hill smltherman
United we stand
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Talaphones: editor: 472 2588, rows: 472 2589, advertising
472-2590. Second clan postage rates paid at Lincoln, Nebraska.
The Daily Nebraskan i a student publication. Independent of ttie
University of Nebraska's administration, faculty and student
government.
Address: The Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union,
Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraske 68508.
University of
Another display
In the cold, Wednesday afternoon rain about 4,000 people
marched from the University campus to the Capitol in support of
the National Vietnam Moratorium.
The rain began to fall harder on that October day in 1969 as
the names of 350 Nebraska war dead were read to the silent
crowd.
The Moratorium was "a very splendid success," according to a
Daily Nebraskan editorial. "The day was, without a doubt, the
greatest peace outpouring and mass display of thoughtful
reflection in the history of Lincoln and the University."
It was the biggest display at the Capitol since a visit by Pres.
Eisenhower in the early 1950's. It was a splendidly successful
display, a display that shattered all previous attendance records, a
display that prompted some of the most righteous oratory since
William Jennings Bryan.
Eight months before that splendidly successful Moratorium,
two co-eds were playing cops and robbers with cap pistols across
the Nebraska Union lounge from where about 200 students were
sitting on the floor listening to a Hyde Park discussion on the
relevancy of religion.
After one speaker stepped down, a tall, thin, short-haired and
serious-looking student took the stand. He said the government
was trying to exert the power of telling him when to kill and
what was right and wrong. "The government does not have that
right," he said quietly.
Then he simply announced he would burn his draft card. He
did. He invited anyone else to join him who wanted to. Nobody
did.
The student, Larry Zink, is now in a federal prison.
Most of the leaders of the magnificent 1969 display are still
around campus, some as students and some not. Some of them
are planning another Moratorium for today. They are trying to
build up another splendidly successful display. Instead of reading
the names of the 408 Nebraska Vietnam dead they plan to get
408 people to play dead in front of the Capitol.
The Vietnam War is just not a very popular issue any more, so
the display is not likely to shatter attendance records this year.
That's probably a good thing. It means there won't be a cheap
way to get the war off our consciences this year.
So maybe more of us will be forced to make the kind of
personal decision about war that Larry Zink made.
Steve Strasser
Go Little Red
In the land of Big Red, intramural sports and recreation have
long taken a backseat position to varsity athletics. And this occurs
despite the fact that only a small percentage of students
participate in inter-collegiate sports.
However, progress is now being made to upgrade intramural
sports and recreation for students.
The Department of Recreation and Intramurals has been
completely revamped for this school year with new personnel, a
new location, new equipment and facilities, and a fresh outlook
on its purpose and potential. "We're going to have to prove
ourselves, and I think we can," said Dan Stellar, the new director
of the department.
The optimistic Stellar, who was previously dean of Student
Affairs at Doane College, is especially interested in increasing
student participation in intramurals and recreation. Stellar's
approach makes sense since the department's programs are for
students and are subsidized by student fees.
To reach more students, the department is increasing its
emphasis this year on non-competitive sports and recreational
activity such as skiing and canoeing.
One of the biggest problems of the department in the past has
been a shortage of facilities. However, two new recreational areas
now under construction should give a big boost to the
University's intramural and recreation programs. The new sports
area will include tennis and basketball courts, intramural football
fields and putting greens.
It appears that intramurals and recreation are finally getting
the attention they deserve. After all, sandlot sports and recreation
are probably more important to students than a number one
football team.
Gary Seacrest
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"Okay. . . here are the broad guidelines!
Now, get in there, teeth and. . . ."
A true merger between the
University of Nebraska at
Lincoln, UNO and the NU
Medical Center is far from
reality.
As it stahds now, this
institution is a paper university
composed of three competing
schools.
This is not the way planners
expected the merger to
develop, but the events have
been predictable to some
degree. We need only to look
at the problems forming a real
union from the 13 American
colonies to get some idea of
how difficult it is to combine
independent power structures.
Each member of a union,
logically enough, starts by
looking out for his own
interests. But, though this is
the usual course of affairs, such
an independent attitude must
be charged if a united country
or a united university is to
become great.
Fortunately, the phase of
selfishness seems to be coming
to an end here. It looks like a
long process, but at least the
change has started.
