Friday, July 19, 1985
Page 4
The Nebraskan
ditorial
Pinpointing violent
pornography makes
censorship sticky
University of Nebraska football Coach Tom
Osborne has been named honorary chair
man of the newly-formed Citizens Against
Pornography of Lincoln. The group plans a July
20 meeting at the Bob Devaney Sports Center to
announce its "action plan."
According to the Lincoln Star the group's
main concern is the link between pornography
and violence against women and children.
Osborne said the meeting is for "citizens who are
concerned about pornography, particularly its
impact on women and children in this city."
Some months ago a local anti-pornography
group picketed a downtown bookstore and drug
store for selling materials they thought were
pornographic and not long after the Union Board
voted down a proposal to discontinue sales of
Playboy and Penthouse at the union desk.
Pornography, like abortion, is a legal issue
heavily-laden with moral undertones. The First
Amendment gives us the freedom of speech and
self-expression and until recently pornography
has been allowed as such expression. But one
man's art is another's sin and defining porno
graphy is as difficult as distinguishing the
moment when a fetus becomes a viable human.
Most attempts at local regulation of porno
graphy throughout the country have been res
cinded mostly because defining pornography is
very difficult without impinging on the individu
al's First Amendment rights.
If a high degree of correlation between porno
graphy and violence against women and children
can be proved, The Nebraskan feels that such
material should be subject to censoring. We feel
that materials that depict women in bondage or
being tortured, or minors participating in sexual
acts do contribute to attitudes of violence
against women and children and that careful
consideration is needed by members of our'
community in regulating such materials.
The method of censoring needs to be looked at
most carefully so that in censoring the porno
graphy that contributes to violence against
women and children, doors are not opened that
would lead to the weakening of our First
Amendment rights.
Editorial
Policy
Unsigned editorials represent official policy
of The Nebraskan, summer 1985 edition of the
Daily Nebraskan. Policy is set by The Nebraskan
Editorial Board. Its members are Stacie Thomas,
editor in chief; Gene Gentrup, news editor, Kat
hleen Green, associate news editor, Sandi Stuewe,
advertising manager; Mary Hupf, assistant ad
vertising manager; and Jim Rogers, editorial
columnist.
Editorials do not necessary reflect the views
of the university, its employees, the students or
the NU Board of Regents.
The Nebraskan's publishers are the regents,
who established the UNL Publications Board to
supervise the production of the paper.
Nebra&kan
EDITOR
GENERAL MANAGER
PRODUCTION MANAGER
ADVERTISING MANAGER
ASSISTANT ADVERTISING
MANAGER
CIRCULATION MANAGER
NEWS EDITOR
WIRE EDITOR
COPY DESK CHIEF
SPORTS EDITOR
ARTS S ENTERTAINMENT
EDITOR
NSGHT NEWS EDITORS
PHOTO CHIEF
LAYOUT EDITOR
PUBLICATIONS BOARD
CHAIRPERSON
PROFESSIONAL ADVISER
Stacie Thomas, 472-1766
Daniel Shattll
Catherine Policky
Sandl Stuewe
Mary Hupf
Brian Hoglund
Gene Gentrup
Donna Siison
Julie Jordan Hendricks
Mike Rellley
Bill Allen
Jett Korbellk
Donna Sisson
Mark Davis
Kathleen Green
Chris Choate
Don Walton, 473-7301
The Nebraskan (USPS 144-080) Is published by the UNL
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The Daily Nebraskan is published Monday through Friday dur
ing the spring and fall semesters.
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ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 1985 DAILY NEBRASKAN
STRAM6nHESTW
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Yon jhi&ve to look Insure! for a laiero
The other afternoon I was laying on the
couch attempting to go two hours without
moving a single muscle when someone
knocked at the door. Let's see, I thought to
-nyself, as if I could think to anyone else, I have
plenty of girl scout cookies, a newspaper sub
scription, and the cat's inside...so, I won't
-nswer it.
V
Bill
Allen
They knocked again. I didn't answer. They
knocked again. Persistence. Oh no, I thought, it
must be a magazine salesman.
"Bill, it's Jack and Jill, let us in."
Neighbor's kids. Terrific, I must have just
volunteered to babysit. I let them in.
"We need your help, Bill. We're looking for a
hero."
"Uh, why don't you try Kwik Shop, I'm fresh
out of heroes."
"No, no, you silly fat man. Our parents said we
need heroes, someone to look up to. They said to
ask you. You could give us a good example."
"How about Superman, Bat Girl, Wonderwo
man, Spiderman, even Tarzan?" I said, opening
the door and waving.
"No way," they said, "those goomers are old
time. Besides, nobody really looks like He-Man."
"Okay, listen, we'll go through the newspap
ers and I'll find you each a hero. Then you'll have
to forget where I live. Okay?"
"Okay, here's the paper."
This should be simple I thought, turning to
the sports page. "Okay, Jack, how about this
headline 'Baltimore gets superstar lead-off hit
ter. "
"Sounds good, Bill, who is it?"
"It says here Alan Wiggins was released by the
San Diego Padres for cocainc.never mind Jack,
why don't we try the entertainment section?"
"Great, how about Madonna?" Jill asked, "All
my friends dress like her."
"Well," I said, "here's an article on her. A
leading woman psychologist said that girls who
dress like Madonna stand a better chance of
being raped or brutally attacked. Maybe not a
great choice, Jill." .
