Opinion Ne&an
%# I y | Tuesday, November 16, 1993
Nebraskan
Editorial Board
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Jeremy Fitzpatrick Editor, 472-1766
Kathy Steinauer Opinion Page Editor
Wendy Mott Managing Editor
Todd Cooper Sports Editor
Chris Hopfensperger . . Copy Desk Chief
Kim Spurlock Sower Editor
Kiley Timperley Senior Photographer
Do or die
White House needs foreign policy success
Plans were announced Monday for Secretary of State Warren
Christopher to travel to the Middle East to try to save the
fragmenting peace between Israel and the Palestinian
Liberation Organization.
Christopher’s trip represents a chance for much-needed foreign
policy success for the Clinton administration. The president’s
early foreign policy errors have caused some critics to doubt his
ability to lead the United States abroad.
If Christopher can help save the negotiations between the
Israelis and the PLO over limited self-rule for Palestinians in the
Gaza Strip and Jericho, the chance for peace in the region will be
greatly increased.
The United States spends a great deal of resources to maintain
stability in the Middle East. Securing peace in the region would
mean the United States could concentrate those resources at
home.
President Clinton has shown his early foreign policy
inexperience in the first year of his presidency. If Christopher can
help save the agreement between the Israelis and the PLO, it will
show the Clinton administration has the ability to manage world
affairs successfully.
The chance for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians
is not great. It would be unfair to judge Clinton’s foreign policy
on one agreement.
But Christopher’s success or failure in the Middle East will
either be a step forward for the Clinton administration or another
step backward. And if the president suffers another defeat, he
should seriously consider making major changes in his foreign
policy team.
Many of us can remember our parents struggling to answer our
innocent questions about “the birds and the bees.” Once upon a
time, our questions had relatively easy answers.
Recent scientific breakthroughs reminiscent of some of this
century’s sci-fi novels and movies might just be making those
simple questions much harder to answer. Researchers at George
Washington University recently revealed they successfully cloned
human embryos.
The prospect of “another you" should certainly make you stop
and think for a moment — if it doesn’t already scare you. The fact
that doctors can take cells from “flawed human embryos” to
construct new, healthy embryos raises all kinds of questions.
There are few, if any, restraints on such genetic engineering.
The government hasn’t touched it, and few lobbying groups have
raised public awareness.
It is time for all of us to ask some simple questions. What will
the limits be on such research? Should the government regulate
genetic engineering? Who will make sure doctors use the research
for the right reasons?
It is time to realize the horrific possibilities, as well as the
wonderful potential of such startling research.
It is important for science to progress, and it is important for
society to find ways to solve its worst medical problems. But it is
even more important for us to face and understand genetic
engineering before it is time to tell our children where they came
from.
—The Daily Collegian
Penn State
Staff'editorials represent the official policy of the Fall 1993 Daily Nebraskan Policy is set by
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AW MUM?* v i.
tAILK PRODUCTION
ISN'T SNr
TUB DAIRY LOBBY
Evil feminist seed planted early
Ihatc feminism. I always have.
Ever since I w as forced to watch
those creepy “anything boys can
do, girls can do better” ABC after
school specials in the classroom. I’ve
known mean-spirited feminists were
gunning for my demise.
It’s impossible to travel from
kindergarten to sixth grade without
realizing the hypocrisy of the feminist
mind-set. Elementary school is a
matriarchal ward ruled by minimally
witted, humanist nuns who allow the
witticism “girls are made of sugar and
spice” mold their view of the sexes. In
the sorority-like playpen of grade
school, it didn’t lake long to learn the
implied creed: Girls are social models,
boys are discipline cases.
This unspoken creed was spelled
out for me on the day my third-grade
teacher, Mrs. Pierce, told me 1 wasn’t
cutout for the “gifted” program. I was
smart enough, she said, but 1 talked
too much. She sent Carrie instead, a
behavioral prodigy who never talked
out of turn.
I have a sneaking suspicion Carrie
is attending Bryn Mawr University
right now on a women’s scholarship.
She’s probably writing her doctoral
paper on the institutional tyranny of
the American patriarchy.
Perhaps I w-ould have a different
attitude if I would have ever had a
man for a teacher. But in grade school,
there were no male role models. The
only men I saw during my first seven
yearsof public education were janitors,
gym coaches and principals: physical
grunters who mopped vomit, taught
dodge ball and administered spankings
exclusively to, of course, boys.
