ANDY FREDERICK I
Despite pain, we know nothing I
£ £ ticks and stones will break
my bones, but names will
never hurt me.”
Funny, isn’t it? It’s funny because
anyone who has watched any part of
the Clarence Thomas hearings or has
read of them in the newspaper or has
heard of them from others knows that
it just isn’t true.
Thomas has been hurt by the alle
gations that he sexually harassed Anita
Hill.
Hill has been hurt by the opinion
of some that everything she has been
saying about Thomas is a lie.
The men on the Senate Judiciary
Committee have been hurt by the
accusations of many people that they
arc insensitive to the hurt of victims
of sexual harassment.
The press has been hurt by the
charge that it has acted appallingly by
making leaked information public.
Thomas’ confirmation hearings
have caused a great deal of hurt to a
great number of people in the past
week. But has it been worth it? What
do we now know that we didn’t be
fore?
We know that a person cannot
prove that he didn’t say what he’s
accused of saying 10 years ago. We
know that another person cannot prove
that he did say what he’s accused of
saying 10 years ago.
We know that all Americans are
concerned about sexual harassment.
We know that no one knows exactly
what sexual harassment is.
We know that senators have a hard
time agreeing on how to treat evi
dence in such a unique and difficult
situation as this. We know that Tho
mas will continue to deny the allega
tions of sexual harassment and that
Hill will continue to insist that they,
arc true, regardless of which evidence
is admitted and which isn’t.
We know that Hill has a great
number of friends who support her
and believe she is telling the truth.
We know that Thomas has a great
■ ■■■■■ ■■ I
No one knows who is
telling the truth and
who. isnlL
number of friends who support him
and believe he is telling the truth.
We know nothing.
No one knows who is telling the
truth and who isn’t. No one knows
whether Thomas likes pornographic
movies or whether Hill fantasizes about
relationships with men or whether
Thomas asked Hill out for a date. We
are no closer to the answer than we
were before.
But the ordeal hasn’t been a com
plete loss. Some lessons have been
learned along the way. Unfortunately,
not all have been positive.
We have learned that the days of
the Red Scare are not over. Even
today, a person can avoid the crimi
nal justice system and, by making
unsupported allegations in front of
the entire country, absolutely demol
ish another person’s reputation.
During the Red Scare, such char
acter bashing was justified with
communism. Today it is justified with
sexual harassment. But what is sexual
harassment?
In the case of Thomas, it is not
demands for sex, it is not improper
physical contact, it is not indecent
exposure, it is not threats to a woman’s
job security for refusing to satisfy
sexual demands. It is alleged to be
crude speech, 10 years ago, before ■
the 1986 Supreme Court ruling that |
sexual harassment was in violation of ■
the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Is it necessary to destroy a man for |
doing something improper even though §
there is no evidence to indicate that *
he continues such behavior to this |
day? I
In fact, there is much testimony to *
the contrary, that he absolutely ab- |
hors sexual harassment. If Thomas ■
was once a man of low morality, all j
evidence indicates that he has changed. |
We also have learned that much ■
needs to be done to refine the defini- J
tion of and to increase the under- f
standing of sexual harassment. ■
Victims of sexual harassment are *
forced to choose between career and |
conscience. Often a person must go r
through a lot of pain to end the illegal •>
behavior of another, but such is the '
price of justice.
Both men and women must give *
priority to having respect for others.
When a person’s words or actions i.
bother another person, he or she should !
care enough about the other person’s
feelings to change the bothersome
behavior.
And finally, we have learned that
most Americans only care about the
affairs of their government when
scandal is involved.
Does anyone know or care about *
what went on during Thomas’ confir
mation hearings before the allega
tions of sexual harassment were made
public? Did anyone rush home to
their television sets to find out how
Thomas had answered questions about
abortion?
It’s just a shame that neither the
committee, Thomas nor Hill, all of
whom are indirectly responsible for
the events of the past week, have
gained anything despite all of the
pain they have been put through.
Frederick is a senior news-editorial jour
nalism major and a Daily Nebraskan colum
nist and photographer.