"Besides," Jack said, "Hughe Graham charged
us each 50 cents to see her naked in this month's
Playboy."
"Jack, I'm telling," Jill said.
"Cut it out you guys," I said, "This is getting
serious. All you guy's heroes are totally inade
quate role models."
"That's deep, Bill."
"No way," I countered, "I don't want you run
ning psychotic through the woods killing for
eigners. Besides, nobody looks like Sylvester
Stallone. This is nice, Bruce Springsteen. He
could be your hero, Jack."
"No way, Bill, the Boss doesn't want to sell out
to commercialism, so I refuse to buy any of his
albums."
The kid had a point.
"Ronald Reagan?"
"Grrrrr..."
"Sorry, Bill, just kidding."
"Forget you, Jack, it's hopeless. We'll see what
we can do for Jill. How about Geraldine Ferraro?"
"Oh yeah, I've seen her in the Pepsi com
mercials." "Never mind. How about Cyndi Lauper?"
"Oh, puhleeze, Bill. How could I look up to
someone who goes out with a guy named Hulk?"
"Okay, you guys, I give up. I'll be-your hero.
We'll sit here and boo the Cubs, order a pizza,
and drink a cold be...diet Pepsi."
"But Bill, all you ever drink is beer."
"Not when I'm a hero."
Camp builds character in parent and child
CAMP MINIWANCA, Somewhere in the
Trackless Wastes of Michigan There
having been no letters home, the father
visited his son's summer camp to ascertain
whether his 11-year-old was still in residence or
had perhaps moved on to Monte Carlo.
George
Will
From a distance, the father spotted the son's
familiar costume: purple and chartreuse and
orange Jams an unspeakably unshapely brand
of shorts and black Bruce Springsteen "Born
in the USA Tour" T-shirt. Children who attend a
school that has a strict dress code use the
summer for retaliation against aesthetic stan
dards. The son's skin is a Jackson Pollock canvas of
scabs and abrasions that testify to an 11-year--old's
refusal to be intimidated by life's sharp
edges, and life's refusal to be impressed by 11-year-olds.
The tender moment of reunion began
with this exchange:
Father: "Hi, Geoffrey, your mother sends her
love and says she is going to kill you."
Son: "No, really, dad."
The son's three-word riposte disconcerted dad
because it disrupted the familiar rhythm of such
exchanges. The "No, really, dad" usually comes
at the end of a particularly imaginative fabrica
tion, after dad has rolled his eyes heavenward.
This time the sincerity gambit "no, really,
dad" came even before he launched into his
explaination of why he had not written home.
The explanation was this:
"I wrote letters but I put them in my fishing
tackle box but I lost my tackle box but unfortu
nately I didn't loose my fishing lures because
they were stuck in my towel, I'm not sure why,
and I caught an eight-inch large-mouth bass
right over there, and you remember those good
pants I brought, well, someone left a pen in his
clothes and it exploded in the laundry, and don't
worry about the books I'm supposed to read for
school because I have read one almost, and do
you want to go canoeing?"
Camp builds character in campers, but not
irreparably. Camp builds character in parents,
beginning with the off-to-camp farewell at the
airport. When their children show signs of reluc
tance to leave, and there are flickers of human
feelings in the children, the parents learn to
their astonishment that their children like
them.
Geoffrey was planning a video-games orgy at
Chicago's O'Hare airport while waiting for the
flight to Muskegon. United Airlines had a better
idea and clapped him and other minors in a room
with a TV and guard. This, says Geoffrey with a
bitterness that time will not assuage, was the
summer's foremost airline hostage outrage. He
says United is run by Shiites. I do not know
where Geoffrey learned the vice, but he is forever
editorializing.
He has high regard for the young men who
superintend him at camp. One of them, he noted
pointedly, "is a halfback and has not broken his
neck." This is an oblique editorial comment on
father's opposition to son playing football. The
leader in another cabin is vastly admired because
he has "a Rambo knife and a Rambo bow that can
shoot an arrow through two people." I do not ask
Geoffrey how he knows that.
Breakfast begins with a sung grace and a short
Robert Frost poem, but it is hard to keep the
tone so high when tamping food into creatures
whose preferred mealtime diversions include
one table shouting "Tastes great!" and another
responding "Less filling!"
Camp Miniwanca has a liberal parole policy,
so I am allowed to whisk Geoffrey down the road
to teeming Whitehall, which numbers among its
metropolitan pleasures a Pizza Hut. The peppe
roni fix is a foretaste of the great coming-home
banquet of carbohydrates: Pizzas with a side
order of McDonald's french fries. That is just the
menu to nourish the metabolism and maintain
the emotional equilibrium of my modern Ameri
can boy who praises Camp Miniwanca for the
selection of candy bars in the store.
"The candy," he says with the measured
judgment of a fledgling pundit, "is the only con
tact with the modern world." When his father
asks, a3 any correct thinking father would,
"What is so great about the modern world? the
son, who is used to his father's quirkiness,
resorts to an unsatisfactory evasion: "Well, okay,
not 'the modern world,' but 'civilization."
He is learning to make distinctions and moc
casins. It is a summer well spent. But the father
feels, as fathers will, a pang that is an alloy 01
pride and regret.
1SS5, Washington Post Writers Group