A great man, well, Popeye at least, once said, “I’ve had all I can stands and I can’t stands no more!” A truer cliche was never spoken.

I’ve had it with students at this university that defecate on students who try to be involved at NIU and get things done.

I’m talking about all of the mental midgets who dump on the Student Association, Campus Activities Board, The Northern Star and all other active student groups on campus.

The SA has been called everything from “a bunch of sandbox politicians” to mere complacent resume builders. People moan about CAB and how it doesn’t bring any programs the students actually want. Of course, we all know how the Star is made the butt of jokes.

Hey, at least the people who are involved in these organizations are busting their butts to better the NIU community instead of sitting at home playing Nintendo, drinking beer and agonizing over which party to attend Friday night.

The priorities of students at this university and in this country are way out of whack. For example, in Japan, a student who scores high on a test and receives an award receives applause from his fellow classmates. In America, the person would be called a geek and laughed at. Why?

It’s obvious the reason students dump on involved people is insecurity. The armchair critics see others doing good things around NIU and are too lazy or afraid of failure to get involved themselves. So, they cover it up by dumping on the program.

Hey, the SA controls $850,000 of student fee money. SA Senators represent students, so at least in theory, NIU students decide where the enormous fees they pay actually go. Here’s a scoop: at most universities, the administration decides where student fee money goes. Personally, I shudder at the thought of the administration doling out my fee money—just think of all the monuments to themselves, er, student life buildings, they’d try to build.

CAB has done a damn fine job recruiting some name talent this year. They’ve brought in some hot alternative bands as well as some famous speakers. Yet, people still moan about their interests not being represented. NIU funds can only stretch so far, and I’m sure every special interest group on campus is pushing their agenda across. NIU—the place where you can’t please any of the people, any of the time.

The Star is another story. Yeah, sure, it has its shortcomings—all newspapers do. But keep in mind that it has one of the top-20 highest circulations of all college newspapers, comes out five days a week (when the overwhelming majority of college newspapers are weeklies), and is completely run by students.

Another thing that really cheeses me off is the fact that the Star practically has to beg to get journalism majors to work here. The majority of reporters here are English majors. One of the big reasons for this is that at least two of the journalism professors continually run the newspaper down in their classes. If you can’t get support from your own damn department, where is it supposed to come from?