Spider-Man. JFK. Syphilis. You may be wondering what any of these things have in common. You may think the answer is absolutely nothing, but you would be mistaken. I humbly beseech you my peers for a few moments of your time, but I forgive you if you skip over this to read another viewpoint article about the Vagina Monologues, or one of those hilarious comic strips. But for those of you who have stayed with me so far, I would like to address a serious issue: the stir fry situation in North Dining Hall.
As I'm sure many of you have noticed, Notre Dame food services at North Dining Hall no longer deems students intelligent enough to tackle the nigh impossible task of putting ingredients onto a plate. Perhaps they think that Notre Dame students are so stressed out with schoolwork, parietals, the upcoming presidential election, unplanned pregnancies, syphilis and the like that they have taken it upon themselves to remove the stress of handling our own ingredients. Or could it be that NDFS think all college kids are just genuinely unhygienic and are trying to prevent the spread of an epidemic like Mad Cow Disease?
Whatever their motives, this problem, like 25 percent of all problems, requires a solution. My solution? Change the stir fry system back to the way it was. I will not even dare use the word revert, because that has implications of regression, of going backwards. This is not what we would be doing. The real regression was when this nonsensical system began.
What makes this proposal the best? Obviously it is a practical system as it has been in use before. And it is useful in saving food. People know how much they are going to eat and won't take more than they can eat. And they also know how much of each ingredient they want. How is a Notre Dame food Services person going to know if I want a lot of pasta and a little pepperoni? This is only going to waste more food. Also, this would save the valuable time of the workers who have better things to be doing than trying to guess how much broccoli you want.
We have clearly seen that the older system is better than the current system. Are there any other practical solutions? I think not. I mean every other food station is choose your own, why not the stir fry?
If my words do not stir you to action perhaps Spider-Man's can. "With great power comes great responsibility." Notre Dame students have proven that they can handle the "great power" of choosing their own stir fry ingredients with "great responsibility." We should have never had it taken away in the first place. To paraphrase the late great JFK, "Ask not what your [dining hall] can do for you, but what you can do for your [dining hall]." I'll tell you what I can do for my dining hall, put on my own ingredients.
So what do Spider-Man, JFK, and syphilis have in common? They are all heroes, except the last one. They are all part of the reason why we should change the stir-fry system back to the way it was. As I am sure many of you are familiar with the movie 300, I urge you: "Go stranger passing by and tell the Spartans [and NDFS] that [we should change the stir fry system back to the way it was]."
Cornelius Rogers
freshman
Keenan Hall
April 3
