Thursday, September 20,1990
American suburbia need no longer
fear college students
People, people, people. Don't
become stereotypes. Or preachers
for that matter, right?
I knew a girl back in high
school. No one special. She was
pretty enough, happy enough,
wasn't flunking anything, but oh
mercy was she dippy.
I’ll tell you how flighty she
was. She desperately, I mean
more than anything else in the
world, wanted a mink coat for her
Cabbage Patch doll. I swear this
is true.
Along with the doll incident,
she was also fond of talking
about her boyfriends who were in
college. She went through a lot
of "college men" while she was
in high school. And she was oh
so apt at conveying the
advantages a "college man” had
over a "high school boy." And
these advantages didn't stop with
scholarly achievement and deep
conversation, if you know what I
mean.
Yeah, this girl was a bit of a
nymphomaniac, but her favorite
subject was marriage. She was
known to talk quite a bit about
being pre-pre-engaged and (Hi her
If it tastes bad, fatty, eat
by Mike Royko
A fat actor has written the
latest best-selling diet bode about
how he shed excess blubber. If
you are overweight, you might
be tempted to buy it Don't waste
your money.
Like many of the popular diet
books - and there's always one
on the best-seller lists - it's
basically a ripoff.
That's because the author tries
to convince tubby people that
they can lose weight while still
enjoying tasty, delicious,
yummy, satisfying meals.
It can't be done. I've read all
kinds of diet books because, like
most self-indulgent Americans,
I've spent much of my adult life
overweight.
I've tried the old-drinking
man's diet, the eat-anything-you
want diet, the three-squares-a-day
diet, the lotsa-spicy-meatballs
diet, the gobble-pasta-till-you
burst diet and all the other enjoy
eating-and-lose-weight diets.
No matter what they claim,
there is only one diet that works.
I call it: The-You-Gotta-
Suffer Diet
Having just lost 25 pounds in
about 10 weeks, I know it woks
and I'm willing to share it with
way to the next step of selecting
a china pattern.
I saw her a few days ago. She
can't be any older then 23, but I
saw her walking down the street
with a toddler on her hip and a
baby in a rusted stroller. And
walking beside her was an
average looking guy with longish
black hair wearing tight Levis
and engineer boots. But, who am
I to judge? Maybe she is the
happiest person in the world and
her children will grow up to be
senators and doctors and
Republicans and such.
But she has probably become
what everyone suspected she
would. I suppose you could say
she was a bit of a stereotype, she
was a pretty good representation
of a dippy high-school girl. I do
not mean to single out dippy
girls, there were also very
intelligent girls and very stupid
guys, this stereotype is just
serves as an example.
High school stereotypes are
bad, but college stereotypes are
not excusable.
Once a person enters the
hallowed halls of higher
you. It's quite simple. You don't
have to do a lot of calorie
counting, measuring and
weighing tiny bits of food or
pouring over time-consuming
recipes.
All you have to do is be
miserable, which is fundamental
to any successful diet. And you
have to remember only one rule,
the cornerstone of my diet
The rule is: If you enjoy it,
you can't have it; if you don't
like it, you can eat all you want.
This rule derives from
scientifically acknowledged fact
that Mother Nature is a nasty,
sadistic, mean broad. She made
everything that tastes good
fattening. And everything that is
not fattening tastes terrible. An
example is Brussels sprouts.
Under my diet, you can eat all the
Brussels sprouts you want. Stuff
yourself with them. Shove them
in your mouth with both hands.
You won't gain an ounce.
That's because Brussels
sprouts are awful. Just as lettuce,
celery, cabbage, carrots and most
vegetables are awful.
The only vegetable that isn't
awful is the potato - and only
when it is French-fried. Or baked
The Collegian
OPINION
education, he or she has certain
responsibilities. Middle class
America looks towards colleges
and universities for guidance.
Without the Marxists of the 30s,
the Hipsters of the 40s, the Beats
YEAH
RIGHT
of the 50s, the Hippies of the 60s
and the Freaks of the 70s,
suburbia would have been LOST.
They wouldn't have known
whatlhehell to be suspicious of.
