I " Eric Planner. Editor, 472-1766
riailv Bob Nelson, Editorial Page Editor
T -a Victoria Ayoae,Managing Editor
i SV I O 2T! Jana Pedersen. Associate News Editor
- I 1; llJF J[ »■ Emily Rosenbaum. Associate News Editor
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Walking deterrents
Foot-patrol plan comes at apt time
A walk across campus after night class can be a harrowing
experience. There’s the constant fear that behind any
bush or building, somebody could be waiting to make
you a statistic.
Only when you get to your car and start driving down 17th
Street do you see a campus police officer. You check your
speedometer— you’ve had your daily contact with a public
servant.
But that could change next year.
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Police Advisory Com
mittee voted last Thursday to place a walking officer on
campus.
Ken Cauble, UNL police chief, said that having more
officers patrolling campus on foot next semester was “top
priority,” and that he hoped to assign an officer to foot patrol
24 hours a day.
5ome obstacles still stand in caume s way. i ne ponce ioicc
I needs to fill two positions currently unoccupied to allow for a
full time walking patrolman. If the Nebraska Legislature’s Ap
propriation’s Committee gets its 4 percent across-the-board
budget cuts, Cauble may have trouble reaching his goal of
around-the-clock campus surveillance.
- But proposed budget cuts aside, the idea of campus patrol
and Cauble’s commitment to it are commendable. To get
officers off the periphery of UNL and onto the sidewalks would
greatly enhance their visibility to students and to potential
criminals. Considering that bike theft and rape rarely happen in
the middle of R or 16th streets, a walking cop could serve to
deter rather than simply react.
And the timing of the Police Advisory Committee couldn’t
have been more apt. Talk of a walking patrolman comes during
Violence Against Women Awareness Week, which will end
tomorrow night with a “Take Back the Night” march and rally.
To take back the night, this campus needs both the education
and appeal to humanity of Awareness Week and better safe
| guards against those who would still commit criminal acts. A
J walking patrolman better serves as such a safeguard.
— B.N.
_ __J
Violence, not event, was news
To Amanda Lainof, who asked the
question, “Why (doesn’t the Daily
Nebraskan) write an article about the
other three hours of (Fight N ight) and
not only on a 15-minute ordeal?”
(DN, April 22)
Perhaps there is something intensely
stupid about feeding a drunken crowd’s
thirst for violence for charity.
Or maybe staged philanthropic
violence as an excuse to get ham
mered is not as newsworthy as ham
mered individuals committing vio
lent acts against others.
Pohl Longsinc
senior
math and computer science
Theological retort proves weak
i nis icuer is in response to Jason
Dworak and Michael Haffort’s letter
to the editor (April 23,1991) in which
they disputed the column by Michael
Stock on April 12. Unfortunately for
the two of you, it is impossible to
successfully discredit someone’s
argument by offering an ignorant and
altogether weaker argument of your
own.
Your first failure is in the transla
tion of Hebrew text. You may be
correct in your translation of the word
“abomination,” but this leaves you
open to criticism of your own transla
tion of the word “homosexual” from
Hebrew. The Hebrew language had
eight words to describe homosexual
acts, (much like the Eskimo language
has six words for snow). The word
found in the original Hebrew text was
actually, when correctly translated
and not generalized, a word which
described sex between a man and a
male prostitute. This was seen as
completely different than any other
type of homosexual act... so differ
ent that it had its own word.
Secondly, you recognize the eight
references in the Bible that appear to
condemn homosexual acts, but ig
nore the 362 references in the Bible
that appear to condemn heterosexual
acts. (You even quoted on of them,
emphasizing the homosexual refer
ence, but completely ignoring the TWO
heterosexual references in the same
passages!)
Which brings me to you third fail
ure, the quotation from I Corinthians
6:9-10, “Do not be deceived; neither
fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adul
terers, nor effeminate, nor homosexu
als, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor
drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers
shall inherit the kingdom of God.”
You remind us to “note the company
with which God places homosexu
als.”
Yes, let’s. Adulterers are in that
group. Statistics show that approxi
mately 60 percent of married couples
cheat, or have cheated on their spouse.
That is a lot. Fornicators are also in
this group. Fornication is the act ol
sex out of wedlock. 1 personally dc
not know the statistics on the percent
age of the population who is guilty ol
fornication, but I would guess it is ai
least 75 percent.. . certainly highci
than the minuscule 10 percent of the
population who arc guilty of homo
sexuality. Clearly, fornication anc
adultery arc much more widespreae
than homosexuality . . . and shoulc
therefore be of more concern to yot
as “good” Christians. So why are yot
picking on the homosexuals? Perhap:
it is some sort of macho smokcscreer
to hide your own repressed homosex
ual wants and needs (which has beer
proven to be the case for many gaj
bashers). But, of course only the twe
of you know the answer to that secret
The bottom line is that you art
obviously a pair of ignorant fools. Mj
suggestion is that, until you breeder:
get your own heterosexual problem:
solved, leave the homosexuals alone
And please, be more careful in you
attempt at being theologians. Thanl
you.
