thursday, feBruary 24, 1977
pags4
daily nebraskan
letters
Eliminating grades
There was an article in the Lincoln Journal on
Tuesday, Feb. 15, with the headlines, "UN L Worried
About Increasing Grades," or something to that effect.
The article concerned the rise in the grade point
average of graduating students which implies that more As
and Bs are being awarded to students. So what? UNL
officials were quoted in the article as saying that students
have more academic freedom and that professors are
becoming more lenient in grading. Couldn't it be possible
that students today are studying a little bit harder, that
they want to learn more, that they realize the keen
competition that exists in the outside world, and that
they just might deserve those higher grades? But we can't
have that and maintain academic excellence, right? I know
that attitude exists among UNL officials and other institu
tions of higher learning. That is why I am (and have been
for some time) in favor of eliminating grades and the
gradepoint system.
Students who do not realize their potential or know
where they are going until their latter part of their
sophomore year or early junior year (or even later) have
a battle to earn those higher grades. That is because their
opponents are the "accepted" students-those who are on
scholarships or those who managed to maintain high
grades through their first couple of years, and are
expected to do well by the faculty members. So if those
"accepted'' students screw up on a test or miss a few
classes or hand in a late paper, well, that is okay. We know
you are of a different breed. But for the "other" students
it's five days in solitary confinement.
My point is this: now that the article has been read by
the outside world, the professors are going to feel the
pressure of awarding higher grades. What it boils down to
is that if an up-and-coming student and an "accepted"
student do equal work, the "accepted" student will get
the benefit of the doubt (the higher grade) because it is
expected from that person. These type of decisions will
be necessary to maintain the "academic excellence" that
UNL officials fear is slipping away,
I don't have the best alternative to the grading system,
but if we want one bad enough, a few brainstorming
sessions could come up with a logical and workable solu
tion. I hope this issue does not die with this letter. I
would like to see response to this, be it pro or con, I
just don't want to see or hear about students becoming
victims of the necessity to maintain "academic excell
ence." -
Obscene ideas JiraJohnson
Are ideas that we disagree with obscene? Some Daily
Nebraskan readers seem to think so. And this is
dangerous. Such a definition could lead to propaganda,
or even thought control.
Milton probably deserves credit for our Frist Amend
ment, which allows free speech, religion and publication.
His theory is that if truth and falsity are allowed to co
exist, truth will eventually triumph. The best way to find
truth, then, is to compare it with something false. And
you can't do that if your choice is restricted. If one man
were allowed to determine truth and falsity, how could
we decide whether his decision was correct? Is there a
man without motives? Isn't it better to let an idea's merit
be the determinant? .
To determine what is and is not obscene we need a
, variety of input. After looking at attitudes of lawyers,
religious leaders, educators and others, the truth would
hopefully emerge. Until recently that was the test for
obscenity.
Suppose the Daily Nebraskan ran a picture of me in the
nude. Would that be obscene? That would depend on
your reaction. My guess is that you would be surprised.
You would then either find it funny, boring, or offensive.
Suppose it were run for every day that week. It would
probably become awfully boring. But it probably would
flunk the first part of the test-it would not sexually
arouse the normal college student.
It might be' without any serious social significance.
That would have to be determined by considering the
attitudes of several people who had seen the picture. But
unfortunately, the court today would not adopt that test.
It would consider how many people found the photo in
herently offensive. And it would limit input to Lincoln -"cutting
down the variety of views. I would go to jail
presumably for having an offensive body.
We need a little more tolerance for unappealing ideas.
Otherwise, one set of ideas, and not necessarily the
correct ones, would become law.
Tom Eaton
rcteh
Arthur Kcppo
Court rules bedside Bible obscene
Harry Lynt, who claimed to represent a publishing
organization called The Gideon Society, was sentenced in
Gomorrah, Ohio, this week to 25 years in prison for
pandering obscenity.
Lynt, 34, was caught red-handed in The Bide-an-Hour
Motel while attempting to place allegedly-obscene
material in the bedside night tables.
He freely admitted he had been distributing free
samples of the publication in hopes of "stimulating a
wider readership," but he heatedly denied it was obscene.