The college generations of those
decades really gave people
something to fear.
But, remember, these trouble
makers were not normal. They
were not the average student, not
the norm, not the people who had
wet dreams about a job interview
with Rockwell International.
They were not the Economics or
International Business majors,
and heaped with butter, sour
cream and chunks of bacon. Or
covered with gooey cheese. Then
the potato tastes great. Therefore,
you can't eat it
See how simple it is?
Let's say you go to a German
restaurant. There's no big
problem in ordering low-calorie
foods. You just order the worst
thing on the menu.
The menu might have a pork
shank with dumplings, which is
great cuisine. So, you cant older
it.
Order the broiled white fish,
with some sliced tomatoes on the
nor were they members of self
satisfying honors clubs whose
sole purpose seems so often to be
filling in a slot on a resume.
I do realize these people were
not heroes and a lot of them
messed up their lives. The
Hippies glamorized the life of the
poor without compassion towards
those who were poor by
circumstance and not choice and
the Beats glamorized the
homeless. They all glamorized
drugs and the only ones who
survived were those that
eventually realized the
uselessness and dropped them.
But when I was a freshman
here at Behrend I was looking
forward to. . . something. I
wanted to see Communists
recruiting in front of the RUB
desk, I wanted to see men in
black turtle necks asking each
other if our existence wasn't
comparable to that of an anorexic
beagle in a zip lock bag.
I'm not saying that a college
shouldn't have normal students.
My problem is there are so damn
many future money-grubbing
side. It's enough to make me gag.
When the waiter asks you
what you will drink, follow the
suffering rule. The best thing to
drink would be a liter of German
beer. The only thing better would
be two liters of German beer. So
you can't order it
Instead, you order the worst
thing the bar serves: a diet pop.
Or, if you are stupid as well as
overweight, Perrier with a twist
Then comes dessert. You
probably want something
wonderful like a big slab of
cheesecake or some kind of rich
chocolate cake.
Which means you can't have
it Instead, you must suffer and
ask if they have any fresh melon.
Squirt a bit of lemon juice on it,
smile and pretend you are having
a fine time, while you are ready
to scream and do violence.
Or maybe you choose an
Italian restaurant Once again, the
choice is not difficult The best
thing on the menu would
probably be a plate of fettucine
Alfredo, or spaghetti carbonara or
lasagna. With a bottle or two of
red wine. And a not of anisette
with your coffee.
PageS
capitalists on suburban power
trips. Maybe things are different
at other schools, but here at
Behrend things aren't good.
But what could I have
expected. Penn State isn't exactly
known for the individualistic
attitude it cultivates. Now I know
the real truth, this institution has
only one thing to sell and that is
formal education, the kind that
comes pre-packaged in books and
lecturers.
You can get a pretty good
degree from PSU, and you will
be as apt as any at plotting a sine
curve, but make no mistake, you
have learned a skill, not an art
You have learned how to do, not
why, and you have learned
formulas instead of logic.
But maybe I'm being too
tough on the students of this
school and this decade. Maybe
America doesn't need anyone
willing to challenge the system.
Maybe learning to think isn't
better than learning to plot profit
loss graphs. YEAH RIGHT.
- R. M. Pr indie
it up
So you order the baked
halibut. With Diet Coke.
The rule applies day and
night, every meal, every snack.
Breakfast? Don't eat anything
good, such as pancakes with
sausage, French toast with bacon
or hashi with eggs. Eat miserable
stuff, like half a bowl of oatmeal
and some fruit juice. Achh!
Evening snacks? The best
snacks known to civilized man
are a big bowl of ice cream or
half a pizza or two peanut butter
and jelly sandwiches or a giant
sized bag of potato chips and a
six pack of beer. If you are a
good American and a decent
human being, you love these
things.
So you can't have them. Eat
some low-fat yogurt instead.
Ugh.
That's it. When you go
shopping, just walk down the
supermarket aisle. If something
makes you salivate, don't put it
in your cart If something makes
you nauseated., take six of them.
Just follow the simple rule of
suffering and misery and you'll
lose weight. And, possibly, your
mind.