Opinion
/M/)-Nebraskan
Since 1901
Editor Sarah Baker
Opinion Page Editor Jake Glazeski
Managing Editor Bradley Davis
“I think they did a really good job celebrating
the day and what it means: bringing everybody
together, no matter what color or what religion or
who they are.”
Senior horticulture major Dusti Duffy, on the
festivities commemorating Martin Luther King
Jr. Day
i ....
“But somewhere along the way, there comes a
day, if the baobabs are left to grow, when nothing
in the world could weed them out”
Columnist Mark Baldridge, on the necessity
of looting out the weeds from one’s soul, before
they choke and overwhelm
“It’s bullshit”
DufEy*sTavem owner Reg McMeen, on the lia
bility of the last-attended bar for inebriated
patrons taken to de-tox, regardless of whether
the patron purchased alcohol from the bar
“We had a group talk before the floor event,
and we focused on doing a perfect routine.”
NU gymnast Alecia Ingram, on pulling the
women’s gymnastics team together for a win
against Oregon State
“The people are unbelievably friendly.”
John Owens, vice chancellor for the Institute
of Agriculture and Natural Resources, on the
strengths of UNL
“The point is that the government is trying to
register and control our weapons - weapons that
are not only guaranteed us, but they are guaran
teed us specifically for use against the govern
ment?
Columnist Jake Glazeski, on the shady inten
tions and purposes behind governmental
weapon controls
“People need to know that they can find beau
ty and interesting people in flat places. It just
requires you to look a little longer.”
George Hick, professor of journalism, on his
latest exhibit, “Flat Places and Interesting
People”
“Anytime you play at home in this league, you
have to think in terms of getting a ‘W’.”
Women’s Basketball Coach Paul Sanderford,
on his approach to the home court advantage
“We suck... bad”
Columnist Tony Bock, on the university’s rat
ing on the suddness scale
‘Tve been working on this music for six
months without any recordings. I learned the
music by trying everything out”
Faculty artist Clark Potter, on exploring new
music without a precedent to follow
“It simply doesn’t make sense for Bush to
denounce affirmative action programs as ‘racial
preferences’ and then go on to appoint a dispro
portionate number of minorities to his cabinet”
Daily Nebraskan editorial, on the contradic
tions inherent in a statistically unlikely slate of
cabinet-members selected by a president
opposed to affirmative action
“It is disheartening when any member of the
community, especially a role model, gets picked
up for DUI. It just goes to show that alcohol is a
pervasive factor in drinking and driving.”
Simera Reynolds, Mothers Against Drunk
Driving executive director, on former Husker
Football Coach Charlie McBride pleading guilty
to drunken driving
Editorial Board
Sarah Baker, Jeff Bloom, Bradley Davis, Jake Glazeski,
Matthew Hansen, Samuel McKewon, Kimberly Sweet
Letters Policy
TheDalyNebraskan welcomes briefs, letters to the editor and guest columns, but does not gua
anteetherpUalcatoi The Daly Nebraskan retains the right to edit or reject any material submitted
Submitted material becomes property of the Daly Nebraskan and carnot be relumed. Anonymous
sUxnissions w* not be published. Those who submit letters must identify themselves by none,
year in school, major anchor grtxjj afWatkn, if any.
Submit material to: Da*y Nebraskan, 20 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St Lrtcoln, NE 68588-0448. E
maifc tettsrsOunlinfo.unl.edu.
Editorial Policy /
Unsigned editorials are the opinions of the Fall 2000 Daily Nebraskan. They do not necessarily
reflect the views of the University of Nebraska-Lincoin, its employees, its student body or the
University erf Nebraska Board of Regents. A column is solely the opinion of its author a cartoon is
solely the opinion of Its artist. The Board of Regents acts as pubisha of the Daly Nebraska)- poli
cy is aet by the Daily Nebraskan Editoria Board. The UNL Publications Board, established by the
regents, supervisee the production of the papa. According to policy set by the regents, responsi
blty for the editorial content of the newspapa lies solely in the hands of its errpioyee6.
I MOTHbr's Wiuu HAV& 1
y -no so "TH ROUSH TH^
hpll % vjeH-r through/
Megan Cody/DN
In the ear of the beholder
For the life of me, I can
not believe we’d ever dine on
40 cents, we were merely
freshmen."
