Thursday, November 29, 1990
News people are all depraved
by Quinn Solem
There was ugly news on the
television 'over the
Thanksgiving holiday.
British Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher's reign of
iron-fisted conservative rule
ended in televised disgrace as
she turned in her resignation to
the Queen.
Secretary of Defense Dick
Cheney showed up on the cube,
announcing Pentagon
intelligence that indicated Iraq
may have a "very crude"
nuclear device within a year.
Experts later said Cheney lied,
or at least overstated the threat,
but everyone agreed it was a
good ruse to convince the U.N.
to support an ultimatum that
gives Iraq until January to
withdraw from Kuwait or face
attack.
The "Keating Five" were on
TV again, and so was Ed Gray,
the former chairman of the
Federal Home Loan Bank
Board, testifying before the
Senate Ethics Hearings. Four
of the five Senators showed up
in Big Ed's S&L regulating
office in April of 1987, he
said, to make "private threats"
and cut "a deal" on behalf of
savings and loan owner Charles
Keating, who contributed over
1.3 million dollars to the
"Five's" campaigns.
Draft Would Bring Peaceful Feelings
by Mike Royko
It might be wise for Jake
Novak, a University of Illinois
student, to keep a low profile for
a while. After today's column, he
might not be the most popular
lad on campus.
He wrote me an unusual
letter. Unusual in that it
expresses a view that few people
his age share.
Jake said: "Quite a while
back, you wrote about possible
reinstating the military draft.
Your basic argument was that it
would be an incentive for our
youth to get involved in U.S.
affairs and not appear so brain
dead. You received a substantial
number of letters from people
strongly opposed to your idea."
That I did. And "strongly
opposed" puts it mildly. I was
called an "insane (obscenity)," a
"bloodthirsty (obscenity)," a
"youth-hating (obscenity)," and
many other unflattering terms.
Actually, I was impressed by the
creativity of the obscenities.
Some of those kids could have
gone into the Army and
exchanged endless variations of
the "F" word with any old drill
sergeant.
However, I decided to drop the
subject. For one thing, most
Americans of all ages oppose a
military draft. Second, there are
few congressmen brave or
George Bush was shown
visiting the troops in Saudi
Arabia over the Thanksgiving
holiday, boosting military
morale by eating a pitiful
ration of turkey on a cardboard
tray, before flying off to
Mexico for some real food and
trade talks with Mexican
President Carlos Salina de
Gortari.
Well, we all have to spend
Thanksgiving somewhere, and
if you aren't lucky enough to
have the honor of eating grit
covered turkey off of cardboard
trays in 115 degree heat while
sand fleas burrow deep into
your flesh, then home is the
next best place.
Home is where the heart is,
or so they say. But for most
college students, home is
where you go during
Thanksgiving break to argue
with your parents, fight with
your siblings, and abuse the
family pet; continually stuffing
your bloated, stretched body to
the point of immobility with
heavy, fat-rich foods. You
watch many hours of
television, attempting to
ignore the huge book bag you
brought home stuffed with
work that has been put off all
semester, foolishly imagining
you'd complete it over the
Thanksgiving break.
I was eagerly engaged in
this mandatory Thanksgiving
suicidal enough to even mention
But now along comes Jake
Novak, of the U. of I. in Urbana-
Champaign. He goes on to say:
"At the time you wrote that, I
thought it was a dangerous idea
because I knew that I would be
eligible for the draft.
"Now that the Iraq crisis is
blossoming, you would probably
think that my views have
changed, but they have not.
"The students here are
intelligent at solving math
problems and analyzing literature,
but the majority know
surprisingly little about current
affairs. This is not necessarily
their fault, since much of our
time is spent studying and
reading.
"There is time, however, to
learn about the outside world, but
we need an incentive. This is
why I think the idea of the draft
would be enough to get them
more involved.
"Although I dread the thought
of having to go to the Middle
East and fight in 130-degree
weather, that is exactly the reason
why I think the possibility of
being drafted would be so
effective in getting us involved in
world affairs.
"I must stress, however, that
the reinstatement of the draft
should be a threat, not an actual
course of action, because I would
The Collegian
behavior at my parents' house
when the phone rang. It was
my old friend Dick Reagan, and
he seemed upset.
"Have you been watching
very much TV in the past few
days?" he asked. "It's so
depressing."
Of course I have. It's
inquired, right?
Quinn
Solem
"Sure. But don't you ever
wonder why the news is so
depressing around the
holidays?"
To keep the holiday suicide
rate up?