Matthew Govij
senio
advertising
WALTER GHOLSON
A variation of world history
Cultural diversity as it relates to
education is a tough act to
perform. While there is no
shortage of terms for the infusion of
minority group history and literature
into the mainstream of university
courses, there is an ever-present re
luctance by some professors to use
the material.
Each year a few token books are
dragged out during Black History
Month. As soon as it’s over, they are
put back in their boxes until the next
year.
1 was supposed to take Western
civilization several years ago, but was
not ready. Back then I was a fire
brand, militant radical with no time
for brainwashing classes in Eurocen
tric propaganda.
I knew that the first time I heard
one of those academic types say the
Greeks were the originators of mod
em civilization without saying where
they got their ideas, 1 would lose it.
It wasn’t that 1 didn’t know any
thing about Greek civilization. I knew
the story quite well. But that’s ex
actly what it was to me, his story. My
story, that is, the origin of civilization
from an Afrocentric point of view,
had given me a different outlook on
the start of civilized discourse.
When I was 19, a friend of the
family gave me a copy of “Stolen
Legacy” by George G.M. James,
published in 1954.
James said Grcek philosophers stole
most of what they knew from ancient
Egyptian scholars. He said their phi
; losophy was developed from a com
plex religious system called the
“Mysteries.” This rcl gion, James
I contends, was the first faith to teach
I the concept of salvation and asccn
r sion and it regarded the body as the
“prison of the soul.”
Membership in The Egyptian
Mystery School was attained by ini
’ tiation and a pledge of secrecy. Writ
ing down what was taught was forbid
’ den. James said that after the Greeks
look control of Egypt with the inva
( sion of Alexander the Great, they
made the best of their opportunity to
learn all they could about Egyptian
culture and religion.
During this occupation, the temples
and libraries were plundered and pil
laged by Alexander’s armies. Later,
the Greek Aristotle and his students
turned them into research centers.
“There is no wonder then that the
unusually large numbers of books
ascribed to Aristotle have proved to
be a physical impossibility for any
single man within a lifetime,” James
You remember the
story of sour grapes.
it’s one. ol those.
fables told to Greek
children bv the Af
rican Aesop.
said.
The unfortunate position of Africa
and its people today, he said, arc a
result of “the misrepresentation by
the Greeks upon which the structure
of race prejudice has been built.”
So last summer, when I finally
look Western Civilization, 1 listened
to the lectures, took notes and day
dreamed about old Aristotle and his
boys running around the Egyptian
libraries plagiarizing every book they
could read and burning those they
couldn’t.
Not once during the entire course
did my urge to stand up and say
“bullshit’’ overtake me. 1 was real
cool as I sal there with my mouth shut
trying to gel through the class without
incident. One of the things I’d learned
since my militant days was that you
never challenge the person with the
grade book.
After I got my grade for the course,
I asked my professor if he’d ever
heard of George James or the Mys
tery Schools. He said “no,” and 1
knew my reluctance to challenge his
syllabus with Afrocentric references
had been the right choice.
But it did bother me that a univer
sity history professor did not feel it
necessary to offer other schools of
thought concerning the origin of
Western thought.
One book on the subject. “Black
Athena: The Afroasialic Roots of
Classical Civilization,” by Martin
Bernal, was published in 1987 by
Rutgers University Press.
Bernal, a Cornell University pro
lessor of government studies and
former Cambridge fellow, said it was
obvious dial Egypt was the greatest
civilization during the time Greece
was a developing nation. He said the
Greeks wrote extensively about their
debt to Egyptian religion and culture.
He said his grandfather, a noted
Egyptologist, made it clear to him
that there were barriers against asso
ciating Egyptian philosophy with
Greece.
Bernal said that during his research
for the book he was “staggered' to
discover that the Greek history he’d
been taught was not formulated until
1840. He said the dismissal of the
Egyptian origin of Greek philosophy
began with North European racism in
the 19th century.
Why didn’t my professor just
mention some of the new research
that was being published? Just a couple
of references to the possibility of
African contributions to Western
civilization would have been enough
for me.
After the semester was over, l
wondered what the real reasons for
these omissions were. Then udawned
on me what an American history lxx)k
would read like if written from the
viewpoint of the minority cultures.
Revisionist history books written
from a Native American perspective
would cast the settlers of the Old
West into the roles of organized crime
families and the Army as their en
forcers. The bluecoals would move
into Indian neighborhoods and give
them an offer they couldn’t refuse:
their land or their lives.
Then the settlers would move in
with their land-transfer peace trea
ties. These illegal contracts would be
written with disappearing ink and
would have to be signed with the
blood of 50 million dead Indians.
The Civil War would be written as
a war between Northern manufactur
ers and Southern agri-businessmen
over how best to exploit the free labor
of die millions of African slaves they
have been stealing for well over a
century.
Yeah, I know now how difficult it
would have been for my professor to
teach from the perspective of the
oppressed minority. After reading one
of those revisionist history books, he
would have to conclude that his story
was just a bunch of lies or that all this
mulu-cultural education stuff was no
more than sour grapes literature.
You remember the story of sour
grapes? It’s one of those fables told to
Greek children by the African Aesop
(•hoisnn is a senior news-editorial major
and a Daily Nebraskan columnist