Editorial
(Daily
Nebraskan
Editorial Board
University ot Nebraska-Lincoln
" - " L ' .' •
Jana Pedersen, Editor, 472 1766
Matt Herek, NewsEditor
Brandon Loomis, Columnist
John Payne, Entertainment Editor
Darran Fowler, Sports Editor
Brian Shcllito, Art Director
Michelle Paulman, Photo Chief
... 1 .- ..
Divestment works
roundation should listen to Mandela
elson Mandela arrived in New York yesterday on the first
stop of his 12-day tour of the United States.
Among other items on his agenda, Mandela is scheduled
to meet with President Bush and New York business leaders, and
will address a joint session of Congress. It is anticipated that
Mandela will use these meetings to call for continued economic
sanctions against South Africa.
Strangely enough, a University of Nebraska-related institution
| is one of the many South African investors that doesn’t seem to be
getting Mandela’s message. The NU Foundation, a private fund
I raising organization, invests in companies that do business in
South Africa.
Terry Fairfield, president of the foundation, maintains that the
foundation’s South African investments arc “very minor” and
that the foundation “focuses on investments as investments
without consideration of social policies/ ' * j*, ,
In other words, it’s okay to do business with blatant racists, as
long as you make money doing it.
The Daily Nebraskan received a press release last week from
the South African Consulate-General. H said the African Naisonal
Congress, of which Mandela is deputy president, should not call
for economic sanctions against South Africa, because * ‘sanctions
arc harming the economic prospects of all South Africans." ^
The release went on to pat the South African government on
the back for “looking at aspects of security legislation,” estab
lishing “communication lines between the South African Police
and ANC leaders” and acting “in terms of its policy to remove
discrimination."
Regardless of what South African government leaders are
“looking at” doing, they have yet to follow through with any
| solid steps toward a non-discrimmatory system of government.
i Ami until the South African government goes beyond just talk,
economic sanctions are the best way outside interests, such as
U S. companies, the U.S. government and ihe NU Foundation, can
have some influence inside South Africa’s borders. It’s obvious
B that divestment works, or the South African Consulate-General
wouldn ’t be sending out prcss releases to discourage it.
i As representatives of this university, if ir. name only, the NU
* Foundation must do its pan to convey die interests of the univer
sity That means withdrawing investments from companies that do
business in South Africa, at least until the South African govern
ment puts jls words into action.
- Jana Pedersen
for the Daily Nebraskan
Coordinator clarifies comments
I would like to clarify my com
ments from Mark Gcorgeff’s article
of entitled “Study reveals discrimi
nation” (DN, June 14).
My comments to Mark discussed
the fact that there is a brilliant and
diverse pool of potential female can
didates that could be recruited to UNL.
I indicated that I felt there were some
barriers preventing women and people
of color form coming to UNL and that
was evidenced by the commission’s
finding that we arc not retaining many
of the qualified women we attract to
this university. These comments in
no way indicate that I feel the women
and people of color at UNL arc not
qualified On the contrary, I find that
the few women and people of color
we have in the faculty and staff pool
are extremely qualified and talented.
I hope that we can remove some of
the barriers and continue to attract
such outstanding people to UNL.
Another comment I made concerned
the institutional responsibility to equal
education for ail. I commented that it
was the university’s responsibility to
recruit a diverse pool of faculty and
staff to provide a rich and diverse
educational experience for all stu
dents and to provide a quality educa
tional experience for our increasingly
diverse student population.
I hope that the UNL administra
tion will pay attention to this impor
tant report and not only actively re
cruit women and people of color, but
do the follow-up work to remove the
barriers that exist.
Gina Malkin
coordinator
Women’s Resource Center
-sf
TODAV ON AMERICA^ SPORTSMAN .
yjt'RE "TRACKING TWE Ft AG BURNER.
A CRAFTV , VET DANGEROUS
COUSIN TO THE SNIPE ...
Tlhey say language is what sets us
apart from the animals. We can
talk to each other. We can write
to each other. But all those animals
can do is thump their feet or prick up
their ears when it looks like trouble.
We speak, and we can process ab
stract ideas; therefore, we arc civi
lized.
But sometimes our language gets
us in trouble. Some people use lan
guage in order to be more like the
animals. Some people in our country
have the gall to speak languages we
aren’t familiar with, and such people
are therefore animals.
