“Fuck dry Veishea” is the new rallying cry of social activism at ISU. The Man took away our right to do something which most of us didn’t have the legal right to do in the first place. The solution: Form a mob and mill about, shouting profanity, while we destroy street signs and overturn trash cans.

Whom did you rioters really hurt? Sure, some folks in maintenance had extra work the next morning, but do you suppose you reached Randy Alexander or Martin Jischke? Do you think they got together after the ruckus and bowed their heads in contrition because they haven’t been responsive to students’ needs?

Will the administration reform any of its profit-driven policies on the basis of an evening’s mayhem? I don’t think so.

The only policy that might change as a result of ISU’s version of “March Madness” is that we might see a heightened presence of campus security.

Is that what you set out to achieve? “No,” you might answer, “we didn’t ‘set out to achieve’ anything. The riot just sorta happened. It was just a bunch of people having fun.”

OK, so the riot was just a bunch of people getting together and having fun. In the course of that evening’s merriment, they expressed opinions critical of the school: Jischke sucks. The administration sucks. Dry Veishea sucks.

It has been suggested that the administration’s attempts to dismiss the riot as “Spring fever” are representative only of ISU’s PR machine. At the heart of this suggestion is the notion that there really are things at this university worthy of protest. I couldn’t agree more.

Here’s just a few of the legitimate grievances that could be made by the student body:

ISU has made it an annual event to raise tuition well beyond cost of living increases. ISU’s Department of Residence has made similar increases in room and board, with no concomitant gain in services rendered. Many of our international students have been devastated by these increases.

ISU is systematically eliminating housing that is popular with its residents in favor of expensive new dorms. Like politicians elsewhere in America, ISU’s administrators are looking out for their corporate buddies, building contractors and developers, and screwing us in the process. It’s all part of the “Master Plan.”

One of the few events that has distinguished ISU in past years, the raucous festival of Veishea, has been eviscerated by administrators concerned only with political damage control. Many of our students sorely miss a several day drink-fest that allowed them to blow steam before finals.

ISU’s administration has repeatedly demonstrated insensitivity to our needs. The fact is we DO resent it. Don’t give me that crap about how the riot was “all in good fun.” If it was just a social gathering, then why the random destruction? Why all the shouting about Jischke and Veishea?

The riot “just sorta happened.” No one set out to achieve anything. My question to those who rioted (and the rest of us who didn’t) is this: WHY NOT? Why don’t we set out to achieve anything?

They call us “Generation X” or “Generation Next” because (according to the press) we don’t stand for anything. We’re portrayed as apathetic when it comes to presidential elections, bombing campaigns in Europe, police brutality in America, violence and injustice in all forms everywhere.

They say we don’t even care about what happens to US! Most of us go along with that depiction of our generation. We’re nonchalant. We don’t care, and we’re proud of it. We’re unfazed by anything, no matter how atrocious, that’s how “funkyphatcool” we are.

But we are big, phat LIARS. Get enough of us together, milling around “harmlessly” in the name of “fun,” and before you know it, we’re shouting angrily about things we do, in fact, care about. We’re destroying property. We’re rushing at police officers, threatening them with the same violence with which they threaten us.

Not only do we care, we’re willing to kick your ass to prove it.

My hope for the future, if I’m to be permitted such foolishness, is that the next time we express our outrage about something, we’re better organized and nonviolent. A spontaneous riot, capable only of ambiguously articulating its anger, risking lives in the process, is NOT the best we can do.

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James O’Donnell is a graduate student in painting, drawing and printmaking from Mesa, Ariz.