Thursday, April 25, 1991
Finals week
by John Einolf
In a little over a week, it's
finals week. This is a silly
time. For the next handful of
days we're all going to be
frantically racing to write five
or six papers, learn an entire
semester's worth of a couple
classes and basically realize
how badly we've blown
things off.
It's one of those times you
pull out your calculator and
sit down for some heavy
rationalizing. "Hmmm...
divide that...uhhh...all right!
All I need on the final is a
98% and I've got the C! Life
is good!" (Come to think of
it, I don't think I've never
used my calculator since the
beginning of the year for
anything but grades.)
So suddenly it's time to set
the curve on the final in a
class that you haven't
attended in two months,
except for convenient exam
dates. Life is Hell.
Last finals week I swear
I've never seen my mind
wander so far while I'm
trying to study. I'd sit over a
book, realize that I had 450
pages to read and being
Iraqi citizens were losers in the war
by Mike Royko
"Jog my memory," Slats
Grobnik said. "Didn't we say
that we didn't have no beef
with the Iraqi people, that it
was Saddam Hussein and his
muscle guys we were out to
get?"
That's right. Our commander
in chief made that perfectly
clear. As a kinder and gentler
nation, we recognized that the
ordinary Iraqi was little more
than a helpless victim of
Saddam's tyranny.
"Why'd we say that?"
Because it is true. It was
Saddam who made the decision
to invade Kuwait, not some
shopkeeper. It was Saddam
who decided to set fire to
Kuwait's oil wells, not some
camel merchant. It was Saddam
who fired those Scud missiles,
not some street sweeper.
"Yeah, that's why I think
we made a big mistake saying
we were mad at Saddam and not
his people."
Why? We weren't mad at his
people.
"Then how come his people
got all the lumps and Saddam
is still alive and kicking?"
Look, you don't understand
the pragmatism of geopolitics.
If you did, you wouldn't ask so
silly a question. You have no
appreciation of the need for
stability in the volatile
Mideast.
"I guess not. But were
overwhelmed, I'm suddenly
daydreaming about
everything from the existence
of God to what I should do
with that big white block of
ice that used to be my freezer.
Daydreams are amazing.
You can spend entire hours
doing absolutely nothing and
pass it off as an afternoon of
Daydreams are amazing. You can spend entire
hours doing absolutely nothing and pass it off as
an afternoon of studying. I'll sit and stare at the
same page for a day, realize I haven't moved for
hours, even to turn a page, and decide it's time
for a break rom all that stud in:.
studying. I'll sit and stare at
the same page for a day,
realize I haven't moved for
hours, even to turn a page,
and decide it's time for a
break from all that studying.
I'd suddenly want to
organize the addresses of
everyone I'd ever known. I'd
start reading the sides of pop
cans and articles in magazines
that I wouldn't read if I was
waiting in a doctor's office
for three days. Oh, and
saying we won the war, right?"
Of course. And there can be
no arguing with that fact. We
fulfilled the U.N. mandate to
get Saddam out of Kuwait. And
we protected American
interests.
"OK, what about those dead
kids."
What dead kids?
"The ones I'm seeing on my
TV set every night."
You mean the Kurdish
refugees?
unfortunate
"What'ya mean,
unfortunate? You sound like
one of those State Department
guys."
All right, tragic, then.
"Yeah, tragic. I read where
about 1,000 of those Kurds are
dying every day. And that's
just from not enough food, the
cold weather, getting sick, not
having any docs. That don't
include the ones that Saddam's
storm troopers bumped off
before they could get away."
Well, we are trying to help.
We've been air-dropping
blankets, food, medicine and
other essentials to help ease
their plight.
"We really eased a few of
them right out of their plight
for good. I read where about a
dozen Kurds got squashed by
falling bundles."
Accidents happen. That
would be considered collateral
damage.
"That's it. That's what this
The Collegian
another great way to avoid
studying is napping. There's
nothing like a nap to avoid
studying, even if you've only
woken up an hour before.
My =inmate last semester
had an interesting approach to
finals week (speaking of my
old roommate, I think the
reason we wound up together
is because neither of us
checked the "I would prefer a
non-slob roommate" box on
our green housing forms.).