Some people misuse language.
When this happens, as it did in Wic
hita this week, it becomes clear that
we are all animals.
Elephant seals.
r\ coupic oi wccks ago, me Wic
hita city council approved a new anti
nude dancing law. It was intended to
outlaw all nude dancing, but a miss
ing comma in the statute set the town
abuzz.
The law was supposed to ban any
form of nude dancing in a “drinking
establishment, hotel,” but, stripped
of its comma, the clause read, * ‘drink
ing establishment hotel.” Because of
that error, drinking establishments
which were not hotels were fair game.
Wichitans demanded and publicans
supplied.
Then the city announced that the
law would be reworded correctly this
week, and there was a record stam
pede to the strip joints lor one last
llmg.
The way I ligurc it, human cities
arc just like elephant seal colonics.
Elephant seals live lor food, sex
and reproduction.Humans live for
family and intellectual achievement:
family because we like the idea of
nurturing children and shaping them
in our own image, and intellectual
achievement because it’s a good way
to get what the elephant seals have.
The human manager of one Wic
hita bar, which had never before had
Language can cause trouble
Wichita anti-nude dancing law reminds us of animal instincts
any type of dancers, said she was
shipping in male strippers from Den
ver for the occasion. She said it was
only fair that women get to see a little
something, too. I agree, but offer this
as proof that men arc not the only
animals in this species.
Brandon
Loomis
The euphoria in Wichita was such
that a local disc jockey was following
the trend and preparing to do his late
shi ft in the n udc. This proves a couple
of things. First, our brains, while
somewhat advanced above those in
the ugly animals we evolved from,
arc far from refined or even civili/cd
when you compare them to that ugly
E.T. thing. Second, it is clear that
humans, or disc jockeys, are nothing
more than primates sitting behind and
operating expensive technical devices
built by corporations backed by thou
sands of apparently civilized stock
holders. But the stockholders in
Wichita, like hyenas or, say. Saint
Bernards, flock to the dance shows.
One Wichita bar owner said he
might keep offering a nude show' to
patrons and challenge the city law in
court under the First Amendment.
From this, I infer that the only real
difference between humans and ani
mals is that where animals either kill
othcranmialsorlctthemdothe things
that turn them on, humans lake their
disputes to court and rely on 200
year-old documents to preserve their
right to be turned on.
But w hat of the people w ho pass
the civil laws which make us civi
lized7 Are city council members the
only humans who arc not animals?
Do they, in their benevolence, make
it their lifelong goal to get the rest of
us out of the Cro-Magnon stage7
No, cily council members arc the
bull elephant seals of our colony.
Bull elephant seals just don’t like
to share. When they see another, infe
rior bull approaching a cow that they
have designs on, they charge, and the
two males begin ramming theirchesis
into each other and producing intimi
dating snorts by echoing their trum
peting trunks in their wide open mouths.
In the end, the inferior or younger
bull submits and flops off with his
trunk between his flippers.
In rare cases, the winner’s success
in combat doesn't spill over into the
next attempted conquest. Even so,
the bull has made sure that if he can’t
have it, no one will.
Many animals perionn mis ruuai.
Bighorn sheep do it. Baboons do it.
Even humans do it, though with a bit
less gusto now that we have handgun
laws.
City council members, if they value
their jobs, will not be seen watching
the male strippers from Denver. If
they can’t do it, they sure won’t want
anyone else to. Hence, civilization.
Last week, while sitting in the
break room of the blue-collar busi
ness which pays me subsistence wages,
I overheard a man asking a colleague
for a cigarette.
“I’ll bend over and kiss your ass I
’lil you bark like a registered fox- I
hound if you’llgivcmeoncoflhcm,’ |
he said. 1
Smoking is a physical urge. While ■
other animals don’t smoke cigarettes,
we generally consider physical urges
to he representatives of the animal in
us.
So, what separates us from the
animals? It’srcally pretty simple. We
use devices like comic wit, or at least
perversity, to satisfy our animal in
stincts in a round-about way.
And I would have been only slightly
surprised had the man actually barked
like a registered foxhound.
Loomis is a senior news editorial major
and the Summer Daily Nebraskan editorial 1
columnist. d
