Daily
Nebraskan
Editorial Board
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
...Editor. 472-1766
.Opinion Page Editor
.Managing Editor
. . . . ..Associate News Editor
.Columnist/Associate News Editor
.Photography Director
.... Copy Desk Chief
. .. Cartoonist
F.DI I OKI \\
Multicultural mirror
All UNL classes should reflect diversity
Starting next fall, university students will be required to take a
non-Wcstern culture course and 10 courses that have some
multiculturalism integrated into them.
The requirements will considerably further the university’s
progress toward multicultural education and help prepare UNL
students who have had few multicultural experiences for an
increasingly diverse world.
Though the new requirements arc an important step in recog
nizing the importance and contributions of all groups, perhaps
Nebraska’s secondary schools have adopted a better way to
achieve that goal.
JeffZeleny
Kara Morrison
Angie Brunkow.
Jeffrey Robb
Rainbow Rowell
Kiley Christian.
Mike Lewis ...
James Mehsling
In 1992, the Nebraska Legislature’s multicultural bill required
every teacher in grades K-12 to include previously overlooked
viewpoints in their class materials.
Recently, one such teacher began researching early African
, American homesteaders in Western Nebraska, only to find more
information than she possibly could include in her course.
The university will achieve multicultural education only when,
as in Nebraska’s secondary schools, each instructor begins
including materials that highlight the contributions of all members
of society.
A single course of women's history is not the answer. Nor is
the answer to require all students to take one African-American
literature or race relations course.
Until the rest of our curriculum, as well as our faculty, reflect
the diversity we arc striving toward appreciating, we will have a
long way to go to.
Ol'HKKS* VlKW
Although love beads and bell-bottoms have crept back into
style in the ’90s, college students around the country can’t seem
to lose their image of being apathetic. What our hippie forefathers
forget, however, is that they criticize what they don't understand
— a gentler, quieter approach to activism.
There is a difference between militant activists and today’s
politically aware student. The number of students who care about
issues and do something about them is not falling nearly as
drastically as critics say. Austinites who crave the days of sit-ins
and love-ins on the Capitol steps need only read the paper and
look at the blue recycling bin at the end of their driveway to see
that the spirit lives on.
College students today arc more likely to work within the
system to change inequities, rather than foment the “us against
them” attitude that prevailed in the '60s. While change from the
inside is not nearly as visible, it can be just as effective. Take, for
example, the increasing number of women graduating from
college. A recent NCAA report shows graduation rates for fe
males arc higher than for males. The Equal Rights Amendment
may have failed, but visible results arc seen today. Women don't
burn their bras when they’re busy getting a degree.
Another complaint is students’ preoccupation with money
rather than activism. But more students today finance education
through loans than before, and most students work while they’re
in school. There isn’t time to protest on the West Mall.
— The Daily Texan
The University of Texas at Austin
EDI IOUI \|. I'OI 10
Staff editorials represent the official policy of the Fall IW4 Daily Nebraskan Policy is set by
(he Daily Nebraskan Editorial Hoard Editorials 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 the UNI,
Publications board to supervise »he 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 11 U I’m It \
The Daily Nebraskan welcomes brief letters to the editor from all readers and interested others
Letters will be selected for publication on the basis of clarity, originulity. timeliness und space
available The Daily Nebraskan retains the right to edit or reject all material submitted Readers
also are welcome to submit material as guest opinions. The editor decides whether material
should run as a guest opinion. Letters and guest opinions sent to (he newspaper become the
* property of the Daily Nebraskan and cannot be returned Anonymous submissions will not be
published Letters should included the author's name, year in school, major and group
affiliation, if any. Requests to withhold names will not be granted Submit material to the Daily
Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St., Lincoln, Neb 68588-0448
SHANK TUC KER
Stifled economy brings poverty
The Third World has mistakenly
looked upon the United States as a
political imperialist for years, but the
1W4 World Population Conference
in Cairo may give credence to their
impressions of America as the “Great
Satan” as we attempt to export
Western depravity under the guise of
what is deemed healthy and even
necessary advice.
It seems the Vatican is the only
Western influence brave enough to
stand up against the gibberish of
European feminists and American
greeniacs. Values that at one time
laid the foundation for Western
philosophy have slowly been dis
solved by liberal f<x)ls marching to
the call of reproductive freedom,
more concerned with killing our
future before it’s born than saving it.