So it’s a small wonder that I began
to suspec t our soc ic ty was cstroge nal 1 y
dominated from the womb to the final
suffocating embrace of Mother Earth.
As a child, I thought I knew why men
donned helmets and risked their lives
fighting fires, crime and each other.
To be a capital-wielding
millionaire, influential scholar or
a powerful politician would be
fun, and there’s no reason a
woman shouldn’t be one. I’d like
to be one too.
They did it to get away from their
moms.
I did have male teachers at my
junior high school, but by then it was
too late. Puberty had hit me like a
truck, and 1 found myself compelled
to flirt with girls, perform for them
and write awful love poetry through
no choice of my own. I was addicted
to something I’d never wanted, like
being a crack baby.
Gladiatorial combat is a tender and
compassionate sport compared to the
masculine competition for female
favor in junior high school. The desire
for sex electrifies adolescent society
into a free-for-all with the murderous
Darwinistic frenzy of football, fist
fights and 30-ininutc French kisses at
the junior high dance. Notions of
fairness and equality wilt before the
power of primal bacchanalian
romance; it is the single motivating
force of the human race.
I have a hard time seeing the
gendering of labor as an evil
phenomenon. It translated sexual
competition into a productive
abstraction of labor. Instead of
cracking antlers, men could channel
their energies into trade, fanning and
conquest. Insteadofbeating each other
with clubs to please women, men
pioneered industry and civilization.
Is this a bad thing?
In a modern context, I understand
why women petitioned for their place
in scholarship and labor during the
Industrial Revolution. To be a capital
wielding millionaire, influential
scholar or a powerful politician would
be fun, and there’s no reason a woman
shouldn’t be one. I’d like to be one
too.
It is unfair, though, for women to
petition only for high-paying or
intellectual jobs. Those jobs arc easy.
True, equality-minded feminists
should demand unisex conditions for
coal mines, prisons and construction
crews, without deference to maternity
leave or physical strength. But for
some reason,Gloria Steinem and Kate
Millett have neglected those trouble
spots.
The real reason 1 hate feminism is
because it’s false. Feminists live on
college campuses or other temples of
the bogus, trading their bland, useless
gender theories between one another.
Or worse, they frolic through
government offices and play around
with sociological statistics.
Male chauvinists may be crude
and cruel, but they also build bridges,
automobiles and buildings. Feminists
just talk. And women who do have the
cunning to seize power and money
don’t do it for their sisters. They’re
egotistical, selfish fascists—just like
the rest of us.
Ilambrecht Is a sophomore news-editorial
major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist.
Greeks
Could someone tell me what the
purpose of the greek system is? I
mean, besides placing middle-, upper
class white people in an artificial
position of superiority, helping ensure
their success and excluding those who
don’t drink in excess, have dangerous
sex lives or have no greater desire
than to maintain the status quo. What
docs it do for this university and its
members besides create problems and
give people a bad impression?
Shawn Carlson
freshman
general studies
Beating
Considering the current
investigation about the beating of a
Malaysian student by several
individuals, one of whom is a current
football player and one of whom is an
ex-player, the editors of the Daily
Nebraskan may be a little more
sensitive as to what kind of quotes
they choose to print. It is unfortunate
that you have chosen to quote Kevin
Ramackers (DN, Nov. 12) as saying
“I’ll be beating the hell out of
somebody. I’ll really be pissed. ...M 1
hope that it doesn't end up being
another international student.
Biljana Obradovic
graduate student
English
Death penalty
Ironic it is that most Christians I
have encountered support the death
penalty.
At the risk of burning in hell, 1
choose not to worship this Bible God
with whom I have so many differing
ideas. This is why I cannot be
considered hypocritical when I say I
think whoever is convicted of torturing
and murdering Candice Harms should
die.
Although I feel these men should
die, 1 cannot support the death penalty.
It angers me that those who want to
sec vengeance carried out oversimplify
this issue and seem to have no concern
about the fact that a minority or a poor
person is much more likely to die;
hate warps the judgment of many.
Until our system is fair and
consistent, we mast continue to reward
these individuals with free room and
board for life,
Paul Kocster
senior
soil science