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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 21, 1994)
Nebraskan Editorial Board University of Nebraska-Lincoln Jeff Zelenv..Editor, 472-1766 • Kara Morrison.Opinion Page Editor Angie Brunkow.Managing Editor Jeffrey Robb.I.Associate News Editor Rainbow Rowell.Columnist/Associate News Editor Kiley Christian.Photography Director Mike Lewis.Copy Desk Chief James Mehsling.. Cartoonist -■ i Guts not glamorous Obsessive culture reinforces violence “God, guns and guts — they all made America and let's keep ‘cm all.” So the saying goes. And keeps going. And going. Violence has taken baseball's place as America's favorite pastime. Face it, we can’t get enough of it. It's everywhere in American culture. We watch it, read about it, talk about it, glamorize it. television contains more cop shows and murder mysteries than one could begin to name. American movies have to include enough destruction, guns and chase scenes to blow million-dollar budgets and secure “R” ratings. Unless it's Disney, we say, “PG” movies just arc not as exciting. When we tire of shoot ‘cm up entertainment, we get to ogle real-life action: the evening news, state executions, standing on 16th and R streets at the Bren Gottschali/DN university or-iNCDrasKa-uincoin on a random Monday night. It never ends. Violence sinks farther into our culture. Children's video games involve stomping, shooting, smashing or blasting. Issues we as a society become passionate about arc dubbed “war on drugs,” “war on poverty,” and even “war on crime.” It sinks in, until we arc almost immune to “guts” unless they're our own. To what extent our glamorization of violence perpetuates it is a question we need to ask. Surely we know it is not the cause of our societal problems The roots of crime and violence reach much deeper. Yet we cannot tell to what extent our obsession with violence reinforces it. Convicted killer Roger Bjorklund, who was sentenced to death Tuesday (the violence never ends), confessed he quoted lines from the movie “Cape Fear” while he raped and murdered Candice Harms two years ago. Bjorklund also has been petitioning the court to change his name to that of a gangster character from the book “Wiseguy ” And former UNL student Gerald Schlondorf, who was charged in the shooting of a UNL police officer, told Lincoln police he recently had scene the movie “Natural Bom Killers” and was thinking about the movie during his chase with police. We as a culture are obsessed with violence, from the make believe silver screen to America's now deadly city streets. It is time we reinforced the fact that nothing is glamorous about guts. Staff editorials represent the official policy of the Fall 1994 [Daily Nebraskan. Policy is set by the Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board. 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 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 V- - 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, originality, timeliness and 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 the 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. 68388-0448. r wm-u/ ''((life \0OR OWrt m wow cm. / Que lastima As reliable as the buzzards return to Hinkley and the annual tuition hike, comes the “sudden" realization that arts and sciences majors have a foreign language requirement (editorial cartoon, DN, Sept. 19, 1994). This requirement has been around since before I was an arts and sciences major (Class of 1983. life science). As for having nothing to do with your major, it may seem that way now. I have noticed that things I thought would never use (i.c. calculus, foreign languages...) have a way of becoming useful later. If you see the prospect of 16 credit hours of foreign language as the sleeping ogre, then why didn't you take it in junior high or high school and avoid this ‘rbctc noire?" What? They didn’t offer it at your high school? QuglAstima! Well, they should. From a more practical view, if you have foreign language skill, you arc more marketable (that means a job and subsequently more income). The job market is global and. believe it or not, not everyone speaks English. Because she had studied another language, my sister was able to speak with a Russian person by speaking Spanish. It's a funny old world, huh? If learning a foreign language is putting a cramp in your scholastic style, change majors or try studying harder. Quit yer bitchin' and “bon chance!” QudscrA, scrA! Anita M. Jackson Lincoln Population aeoate Shane Tucker’s column on the United Nations' population confer ence in Cairo, and his reflections on the population problem in general, contain an important truth: A variety of factors have complex effects on the rise and fall of human numbers. He rightly interrelates poverty, food production, women's roles in reproduction, education, and development (he terms these “feminist gibberish’’), economic growth, industrialization, the Earth's resource base and technological innovation. Yet, Mr. Tucker's column fails to examine the matter with care, nor docs it hint at the historically extended debate over the relation James Mehsling/DN ships of the factors listed above. Mr. Tucker offers us the easy solution that free markets can easily handle a doubling population in the next 40 years. But the collision of environ ment, growing population, vast human poverty and losses to plants and animals is neither so easily analyzed nor so easily resolved. Although it has proved extremely difficult to estimate the earth's carrying capacity for humans and their products, there is growing consensus that humanity is now at. near, or past the limits to growth. Although we recognize that there is much legitimate controversy over the environmental situation, we arc convinced that there is little reason for optimism unless major changes are made in world governance and economics. It will not be easy for the Third World to halt its present rapid population growth, and this effort will prove futile unless the first world also learns to limit its consumption. The Earth's ecosystem is already in a clear, observable, empirically verifiable process of deterioration — a direct result of human activi ties. It may be that the Earth could sustain present numbers, and perhaps even twice the present global human population. But only if everyone in the first world undergoes a profound transforma tion in lifestyle: eating low on the food chain (locally grown, of course), walking or cycling wher ever we go. limiting most industrial activities, hastening the develop ment of resource-intensive technolo gies, and redistributing the vast resources and wealth controlled by consumcrist societies. Yet. estimating the overall quantity of food that can be pro duced still overestimates what is actually available to feed everyone. Food must be transported, distrib uted. and paid for. and land to produce it must be maintained and re-fertilized over decades. Food insecurity arises from maldistribution, irresponsible and corrupt government, civil war, local environmental degradation, Western control of developing nations' most fertile land, the production of luxury crops such as coffee and cocoa in place of local subsistence farming, and the failure of market systems to serve the poor. The causal interrelationships of wealth and population also have received extensive scrutiny by economists, but with little definitive result. Surely markets and techno logical development are necessary tools if humanity is not to meet total disaster, but they can hardly be the sole solution. Many hope that economic development, of the right kind, will prove to be a key element in limiting population growth. Indeed, the Cairo conference supported economic development and education for women as a means to limiting population. We are surprised that a free marketeer like Mr. Tucker is so unsupportive of this result. As a philosopher and a thcolo fian. we are troubled by Mr. ucker’s readiness to use name calling in his characterization of those with whom he believes himself to disagree. He speaks of “gibberish.” “group think.” “fools” and bad “philosophy.” As philoso phers who have read widely, we arc impressed by the persistent diffi culty and uncertainty of arguments on policy, and by the need to study any issue of importance in depth. We would suggest that interested readers go beyond Mr. Tucker’s sources of U.S. News and World Report and Forbes Magazine, and peruse Love Library’s many books and articles dealing seriously with the profound ecological crisis facing humanity today. Jessica Pierce assistant professor University of Nebraska Medical Center Andrew Jameton associate professor UNMC