JAMES ZANK
Wild remnants need protection
Only to the white man was na
ture a wilderness and only to
him was the land infested with
wild animals and savage people. To
us it was tame. Earth was bountiful
and we were surrounded with the
blessings of the Great Mystery.
— Luther Standing Bear of the
Oglala Sioux
Because I was bom and raised in
Lincoln, my experiences in the wil
derness have been few but varied.
The first time I experienced the
wilderness was during my family’s
journey to Yellowstone National Park.
Other than the tourist trap of Old
Faithful, the most memorable por
tions of this trip were terrible meals at
the Yellowstone Hotel restaurant,
shoddy beds in a cramped cabin and
waking up briclly to hear a man scream
ing for his friend in the middle of the
night.
Somewhere along the way I picked
up the idea that his cries were bear
related. That fascinated me, far more
than souvenir shops and hikes on trails
by hot springs.
My next intense wilderness expe
rience came two years ago when I
went tree-planting with friends at Fort
Robinson Slate Park over Easter
weekend.
I found this far closer to being wild
than the manicured tourist areas of
Yellowstone. Our tree-planting was
done in Smiley Canyon, which a couple
of years prior had been burned by
forest fire.
People think forest fires arc inher
ently bad. When people are raised
with the propaganda of Smokcy the
Bear and the intellectual insight into
forest fire provided by the film
“Bambi," it is easy to sec why.
Actually, fire can be considered
part of a forest’s ongoing natural cycle.
It rids the forest of undergrowth and
keeps a check on overpopulation by
single species. It provides the forest a
chance for renewal.
That was part of the message that
Smiley Canyon provided. Among the
black charred tree trunks, toppled over
and dying, birds hunted for food, and
As many treaties as
were broken b\ the
invaders o f North
America, it comes as
little surprise that the
Forest Service sells
ranchers the ODDortUz
nitv to yraze their
cattle on protected
lands*
the forest floor was beginning to come
to life as a new green carpet spread
from the decaying trees.
Regardless of whether we planted
trees, the forest would live. That was
indisputable. We were helping to speed
the process, trying to restore some of
what was lost.
Still, we were able to recognize
that this process would not be accom
plished solely by a bunch of college
kids on a weekend expedition.
That is a lesson that many still
need to learn. Even as I write this,
logging roads arc being made to bet
ter serve timber companies’ lust for
raw materials in the Nebraska pine
ridge. The Forest Service aids in the
road construction, thus helping the
timber companies in this process.
The trees of the state’s forest are,
or should be, considered the property
of the stale. The maintenance of these
areas is provided with our tax dollars.
The Forest Service aids the timber
companies in harvesting trees from
our forest. What or whom docs the
Forest Service serve?
It docs an incredible disservice to
the forest, opening it to rape by the
limber industry. It doesn’t seem to be
doing too great a job for the taxpay
ers, unless selling off the forest is to
be considered good, management.
The forests are there for another
purpose as well. They provide refuge
for animals that do not survive in
areas encroached upon by humanity.
The forests that remain in Amer
ica are survivors of generations of
man’s ignorance and indifference. Wild
places have suffered by the hands of
man since the Columbus ended his
botched voyage to the Far East.
As the Europeans advanced in the
New World, they encountered many
“wild” creatures. They treated them
in much same way that the indige
nous people were treated.
If not slain outright by the white
Europeans, many members of the
Native American tribes were put on
reservations. There is littlediffcrcncc
between a refuge and a reservation
when your way of life is made impos
sible by foreign invasions.
As many treaties as were broken
by the invaders of North America, it
comes as little surprise that the Forest
Service sells ranchers the opportunity
to graze their cattle on protected lands.
Much of the deforestation done to
the North American Continent in the
past 500 years was done to make
room for cattle grazing. Many spe
cies, such as the grizzly and the coy
ote, have been hunted nearly to ex
tinction by ranchers trying to protect
their cattle.
This is, of course, not an unusual
situation in the American way of life.
Our Forest Service gives big tim
ber corporations permission and help
in ravaging the forests of the North
west states.
Americans, humans in general, need
to keep some of their wilderness, if
only to remind them of what the world
was like before they wrecked it.
'/junk Is a junior art and Knglish major
and a Daily Nebraskan columnist.
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