"Don't joke about that," he
snapped. "News people love
that kind of stuff; suicide,
ritual murders, mass
decapitations at family
gatherings - they go crazy over
mass decapitations."
Do you mean that news
organizations exploit human
tragedy during the holidays in
rather be uninformed than have
my eyes plucked out by one of
Saddam Hussein's soldiers."
Young Mr. Novak is right.
The draft, or even the threat of
the draft, would be enough to
instantly raise the consciousness
of America's youth to heights we
haven't seen in two decades or
In fact, their collective
consciousness would be so
heightened that the deans of
universities all over America
would probably have to call out
the riot police to keep the
administration buildings from
being dismantled.
We'd have tens of thousands
of students marching, sitting in,
order to gain a larger audience
and make more money through
advertising?
"It's nothing as complicated
as that you fool," he snarled.
Then what's going on?
"It's a massive plot, a
subtle conspiracy that has been
going on for years," he hissed.
Why?
"Think about it stupid," he
snarled. "What do most people
do during the holidays?"
Well, they lay around, take
it easy, visit with family and
friends, watch TV...
"Right. They do what they
like. Everyone has the day off,
everyone except for news
people."
And 7-11 workers.
"Sure, and we both know
how nasty they are during the
holidays. Well, news people
are even worse. They're
depraved group of poorly
adjusted people who could
never hold real jobs, much
less enjoy a national holiday,
so they get into the news
media to make other people
depressed when they should be
celebrating."
Prove it.
"OK, Pick a national
holiday." he dared.
Fourth of July.
"Good choice. Everyone
cooks out on the grill, maybe
goes to a parade or swimming
in a lake. Everyone has a real
climbing trees, tearing at their
hair, holding hands, swaying,
singing sad songs and waving
signs that say: "George Bush
Eats Arab Babies."
Jake Novak is too young to
remember the '6os and early '7os.
So he probably doesn't realize
that there has never been a
generation, or generations, that
was so peace-loving and war
hating. They deplored the
shedding of even one drop of
blood. And many were deeply
ashamed to be Americans because
American bombs were falling on
Vietnam.
Many students took to
spelling America with a K:
Amerika. I believe that was
supposed to make it Germanic,
indicating we were no better than
the Nazis.
Student leaders were all over
the TV talk shows. I remember
being on a program with a
student from the University of
Chicago who opened the program
by saying that the president was a
fascist, I was a fascist, the other
newsmen on the show were
fascists, his parents were fascists
and the university chancellor was
a fascist. When the show ended, I
told him that I thought he had
been a bit intemperate, but that if
I had the opportunity, I'd
probably throw him into a
concentration camp.
Then in an instant it was
Page
fine time. But when they turn
on the news and try to relax
that night what do they see,"
Dick asked?
What?
"Live footage of people
blowing their hands off with
firecrackers, that's what! It
ruins the whole spirit of the
holiday," he cried.
Yeah, that's true but...
"And during thanksgiving
they always make suit that you
hear and see plenty about
homeless people starving in
the streets, to make you feel
guilty and terrible about the
great meals you've just had in
your nice cozy house."
Hey, that's right.
"You betcha. News people
want us to associate all
national holidays with feelings
of intense despair. They make
all of their stories extra
depressing at a time when the
public is watching more
television. They're very sick
people with serious character
flaws," he warned.
Well, at least Thanksgiving
is over for another year.
"Uh-huh. But Christmas is
coming up, and that's when the
brutes go completely wild..."
Quinn Solem is an eighth
semester communication
major. His column appears
every other week in The
Collegian.
over. It was as if someone had
flicked a light switch. Presto, the
throbbing social conscience that
had spread across America went
limp. The anti-war, pro-peace
signs went into the trash bins.
Even if you offered free beer and
marijuana, you couldn't get
enough students together to hold
a peacenik sit-in.
That amazing transformation
happened on the day the president
signed into law the end of the
draft. At that moment, about
99.9 percent of those who had
sobbed over napalm, Christmas
bombings and man's inhumanity
to man suddenly began looking
for jobs on Wall Street. Those
who had deferments because they
had taken teaching jobs in poor
inner-city schools said:
"Goodbye, you poor ghetto
children. I'll miss you, but you
have served your purpose, so it is
time for me to go seek my
fortune in a nicer neighborhood."
In other words, once war
stopped threatening their hides,
they didn't care much about
anybody else's hide.
So while Jake Novak is right
-- the draft would catch the
attention of students -- it
wouldn't be worth the hassle.
The sit-ins, the protests and
the marches, I could handle. The
self-serving hypocrisy, no
thanks.