| Summary: | the February 16,1996 CONCORDIAN OPINION 7 Where's Waldo theory of love Between the lines While standing in the children's book aisle of Target trying to find Waldo in the "Find Waldo Now!" book, I had a revelation, actually two revelations. First, if I'm still stuck on "Where's Waldo" books, Hooked on Phonics did not work for me, and second, finding Waldo is probably something like trying to find love. I realize this sounds a bit out the*re, but I'd looked through at least three "Where's Waldo" books while standing there so I think I'm on to something. With the recent passing of another Valentine's Day and all the empha-sis it places on matters of the heart, I think it is only appropriate to let you in on the "Where's Waldo Theory of Love." Anyone who has every tried to find Waldo in a "Where's Waldo" book knows what it is like to search for that elusive red-and-white- shirted Cassanova on a page busy with impostors and look-alikes, possibly set in a scene of a circus or crowded marketplace. It can be frustrating, dizzying, even nauseating if you look too close (or stay in Target too long). I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Hey de day, that sounds a lot like love." You're right. Many people, especially on college campuses and especially around Valentines's Day, live their lives as if they were walking around on the page of a "Where's Waldo" book, searching frantically to find the one true Waldo, or searching for a female, Waldena. They search until they either find this person, graduate, or pass out in Target. That's really not part of the theory, but it doesn't really matter because anyway, the searching ends, or begins some-where else, possibly on a new page. Another element to the Where's Waldo/Waldena theory o' Iovin* is how one actually finds the one true Waldo/Waldena. Speaking from past experience, taking possibly every "Where's Waldo" book out there, I've noticed one may be just as likely to find Waldo/Waldena when just casually glancing around the page as when searching frantically for him/her. It's like all of a sudden Waldo is standing there, in that red-and-white-striped shirt, books in hand, smiling just as if he had good sense. Whether or not this part of the theory is applicable to real life, I am not sure. I don't test theories, I just stand in Target until I think of them. It is possible that all of us have knowingly or unknowingly tested the "Where's Waldo Theory of Love." Let me warn you that I have no guarantee that it works or is at all accurate, and neither does Target. Therefore, if you think you've found Waldo/Waldena and he/she turns out to be some kind of freak, don't call me. What is accu-rate is the puzzle of where Waldo is could be much more than a chil-dren's book, especially around Valentine's Day. Going down in a blaze of glory? Erik Anderson Ungrateful Biped The closing of the American frontier was a traumatic event for some. Those who had previously existed by their wits, wild and free, fell into despair as society moved westward as well, engulf-ing the wild west. Order descend-ed on the American West. That had previously been open range, no man's land, was divided up and rationed to homesteader. The land was settled, tamed, fenced off. Those on that land were bound by law and order, not survival of the fittest. No longer could bandits run wild, living off the land and each other. No longer could a man physically risk his life to find for-tune and fame and sometimes death. Since the closing of the American frontier and other simi-lar frontiers around the world, the frontier style of life has been romanticized. This is especially true here in America. The cow-boy, Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, heck the Marlboro Man. These ubiquitous images have survived, and subsequently have imprinted themselves in the collective con-sciousness of America. Of course there really hasn't been a frontier in the last ninety years or so, that is, until recently. This frontier is freer than the last. Its villains are craftier and more cunning. Its boundaries seem to keep expanding. One's possibili-ties in this frontier are wide open and endless, that is, until one catches a virus. I'm talking about the internet. Once cannot surf the internet without making comparisons to the wild west. Lone individuals, the computers their steeds, are constantly traversing the net's contorted landscape. They seek information, adventure, escape, entertainment, fortune, freedom and the unknown. Even love is sometimes sought through a com-puter these days. The net can often be a hostile environment, speaking from expe-rience. If one wanders very far from the reassuring safety of Concordia's own home page, one is sure to encounter some unsa-vory characters. The chat lines are full of people who revel in their net-granted anonymity. Net trav-elers pretend to be something they're not. After all, no one's the wiser, and its fun to escape that tiresome identity after a hard day. Unpoliced users often make the most of every opportunity to be coarse, rude and vulgar. But could it be this is a truer expression of how they really feel? Still seedier are some of the postings. It is rumored that some-where, in the deep dark corners of the net frontier, cyber-smuts exist. Do-it-yourself terrorism, kiddie porn, and even recipes for Jan's baked spaghetti are out there, posted, lurking, ready to engulf the morals of unwary adventurers. And lastly the hackers, the gun-slingers of the frontier, roam the countryside. Dodging security systems, their modems ablaze, they force their way into the data-bases that hold our financial records and credit card numbers. These bandits of the netherworld, with the press of a button, can alter, in the real world, the balance of power in our everyday