-The Verve Pipe
“The Freshmen”
If you’re looking for
something that’s more
addictive than crack and
goofier than pictures of
George W.f that also will
Betsy
Severn
maice everyone in tne computer lab give you
"Quiet down!” looks, today is your lucky day!
You see, my friends, the fact is that there are
people in this world (somewhere) with lots and
lots of time on their hands. By some strange force
of nature, these people are compelled to create
Web pages. And on some of these Web pages, I have
found my own personal crack stash: mondegreens.
Mondegreens, or misheard song lyrics, got
their name from Sylvia Wright, a columnist in the
'50s, who wrote about the Scottish folk song "The
Bonny Earl of Morray.” She wrote that she thought
the lyric, “Oh, they have slain the Earl O'Morray
and laid him on the green,” was, “Oh, they have
slain the Earl O'Morray and Lady Mondegreen.”
This was incredibly amusing in the '50s, and fortu
nately, humor has evolved.
Therefore, dozens of Internet pages have been
devoted to such things as the fact that “You’re a
god, and I am not" (Vertical Horizon's “You’re a
God”) has been misheard as, "You're a garden, I am
not,” “You're a guy, I am not,” “Uren God, I am
snot,” "You’re outside, I’m on pot,” "Laura got invit
ed, I did not" and "You’re a (gol dam) nut!”
Most pages claim one of the most famous mon
degreens is found in Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze”:
“Excuse me while I kiss the sky” becomes, “Excuse
me while I kiss this guy." Hendrix was aware of this
and would sometimes proceed to kiss a guy after
singing this lyric in concert. It’s a good thing peo
ple weren’t hearing him sing, “Excuse me while I
kiss a mountain lion!”
After spending four hours exploring Internet
sites devoted to misheard lyrics, I felt fairly certain
that the creators of these sites could’ve found a
better way to spend their time. But I wasn't totally
sure, so I surfed for another four hours the next day
and concluded that further study would be need
6(1.
I invite you all to join me so I won’t be the only
one getting dirty looks for laughing too loud in the
’puter lab. Here’s a sample of some of the funnier
ones I’ve come across:
On one site, someone thought Aerosmith was
passionately singing, “You’re my
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAgent (angel), come and save
me tonight.” Another thought Eiffel 64 was singing,
“I’m blue, I'm in need of a diet,” when in fact they
were singing, “I'm blue aba di aba diewhich is
much more coherent.
Matchbox Twenty’s “Real World” may contain
subliminal messages about food, as one thought
the band was not singing, “I wish the real world
would just stop hassling me,” but, “I whisper in
your ear, and you throw hash browns at me.”
Another thought it was, “I wish Burrito World
would just stop hassling me.” Don’t we all? •
People can even mess up lyrics that are in the
title of the song itself. A person reported thinking
Asia's song “Heat of-the Moment” was really, “We
are the Mormons," and another thought Christina
Aguilera was singing “I’m a genius at Boggle,” not,
“I'm a genie in a bottle.” One could see how this
mistake could be made, after all - Aguilera gained
attention and popularity among the masses
because of her great mind.
A third person thought Enya’s “Sail Away" was
really, "Save a Whale." Actually, if you listen hard,
you can actually hear whales in that song.
Many people who submitted lyrics to the sites
reported that they still sing their own lyrics even
after finding out the real ones, just because they’re
stubborn. Tony Young tells of his friend who
believed the quote from “The Freshman” should
be, “I cannot believe we never docked 40 cents, we
were only freshmen.”
“My friend and I sat in the car while I brought
up this misheard lyric,” he said. "I had figured out
the real words by then, but before I could bring up
the correction, my friend, who fancied himself a
music expert, even having auditioned for the Verve
Pipe, went on a long, I mean looooonnng, 10
minute speech about how ‘we never docked 40
cents' meant we never paid our dues, blah blah
blah, and the deep hidden meaning within. Then I
finally corrected him with the right lyric, but I don’t
think he heard me.”
By the way, the real lyrics are, “I cannot believe
we never died for these sins.” And I was just kid
ding about the whales.
"7 ’ -
Scott Eastman/DN
Please write us and tell us what you think.
