Halloween

The big debate in Madison is when to celebrate Halloween. Do
students celebrate the weekend prior, which is five days before
Halloween, or the weekend immediately following, which pushes the
celebrations into November?

The choice is clear . . . both. The weekend before is a
must-celebrate weekend because with daylight-savings time, we get
an extra hour at the bars Saturday night–hardly an event to pass
on. We should then dress up Thursday night, the actual night of
Halloween, because we can take advantage of the great drink
specials. We should continue to celebrate that weekend, because it
is the closest weekend to Oct. 31.

Why dress up for Halloween only one or two nights, when we could
dress up four or five nights? Not only will this mean more huge
parties and wild nights that are sure to annoy the administration
and foil their efforts to end drinking, but we may be able to get
attention from the Princeton Review and move our way back into the
top three party schools in America.

After all, since we lost in football and our Rose Bowl hopes are
all but gone, we may as well be known as America’s greatest
partygoers.

Southworth

Scott Southworth’s lawsuit against the Board of Regents and seg
fees (student taxes) ran into trouble when Chicago’s 7th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals last week ruled against him. The Court
said that, on paper, the system is “viewpoint neutral.”

Everyone who loves seg fees says (with a wink) that the system
is viewpoint neutral, and every conservative’s hope that seg fees
would be eliminated immediately has had his or her hopes
dashed.

The system is not neutral and never will be neutral. The new
test is whether Student Judiciary will uphold SSFC’s decisions to
deny eligibility to organizations that violate the rules. MEChA
violated regent policy papers, and it looks like it may still be
given another hearing; we will see what happens.

ASM–what a mess!

So everyone is suing everyone. I count at least 10 lawsuits this
semester.

Groups are suing those SSFC members cutting seg fees, the
liberals on the committee sued the conservatives, the conservatives
are suing the liberals, students are even suing a member of Student
Judiciary who it clearly appears is illegally serving on the
court.

He has been involved in most of the decisions thus far, so the
result of the suit should mean the cases that have proceeded will
have to be done over, or another Southworth-type case will likely
be filed in federal court proving there is no real check on the
system.

The slim liberal majority running ASM is accusing the
conservatives of skipping meetings–even though almost everyone was
legitimately excused–for political gain. Let us forget that if all
the liberals had shown up to these meetings they would have had
quorum.

What it comes down to is this:

If you believe all the student services offered on campus are
beneficial to students, you don’t mind tuition going up and believe
that diversity is the most important issue on campus, then no
question–vote for members of the REACH slate in ASM’s “mid-term”
elections next week.

If you believe many of the student “services” may not be
services, think student taxes are too high and want your student
government to continue to focus on expanding library hours–part of
Memorial Library is already open 24 hours a day thanks to lobbying
efforts–and save drink specials, then voting for the Badger Party
is the only logical choice.

If you don’t care if tuition goes up and you could care less
about diversity, library hours and drink specials, then stay as far
away from the nightmare that is ASM. It is a circus anyway.

U.S. Senate

Democrats, in a desperate political move, have forced Senator
Robert Torricelli, D-New Jersey, out of his re-election bid in an
effort to maintain control of the U.S. Senate. If they succeed, it
will only mean further endangering our federal court system.

Tom Daschle and other leading Democrats will not even allow the
president’s judicial nominees to receive hearings in front of the
entire U.S. Senate.

Expect the November elections to be as tight as the 2000
presidential race. Republicans will pick up two seats in the Senate
to regain a slim majority. They will lose a couple seats, but will
retain the House, and our federal courts will finally be able to
have vacancies filled with fair, responsible and qualified
judges.

Alvarez Letter

Football season-ticket holders last week received an e-mail from
UW football coach Barry Alvarez asking students to discontinue the
“fuck you, eat shit” cheer during games.

Students have been doing this cheer for as long as I can
remember, and hopefully students will not change a strong tradition
of showing off our Midwestern vulgarity.

The pride of Bucky says, “Sorry Barry, we love ya, but we aren’t
giving up any of our spirit.” That cheer is as much of a tradition
as pre-partying before football games.

Enjoy!

I hope everyone has a wild, but safe, Halloween. I wish I could
be there for the partying. Don’t forget, though, the clown is
apparently a racist costume, so pick something more politically
correct.

–Matt Modell ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in
journalism and political science. He is in Washington, D.C. this
fall for an internship.