Opinion
Netlraskan
Thursday, June 23,1994
Nebraskan
Editorial Board
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Deborah D. McAdams
Matt Woody.
Martha Dunn.
Derek Samson.
Brian Sharp.
Km ioki m
Editor, 472-1766
Features Editor
. Copy Desk Chief
. . . Staff Reporter
StafJ Reporter
Bless the Press
Images reflect public self-deception
If the mainstream media is an adequate representation, journal
ism has reached its compost age, yet who is to blame if more
people recognize Connie Chung than Charlayne Hunter-Gault?
While the President of the United States was in Europe negoti
ating a new North Atlantic Treaty Organization, national attention
was focused on mega-dysfunctional Bobbits.
While former President Jimmy Carter derailed escalating
hostilities between the United States and North Korea, the press
was on the L.A. freeway with O.J. Simpson. That’s what America
wanted to sec; the man everyone thought they knew.
The man was a manifestation of America’s desire for heroes.
He was conceived by the eye of the camera, which distorted the
reality of his life into a fairy talc. He needed help, and he needed
it a long time ago, but it didn’t fit the image.
If the truth about one man so blatantly contradicts his public
image, then what can we possibly assume about our knowledge of
the rest of the world?
The media’s presentation of news generally reflects the pub
lic’s demand for information. The public’s demand for informa
tion reflects the time and energy people have to spend on news
events, and to some extent it reflects the level of the nation’s
intellect.
Many pcopje spend their days and weeks at jobs where they
receive marginal satisfaction and salaries that just about maintain
some form of the American dream. They go the bar for a round or
two before going home to a dinner of mostly saturated fat.
Few people care to spend their free time speculating about
international treaty negotiations or unstable foreign power struc
tures. There probably weren’t many workplace wagers placed on
the outcome of Carter’s trip. No one probably put together a
NATO “dream team” league.
American lifestyles dictate that information be dispensed in
quick, brief, visual packages. Those packages can be deceiving,
providing an image that may only reflect public desire. Reality is
a huge, complicated, gray area that requires time and effort to
understand. When we’ve been deceived, it’s no one’s fault but our
own.
I m loui \i l*oi i< \
Staff editorials represent the official policy of the Summer 1994 Daily Nebraskan Policy is set
by the Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board Hditorials do not necessarily reflect the views of the
university, its employees, the students or the NU Board of Regents Editorial columns represent
the opinion of the author. The regents publish the Daily Nebraskan They establish (he UNL
Publications Board to supervise the daily production of the paper. According to policy set by
the regents, responsibility for the editorial content of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of
its students.
I.I I II 14 I'OI It \
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SAM KEPFIELl)
Church faces new Inquisition
In ihc PC era, when it is unpar
donable sin to speak ill of anoth
er based on race, gender, sexual
orientation, etc., anti-religious bigot
ry is the last acceptable form of preju
dice remaining.
Consider first the so-called “Reli
gious Right,” who has “taken over”
the Republican parties in Minnesota,
Iowa, Texas, and Virginia.
The hysteria over the “Religious
Right” hearkens back to the late ’70s
and early ’80s, when the liberal elite
in this country became terrified of the
Moral Majority. The nerve of those
people — to actually talk about reli
gion and morality in public! Surely
they had nothing less in mind than the
creation of a religious dictatorship
here in the land of the free and the
home of the brave.
Not quite. Most conservative Chris
tians are not former shareholders in
the Heritage USA theme park. They
are, by and large, people with sincere
convictions. They love America and
are alarmed at how society has gone to
hell in a handcart over the past thirty
years. They are genuinely outraged at
the excesses and abuses of a govern
ment that has ceased being “of the
people, by the people, and for the
people.” All they want to do is restore
some sense of decency, morality, vir
tue and responsibility to our citizenry.
They wish to spare us from going the
way of Rome, wallowing in our own
decadence and destroying ourselves
from within.
To accomplish this, they have not
“taken over” any state GOP organiza
tion. Conservative Christians walk
precincts, knock on doors, and hand
out leaflets — standard procedure for
any grassroots movement. The GOP
leaders alarmed by this arc generally
the Eastern Establishment types who
led the party to disaster before the
Reagan Era. With their go-along-to
gct-along backslapping ways that have
spent us into a deep pit, the Establ ish
ment types are properly terrified of
being unmasked.
Catholic faithful around the world
(especially in the United States) face a
different dilemma. The Church is
under increasing attack of late, the
latest indignity being allegations of
Most conservative Christians
are not former shareholders in
the Heritage USA theme park.