The most important
ingredient for making the
merger work, according to
President D. B. Varner, is
attitude. If the three
institutions of the university
view one another with
mistrust, as enemies, making
the merger work will be nearly
impossible.
Brevity in letters is requested and the
Daily Nebraskan reserves the right to
condense letters. All letters must be
accompanied by writer's true name but
may be submitted for publication under
a pen name or initials. However, letters
will be printed under a pen name or
initials at the editor's discretion.
And it is important that the
merger work. If it doesn't, the
students and citizens of
Nebraska will be the victims.
Citizens will have to pay for
three mediocre institutions
rather than one good one and
students will get only a
mediocre education.
But, the indications that the
merger has an increasingly
better chance are many. One of
the most important is that by
next fall all three institutions
will have new chancellors.
This statement' is not to
condemn any present
chancellor, but new men
should be able to more easily
consider the problems of a
university system as well as an
individual campus.
Another bright spot for the
merger is President Varner. He
is dedicated to making the
merger real and will work to
provide effective and creative
leadership.
Another help is the Regents'
decision to move system-wide
administrative offices away
from the UNL administration
building. It is not unusual that
Omaha administrators have
suspected that system-wide
administrators might favor the
campus they have the most
contact with. The move of
offices should help allay this
fear.
Friday Varner suggested to
the Regents that some graduate
programs might be moved from
UNL to UNO or to the Medical
Center. In interviews he has
said he also feels that some
Omaha programs should be
expanded to Lincoln.
This is also an important
step toward making the merger
work. This is especially true in
the case of a college which
would have its administration
on one campus with classes
taught in both Lincoln and
Omaha.
A college administered in
this way could not help but
quickly establish a
university -wide perspective.
This kind of expansion
between campuses could work
as well in undergraduate
sequences as it could for
graduate programs. It is evident
that many new approaches and
ideas like this one will be
necessary to make the
University of Nebraska really
come together.
Another useful idea comes
from UNL library director
John Heussman who is working
to establish a university-wide
library- system. More ideas are
needed and they seem to be
coming.
It may be necessary to try
many methods before a
combination is found to
produce an effective merger.
Many attempts are bound to
fail. But, it is possible to
imagine, before too long, a
University of Nebraska which
exists in more than the statute
books.
Dear editor,
A misguided criticism of the "Time
Out" conference on human sexuality was
reported last week, in The Daily
Nebraskan and elsewhere. That was the
criticism that the conference lacked
balance.
To show that criticism to be
misguided, I think one shouldn't argue
that the conference was balanced; in fact,
one needn't say anything about the
conference at all. The "lacked-balance"
criticism is misguided, not because it is a
sensible predicate wrongly applied (as if
one had called a daisy a rhododendron),
but because it is hard to see how there
could ever by any point to such a
criticism (as if Julius Caeser had been said
to be a prime number).
In many cases it is foolish to talk
about balance. For example, if McGovern
speaks, do we need a Hruska to answer
him, for the sake of balance? If Bill
Buckley speaks, should we bring
McGovern back, again so that we shall
not "lack balance"? If Kate Millett
speaks, should we also bring Norman
Mailer to reply, so that no one is led
astray?
Frequently "balance" is not an
appropriate or necessary goal. For
example, if the Nebraska Symposium on
Motivation one year chooses as a special
topic Freudian-psychoanalytic
conceptions of motivation, do we need a
few anti-Freudians, a behaviorist, and a
anti-Freudian fundamentalist Christian on
the program for the sake of balance? The
central aim in organizing such a
conference or symposium should
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
probably be one of creating a
stimulating and illuminating exchange of
ideas, and not "balance."
The concern for balance increases
directly with one's distrust of the ability
of an audience to make responsible (and
critical) judgements of its own about what
it has heard. If for example one thought
that college audiences believed everything
they were told, one would have to be very
concerned about balance. If one believed
that such audiences were perfectly
capable of making autonomous
intellectual judgements, one would need to
be concerned hardly at all.
It makes no sense to speak of
"balance" for any presentation that does
not involve advocacy in the ordinary
sense. For example, if a speaker advocates
stricter enforcement of anti-abortion
laws, a speaker who opposed his view
might be said to "balance" his
presentation. But if Alan Bell says only
20 per cent of male homosexuals
correspond to the stereotype of
homosexual effeminacy, how would that
view be "balanced"? And how would one
"balance" a sociological or personal
description of what female homosexual
life is like? With a denunciation of
homosexuality?
