
ple). 5) It must be cheap.
Now this is the section where I am
supposed to offer sarcastic alternatives
exemplifying my sharp wit and attentive
ness to detail
Unfortunately, even the most absurd,
the silliest activities which follow the
above five guidelines already are part of
the regular, established philanthropic
routine.
It feels a bit like you’re walking
through a zoo on campus, where differ
ent groups exhibit their brand of unusual
behavior.
Nearby them stands a sign describ
ing v\4io these odd creatures are and what
their purpose is.
Last week, you could see the Lambda
Chi Alphers and Kappa Alpha Theters
jumping up and down for the American
Cancer Society; then you could see the
tours of campus for multiple sclerosis or,
perhaps, Shantytown (before it was
blown to watery oblivion) for Habitat of
Humanity.
How queer these creatures are! How
odd their behavior; how peculiar their
pretensions!
I suppose it satisfies some mandated
community-service requirement, and if
they raise the money, it’s all well and
good. But in the end, the whole thing
seems a bit silly.
It’s a strange thing, campus philan
thropy, and the slumbering cynic within
me awakes to ask, “Aren’t there better
ways to do this?”
But that wouldn’t be as much fun,
which is the point. Nobody really gives a
flyin’ flip over sick kids - they look good
on TV I suppose, and at the end of the
miniseries, you always cry. So there isn’t
much point in doing something for these
people if it isn’t also fun, and so the five
above-stated guidelines should be fol
lowed.
Thus, the hot tubs, the concerts, the
blah-de-blah-blah. They should have a
car-stuffing for Meals on Wheels, I think.
But in the meantime:
Philanthropy ROCKS!