monday, January 19, 1978
page 4
daily nebraskan
Question: When is an ethnic joke funny?
Answer: Is an ethnic ever funny?
It certainly wasn't very funny when mem Jcrs
of the Polish diplomatic mission visiting UNL to
study agricultural methods were misidentified in
the photo caption on page two of Friday s Daily
The Daiiy Nebraskan has several apologies to
make; First to the members of the delegation,
who also were personally contacted after the
mishap.
Second to our readers, who should expect
more from the newspaper. To you our credibility ,
has been dented but not ruined.
Third to the university, who, excepting the
Daily Nebraskan example, gave the visitors a
flawless and considerate welcome.
The caption that appeared in the paper was
never meant to have been printed. It was written
in jest by a staff member.
When the caption was then printed on Friday,
the staff member responsible for the original
wording was aghast. There was never any belief
on his part that it would be printed. The Daily
Nebraskan is convinced the action was not
malicious.
The editorial staff of the paper is also respon
sible because the offending caption bypassed the
entire checking process that stories are subject to.
In the haste of several late stories Thursday night,
the mistake never was spotted.
Haste is no excuse, and appropriate action has
been taken to prevent a similar mistake.
The matter of ethnic humor remains. There are
several examples that predominate in society, 1
from television to stand-up comics. Sdme ethnic
groups have produced comedians that are the
most merciless of comedic cultural self-observers.
Some of that comedy is genuinely funny,
derived from a rich heritage of material. Some of
it is slanted, stereotyped and ultimately dull.
The mistaken caption in Friday's paper was not
obscene or gross. But it offended, nevertheless.
And explaining what about it was funny to the
members of the visiting diplomatic mission was
impossible. It was no laughing matter.
Vince Boucher
letters to
the editofl
editorial
Harris critic 'misinformed;'
plan backs free enterprise
Dear Editor,
I take exception to the editorial by Rebecca Brite on
the actions of UNL regents, Edward Schwartzkopf and Jim
Say at the Regents meeting Dec. 13. They laid the issue
of CAC (Campus Assistance Center) out in public view.
Also, the 1,000 signatures on the petition to postpone the
construction of CAC were collected in two days by four
students who just asked students to sign the petition out
side of classes. The petition drive was not publicized.
You can be certain that, as students at the University
of Nebraska, we would be "unhappy" if our student fees
were used in a project that most students don't under
stand andor know about. How can this paper endorse
such an "excellent project" when this project not only
lacks student support, but is understood by few students
on campus?
Robert Sosa
(Editor's note: Rebecca Brite was editor of the Daily
Nebraskan last semester. In her Dec. IS editorial, she re
affirmed her support for the CAC, a stand she had pre
viously taken, after the project was tabled by the NU
Board of Regents at its December meeting.)
By Kurt Hohenstein
In this misinformed ignorance, Del Gustafson, (DJM.
Jan. 14), has once again perpetuated the economic myth
on unemployment to the readers of this paper. Not only
has he done that, but he has misquoted and slandered
Sen. Fred Harris's economic program. I would like to take
this opportunity to explain Fred's program and to correct
the misinformation that Del has stated.
To compare Fred Harris's populism with Long's
politics is a spurious correlation Long's was a politics of
necessity and force, while Harris's is a politics of compas
sion for the. "great unwashed" and a rational dose of free
enterprise tor the corporate giants.
Del misses the major point of Fred's employment pro
gram when he claims that reconstructing the tax tables, so
that the super rich pay their fair share, is Fred's only
answer. True, Fred proposes an increase in the tax rates
and a closing of the major loopholes for those super
monied interests. And why not?
When 29 corporation own 21 per cent of the cropland
in America; when agribusiness controls 51 per cent of all
fresh vegetables, 85 per cent of our citrus crop, 100 per
cent of all sugarcane, 97 per cent of all broiling chickens
and 40 per cent of all eggs; when the eight largest oil com
panies control 64 per cent of all proven oil reserves, 60
per cent of all natural gas and 45 per cent of all known
uranium reserves; when the 200 largest businesses control
Iowa precincts to caucus;
'Much ado about nothing'?
rarefied
By Dick Piersol
Iowans begin the slow tortuous process of picking
national political convention delegates today with
precinct caucuses. The results will not be known until the
state political conventions in May, but precinct delegate
counts are providing the kind of hungry media attention
ordinarily reserved for the early primary elections in New
Hampshire and Massachusetts.
Iowa Democrats will send six delegates from each of
more than 5,000 precincts to county conventions. If a
armluite csn get 15 per cent support in a precinct, he
is assured of at least one committed delegate. If the
candidate gets more than 15 per cent, the delegates are
proportionately increased.
The county conventions then use the same process to
send delegates to one of six Congressional district con'
ventions where 40 of the state's 47 delegates to the
national convention will be chosen. Seven more delegates
will be elected at the state convention May 29.
