Monday, March 16, 1987
Page 4
Daily Nebraskan
n Daily i
Jeff Korbt'lik, Editor, 472-1766
James Rogers, Editorial Page Editor
Lise Olsen, Assixiate News Editor
Mike Reilley, Night News Editor
Joan Rezac, Copy Desk Chief
N:
srasxan
University ol Nebraska-Lincoln
ISec center delay
Faculty has right idea
The Daily Nebraskan has
supported the proposed
student recreation cen
terindoor practice facility as
long as students were not forced
into financing the project. But in
light of recent events, the DN
joins UNL's Faculty Senate in
asking the administration to delay
the project for one year.
Sen. Jack Siegman, sociology
professor, in introducing the
one-year delay, told the Faculty
Senate he was not speaking
against the need for a ree center
but felt there were too many
problems withr the plan. The
latest of these problems is the
controversial bid proposals.
On Wednesday, Jack Goebel,
vice chancellor of business and
finance for UNL, said "all lan
guages relating to gifts or con
tribution" will be removed from
the requests. "Only one issue
the lowest possible proposal to
the university's specifications for
the project will be consi
dered." That's the way it should
have been from the start.
Letters
DN columnist's attacks anger student
I've been steamed at the so-called
"inoffensive" gibes at any religious
group that tries to take a stand on
campus issues, especially Christians.
But after Chris McCubbin's column
(D.N., March 10) slamming anything
relating to God in society, particularly
UNL Good News, it's time for someone
to voice an opinion.
It is obvious that McCubbin has not
bothered to pick up a single issue of
UNL Good News since our auspicious
first issue or tried to gather any infor
mation to try to substantiate his un
founded opinions on our newspaper.
Though we may not have gotten off to a
great start, UNL Good News has im
proved and expanded to express the
views of Christians on campuses through
news articles, editorials and special
features on music and activities of
Off-campus students need love, too
This may come as a shock to most
UNL students, but, yes, I voted in the
ASUN election, and 1 am not a Greek or
even an RHA member. I belong to that
select group of students known as off
campus residents, who usually do not
vote, as a rule. But I voted this time.
Even though I live off-campus, I am
still a member of this university. During
a debate the other day I asked the
parties what they might propose to do
to increase off-campus students parti
cipation on this campus. The usual
response, with a notable exception
from the TREK party, was that off
campus students only spend a few
hours on the campus, go to a class or
two, then go home. So why bother to
include them?
I really resented the implication. I
do not "spend a few hours going to
classes, then go home." Nor do the
majority of my off-campus friends. I am at
Thanks for nothing,
I would like to thank all the parties
in the ASUN elections this year. Thank
you for littering the campus with
hundreds of pieces of paper. Thank you
for covering every available inch of
bulletin-board space with your catchy
party names. Thank you for attending
all those uninformative debates. Thank
The project's original bid for
mat appeared to solicit private
gifts as a requirement for being
awarded the construction con
tract. Contractors could submit
bids for construction that in
cluded cash or in-kind donations
as part of their contract propos
als. The attorney general's office
was looking into the legalities of
such a format.
Last week Goebel said the
suggestion for donations was an
attempt to get the best quality at
the lowest cost. Actually, it
appeared as if the university was
having trouble soliciting dona
tions. At the end of January, $1 mil
lion of the $3 million needed in
donations had been raised. Early
in March the cost of the center
changed from $16.6 million to
$14.9 million, but UNL increased
private funding to $5 million.
Wait a year. A year would give
the administration time to iron
out some of the problems and
would give the NU Foundation
time to raise enough money.
Christian groups.
No "hate" article has ever appeared,
and we all have responsible political
views that do not include idolization of
President Reagan. All we do is relate a
biblical perspective on issues relevant
to this campus.
I find articles such as McCubbin's
and last week's article bashing every
TV evangelist inconsistent with the
Daily Nebraskan's statement to me
that the DN represents all perspectives
on campus. I don't expect a pro
Christian attitude in the newspaper,
but I expect a fair one. I challenge
McCubbin and the DN to look into their
issues.
Tony Meyers
sophomore
journalism
UNL Good News, music editor
this university not "just a few hours,"
but from 8 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. every day.
And even if I did "go to a few classes,
then go home," why would that make
me a "non-includable"?
I pay the same tuition that everyone
else does and my student fees go to the
same organizations as the Greeks' and
RHA members'. So the message said, in
effect, "we'll just take your fees, thank
you, now go home to your off-campus
residence and don't bother us anymore,
kid." Nice way to get votes, huh?
I voted for TREK. Not because I
thought they might win, but because I
liked their attitudes for off-campus
residents. I also voted against the
others who forgot that off-campus stu
dents are members of this university.
Scott A. Staberg
junior
computer science
ASUN candidates
you for posting people at every corner
to harass students going to class. And
most of all, thank you for perpetuating
the fallacy that ASUN can do anything
for the students..
Ivar Tillotson
junior
Teachers College
THERE! NDIYT5
CAN Pill MS
SUFFKIDIB!
-is
7 '
i if ;
Tike power off in&itnty
Broad-minded, free thinking held captive by active stupidity
Every once in a while news sto
ries come along that leave you
speechless. The stories make
you question the decency of objective
journalism and threaten to undermine
an already tenuous faith in humanity
you may have accumulated through
seeing documentaries of Mother Teresa
or watching rock stars sing to end
famine.
Your first instinct, of course, is to
assemble the more creative aspects of
your rage and pound out scathing criti
cism or broiling satire on the old
Remington Standard. But the abysmal
inanity of what you read is so powerful
that your fingers just tremble lightly in
the concave pools of the typewriter
keys.
