DN criticized, lauded
Joke issue, Bible column receive mixed reactions
Daily Half-Asskin
beyond boundaries
of student paper
Congratulations! It is wonderful to
see by your insert, the Daily Half
Asskin, what a shining example of
journalistic ethics, integrity and style
the Daily Nebraskan is. It is very
obvious that you have joined the “elite
and privileged” ranks of real journal
ists. It gives me great pride to know
that my student fees help support such
a fine newspaper. APRIL FOOL!!!
I’ll admit that a student newspaper
can go beyond the boundaries of a
normal newspaper at times, but the
Half-Asskin went a little further than
that this time. I don’t think it as bad
when students read this trash (after
all, we have to put up with this news
paper every day) but the Daily Ne
braskan does not stop at the bounda
ries of the UNL campus.
Did you stop to think about the
copies that end up at Lincoln busi
nesses or the stale capitol? How do
you propose to sell to advertisers when
this is the image they have of your
product? Worse yet, think of your
state senators and regents reading this;
would they get the impression that
UNL is an academic institution where
studen ts care about the qual ity of their
education? How will they be able to
lobby and vole for increased funding
for UNL when they have the image of
the Half-Asskin in the backs of their
minds? How can wo as students ex
pect them to take us seriously and be
treated like adults when this is what
we show them?
I’ll admit I found a few parts of the
Half-Asskin funny. The rest, how
ever, would have been more appro
priate had it been passed around the
DN office for laughs, and kept out of
the public eye where it could only
cause one thing, bad P.R. Simply pul,
think before you act!!!!
Pat Jilek
junior
broadcasting
Joke issue
DN's most valid,
credible of year
I picked up your Daily Half-Asskin
today and just had to laugh at the
irony of it all. Even though most of
the students found it extremely funny,
which I did, I also found many of
those articles some of your most valid
and credible of the year.
Thanks!
Chris Halligan
junior
arts and science
DN protected
fraternity names
in protest assault
This letter is in response to the
article covering the march protesting
violence against women (DN, April
29). I was appalled to find the re
porter omitted the names of the fra
ternities housing the imbeciles who
harassed the women marchers. These
people should be held accountable
for their rudeness, insensitivity and
ignorance. The Lincoln Journal-Star,
covering the same story, listed the
names of the fraternities involved. I
-LETTERS /°E EDITOR
see no reason why the DN should
protect the cowardice of those who
verbally assaulted the women.
One must wonder why the young
“men” responded in the manner they
did. Perhaps the topic of the march hit
a little too close to home?
Mary Schuster
junior
social sciences
Nelson suffering
lump-in-the-cheek,
needs holy water
Bob Nelson, that was a great ar
ticle (“Brevity the soul of wit, reli
gion”) in the April 24 Daily Nebras
kan. The only way to have improved
it would be to have written it in Ger
man, where one has available a wealth
of abstruse grammatical constructions!
It appears to me that you are suf
fering from a case of lumpus malaris
(lump-in-the-cheek). So I consulted
telepathically with my second cousin
once removed, who is a faith healer in
MacGillicuddy’s Reeks, Ireland. She
says you should consume a cubic
cubit of fluoridated holy water, be
fore the next moon.
Edgar Pearlstein
professor
physics
Columnist’s claim
of Bible ambiguity
not well founded
Bob Nelson, after reading youi
column about the Bible (DN, April
24), I thought it would be good for me
to point out some important facts that
pertain to the issue.
There is a certain amount of ambi
guity in any language and in any
writing. Even an infinite God faces
this limitation when he attempts to
communicate with finite human beings
in their finite human languages. The
fact that the Bible claims to be in
spired by an omnipotent God does not
require that it also have omniclarity.
The limitation is because of the lan
guage, not God.
It people want to understand the
Bible, they can study the words, the
grammar, the context and the histori
cal setting of a statement and usually
get a pretty good idea of what the
author intended and what the original
readers understood. Then they must
decide how the meaning of that state
ment applies today. The divergent
views of how Leviticus 18:22 applies
today result more from the presuppo
sitions of the interpreters than from
any ambiguity of the language.
