Commentary
Dreaming of sleeping alone
ror me nrsi ume in 15 years, 1
will be living on my own. No
parents, no siblings and, most
importantly, no roommates.
It’s not that I haven’t tried to
have my own place. I’ve been
trying for the last five years.
I came to the university all ready
to move into my single room that
had been paid for and validated and
everything.
I found some big New Jersey
track star named Bob lounging in
the room that should have been my
own.
There must have been some
mistake, I thought. The university
wouldn’t just shove somebody else
into my room without telling me
first.
Hee hee hee. (Forgive me, I had
to pause and laugh at my freshman
ignorance.)
Now, don’t get me wrong. Bob
and I had some great times to
gether, and I really liked the big
lug, but I was a chemical engineer
ing major at the time (hee hee hee
— that ignorance again) and his
evening activities made it hard to
study and sleep.
I don’t have a problem with
roommates who drink, but Bob
came stumbling into the room
drunk every night, singing the
words to Queensryche songs at the
top of his javelin-throwing lungs.
If that wasn’t enough, Bob had
made it his goal to impregnate at
least 48 percent of the women on
campus — five feet away from
where I uselessly attempted to
sleep.
After my fruitless efforts to live
alone in the dorms, I admitted
defeat for a while and moved into a
house with some “friends.”
I put “friends” in quotes because
Joel Strauch
of the weird phenomena that I call
the Friend Jekyll and Roommate
Hyde syndrome that inevitably
occurs when you live with someone
you used to get along with.
You may think you’ll be able to
tolerate their childish habits and
lack of responsibility, but after
about three weeks of raking away
dirty laundry to get to the washing
machine and chipping food off of
plates in order to eat, you’ll
probably change your tune.
The next year, I thought I had it
made. Two of the roommates (the
ones who paid their bills) and I
rented a really cheap house, right
close to campus.
It should have been perfect.
It was the Isle Broddick.
Some of you may have heard
rumors of this den of iniquity that I
called home for two years. Others
of you (perhaps the more fortunate
ones) have not.
Suffice it to say, the riffraff that
had plagued us at our old abode
slinked over to our new house and
resumed the games of milking free
rent, free food and free rides to the
plasma center.
But last May I became a free
man (or so I thought in my bewil
dered little mind). I rented a one
bedroom apartment.
One bedroom.
One.
There was no room for anyone
else but me.
Wrong.
Immediately after I moved in,
my good friend Kevin lugged over
his grocery sacks of belongings and
settled himself on my couch.
I love the little guy, but the only
thing he’s been able to call a
serious job in his life has been a 30
day stint at Harris labs.
Harris pays well, but it’s not the ■
most steady career in the world.
But luckily Kevin found some
thing much more important than a
free place to crash.
God.
Kevin is currently enjoying a
yearlong Christian drug and
alcohol rehabilitation at Teen
Challenge in sunny South Dakota.
Kevin found God and I found
myself alone in my apartment —
for about two days.
An uncle of mine who had been
living in Lincoln was kicked out of
his house by his schizophrenic wife
and took up residence in my one
bedroom.
At least Kevin had broken in the
couch for me.
But at long last, after months of
legal battles and sore backs from
sleeping on the sofa, my uncle has
been granted his house in the
settlement.
In less than two weeks, I will
have my apartment all to myself.
It will be quiet.
It will be enjoyable.
It will be lonely.
At least until Kevin gets out of
South Dakota.
Strauch is a senior secondary education
major and a Daily Nebraskan senior reporter.
English workshop is unjust
ney iuiks, eneer up: summer is
around the comer! It’s a cheerful
thought, even though it is very hard
to believe, considering the recent
sub-zero days and all the slush
outside. But it’s time to plan for the
summer.
What would people like to do
this summer? Tons of fun things —
roller blade, bike ride, picnic in the
park, go skinny-dipping, bask in
the sun, snooze in the shade ....
Some people might choose to be
totally hedonistic, and others might
want to combine some work with
the inherent pleasure that summer
brings along. But whatever anyone
wants to do, they have the choice to
do so, and no one is going to
prevent them from doing so.
Well, last summer I was pre
vented from doing any of the many
things that I wanted to do! In the
second five-week session last
summer, I had to attend a three
week 8 a.m.-to-4 p.m. workshop foi
international teaching assistants —
the voiceless and often-mistreated
bunch of people who are referred to
as ITAs. ITAs are forced to attend
this workshop and, later on, pass a
panel presentation to be able to
teach a University of Nebraska
Lincoln class.
The ITA institute is a bundle of
contradictions. It is funny that this
institute, which aims to “prepare ar
international graduate student to
teach American students,” does not
require English-speaking interna
tional students — those of British
or Australian nationality — to take
the class. How can a British or an
Australian student know how to
teach American students?
It is also funny that the univer
sity requires only international
students to take teaching classes
and prove their “teaching skills” at
a panel presentation. Meanwhile,
American TAs are not required to
go through any such “teaching
Vennlla Ramallngam
skills” testing or preparation.
So the bottom line depends on
whether or not you were bom into
an English-speaking family. If your
native tongue is English, then you
are “capable” of teaching in a UNL
class. And you don’t have to spoil
three weeks of prime summertime
sitting inside a basement classroom
mouthing the word “mechanism”
repeatedly with no accent on the
second syllable, instead of doing
some research that might benefit
humankind.