Ietter@unl.edu
Time for NU
to accept its
mediocrity
bverywhere I
look at NU, I’m
seeing one mes
sage being
repeated over
and over.
It’s in the
paper, on people’s
lips and etched
into the sidewalks
and soap bars of
this great institu
Simon
^Jingsmuth
nun ui nigner arunxenness ana
mediocre education. And it’s the
mediocre education part which is exactly
what I’m getting at here.
Apparently, UNL has, once again,
been downgraded to third-tier status.
Our faculty members are leaving in
droves, presumably to states like Nevada,
Minnesota or Germany, where prostitu
tion is legal and carries with it a greater
amount of dignity than teaching at this
turd-hold university.
I must have missed some huge para
digm shift in the past year because it
seems to me that UNL is still a good
school. That, and I also like using the
word “paradigm.”
DN staffers are running around
screaming mediocrity and the admissions
people are frantically looking for some
thing, anything, to list on the brochures
that would be a reason for a high school
grad to come here (“The best landscaping
of any university in the Big 12!”). In the
meantime, I, like Peter Gibbons from
“Office Space,” just don’t care.
For me, college is simply an incon
venience and an expensive one at that
College is a means to a job, and if you
can find your calling in life without going
to college, then more power to you. I have
no desire to become enmeshed in the
tapestry that ASUN would have us
believe is college life. I don’t even know
what ASUN stands for, and judging by
recent student voter turnouts, I’m proba
bly not alone.
I don’t see anything at UNL that is any
better or any worse than other schools. As
far as I know, we still have a good engi
neering college, a top-notch journalism
college and at least a respectable teacher
factory- “ahem" -1 mean, teacher college.
We’re big, but not so big that we don’t
allow freshmen to have cars. We have
many large, expensive buildings and a
wonderful greek system of which I am
almost proud to be nearly a part of.
Alpha Sigma Sigma is still, as yet, an
unchartered frat, but I’m betting that with
next week’s horse trougher, along with our
field trip to Pershing elementary school to
tell kids why drinking is bad and to hand
out ROTC pamphlets, that will change
UNL has some of the best research
facilities in the country for sciencey- and
engineering- type things.
Why, not even five years ago we built a
huge indoor bridge in the Beadle center
and tested it repeatedly just so we could
have a good reason to blow it up in the end.
My point, in a roundabout sort of
way, is that even though we’re officially a
mediocre, and not a hardcore, school,
-we’re not really that bad. More directly,
though, the only people that do care
about our official standing are probably
the same people who show up for the
ASUN vote each spring.
And while I could let my case rest
with that, I will keep going. To most of my
fellow tuition-paying Servants of the
Machine, our mediocrity doesn’t matter.
We’re here because we Uved in Lincoln,
and everyone knows UNL is just the logi
cal extension of high school.
Were here because its cheap, and we
want to get away from our parents and
the family farm. We're here because The
Man says we need some sort of degree to
have a decent life. We're here because our
parents said we’re going and that’s the
end of it, and thank God for work-study
programs.
We’re here because of necessity or
convenience - or athletic scholarships.
All the whining and complaining
about UNL’s overall standing is ridicu
lous. I wish half as much effort were put
into fixing the microphone system in
Avery’s lecture hall or making the
PowerPoint computer in Henzlik 124 go
to the next slide instead of playing video
game sounds.
You want mediocre? How about the
food in SeUeck dining halL These things are
what students may possibly care about and
would give a rat’s patootey if improved.
At the end of four, six or eight years,
we all hope to have degrees from what
was once hoped to be the Harvard of the
Midwest but is now just the Southeast
Community College of the downtown
Lincoln area.
Or rather, it would be that good
except for SCC’s downtown campus.
The bottom line here is that when we
graduate, we’ll go on to our jobs and our
wives and kids. We’ll live out our lives,
and it won’t matter that some interim
chancellors and ASUN nutcases thought
we were mediocre. I plan on having fun
getting there, and as long as there’s paper
on the roll, I'll be fine.
Whether it’s first-, third- or dead-last
tier, it’s just a degree, and that’s what I’m
here for.
An education, yes, but more impor
tantly, Ijustneed that oft-sought after and
oft-clich&i “piece of paper” that says I can
teach language arts to high schoolers.