struggle to keep up with the Joneses. By this comparison, it brings us to the issue of censorship and reg-ulation of the internet into a clear-er and more immediate focus. This frontier imposes upon us by making us consider and decide upon, as a society, issues of free-dom. In the decision, some things will be gained, others left behind. I have ambivalent feelings on the matter. If we choose to regu-late and censor, our freedom of movement will be severely limit-ed. The frontier, so to speak, will close. Sites will be fenced off, regulated. The internet will become an expensive and mun-dane place, interesting only to pedants which would certainly constitute a tragedy. On the other hand, in a frontier where ten-year-olds with comput-ers have the same potential as adults (in fact, ten-year-olds are some of the net's tallest-riding, most capable gunslingers), I am hard pressed to defend and justify my liberating reflex. Certain ele-ments of humanity have shown a knack for abusing freedom at the expense of others. I, for one, don't want to turn on my comput-er one day to find a truly sick and vile virus which forces me to view promotional images of Hootie and the Blowfish against my will. Crazy shade of winter Darrell Ehrlick Sitting back in the easy chair of discovery "When the whole community is at a standstill, when the winds are raging, and no relief is in sight." When I first read these words, I wondered if Whitman had ever written an apocalyptic treatise on Armageddon. I bet you never knew you had a copy of this metrical mas-terpiece. It is from the bible of bylaws and the protectorate of poli-cies, The Concordia Student Handbook. The topic: snow days. I should have been smarter. Instead of mindlessly throwing out all the stuff Concordia sent me before I applied, I should have picked up either the handbook, a map or a sledgehammer. I was a senior in high school, why on God's green earth would I have needed to read the college handbook? I knew everything already. Maybe if I would have picked up a map and looked where Fargo-Moorhead was, something would have registered in that pea-sized noggin of mine and said, "Listen dummy, it's going to be colder than the Bobbins' bed-room up there." No such luck, I apparently am about as dumb as a bag of hammers. Speaking of ham-mers, if I would have perhaps had one of the sledge variety, someone could have beaten some sense into my head. Instead, I go to a school where in the wintertime the radio in my car freezes. This past month was the first time I had read Concordia's snow day policy. Then the message stuck. As if some fourth grader was prac-ticing clarinet in my head, the dis-cordant truth of what winter really means around here set in. Reading the snow day policy, I thought, "hmm . . . typical rule here, looks pretty, but practically speak-ing works about as well as the radio in my car." As it turns out, this is not another "Cobber-be-good" rule. It is a rule that is merely indicative of the crazy state of things in this win-ter wonderland. The attire speaks highly of the times. This is the only time of year when looking like a campus securi-ty guard is cool. I am fascinated by this phenomenon of winter apparel, it is something that in one sense has tormented me for awhile. I felt bad as a child. I was always getting beat up during the wintertime. I have to admit, I was an easy target. Who wouldn't be in chocolate brown snow pants and blue moon boots? I honestly think I could have had a fighting chance had I not had those stupid wool mit-tens that had the string that ran through the coat connecting them. Damn bullies would always try to strangle me with them. Oh, to have the comfort of those snow pants and the warmth of those moon boots. The flip side of this coin is those who feel moved by some undefined cosmic force to make a fashion statement in 50-below weather. I wonder if those people in their slick-soled dress shoes know how miserably funny they look taking baby steps across campus in order to avoid slipping on the ice? I won-der if those people who were frost-bitten still think that it was worth the daring fashion statment, "Hatless is cool?" We go walking around in weath-er that is illegal for animals to be in like it is normal. Yes, I think it is perfectly normal to be in a place where my deepfreeze is 50 degrees wanner than the outside; yes, it is normal for the state to close down (not that we notice — goll darn it the IRS is closed). The only thing I can come up with is that we must be in somekind of psychotic denile. The scary thing is that denile is only the first stage. We will keep on attempting to invent new ways to try to convince ourselves that we are the masters of our environment. This may be an exercise in futil-ity. My car's battery this year, like so many other wet-celled wonders, gave up the proverbial ghost. Once again it was time for a pilgrimage to Sears. The service clerk announced that my battery was indeed dead, like he had found the ark of the covenant. I instructed him to put in the biggest battery that he could find. What I got was the plu-tonium- cored, Sears Plaiinium 57,000 Die Hard, with approximate-ly 1.21 gigowatts of power. The next morning, dead. Humankind still can't beat a good artic blizzard. In our high-tech search for ways to screw Mother Nature out of her rightful domain, the ancients may have had the best insight into win-ter: The Greeks had a word for win-ter, hiemon (xet^cov), which subse-quently gives us the word for Chymera (literally the goat that has passed one winter), which was one of the most dreaded monsters in the ancient world. For even the arctic blast is noth-ing high-tech revolution can save us from; Wintertime in Minnesota^ crazy shade of an ancient monster.
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