For some odd reason, a gallery member at Wednesday night’s GSB meeting on the fate of Veishea Lite thought the administration tells the Daily to not talk about Veishea. This slanderous assertion could only be uttered by someone who doesn’t read the Daily yet believes it is perfectly reasonable to criticize it anyway.

The administration does not, nor have they ever told us what to say or what topics to avoid. That statement is as offensive to them as it is to us.

I don’t mind taking criticism for mistakes we actually make or things we DON’T do but should have. But for the love of God, don’t go shooting your mouth off when you obviously don’t even bother to read the paper.

Sometimes you actually have to read beyond the headlines to find out that, yes, in fact, a subject was covered.

We talk about Veishea constantly. We talked about Veishea the day of the meeting, and guess what? I’m talking about it right now, so open your eyes and have a shafty at this, Helen Keller.

Now for the business at hand: GSB senators. You know it really isn’t that hard to have a backbone. Knowing what to do with it is apparently another matter all together.

Wednesday night’s GSB meeting made me sick. There you were, dressed in your finest “I hope I get to be on TV” clothes speechifying and grandstanding pretending to be reasonable, mature grown ups, and you stiffed.

Mature and reasonable adults don’t give up their basic rights just because they won’t mind not exercising them one weekend.

And passing a resolution that says you believe students SHOULD have a significant say in Veishea is like passing a resolution that says Santa Claus SHOULD exist. It doesn’t mean JACK SQUAT!

Lots of things SHOULD be. Adults SHOULD be allowed to make their own decisions. Every child SHOULD have enough to eat and a warm place to sleep at night. There SHOULD be no war, no famine and no disease.

Every day SHOULD be 72 degrees, mostly sunny with a 14 percent chance of rain overnight with possible thundershowers later in the week, but it just ain’t so folks. You’ve got to make things happen.

You had an opportunity to make something, I don’t care what, but anything, happen last night. And from taking a bold and glorious stand on behalf of the student body and their civil rights, you passed a resolution that just begs the administration to spank us all red. You didn’t even decide to wait to see what the punishment for disobedience would be. What kind of leadership is that?

You blew it. You blew it so bad that most of you are no doubt walking around all proud of yourselves for “saving Veishea.” Well, you didn’t save it. YOU killed it.

The people willing to save Veishea are the ones willing to risk having it cancelled over this pledge issue.

Here is an analogy you might understand. Remember how “Seinfeld” started to go downhill that last season?

If they had gone on for one more season, people would have hated the show so much they would have cancelled it for poor ratings so they decided to end it while they still had their dignity. That’s what Veishea is becoming. A bastardized version of it’s former greatness.

People like you were the ones willing to ignore the concentration camps because Hitler revitalized the German economy.

All I can say is thank God no one was hiding Anne Frank on campus or you callow punks would have turned her in to the Nazis to “save” Veishea.

You are willing to compromise principle because it is intangible, and you cannot accurately perceive what you are forfeiting.

When you represent thousands of students and their right to control their own actions, the last thing you should be worried about is looking good for the local news cameras.

By far the weakest of excuses we hear Veishea Lite proponents make is that we should all be willing to give up drinking for one weekend to keep Veishea.

The more duplicitous members of our campus say “just take the pledge and drink anyway.”

Well, you know what? In spite of jokes I might make to the contrary, I can’t even remember the last time I had a drink. I think it was a Thursday two weeks ago. Two beers at Lost and Found. I haven’t gotten drunk since my birthday in August, so when I tell you this is not about drinking believe it.

I don’t give up my Constitutionally guaranteed rights on the whim of a bunch of 19-year-olds who are still possessed by the same fear of authority they picked up in high school.

If anything, I will now be forced to drink on Veishea just to prove to myself that I still have the same rights I had before I came here.

You will have your entire lives to be spineless punks; why are you so eager to start now? If you think you have time to develop a spine later in life, you’re wrong.

Once you start down the road of cowardly inaction, you will not be able to come back later on when you have your bossman breathing down your neck.

So the next time you are presented with the opportunity to use a little backbone, DO SO!

Greg Jerrett is a graduate student in English from Council Bluffs. He is opinion editor of the Daily. See his play at Fisher theater this weekend or God will strike you dead.