It strikes you that you might just
repeat what you read verbatim in hopes
tht the best criticism would be repeti
tion, an echo resolved in a less objec
tive context. Maybe upon reading the
story again, this time on an opinion
page instead of a news page, it will
finally act as a paper punch piercing
the blank sheet of common indifference.
The last thought that jumps a syn
apse and fuels an idea is vigilanteism.
You wish your typewriter were a more
suitable instrument of justice. Perhaps
not an instrument of justice at all, but a
machine of righteous malice. The rib
bon is a noose. The tabulator key
throws a switch that sends an electric
charge coursing toward the unsuspect
ing newsmaker. . . .
"Nebraskans Organized for
Advancement of Government an
nounced themselves as write-in
candidates for the ASUN elections
at a Lincoln bar. . . "
Then you think: What you want isn't
really justice at all. Not even righteous
malice. You believe that these news
makers' right to speak is what prevents
a society from caving into their fascist
ideas of "normalcy" and "health." Their
NOFAG not a
We hope responses from UNL stu
dents and faculty to the "platform" of
the NOFAG candidates will make this
response seem redundant, but a re
sponse is necessary in at least three
are ?s MMMMHHIMMM
Guest Opinion
First, while it is clear that the three
candidates in question think them
selves to be very cute, one can only
regard their tactics as exceedingly
destructive, generating hate, fear and
misinformation, both of the political
process and of human relations.
If the same attitudes had been
couched in racial or anti-Semitic terms,
they probably would not have been
printed. In truth, they echo the same
level of quality and human understand
If I ..v '1'"W
,'
v
right to speak and have their photo
graphs blown up as large as their story
in the Daily Nebraskan is just and
righteous. So your feeling of wanting
them punished, of wanting to wipe the
asinine grins off their smug, cocksure
faces, is an entirely personal one.
"Nebraskans Organized for
Advancement of Government
(NOFAG) has set up its platform
on the idea that homosexuality
should be prevented on campus.
Charles
I JpuranrpV; H'
" 'Homosexuality is not a
normal thing Burke said. 'There
was no Adam and Adam. It should
be prevented and considered ill. '
You've believed for some time that
the leverage of foolishness on this
campus has reached a point where any
increase in tolerance, creativity or
intelligence is immediately offset or
ossified by the sheer bulk of active
stupidity. This is not the sort of stupid
ity that sits in its room mulling over
how much it doesn't know. It's the sort
of stupidity that needs to hold every
thing broad-minded and free-thinking
in captivity. It needs to fill the streets
and the newspapers. It is stupidity so
assured of its monopoly on truth that it
speaks openly of things it doesn't know
about. With its costumes of Wayfarers,
Hitchin Post regalia and Paul Kogan
outback hats, stupidity has a few brews
and verbally lynches that great part of
the world it is too limited to make
coherent and compassionate peace with.
I v
joke; spreads myths, hate
ing as some of the worst Nazi propa
ganda of the 1930s lacking, perhaps,
only some of the obscene drawings of
Der Sturmer to complete the effect.
Second, that two of the candidates
in question are ranked as fifth-year
senior health-administration majors
makes their misinformation about AIDS
and about sexually transmitted dis
eases and homosexuality in general a
fairly serious issue. Their raising the
old canard about toilet seats should
ethically disqualify them for any deg-ee
in health-related services as much
as cheating on a final or plagiarizing a
major paper would.
We hope there is still enough con
nection between ethics and profes
sional education for their faculty to
consider seriously such a disqualification.
SN.
And as Love Library is slowly reduced
to a bookmobile for the disadvantaged
and the campus slowly closes its doors
in every direction but south, where it
attaches itself to Updowntown rede
velopment for the greater glory of con
tractors and upscale shoppers, we watch
the leverage of stupidity thrive; we
watch its weight send our potential
sliding in its direction down the teeter
totter until everything is a part of
stupidity.
And as the Paul Cameron School of
Health Administrtion is built we'll
remember Lambert, Ketterson and
Burke, the smiling frat boys who made
some mighty nice high-school yearbook
photographs for the DN. We'll remember
students sitting in the union saying
how glad they were this trio had
uttered the unutterable. By then we'll
be searching for higher ground and a
good foothold to keep us from falling
into the stupidity.
"Burke said one of the impor
tant aspects of NOFAG 'splatform
is that all three candidates have
different religious backgrounds
and were able to conclude together
that homosexuality is unnatur
al. . . "
It took three minds. Three minds
swimming in the great maelstrom of
cosmologies and moral thought through
the ages. From the incredible variety
these three represent came a thought
so inspired. ...
And that is all the biting sarcasm
you can manage. You're at the end of
the ribbon and there's no body dan
gling there. No matter how hard you
pounded on those keys the effort pro
duced no electricity. You realize you
don't make a very effective avenging
angel.
Lieurance is a senior English, philo
sophy and art major, and Daily Nebras
kan senior reporter.
Third, as to their religious back
grounds, since they themselves made
something of those backgrounds. We
don't know what they are, but they are
clearly not Christian. We make that
judgment not because we disagree with
them about the morality of homosexu
ality, which we do, but because of their
clear disregard for truth and their
moral mean-spiritedness, masquerading
as some kind of sick humor.
Yes, we need healthy minds at the
university, and clearly the NOFAG can
didates don't qualify! Find some help,
fellows! You can change if you really
want to.
Larry Doerr
Mark Randall
campus ministers
UMHE-Lincoln