Pai la Laykjne
Violence makes Irish eyes cry
44|0 rin Go Bragh” yc little lads
rJ and lassies. You’ll all be
sportin’ a bit o’ the Irish
green this St. Paddy’s day, won’t ya?
You’ll be kissin’ the Blarney stone
and wishin’ on a four-leaf clover as
you down a few pints of Guinness too.
aye suppose. When your Irish eyes arc
smiling the next morning, you’ll for
get your 24-hour Leprechaun patron
age.
You’ll forget the number of Irish
Catholic peasants who starved during
the great potato famines in the 1840s
while being evicted at the hands of
British Protestant landowners. Many
were forced to immigrate to America,
where they suffered further discrimi
nation. The luck of the Irish?
You’ll forget the innocent chil
dren, both Protestant and Catholic,
who were killed in senseless Irish
Republican Army bombings. You
don’t know about the Irish nationalist
children in Belfast spitting on the
Bri tish loyal ists as they wal k down the
street.
w nat we sec in movies such as in
the Name of the Father” only scratch
es the surface of the troubles that
plague the Irish people. This is why
some Irish eyes don’t smile much
anymore.
In the wake of St. Patrick’s Day,
here’s a little slice of true Irish heri
tage. There are the two basic factions
— the British loyalists and the Irish
nationalists. Although most loyalists
arc Protestant and most Irish arc Cath
olic, the issues arc becoming more
secular.
The entire island of Ireland used to
be under British rule, and Irish people
were not allowed to serve in Parlia
ment. In fear of a rebell ion, the British
government granted the Irish people
home rule—a diluted version of self
government. Irish people were allowed
to represent themselves in govern
ment, but they were still oppressed.
After several uprisings and rebellions,
Ireland was split.
.... Now, Ireland is under Irish rule, in
which the Cathol ic Church dominates
the majority of social policy through
prohibiting divorce, abortion and pre
marital sex. Northern Ireland is still
These trigger-happy terrorist
factions claim to be fighting for
some cause when, in effect, they
exist for racketeering and extor
tion. If peace ever came, they
would end up being an Irish ver
sion of the Mafia.
under British rule.
This is where the IRA comes in. It^
goal is to reunite these two countries
under Irish rule. The Protestant/Brit
ish equivalent of the IRA, the Ulster
Defense Association, tries to prevent
this.
They kill children. They kill moth
ers, fathers, sons and daughters. They
kill the enemy and their own people.
They kill innocent people.
These trigger-happy terrorist fac
tions claim to be fighting for some
cause when, in effect, they exist for
racketeering and extortion. If peace
ever came, they would end up being an
Irish version of the Mafia.
The IRA’s big hoax relies on the
minority of nationalists in Northern
Ireland who want a united Ireland
under Irish rule. The fallacy lies in
that 70 percent of the people in North
ern Ireland, both Protestant and Cath
olic,don’t want a united Ireland. They
believe theirlivingconditions are bet
ter under British rule. If they were
under Irish rule, they could “enjoy”
Ireland’s fluctuating 10 to 20 percent
unemployment rate.
The British government is more
than guilty of this too. They’ve been
persecuting Irish people for years and
continue to do it. An Irish person
finding a job in London was like a
high school dropout trying to find a
job on Wall Street. They neverpaid for
their mistakes.
So what’s beingdonc? John Major,
the British prime minister, and Albert
Reynolds, a leader in the Irish govern
ment, came up with the Major
Reynolds peace plan. The plan re
spects the interests of both the North
and the South and would grant a unit
ed Ireland, by peaceful means, if a
majority of the people agreed to do
that.
Gerry Adams, leader of Sinn Fein
(the IRA’s political wing), voiced con
ditions under which the IRA would
lay down its arms and stop the terror
ism. This did not, however, include
compliance with the Major-Reynolds
plan.
Violence continues and more peo
ple are needlessly slaughtered. The
dazzling Emerald Isle, with green
fields and towering castles, is tar
nished with bloodshed. Everybody
wishes the fighting to be over. Both
sides have some justifiable claims, but
whatever problems exist, violence is
not the solution.
1 have a Catholic friend in Dublin
and a Protestant friend in Belfast.
They have a cynical attitude about the
whole thing and don’t see why the
violence continues. Neither do I, and
I’m not even Irish.
Throughout this whole ordeal, the
Irish people have maintained their
culture, rich with traditions and cus
toms. They’re hard-working, consid
erate people who arc proud of their
heritage. So, when you’re rallying for
the “Fighting Irish” of Notre Dame or
when you pop in “The Joshua Tree”
and listen to Ireland’s own Paul
Hcwson, remember the people of Ire
land and why St. Patrick still looks
over them today.