Much ado. . .
Considering there will be 3,016 delegates at the
Democratic National Convention, it would seem the
precinct caucuses are much ado about nothing.
The Republicans are using a somewhat different
approach, with the only two candidates, Pres. Gerald
Ford and Ronald Reagan, getting either all or none of the
delegates from each caucus. The Republicans were not
generating much excitement until Reagan sneaked into
Iowa last Wednesday and opened a campaign office. He
staged an airport rally Saturday In Des Moines. It must be
like coming home for Reagan; he began his show biz
career In Davenport as a sportscaster. There are stories
floating about that he Indirectly announced a football
game that starred a Michigan center named Ford by
reading newswire copy on the air.
" The two Republicans are running about even, but Ford
has the support of party loaders, Including Gov. Robert
flay. -
Real fireworks
The Democratic candidates campaigning actively,
pirch Bayh, Jimmy Carter, Fred Harris, Henry Jackson,
Sargent Shriver and Morris Udall, are what the real fire
works are all about.
State Democratic Party Chairman Tom Whitney has
invited central Iowa Democrats to pay $10 a head for
admission tonight to the vote tabulation center hi Des
Moines. The entertainment? Two free drinks and a good
view of such luminaries as Roger Mudd of CBS, R. W.
Apple of the New York Times and Jules Witcover of the
Washington Post.
The stars, candidates and journalists alike, have been
crisscrossing Iowa for weeks. Progress thus far has bn
uninspiring. Party officials estimate from 25 to 50 per
cent of the delegates will remain uncommitted.
Labor backing
Bayh and Carter have the best chances of showing any
strength. A test poll of Sioux City Democrats last Sunday
showed Bayh, with strong labor backing in a labor
oriented town, with 36 per cent support and Carter with
29 per cent.
Carter has the best grass-roots organization going,
and should finish with a flourish.
Carter's campaign coordinator, Jody Powell, said
Saturday that the caucuses are Important the way the
early primaries have been in past years. He said after they
are over, Iowa will be just another state with 47 delegates.
But a candidate has to get rolling early and Carter is
really teetering on the brink. After all, he is the only
candidate with offices listed in the Des Moines yellow
pages.
My own version of Hot Licks this week concerns a
record getting a lot of airplay on the west coast. The title
is "He Played the Yo-Yo in Nashville," sung by Scan
Morton Downey and Written by Harley Hatcher. A Los
Angeles Times report said Downey, a member of the
Delegate Selection Committee for the Democratic
National Convention, thinks he will be chosen to sing
kJ ntlnalnth5m t.th convention and wants to sina
"Yo-Yo if they let him. It's a sympathetic country,
western ditty about this guy who is President of the
United States, see. . .
Yeah, but will it sell in Terra Haute?
two-thirds of all manufacturing assets in the United
States; and when a single family, the Rockefellers, own a
controlling interest in 56 of the largest corporations in
America, an obvious misappropriation exists.
Fred's policy rests not upon taxation to support feder
ally financed job programs but rather upon the principle
(with which Del would surely sympathize) of free enter
prise. A breakup of the conglomerates would allow small
business which has been driven out of the marketplace by
monopolistic practice, to reenter the field. And with their
return would come a mass of new jobs in the private
sector that would reduce substantially the unemployment
rate. Fred also has proposed a program of a "job reser
voir" of two million jobs which would be available to
people who are laid off temporarily. Instead of subsidizing
unemployment, he says, we would susidize employment
when it becomes necessary to do so. We should guarantee
a job to every able-bodied person willing to work.
Fred's populist program, perhaps the only really sane
program being offered by any candidate, rests on a single
statement. "The issue is privilege," Fred says. Will we tax
payers continue to support an economy already over
burdened by corporate corruption, manipulation and inef
ficiency (the Antitrust Division of the Justice Dept.
estimates that corporate inefficiency costs the nation over
80 billion dollars annually), so the the super rich and the
supermonopolies can continue to gouge at our pocket
books as they reap record profits?
I say no. I say the time has come (as Del mentions) in
the Bicentennial year to start another revolution: An eco
nomic revolution to demand a measure of equality and
fairness from corporations.
To claim that Fred Harris has been lying to the
American people is the lowest kind of unprofessionalism.
But I will not ask for an apology, because the populace is
smarter than to believe that. They have not, unlike Del,
been blinded by economic traditionalism. The "fishy"
smell comes not from Fred Harris's populist program, but
rather from the stench of exhorbitant corporate profits
in the light of able men and women going without work.
It seems you are so myopic that you are attacking the
man attempting to rid the mess, rather than the mess he
is kicking around. , ,
(Editor's note: Kurt Hohenstein is a senior from
Dakota City majoring in English with a minor in political
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