The policies accepted by the
nations of the world this week arc
d(X)incd to fail because of inherent
flaws in their precepts. Feminist
philosophy has perverted the confer
ence’s “group think,” leading to a call
for women’s empowerment with the
package deal of abortion, birth
control and sex education in an cITort
to control population size.
But the cflfort to control world
population carries with it the assump
tions that poverty is a result of
increasing population, and further,
that fragile mother earth does not and
will not have the resources to support
our growing population.
These assumptions, however,
patently are false.
Malcolm Forbes Jr. attacked the
Malthusian connection between
population and poverty when he
noted in the Sept. 12 issue of Forbes
magazine, “A growing population is
not a drag on economic development.
When combined with freedom, it is a
stimulant.” Forbes used the example
of Hong Kong, the most densely
populated city in the world, which
has seen phenomenal economic
The remainder of Cairo 's house of
cards is created by the misguided
belief that the earth has given all it
can— that more people will mean
apocalyptic famine, disease, and
anarchy.
success under the free society of the
Brits.
Population is not the problem in
the Third World. A stifled economy
is.
The remainder of Cairo’s house of
cards is created by the misguided
belief that the earth has given all it
can — that more people will mean
apocalyptic famine, disease, and
anarchy.
Under the most optimistic family
planning scenarios, world population
will nearly double by the year 2050.
according to U.S. News & World
Reports writer Stephen Budiansky.
Recent scientific evidence suggests
that even this dynamic increase in
population need not be problematic.
Higher agricultural yields, brought
about by advancing technology, have
deflated the world price of food by
one half since 1070. Forty-six million
acres of farmland in the U.S. and 11
million acres in Europe sit idle under
government programs to help farmers
stay in the black. If free trade found
its way to South America, close to
200 million acres could be utilized for
farming.
According to Paul Waggoner, of
the Connecticut Agricultural Experi
ment Station in New Haven, the earth
has the potential to feed 1,000 billion
people. This hardly sounds like a
planet in the throes of death.
The fad of the matter is, resources
are not the limiting factor of a
population explosion; human
ingenuity is.
So now the world wails while the
West fiddles in Cairo, making efforts
to spread the cultural malignancy
we’ve suffered from for a century to
all corners of the globe. Muslim
countries recognize the moral threat
Vice President Al Gore and his
legions of liberal ism pose to their
sovereignty.
Population policy, fueled by
genuinely bad philosophy, seeks to
advance an agenda, not solve a
problem. Feminist ideologies see the
conference as an opportunity to create
a universal right to butcher a baby.
“Algore-in-the-balancc” fatalists see
the conference as the last hope to save
a dying planet from her most certain
destruction at the hands of man. But
neither camp properly understands
the problem or the ultimate solution.
Until the planet gives up its love
affair with socialism and puts to rest
the last vestiges of fascism, our
planet will be doomed to overcrowd
ing and undereating. Free markets
will allow agricultural developments
to run their course; more abortions
will only impede that process.
However, if the Cairo crowd
continues to pursue the foolish goal of
population control, we can only hope
they'll start somewhere where it
really counts; back home in their
nation’s capital where bad philosophy
creates even worse policy.
t ucker is a senior biology major and a
Daily Nebraskan columnist.
Death penalty
Think of it this way, Phillip
Paider (DN, Sept. 1. 1994): If a
person were contemplating murder,
wouldn’t the average person
consider the contemplator some
what, if not completely, insane,
according to social conventions?
Then think of this: The governing
bodies, consisting of socially “sane”
women and men, create a penal
I k i i kks m i hk Km mu
system maintaining that if a certain
murder exceeds a certain amount of
brutality, “sane" lawmakers have the
right to commit a completely
premeditated murder, overstepping a
more obvious spiritual law. Is-Uut
sane or just sick?
In lieu of your attitude that
capital punishment deters crime and
murder, consider this more intelli
gent alternative: Start at the wilting
roots of the country rather than
culling off a few bad flowers.
A new thinking process could be
installed in the younger generations
for the bettering of the future, rather
than wasting prospective funds on
this subsidized, stagnating. Old
Testament “eye for an eye” ideolo
gy.
Caryn Bonnemier
undeclared
freshman
