I was in the middle of a nice walk in the Quad on Monday when I was interrupted by the sounds of shrieking, screaming and crying. These resembled the sounds little children make when their parents refuse to buy them candy at the grocery store. I kept walking, and the sounds grew louder and louder. I began to wonder if someone had abandoned a group of infants somewhere. I approached the Union and realized there indeed was a group of babies making all the commotion.

It was the Progressive Resource/Action Cooperative (PRC). For those unaware, the PRC is a group of haircut-needing activists that lean so far to the left it makes Jesse Jackson look like Jesse Helms.

When I reached the south patio of the Union, I rolled my eyes, shook my head and chuckled – this is the universal body language for “There’s a PRC bitch-fest in progress.” What in the world could they be whining about now? I gazed around and was greeted with signs proclaiming “Happy Conquest and Murder Day,” “Bush is a modern-day Columbus” and the succinct yet profound “No war.” The person holding this sign was probably too busy smoking grass to come up with something a little more creative, but I give him credit just for making it to the demonstration.

This must have been an anti-Columbus Day rally, but with random chants such as “President Bush, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide,” and “1-2-3-4, we don’t want your Chief no more, 5-6-7-8, racist mascots create hate,” I wasn’t positive. The last time I checked, our University’s symbol had no connection to Columbus, nor did our mascot spout off racial epithets when performing. As everyone knows, the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria sailed the ocean blue back in 1492. The University wasn’t chartered until 1867.

I also wasn’t aware that President Bush was starting a holocaust. Apparently, protecting the United States and the Middle East from terrorism by eliminating the Taliban and Saddam Hussein constitutes mass murder. Interestingly enough, the PRC never made any hubbub about the Kurdish mass graves in northern Iraq – the result of Hussein’s poison-gas attacks. That’s the definition of genocide, folks.

When the intermittent chanting subsided, the rally continued and we all were treated to a nice little speech by elitist Prof. Joe Miller. Miller, who insinuated that because many of our servicemen and women come from poor families and areas with substandard education, they don’t understand why they are fighting overseas. With such a sweeping generalization, it’s clear he must’ve performed some type of scientific study – yeah, right. This is just another preposterous PRC assumption used to help advance its crackpot agenda.

Resolve is another trait most PRC members share. These activists just don’t know when to call it quits. Last spring, for instance, they invaded and forced the closing of the Swanlund Administration building. This act of total selfishness cost Illinois taxpayers thousands of dollars and caused numerous headaches for University employees. These protesters should have been arrested for trespassing, but they were let off scot-free, because when the former Chancellor is a closet-PRC member, you can pretty much do whatever you want. By the way Nancy, I hope the door hit you hard enough on the way out.

Despite the steadfastness of the typical PRC member, their boo-hooing has yet to yield any results. Like the good parent who refuses to buy the Snickers bar for the squealing toddler, the University hasn’t given in to the PRC’s extremist agenda and tactics. Last spring, students voted overwhelmingly in support of Chief Illiniwek. Numerous other polls asking American Indians their thoughts on American Indian mascots and symbols have yielded identical results.

At the next PRC get-together, someone needs to bring a shipment of milk, bottles and maybe some pacifiers. Hopefully the grocery store won’t get cleaned out, because there are some really big babies that need to be fed.

Chris Kozak is a senior in LAS. His column runs Wednesday. He can be reached at [email protected].