Livl(i( Is a freshman news-editorial
major and a Dally Nebraskan columnist.
P \l I KOI M I K
Changes needed to save land
Eight years ago, I made a big
change in my life. I deviated
from the norm. 1 quit eating
animals.
I, like many in society, grew up
caring for animals, but those concerns
quickly were suppressed by a false
lesson about the four food groups. We
were told we had to eat animals to
survive. We weren’t told about the
millions of vegetarians in the world
who were experiencing vitality and
extremely low incidences of heart dis
easc,obesity,osteoporosis, strokes and
many forms of cancer.
In this modem society, we simply
go to the store and buy our flesh neatly
packed on a Styrofoam platter. There
is no need to get our hands bloody.
There is no need to think about whom
we arc eating or what that creature
went through to get on our plate.
Advertisers constantly desensitize
us. Most of the food corporate Amer
ica ofTers us is meat-based. On televi
sion, tuna fish and chickens want to be
eaten, and dairy cows want to be
pumped full of chemicals and milked
with a machine twice a day.
Even our university advertises the
meat and dairy industries on its radio
station, K.RNU, through public ser
vice announcements that push the four
food groups. These four food groups
no longer are recogn ized even by grade
schools.
Now that corporate America has
managed to force out more than a
third of the family farmers, (he only
way to compete is to adapt to a system
where bigger is better. In
“agribusiness* animals arc reduced to
being nothing more than production
units. Through drugs, confinement
and research at public universities,
increasingly cruel methods ol maxi
mizing that bottom dollar and squeez
ing out the family farmer are found.
In a world where the population
is doubling every 50 years and
half the people are hungry, it is
increasingly important to pre
serve our limited soil, water and
energy reserves.
When will the madness cease?
More disturbing than the ill effects
on human health and the small farm is
the ill effect of the American diet on
the environment. In a world where the
population is doubling every 50 years
and half the people arc hungry, it is
increasingly important to preserve our
1 imited soil, water and energy reserves.
It disturbs me that while millions
arc starving worldwide, we are raising
animal products that exhaust the envi
ronment. Millions of taxpayers’ dol
lars arc spent subsidizing sales of
these products to elite foreign mar
kets, and the environmental costs are
simply passed on to future genera
tions.
For every pound of animal protein
produced, about 10 pounds of plant
protein must be consumed by the an
imal. This means 10 times more land
must be used to feed a meat eater than
a vegetarian. This also means that 10
times the pesticides, chemical fertiliz
ers and fossil fuels are used.
Because of the high-impact Amer
ican diet, native animals must lose 10
times the habitat as is necessary. As a
result, many species are endangered.
Throughout the state, perceived threats
such as coyotes and prairie dogs arc
wiped out in large numbers so the
public can cat cheap meat. Fifty-six
coyotes were killed in this year’s orga
nized coyote hunt in Chadron. Ani
mals are not safe from humans any
where. If we’ re not farming or grazing
the land, hunters are going in and
hunting them.
Water consumption for animal pro
duction is phenomenal, for water is
used not only for animal consumption
but also to irrigate the com crop which
is fed to them. In my opinion, this is an
abuse of our uniquely abundant water
resource and already has led to ground
water contamination all over the stale
by nitrates and pesticides. Irrigation is
another way of keeping out or squeez
ing out the little guy who can’t afford
the costly methods to compete in a
system controlled by the livestock in
dustry.
The effect of our diets on the soils
is also scary. Soils take hundreds,
even thousands, of years to form, and
when we cultivate them at 10 times the
rate necessary, we must rely on artifi
cial inputs to maintain productivity.
Through overgrazing and intensive
farming, the processes that form soils
are drastically altered, and that leads
to a net loss of this limited resource.
Vegetarianism seems extreme to
many, but if we are to assure plenty of
resources for future generations, we
must change the way we treat the land.
Koester it i senior soil science major and
a Daily Nebraskan columnist.
*76c 'Univendity
&on*t6u4&&i 7fta/icfc*ty> &x*td
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(First round session)
March 29, 30 & 31
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Schulte Field House
Use entrance off of Avery Avenue
Auditions are open to academically eligible UNL
students. No previous experience required. Dress for
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Second round auditions scheduled for August 12-19.
For more information call 472-2505.
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Entry Deadline: March 29
Entries For All Sports Will Be Accepted At
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