Judgements concerning balance, unlike
other value judgements, are directly
relative to either personal or
contemporary opinion. This is because
"balance" or lack thereof is judged
relative to one's conception of what the
issues are, of where the middle between
opposed sides lies, and of which views are
dubious or controversial and hence in
need of being answered. If in 1920
Nebraska students had invited
pro-evoluntionary speakers to appear,
William Jennings Bryan, the Board of
Regents, and high administrative officials
as well might have decried the event as
"unbalanced" unless there was also a
Biblical scholar present to balance the
speaker with a denunciation.
I conclude that one who called a
conference unbalanced simply reveals his
own personal value standards, and very
little else.
Dear editor,
Gary Seacrest registered his official
indignation in Monday's Daily Nebraskan
at the way state politicans are playing
political football with the University.
May I submit that they would have much
less chance if students would stop trying
to play games with it themselves.
When ASUN refrains from interfering
in national, state and cultural politics,
(i.e.: action and stands on national issues;
association with and financial support of
NSA; the TimeOut Conference, which
was by no stretch of the imagination
objective; the World in Revolution
Conference, which promises more of the
same;)"outsiders" will be less inclines to
interfere with us.
There is a principle called jurisdiction
which is roughly translated "Mind your
own business." When ASUN exceeds its
own jurisdiction as it has, turnabout is
fair play and I must say they asked for it.
rvr
aBalttaWlttall ' sfleBBafilttel&tlslMIti
Jeffrey hart
TV news twisters
Until now it has been difficult to prove,
finally and convincingly and to everyone's
satisfaction, that the major TV networks are
politically biased. Vice President Agnew and
Daniel Patrick Moynihan charge bias. Nonsense,
reply Walter Cronkite, Fred Friendly, and
Frank Stanton.
Well, the argument is now over. In "The
News Twisters," by Edith Efron, the case is
made with convincing statistics that CBS, ABC,
and NBC exhibit overwhelming political bias of
a liberal-left character, and that all three
networks, furthermore, have flagrantly violated
the Fairness Doctrine of the Federal
Communications Commission.
Miss Efron notes that a great deal of "for"
and "against" opinion is broadcast by the TV
news shows. The opinion can be given in a
forthright editorial way by the reporters
themselves, but usually it comes from
candidates, from participants in the event being
reported, from bystanders or the
man-in-the-street, or through such vaguely
specified attributions as "most stjdents felt
that..."
For her statistical test Miss Efron chose the
last 60 days of the 1968 Presidential campaign.
In addition to the campaign itself, she chose a
number of clear-cut issues: the bombing halt,
the Viet Cong, black militants, the white
middle class, liberals, conservatives,
demonstrators, and violent radicals. She tape
recorded the 7 P.M. news shows of CBS, NBC,
and ABC, transcribed the tapes, and isolated all
"for" and "against" opinion on the issues
selected. Then she did a word count.
Mary Cannon
Hold onto your hat. The three networks had
a field day with Richard Nixon. On ABC
listeners heard 7,493 words against him, 869
for him; NBC provided about the same
proportions; CBS was even worse, if you can
imagine it: 5,300 words against and 320 for.
Miss Efron's conclusion is inescapable: "All
three networks clearly tried to defeat Mr.
Nixon in his campaign for the Presidency of the
United States."
Similarly revealing statistics turn up on the
other issues. On the bombing-halt, ABC put out
904 words for, 165 against; CBS, 407 words for
and 36 against; NBC, 814 words for and 147
against. On issue after issue the selection of
opinion was comparably slanted.
"On the basis of these descriptive statistics,"
writes Miss Efron, "it is clear that network
coverage tends to be strongly biased in favor of
the Democratic-liberal-left axis of opinion. ..The
networks actively slanted their opinion
coverage against U. S. policy on the Vietnam
war. The networks actively slanted their
opinion coverage in favor of the black militants
and against the white middle-class majority."
They "largely evaded the issue of violent
radicals."
The only question remaining now is: When is
the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) going to step in? The First Amendment,
which allows printed journalism to be as biased
as it likes, does not apply here. The Fairness
Doctrine explicitly prohibits bias in broadcast
news. In this monopoly going to be allowed to
abuse its power with impunity? If the FCC does
not act now, need Congress stand idly by?
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
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PAGE 4
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1971
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1971
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