Thursday, March 5, 1992
by Andy Festa
If you put your fingers
over a burning match, your
fingers get burnt. You soon
learn not to put your fingers
into fires, no matter how
small the flame.
If you're told someone
spilled Tabasco sauce on a
hamburger, you wouldn't eat
it just because you 'want to
control the meat.'
These seem to be common
sense things. It would be
pure stupidity to put your
fingers in a flame, or munch a
Tabasco covered burger. It
would be utter lunacy to
practice such peculiar acts for
the sake of an ego-driven
urge to control the situation.
You might be wondering,
"What’s he saying? What’s
the point? No one would do
something so dumb!" Please
excuse me if I ramble.
Maybe you're right.
Maybe people don't do such
stupid things. Behrend
students are intelligent. I
wonder if the two (very
young) girls who carried on
the following conversation
earlier this semester are
intelligent?
First girt: "I heard this guy
was really hot and I wanted to
see how hot he was so I went
out with him. I got him so
worked up he was sweating.
Then, I shut him down."
Buchanan's hate loves
by Mike Royko
Pat Buchanan has a unique
advantage over all the other
candidates of both parties. The
man can't be embarrassed by
anything he said or did in the
past.
An example is a letter that
someone recently dug out of the
Gerald Ford Library.
Buchanan wrote the letter in
1974, asking President Ford to
make him an ambassador.
He had a specific country in
mind where his political views
would make him highly suitable
for a diplomatic post because that
country's government would like
him.
I'll give you three guesses
which country Buchanan wanted
to go to as our representative. (If
you’ve followed Buchanan's
colorful brain waves, it shouldn't
take you more than one guess.)
Of course, South Africa. The
South Africa of 1974, where
apartheid was firmly in place, and
dissidents as well as innocent
bystanders were being murdered,
tossed in prison, hounded and
persecuted in every imaginable
way by a racist government's
storm troopers. Where the rule
was one man, one vote, so long
as that one man was white and
not some off-brand.
Second girl: "Wow! Neat!
That sounds so cool! How
bad off was he?"
First girl: "He didn't
wanna quit, but I said I'd
scream so he quit. It was so
funny I coulda died!"
The rub is, she was in his
apartment, in his bedroom
and, "teasing the hell out of
him.”
According to an accepted
theory,(in certain circles)
most women can 'turn off
quicker than men. Many
women (and girls) know this
and often point to it when
defining the inherent
weaknesses of men.
We shouldn’t feel any
compassion for the guy those
girls were referring to
Some women think the law protects them and they fall back
on that protection, using it as an excuse to see how far they
can push (or tease) men before ’shutting them down
because, Tie's a guy, he can
take it, he’s tough.' Why
bother considering the guy?
He doesn't feel the pain. He
can't be used. Alice Cooper
once said, "Only Women
Bleed."
Women don't do those
kinds of back-stabbing
things. Men can't be
victimized, only women can.
NOT! /
And this was where Buchanan
thought he would fit right in and
be viewed as a real pal.
Now, if a letter of that sort
turned up bearing the name of
Clinton or Tsongas or Kerrey,
oh, what a flap there would be.
They'd be in front of the TV
cameras, sweating through
questions like: "Why did you
think you would be welcomed by
a government that kills
demonstrators, sends people to
prison for making speeches, and
pens human beings up like herds
of cattle?"
It would be time to close up
the campaign offices, turn out the
lights, and look for a new line of
work.
Even Bush would have
difficulty surviving that one.
How would it look to the world
if an American president were
asked: "This letter appears to
mean that you supported
apartheid and brutality. Can you
explain why you took this
position?"
About all he could say is
"Uh, my secretary was under a lot
of strain because she was quitting
smoking at the time and wrote a
lot of strange stuff."
But Buchanan can shrug it off.
So what else is new? Would
anyone think he wanted to go to
South Africa to immerse himself
The Collegian
brakes!
Those girls should have
known all the risks -- date
rape, venereal diseases,
AIDS, physical, emotional,
and mental trauma - but, like
the fool with the match, or the
idiot with the burger, the girl
who was in the guy's
bedroom decided 'the game'
was worth the risk. Had
something actually happened,
had she miscalculated, (with
someone she'd only heard
about), had she been>raped, it
would have been entirely the
guy's fault. She was perfectly
Some women think the
law protects them and they
in Zulu culture?