He started off a week and a
half before by buying a few
cases of Koch beer (the Spam
of beers) and sat in front of a
T.V. until his folks picked
him up. Needless to say,
Behrend wasn't begging him
to come back this semester.
But, I've found a solution
for these finals blues.
whole war was about, when
you start adding everything up.
Collateral damage. That means
innocent bystanders get killed,
right?"
More or less, yes. But
remember, we did kill Iraqi
soldiers.
"Right. But were they his
real army? What are they
called, the Republican Guards?"
No, he kept them in
Mike Royko
reserve. Unfortunately, they
escaped unscathed.
"So the soldiers we killed
were the ones who got drafted
and shipped out as dog meat?"
I suppose they couldn't be
mistaken for one of Field
Marshall Rommell's Panzer
divisions.
"So in a way, aren't mopes
like that innocent bystanders,
is silly
Learning doesn't have to be
as hard as it is. It could be
simple.
They should put all the
information from all our
classes into cartoon format.
Let's face it, there isn't a
Loony Tunes cartoon
anywhere that we wouldn't
watch instead of trudging
through the monotony of the
average college textbook.
After a Simpsons episode,
it seems everyone has
memorized the entire thing,
strolling around quoting their
favorite bits from the night's
show. When they toss up a
cartoon before a movie in
Reed, we still have it
memorized from childhood.
Imagine everything we
learn simplified by cartoons.
Colorful little elves explaining
too? Remember the one who
surrendered and it turned out he
was from Chicago and got
drafted when he went to visit
his ma? Talk about a
bystander."
Yes, they weren't the most
ferocious of potential
combatants.
"And how many regular Iraqi
civilians got killed. About
100,000 maybe?"
I doubt if we'll ever have
any accurate figures. But as a
military historian once said:
That's the breaks.
"Now we got the Kurds
dying or having to run away to
Iran or Turkey, where they
aren't going to be wanted and
will probably live in miserable
camps."
It's sad, but being a Kurd
has never been easy. Besides,
they made the decision to have
an uprising. One can argue that
they should have weighed the
risks more carefully.
"Hey, we told them they
ought to throw Saddam out.
They thought we'd give 'em
some help."
Wait a minute. We didn't
put anything in writing. The
Kurds have absolutely nothing
that will hold up in court.
"No, all we did was get
them all pumped up. It's the
old story: 'Let's you and him
fight.'"
All right, I'll concede the
war didn't turn out perfectly.
Wars seldom do. In 1946, who
Page
thermonuclear chemistry in
the middle of the Smurf
village while Spritle and
Chim-Chim - write out
equations on Mr. Whoopee's
3-D Blackboard. Never again
would anyone complain of a
lifeless teacher's mumbling
monotone or a textbook's
phenomenal blandness.
Well, that might take some
stress off finals week.
But stress is one of the
joys of college. Sleep
deprivation, showerless days,
living life completely devoid
of any monetary wealth, and
hoping I still have points on
my magic Penn State ID that
buys me food all the time; all
simple pleasures of college
life. This being fact, PSB
could probably pay all the
bills just by selling Vivarin
and cigarettes for the next
couple weeks. Just a thought.
Good luck yahl.
John Einolf is a second
semester Pre-law major. His
column appears every other
week in The Collegian.
would have thought Japan
would some day be buying our
best golf courses?
"Yeah, but at least we got
to string up General Tojo. But
there's Saddam, still in charge
of Iraq. Not only that, we got
the Kurds stirred up and now
he's getting rid of them, which
is something he's always
wanted to do anyway. And he's
still got his Republican Guard
army, so he can keep any
other troublemakers in line.
He's eating three squares a day,
and he's got his billions of
bucks stashed around the world
in case he ever has to blow
town."
Ah, but many of our
European allies are saying he
should be tried as a war
criminal.
"Oh, yeah, a war criminal
trial. When it's over, they can
send him a letter."
What kind of letter?
"It can say: 'You have been
found guilty of being a war
criminal. Please hang yourself
immediately, or this account
will be turned over to a
collection agency."
You don't have the right
mental attitude.
"Just write it off to
collateral brain damage."
Mike Royko is a Chicago
based, nationally syndicated
columnist. His column appears
weekly in The Collegian.