Well, here we are. Veishea is less than two weeks away, and still there hasn’t been an announcement about the big entertainment planned for the weekend. Why? Could it be that there won’t be any? I am really curious what the Veishea Entertainment Committee has been doing for the past year. With the resources available, a top-quality, alcohol-free (of course) band should have been booked and the announcement made weeks ago.

Unfortunately, this year’s Veishea celebration is turning into another “shoulda, coulda, woulda” fest where everybody looks at each other and wonders why people choose to get drunk when they can listen to a DJ on Welch playing the light rock hits of the ’80s. This year, it seems that the focus on making Veishea dry and limiting it to the fictional “Cyclone Family” has overshadowed the planning and implementation of the activities necessary for a successful Veishea. There was a lot of talk about getting a good headliner band, but like so much else at this school, it was all talk and no action.

It is amazing how this administration and the Veishea committees all believe that alcohol is the problem with Veishea. Abuse of alcohol is a symptom of the problem with Veishea. The problem with Veishea is that it tries to put the Iowa State campus in a time machine and transport us back to the wonderful days of the past when the name Veishea meant something and Veishea had a purpose to showcase the university. That notion hasn’t been an attraction for college students for years. Veishea has grown into a drunken orgy because the planners didn’t provide fun alternative activities that relate to today’s students. But we have Stars Over Veishea and Dew the Rec, you say? Yes, a minority of students may find “The Music Man” or yet another hypnotist to be entertaining beyond their expectations. But neither of these has the ability to take our MTV-generation, 10-minute attention spans away from alcohol like a big concert would. The tradition to bring a big band in for Veishea should have started 30 years ago. It could have started this year. Unless the Veishea committee has something up their sleeve, it won’t.

So let’s all enjoy this Veishea where we blame alcohol for all of our problems and don’t realize that it’s our own fault we are too lazy and lame to put on a show that we can all be proud of AND have a good time. Maybe next year we will realize that we can and should spend the time and money to get good entertainment at Veishea. But probably not. How pathetic.

Jonathan Wolff

Senior

Construction engineering