If anything, disclosure of this
letter could give his campaign a
temporary boost.
Think. Where are the next big
primaries being held? Where is
Buchanan hoping to make his
biggest splash and make Bush's
political life even more
miserable? That's right, in the
HMWWir'r 1 1
So how will news of this
letter be greeted in the
roadhouses, diners, and around the
gas pumps?
Will Bubba say to Junior:
"Doggone, I see where it came
out that ol’ Pat wanted to be
ambassador to South Africa 'cuz
he thought he'd get on just fine
with that racist, oppressive, mean
fall back on that protection,
using it as an excuse to see
how far they can push (pr
tease) men before 'shutting
them down.'
If a guy was to tease a
woman like that, he'd be
brought up on harassment
charges. The woman doing
the teasing is well within her
rights to see how close to the
edge she can push the guy
she's with, something
especially titillating when the
power-game occurs in his
bedroom.
If a guy in such a situation
won't shut down (in keeping _
with the general social attitude
that males are instinctively
animals), the woman could
get a lot more than she
bargained for.
What if the teaser is with a
drunk male who not only
won't shut down, but who's
too drunk to think about
protection? God forbid
something should happen to
the wonderful, well-meaning,
non-malicious young creature
playing the tease-game.
Some women need to
understand the consequences
to be quoted
government that’s been shootin’
all them native Africans just for
stickin' their heads out of their
shacks and wantin' to vote and
have a say in how they live.”
"Yeah, I saw that, Bubba, and
I am just shocked out of my
boots that Pat would even imply
that he condoned such cruelty to
men, women and children just
because of the color of their skin.
I am deeply disappointed in Pat."
"I, too, am gravely
disillusioned."
Sure, and thcy'U ask the
waitress for a slice of quiche.
That's the advantage of being
Pat: burping up any thought that
pops into your head and never
having to say you're sorry.
He's now telling his Southern
admirers that AIDS is nature's
way of punishing gays for their
sins. He hasn't told us if the
virus that killed Mozart was
nature’s way of punishing him
for being a madcap.
If any other candidate said
that, he'd be accused of being a
vicious gay-basher. But there's no
point in making a big deal out of
Pat being a vicious gay-basher
because he's proud of it.
So, in a way, he's the most
honest candidate out there. And
maybe the least troubled. What a
hater. It's almost squirting out of
his ears. But it doesn't have to
Page
of such acts of stupidity.
Their rights do not include the
willful and vicious destruction*
of boys and men. (And, later
in life, some women have the
nerve to wonder what's
wrong with men?) |
Men need to understand
that, while those girls I
mentioned might be the
exception, they still constitute
a large and growing
percentage in my opinion.
Men are accused of not
having good brakes (if any at
all). As I see it, when the road
is the bedroom of a male, the
female shouldn't complain
about the condition of the
brakes, nor the driver, when
she vainly walks- into the
middle of the road.
"Flash! Woman hit by
truck speaks after surgery
(needed to cover the
emotional and physical scars).
'I knew it didn't have any
brakes. I knew it was bigger
than me, and I guess l was in
the middle of the street with
my skirt hiked up,.but all I
wanted was a harmless ride
for a few miles. I never
thought it would hit me!'"
Andrew Festa is a tenth
semester English major. His
column appears every other
week in The Collegian.
squirt out of his ears, because he
lets it all pour out of his mouth.
Compared to Buchanan, David
Duke is a mealy-mouthed waffler.
That's why I'm glad Buchanan
is running. A few months ago, I
thought Duke would serve the
scholarly purpose of being the
nation’s Hate-O-Meter. Count
Duke's votes, I said, and you'll
get an accurate reading of how
many hard-core haters there are in
this happy land.
But Duke sort of wimped out
and faded. Buchanan_is doing the
job far more effectively. By the
end of the primaries, we'll have a
Hate-O-Meter reader with a plus
or minus factor of about two
people. The statistics will be
invaluable to social scientists, if
they can stop trembling long
enough to read them.
By the way, President Ford
ignored Buchanan's application
for that South Africa job. Ford
wasn't the brightest bulb in the
lamp store, but he was smart
enough to know we didn't want
to be represented by an
ambassador who carried a tear-gas
gun.
Mike Royko is a Chicago
based, nationally syndicated
columnist. His column appears
weekly in The Collegian.