thursday, October 12, 1978
daily nebraskan
page 5
letters
The speaker policy that would allow the
appearance of General William Westmore
land on campus Friday, Oct. 13, demon
strates the impact of last spring's attack on
funding by the YAF.
Previous policy was that a speaker had
to be screened by a committee and
declared non-controversial before giving a
talk. Only then could student fees be
used. But because a private state fund is
being used to sponsor Westmoreland, he
was not screened.
Last year, if Talks & Topics brought a
speaker with whom anyone disagreed,
private funds would step in and bring an
adversary speaker to campus. This year,
if private state funders such as Avery
sponsor someone such as Westmoreland,
Talks & Topics does not have the money
to bring an adversary speaker! Clearly
this is an issue we can still do something
about! Demands should be made now to
change this unfair speaker policy! Talks
& Topics needs money to bring an an
swering voice to the conservative one of
General Westmoreland this year.
Joan Marie Janis
Protest
I am writing to protest the inaccurate
and misleading article purportedly cover
ing my talk in the WomenSpeak series
printed in the Oct. 5 Daily Nebraskan.
The article is inaccurate in a number
of points. For example, I referred to the
conception of the "castrating female,"
certainly not to the "castrated women"
whatever that means. I spoke of emotional
manipulation in a contest distinct from
that of role playing, yet the article blends
the two in an incoherent fashion. I referred
to research that describes the prevalent
Weekend wasteland wanderer
finds fragile world of escapism
Emotion is cheap on the
weekend.
After a work week of
being wasted and wounded,
and violated from every
angle imaginable. Friday
night usually drops out of
the sky like the big romance
at the Last Chance Motel.
Either you're going to make
it, or you're going to fake it,
and anyway you look at it,
you're going to get screwed.
party is like walking
through a house of mirrors.
If you happen to be pol
luted with one of thousand
drugs, or even under the in
fluence of your own sense
of doubt, everything is dis
torted and magnified.
Middle ground
Moving from face to face
you can find joy in being
free to run wild to the in
credible solitude of being
michael zangari
Lincoln begins to get
crazy on a Thursday night,
and generally poops out in
the early hours of Sunday
morning. What happens in
between the hysteria that
mindless. The opportunity
to indulge in a little escap
ism, essential to be sure, can
creat havoc when everybody
is escaping at once.
It can turn pretty ugly.
Fine line
There is a very fine line
between the hysteria that
comes from a sense of aban
don, and the hysteria that
comes from too much pres
sure. The two bounce back
and forth, creating an at
mosphere that is surreal and
sometimes very frightening.
The weekend is a very
fragile world. It can be torn
to pieces by a short series of
unrelated events, just as
easily as it can lead to the
ecstasy that comes from un
paralleled blindness.
Walking through a large
alone in a crowd. Then
there is the middle ground,
the combination of the two
that creates the impression
that everything is all right,
when you know it's not.
When you take in the
whole weekend -talking to
other people, or scanning
the newspaper, you begin to
realize the magnitude of
what is happening all over.
The obvious -the increase in
fatal accidents, the violent
fights-and the not so ob
vious -the suicides and the
quiet collapses-all melt to
gether into something that
is pretty far removed from
the release from reality that
so many people strive for.
A silent scream
The weekend is a silent
scream for all the things we
are not. Instead of escaping
the stereotypes, we box
them in during a three-day
rampage and build for our
selves caricatures and card
board cut-outs of the people
we think we are.
And it's necessary.
When the weekend
comes well be hitting the
streets, trying to get lost in
the lights and the noise, and
hoping to be found.
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ENTERTAINMENT
Oct 13, 14, 15 J.J. Buxson
Oct 20, 21 , 22 Stratus
"We're Open Sundays too"
values in many organizations to include
rationality, avoidance of emotions, control,
and a reward -and -punishment system. At
no point did I say or imply that women
managers must subscribe to all these values
in order to be effective.
The article is also grossly misleading
in its omission of any reference to the
greater part of the talk that served to put
the pitfalls for women in management into
context and perspective, and its exclusive
focus on those aspects of the talk that
sounded sensational.
I decry such irresponsible reporting in a
university newspaper. It distorts what was
intended as a concerned analysis of a diffi
cult problem into a cheap bid for
attention.
Dalia Katilius-Boydstun
Free speech
The guest opinion column in the Oct.
II Daily Nebraskan features the Iranian
Student Association expressing their de
sire to see Americans "standing up" for
freedom and democracy Friday in opposi
tion to the talk being given by General
William Westmoreland.
I prefer not to wait that long to "stand
up" as there are issues of freedom and
democratic rights to be addressed immedi
ately. The credibility of your arguments
against the presence of Gen. Westmoreland
are tarnished by your prejudicial interpre
tations of Westmoreland's background and
his relevance as a speaker.
You seek to deny Westmoreland the
freedom of speech that you are so
vigorously fighting for in Iran. It can be
said with some degree of accuracy that
Westmoreland "will come here and propo
gandize" but I don't understand what he
is . . getting away with."
Do you think of Americans as mind
less automatons waiting to be programmed
by "fascist military speakers?" You may
assume what you want but a brief look at
the demonstrations, riots and unrest that
marked the periods of the Vietnam war
might remind you of the intensity with
which at least some Americans opposed
United States presence in Vietnam.
In your zealous efforts to publicize
the undemocratic dictatorial reign of the
shah you are indulging in some of the same
tactics you oppose. The Iranian Student
Association is spreading a little propagan
da of its own. As the editor's note accom
panying your column states, Westmore
land is not being paid with student fees
but through the Samuel Avery fund.
Your overly dramatic description of
napalm as a "chemical poison" also is in
error; napalm is a highly flammable sub
stance used in bombs and flame throwers
(not an enjoyable definition but at least
accurate.)
As a self-professed "American humani
tarian" I would, on your advice, emotion
ally protest the presence of Gen. West
moreland. I choose not to protest the
speech, but to attend and possibly gain
some understanding of how the excesses
and atrocities of the Vietnam war might
be prevented in the future.
If we are to change these aspects of our
society with which we disagree, we must
first understand how and why our society
is in its present condition.
As disagreeable as some opinions and
positions might be, one method of under
standing them is through the free
expression of all points of view. Free
speech is a basic tenet of democracy and
the suppression of that right damages
democracy everywhere.
Chris Livingston.
For today's contemporary gal . . .
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