I was surprised to learn that last week’s “disturbance” at Towers was, in fact, a political protest. From everything I had heard, it sounded like a simple case of college students goofing off on a nice evening, an innocent display of perfectly healthy immaturity. Not so.

Follow-up discussion in the Daily over the past few days has revealed that Wednesday’s activities were actually a demonstration against injustices ranging from TCI’s failure to carry “South Park” to the dreaded dry Veishea. Protesters lambasted the excesses of the DPS Parking Division and the Jischke Regime from dorm room windows and, presumably, some greater purpose was accomplished.

What have we learned from all this spontaneous activism, other than that some of us like to assign great significance to otherwise meaningless, albeit enjoyable events? Let’s take a closer look at some of the issues the Towers “protesters” were demonstrating against.

These arguments have several things in common. First, they all have a point: no “South Park” is a bitch. An alcohol-free Veishea is a silly idea that will probably fail. Martin Jischke has more than a few serious shortcomings, and several of DPS’ parking goons are, in fact, evil. These facts of life at ISU are sad but true, and judging from the amount of space devoted to these topics in the Daily’s letters page (not to mention that wellspring of erudite wit and wisdom, the Quick-Es section), they are fairly widely-held notions. We can safely say that they seem to be the issues with which the greater student body is most concerned.

These ideas have one more thing in common: in the grand scheme of things, they are pretty insignificant. This says a lot about us. In a world full of very real, very serious problems, many of which affect ISU students and our campus directly, we’re in an uproar over cartoons and parking tickets. Moreover, our half-assed attempts to resolve even these most trivial grievances very seldom get beyond the pissing and moaning stage, and we all end up looking stupid. Meanwhile, issues and events of genuine importance go largely ignored.

Example: just last week the Board of Regents approved a 7.5 percent increase in room and board fees, and guess how many concerned students wrote letters to the editor on the subject? None. It’s been more than a week since ISU’s student Regent Lisa Ahrens was quoted on the Daily’s front page as saying “I think [students are] OK with it” in defense of her vote to approve the increase. The student reaction thus far has been virtually nonexistent. Many students aren’t even aware there is a student on the board.

It’s mystifying enough that Ahrens, an intelligent person ostensibly selected to represent the interests of students at all three regents universities would actually believe that students, many of whom are working full or part-time, receiving financial aid and accumulating debt that will haunt them for years, could possibly be “OK” with a 7.5 percent increase in room and board (especially on the heels of a 3.9 percent tuition increase, also approved unanimously this year).

But what’s really disturbing is the almost total lack of interest many of us have taken in the issue. It’s easy to point the finger at Ahrens, but in all fairness, we have only ourselves to blame for her failure to represent us on the Board of Regents. It’s ridiculous to think that most students in Iowa can afford these increases even if they are necessary, but it’s equally difficult to believe that Ahrens would have voted the way she did had she received some feedback from students. It’s our job to let the decision-makers know how we feel about the issues that affect us.

The room and board/tuition hike is just one of many legitimate areas of concern that passed us by while we were obsessing over trivialities. No wonder so little has been said about the Department of Residence’s murky search and seizure practices, the reality of sexual assault in Ames and the occasional brutality of DPS officers. After the infantile behavior displayed by some at last week’s gathering, it’s not so difficult to understand why some of our administrators seem to have such contempt for students.

Since the collapse of the 1960s counterculture, an embarrassing trend of complacency and ignorance has spread across America’s college campuses. Over the ’70s and ’80s, college students must have grown disillusioned with the attitudes of their predecessors, because social consciousness has become downright unfashionable, especially in the Midwest. Today we have the bitterly comic irony of a campus in which people will “riot” over ideas as inconsequential as the administration’s laughable plans to dry out Veishea, and yet still find the time to criticize student groups and even the Daily for “making a big deal” out of issues like diversity, affirmative action, gay rights and Catt Hall.

When we misplace our outrage so clumsily, the message we send to administrators and politicians is that we’re content to be exploited, abused and violated from time to time, so long as the beer keeps flowing and Chef keeps singing about makin’ sweet love on Wednesday nights. Make no mistake, beer and cartoons are wonderful things worth fighting for, but not if it means remaining silent on issues that really matter. In any case, shouting and complaining accomplishes nothing.

It doesn’t take much looking around to see that there are multitudes of perfectly legitimate things worth being upset about in this world, even at ISU. Let’s let them know those things are important to us too.

Josh Raulerson is junior in journalism and mass communication and English from Decorah.