They are, by and large, people
with sincere convictions.
price-fixing in the publication of its
new catechism. From Sinead (‘Tight
the real enemy”) O’Connor on down,
everyone wants a dig at the Church
and at John Paul II.
The Church isn’t with it, they say
John Paul II is too old-fashioned, this
is the twentieth century, so for gosh
sakes let’s get rid of all these silly
restrictions against birth control, or
daining women and gay marriages.
If that’s not bad enough, the ever
declining population of priests is por
trayed as a haven for child molesters,
and where there’s injury, there arc
packs of slavering lawyers. It’s gotten
so bad that the Archdiocese of Santa
Fe has nearly been forced into bank
ruptcy by these suits.
Some problems do exist, but they
arc largely of administrative malprac
tice in handling the few problem
priests, and this may be a signal to the
Church hierarchy to be a bit more
careful in the future. As for the doctri
nal gripes, the Church is doing what it
ought to — nothing. A few scattered
protestors might be enough to make a
spineless president change his policy
on Haiti or gays in the military, but the
Catholic Church is a different matter.
When the Church talks about princi
ple, it has an entirely different mean
ing — it is, literally, the word of the
Lord. Not something you’d want to
alter to fit the latest polls.
Class antagonism fuels a good part
of the animosity against conservative
Christians and the Catholic Church.
Fundamentalists have always been
seen as polyester-clad, snake-han
dling, tongue-speaking denizens of
trailer parks, gull ible cretins who send
thousands to Jimmy Swaggart or J im
Bakkcr.
Catholicism has always been seen
as a bit foreign to American society,
steeped as it is in mainstream Protes
tantism. Catholics with strange ac
cents came to America, occupied the
worst tenements and did the dirtiest
jobs. In response, they stirred up na
tivist sentiments that never died.
The most worrisome aspect of all
this is that the federal government has
now given its imprimatur to religious
persecution. The EEOC recently sent
out for comment a proposed addition
to the Code of Federal Regulations
defining and outlawing “religious
harassment.” Under this, a person
could be sued for any sort of prosely
tizing. The only hopeful sign is that it
received 39,000 comments, more than
for any other regulation ever, and 95
percent were against it. The EEOC
chairman claims that wearing a cross
or displaying a Bible won’t be cov
ered, since reasonable people wouldn’t
construe that as harassment. The prob
lem is that reasonable people rarely
define these debates.
Sexual harassment got hijacked by
the radical feminists, and the nation
was treated to the circus at the Clarence
Thomas confirmation hearings. Un
der the law as it stands today, sexual
harassment need not cause “serious
psychological injury” in order for the
harassec to collect damages. Itdocsn’t
take a legal genius to see where this is
going when applied to “religious ha
rassment.”
That we should risk a new Inquisi
tion against religion when we so des
perately need its influence means that
we arc moving farther away from the
belief that we arc “One nation under
God” — any God — and edging that
much closer to barbarism.
Kcpfidd is a graduate student in history and
a Daily Nebraskan columnist.
.11 ti ks 10 mi
Execution Solution
A.Ncil Spears column on the cir
cus frenzy surrounding executions can
be summed up in two words: RIGHT
ON! I personally oppose capital pun
ishment altogether, but if we’re going
to start putting inmates to death again
in this state. I’d just as soon see it done
without the despicable display of stu
pidity I saw on WGN the night Illinois
executed mass murderer John Wayne
Gacy.
Hundreds of idiots with obviously
nothing better to do, gathered outside
the state penitentiary in Joliet, 111.
Some of them were dressed in clown
attire, while others sang “nah-nah
nah-hey-hey good-bye” and counted
down to 12:01 like it was New Year’s
Eve. To further illustrate this absurdi
ty, a week after Gacy was executed,
several paintings he did while in pris
on were sold at an auction. One Chi
cagoan bought two dozen of them for
an estimated $20,000, then burned
them. He responded, “I wish we could
have burned them all.”
This coming June 25 marks the
35th anniversary of the execution of
Charles Starkweather, the last person
to die in Nebraska’s electric chair. 1
for one would like to sec this drought
continue, but it appears our excuse for
an Attorney General is soon going to
get his way. If Harold Olcy. John
Joubcrt and the rest of the scum on
death row finally meet the execution
cr. I hope Li ncolnites have better sense
than to start a pep rally of idiocy by
gathering like a mob outside the pen
itentiary gates. The state might also
try dumping that ridiculously inhu
mane, outdated chair in favor of lethal
injection which produces the same
result without all the sickening dra
matics.
If these men must die, then let them
die. No crowds, T-shirt vendors or
tabloidish media orgies are necessary.
The survivors of both the condemned
and their victims will thank you in the
long run.
Scott Carpenter
junior
. • English