"It's what the people want," he angrily told reporters.
"And I'd rather rot in jail than give up my gallant fight for
freedom of the press."
During the six-day trial, however, Prosecutor F. Norton
Feck had little difficulty convincing the jury of seven
women and five men that the work "violated con
temporary community standards in its appeal to prurient
interests."
innocent bystander
Feck opened his case by noting that in the very first
chapter of the book !a five-letter word for sexual inter
course" (b-g-t) was employed 28 times on one page alone.
Wife-swapping
He said this was followed by "an extremely graphic
account of wife-swapping." And he read aloud to the
shocked jury how a man named Abram swapped his wife,
Sarai, who was "very fair," to an Egyptian Pharaoh in
return for "sheep, and oxen, and he-asses, and
menservants,. and maidservants, and she-asses," and
camels."
Feck said such an account was bound to intrigue
numerous husbands who had hitherto avoided the temp
tations of wife-swapping on the grounds that "all it got
you was another wife."
The prosecutor said he would not quote from a song
by someone ul Solomon nor recount what went on in
a place called Sodom for fear of offending the jurors.
Instead, he said, he would confine his evidence to the
subjects of incest and mass rape.
Drawing conclusions
The former, he said, was committed by one Lot, who
established a menage a trois in a cave with his two
daughters. They promptly got him drunk and ... At that
point Feck mopped his brow and said he couldn't go on.
He said the story ended with: "Thus were both the
daughters of Lot with child by their father." Ite said the
jury could draw its own conclusions.
With passions mounting, Feck read how a General
Moses and his Israelites defeated the Midianites, slew
the men and kept 32,000 virgins for their sport. That was
when Juror Netta Grout fainted and had to be replaced by
an alternate. The trial was swiftly concluded and the jury
returned the guilty verdict without leaving the box.
Judge Fenworthy Stough imposed the maximum
sentence after sternly telling Lynt that placing such
material in motel rooms where it might be perused by any
innocent couple was "the height of depravity."
Liberals everywhere have rushed to Lynt's defense.
While universally deploring his publication, all say they
will defend to the death his right to print it None,
however, would admit to having read the work.
(Copyright Chronicle Publishing Co. 1977)
Theodore FH. Carnsti
Drunk driving wrong, drunken okay
Drunk driving not allowed. There are quite a few
arrests far drunk driving in his area, wrote Joseph P.
Connor of Morristown, NJ., but not very many for
drunken driving. He was alluding to the misuse of drunk."
used predicatively (after the verb), as in, The driver was
drunk."
bernstein on words
which is widespread. In proper usage rJfc is not used
attributively, that is, ahead of a noun it modifies, so
drunk driver or drunk driving is disapproved. The word to
use in those places is drunken. However, drunk may be
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False passive. It used to be customary, particularly in
newspapers, to frown on such a construction as, "The
winner was given a trophy." Ambrose Bierce, who wrote
"Write It Right" in 1909, was one of the leaders of the
frowners. After citing the sentences The soldier was
given a rifle" and "The house was given a coat of paint,"
he pontificated, "Nothing can be given anything." To
which we would like to add, "But some nothings can be
given the appearance of somethings." It is true that many
19th century grammarians opposed the "false passive"
(or "was given") construction, but most of that
opposition has disappeared and, as Jespersen, a leading
authority on English, has said, the construction Increases
the ease and freedom of the language and adds consider
ably to its stylistic resources "
Word oddities. A piece of youth-yak that I mentioned
far back but that is still with us came up the other day
when a chap who had had an accident during a heavy
storm said, "My car was totaled." He meant it was wreck
ed, but why, some youths seem to say, use one clear sy ll
able when you can use two muddy ones?
Where we say bone up on a subject, meaning to study
it intensively, the British use, and have used since the
middle of the last century, the word swot, meaning the
same thing. Swot is related to sweat, which is understand
able to anyone who has had to cram for an exam.
The Romans used to hold a festival of purification
called februa in the second month of the year and from
that word came the name of the month, February.
id 1377 Theodora M. Brmtoin
Special Ftis