Don’t get me wrong, I have
nothing against being taught to
speak English the Nebraskan way
(if my British-Indian English
accent is not sufficient), but all I
want is for the university to
“correct” the British cockney
accent, the Aussie twang, the Texas
drawl and Alabama accent as well.
Since the whole problem hinges
1 on one’s English-speaking capabil
ity, what about those students who
have proven English proficiency by
taking innumerable tests conducted
by the Educational-Testing Service?
They won’t benefit from those
tests, because the law states that
they still have to go through three
weeks of torture!
It is funny how the test results of
ETS — the same agency that
conducts the SAT, GRE, GMAT
and others, and whose tests are
accepted by U.S. universities as a
de facto standard — bear little
importance here.
it would make this institute a
little more bearable if they spent
some time sprucing up the pro
gram. They could get rid of the
total disorganization, the last
minute changes and the lack of
professionalism that seem to
symbolize it.
Also, the program is against all
that the university is working to
achieve; that is, to accommodate in
its teachings the diversity that is
found in American classrooms.
International students come into
the United States in all shapes and
colors, and with varying degrees of
proficiency in spoken and written
English. To some students, this
workshop is very beneficial, I am
sure. But there are others who come
with excellent English capabilities;
they should be treated accordingly.
The university and the Nebraska
Legislature need to set things right
and take a closer look at the ITA
workshop, which favors some and
discriminates against others.
By doing so, the university can
gain by not only eliminating the
double standard, but by attracting
better students who otherwise might
opt for any of the many schools that
would have them without forcing
them to waste their time in some
poorly designed workshop.
Many other U.S. schools make
similar workshops an option for the
students and not a compulsion.
This enables students do what they
want to do.
Like taking classes to improve
their academic standings. Like
working on campus to improve
their financial standings. Like
working on their theses. Or
spending time seeing this beautiful
and diverse country before they
return to their homes.
Ramallngam b a graduate student In
computer science and a Dally Nebraskan
columnist
Capital punishment
simply ‘just deserts’
Surrounded by relatives of
murder victims, Gov. George
Pataki, fulfilling a campaign
pledge, used the pen of a slain
police officer Tuesday and signed
legislation making New York the
38th state to restore the death
penalty since the Supreme Court
allowed executions to resume
after banning them in the early
1970s.
There were the usual Ameri
can Civil Liberties Union vows
to continue the fight, and last
minute speeches from liberal
members of the state legislature.
State Sen. Richard Dollinger of
Rochester took a syringe from his
desk and said: “What we’re
going to do today is we are going
to fill this with what I think is
the greatest venom present in our
society today: pure and simple
revenge. That is what this is all
about.”
This legislation isn’t about
revenge. It is about justice, or
just deserts. And the greatest
venom in our society isn’t
executing murderous criminals,
but the loss of respect for human
life that has led to the current
crime wave. The legislation is a
response to liberals’ devaluation
of the dignity of man to the level
of a head of lettuce. This view
says that humankind may be
more complex than plants and
animals, but ultimately we are all
products of a grand evolutionary
process made up of material and
energy that has been shaped by
pure chance in a random uni
verse.
Isn’t that what they have been
teaching in our schools and
culture? Doesn’t Carl Sagan
believe that the “cosmos” is all
there is? Hasn’t Darwin’s
“survival of the fittest” become
the secular gospel?
Why then do the liberals
mourn for those who are about to
die for committing acts that in
previous times would have
brought them to the gallows for
their and society’s own good?
Capital punishment is not about
revenge or deterrence. It is about
retribution. It even has great
benefit for the criminal, because
it forces him to confront the
serious nature of his act and his
place of residence in the next
life.
In his brilliant essay “The
Humanitarian View of Punish
ment,” C.S. Lewis attacks the
moral squishiness that has
caused society to erase distinc
tions between good and evil: “It
appears at first sight that we
Cal Thomas
have passed from the harsh and -
self-righteous notion of giving
the wicked their deserts to the
charitable and enlightened one of
tending the psychologically sick.
What could be more amicable?”
“The humanitarian theory,”
continued Lewis, “removes from
punishment the concept of
desert. But the concept of desert
is the only connecting link
between punishment and justice.
It is only as deserved or unde
served that a sentence can be just
or unjust.”
Finally, said Lewis, “The
humanitarian theory ... removes
sentences from the hands of
jurists whom the public con
science is entitled to criticize and
places them in the hands of
technical experts whose special
sciences do not even employ such
categories as rights or justice.”
This has been the central flaw
in our modem criminal justice
system. Murderers, once thought
to be deserving of death because
they killed a fellow human being
made in the image of God, are
now just misunderstood, abused,
dysfunctional victims of an
unjust and uncaring society. No
one, from murderers to those
who commit less serious crimes,
is personally accountable for his
actions anymore. There is always
an explanation, an excuse, a
defense for one’s behavior, from
football injuries to shrunken
brains to child molestation to
chemical dependency. While in
some cases these may be valid
explanations, they can never
absolve a person of his actions.
New York state, which
invented the electric chair and
will now employ the more
“humane” method of lethal
injection, must now reform the
legal system that allows endless
appeals at a cost of millions to
taxpayers. Gov. Pataki should be
congratulated for following
through on a promise to do what
his two predecessors refused to
do: return a sense of justice and
“just deserts” to the state crimi
nal justice system.
© 1995 Los Angeles Times Syndicate
fe Lopez, how Jo you
explain your evasive
statements, contradictory
answers and scripted replies Z
Mike Luckovich