Your views regarding the reliabil
ity of the Biblical text arc commonly
held, but not well founded. During
the last 500 years, each new transla
tion of the Bible has been made from
the most ancient Hebrew and Greek
manuscripts that arc available, thus
avoiding the influence of the “many
cultures, many languages and many
editings” that you mentioned. As the
years go by and more ancient manu
scripts arc discovered and added to
the thousands that we already have,
the Hebrew and Greek texts the trans
lators use arc actually increasing in
accuracy with lime, not becoming
more ambiguous.
The lexical andgrammatical ques
tions you raised are not reasonable.
The confusion that you perceived is
due more to your method of study
than to the language itself. You took
the King James Bible, translated in
1611, ignored the context, and then
played dictionary roulette with the
word meanings! I will grant you a
hyperbole here or perhaps just some
humor, but I can’t let such a poor
example of interpretation slide by.
All of the questions you raised are
easily answered by honestly looking
into the words, the grammar and the
context. Reading the whole chapter
would shed much light, as would using
a modem English translation like the
RSV or NIV (or better yet, studying
the Hebrew itself). English has changed
a lot in the last 380 years, but that is
not God’s fault. The reason new trans
lations are made is to keep putting
God’s ancient, unchanging words into
the constantly changing languages of
modem humanity so that they might
know of his love and forgiveness of
sins through Jesus.
If the Old Testament view of
homosexuality was one of the many
“less than desirable prejudices that
were later nullified in the big scheme
by the Gospels,” I must say I am not
aware of any portion of the Gospels
that even mentions it, let alone teaches
that it is OK. I am aware of the other
New Testament books that do teach
that homosexual activity is a sin. The
New Testament also makes it very
clear that God loves all people and
that all are equally guilty of sin and
equally in need of his forgiveness.
i aii&wcr iur am la jcaua. nc uiou
to pay the penalty for all who will
give their lives to him and obey him.
If you do not like what the Bible
says, that is fine, no one is forcing you
to agree with it. But everyone owes it
to themselves to explore the New
Testament and honestly consider what
it says with an open mind. Then draw
your own conclusions, agree or dis
agree, but don’t use the excuse that it
cannot be understood ... most of it
can. As Mark Twain once said, “It’s
not what I don ’ t know about the Bible
that bothers me. It’s what I do know.”
Scott Pi.xler
campus minister
College-Career Christian Fellow
ship
‘Sarcastic spoof
promoted sexism,
backwardness
The Daily Half-Asskin had to have
been one of the most blatant and
asinine examples of sexism that has
ever been printed in a modem-day
university newspaper! I’m personally
embarrassed for the DN and for the
university.
It’s outrageously indignant to sec
article pseudonyms such as “Rosey
Snatch,” “Mickey Cock” and “Dick
Munch” allowed — come on, folks,
that sol of thinking is juvenile —
something I would expect from con
fused 12-ycar-olds. Writing like that
reinforces “backwardness” in a soci
ety that hasn’t made much progress
with regard to social issues since the
Civil and Women’s Rights movements
in the mid- 1960sand -’70s. It’s fright
ening to think that these people in the
journalism arena seem to be blind to
their contribution to the already sex
ist ideals with which our society seems
vested.
The editor of the DN told me that
the Daily Half-Asskin was a sarcastic
spoof on sexism; it wasn’t written to
condone it. I’m sorry, I will never
find anything funny as long as it
oppresses a particular group of people.
Many of the remarks made in the
supplement had sexual overtones that
were disrespectful to both men and
women (especially toward women).
No one has the right to qualify the
oppression of people by saying that it
was just a joke, a sarcastic spoof. No
matter what angle one looks, the jour
nalism written in that supplement was
insensitive toward women! There are
many instances where women, people
of color and homosexuals, etc., are
the butt of people’s jokes, yet intel
lectuals (or at least educated people)
wouldn’t consider them just. The
writings in the Daily Half-Asskin were
no different.
An editor who allows such dirt to
be published is one who supports the
oppression of women — there is just
no way of seeing otherwise. It’s like
having a white individual wearing a
KKK hood, burning crosses on the
lawns of African Americans and
saying, “Hey, 1 don’t support the
oppression of black people—it’s just
a joke!” I’ve always felt satisfied
with the position the DN held in re
gard to issues pertaining to sexism
and racism; however, after reading
the “Daily Half-Asskin,” the DN erased
all my previous positive conceptions.
Steve R. Sandoval
graduate student
psychological and cultural studies
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