EDITOR
Doug Kouma
OPINION
EDITOR
Anne Hjersman
EDITORIAL
BOARD
Doug Peters
Matt White
Paula Lavigne
Mitch Sherman
Anthony Nguyen
Campaign *96
ENDORSEMENTS
Vote Clinton
America can stomach
presidents'policies
Spinach or brussels sprouts.
Voters in this presidential election year
should have some newfound sympathy for
children faced with that choice.
Ross Perot and the other various unpal
atable third-party candidates aside, Ameri
cans have an equally unenviable decision in
choosing who will occupy the White House
for the next four years.
On one side, there’s former Sen. Bob
Dole. Like cooked spinach gone cold, he’s
still got a fair amount of substance and grit,
but his ideas lack cohesiveness and he lacks
presentation.
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wii uie uuici mug — r icmuciu v_innuii.
The brussels sprouts he has to offer may leave
an equally bad taste in the mouth, but they at
least hold their shape over time, and Clinton
seems to have a decent recipe on how to spice
them up.
By most accounts, Clinton has performed
better than expected during his first term in
Washington. He has met the traditional cri
teria Americans place before their presidents
— not with flying colors, but with solid
marks, nonetheless.
Crime has been held in check. Clinton
has made good on promises to add thousands
of police officers to America’s streets and to
crack down on violent crime. He has been
instrumental in passing the Brady Bill for
handgun control, and he has signed legisla
tion to take assault weapons off the streets.
Under Clinton, the economy has re
mained solid and grown at a steady rate.
Unemployment is down, ahd job creation is
up. Inflation is low and interest rates are
steady. Wall Street is stronger than ever, and
the federal budget deficit is falling.
Clinton should also be commended for
his proposals to strengthen higher education.
His plan would offer families making under
$100,000 a year a $1,500 tax credit and up
to $10,000 a year in,tax deductions to help
defray the costs of attending college.
Clinton recognizes the importance of
educational loans for college students. “We
must make two years of college just as uni
versal in four years as a high school educa
tion is today, and we can do it,” he has said.
Most important, however, Clinton is sim
ply presidential. Minus a few lapses early in
his term, he has become die moderate leader
Americans seek. He possess the diplomatic
poise to earn respect from America’s allies
and demand it from enemies. His foreign
policy successes in Bosnia, Northern Ireland
and the Middle East have overshadowed his
missteps in Somalia, Russia and Iraq.
Clearly, there is no “best choice” this
election year. But President Clinton is the
better choice, and for that, the Daily Nebras
kan believes he deserves a second term in
the White House.
So suck it up, eat your brussels sprouts
— and hope that dessert is on the menu in
2000.
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Fall 1996 Daily Nebraskan. They do not nec
essarily reflect the views of die University
of Nebraska-Lincoln, its employees, its stu
dent body or the University of Nebraska
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opinion of its author. The Board of Regents
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tablished by the regents, supervises the pro
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Steve
WILLEY
Cafeteria Catholic
I’ve lost my taste for guilt
In case you couldn’t tell by tbe
hidden religious themes in my
previous columns, I used to be a
devout Catholic. I grew up in a
Catholic home, attended a Catholic
church and was an altar boy in my
Catholic church.
I say I “used to be” a Catholic
because I am currently serving a 30
year suspension from the religion for
“gargling” with the wine during a
Mass back in 1988. Now that I think
about it though, my dismissal was
probably a blessing in disguise. The
Catholic faith was just too constric
tive for people like me.
Unfortunately, there’s probably
little chance that the Church will
loosen up either. That’s too bad.
Historically, the Catholic faith has
always been rigidly stem. Early
records indicate that the religion was
founded by a man named John
Lustivoli, who later became the
religion’s first pope.
laisuvuu was sumcwuai oi an
outcast at die time and was well
known throughout Italy for bopping
strangers on the head with loaves of
unleavened bread. John was said to
have been extremely unsatisfied with
his current religion, mainly because
he was having trouble finding other
people who were likewise interested
in worshipping armadillos.
So to entice more people,
Lustivoli created a religion that
would make people feel guilty no
matter what they did.
In his 84 A.D. diary, John wrote,
“Whosoever in my religion
committeth a sin against thy heavenly
Father shall be made to feel solely
< responsible for all the sins of the
world. And robed female angels shall
- ’ descend from the heavens and
striketh the sinner on thy knuckles
with a wooden measuring stick of
some kind.” (Of course it’s obvious
now that the soothsaying Lustivoli
was referring to nuns and rulers.)
In no time at all, John’s religion
Im.. _mm & a s
«
I say I ‘used to be’ a
Catholic because
I am currently
serving a 30-year
suspension from the
religion for
‘gargling’with the
wine during a Mass
back in 1988.”
spread wildly, attracting thousands of
people who were, for decades,
feeling absolutely wonderful about
themselves. The Catholic faith would
change this of course.
As its popularity increased, the
Catholic faithful began flexing their
religious muscles and by the 1200s,
they were forcing people of other
faiths to convert to Christianity.
People who remained faithful to
other religions were tortured,
sometimes until death, by the
Catholics. (Now that’s what I call
strict!) This persecution came to be
known as the “Disposition.”
(EDITOR’S NOTE: That’s “Accusa
tion,” you idiot! As in the “Spanish
Accusation.” Jesus Christ!)
During both the Roman and
Spanish (Accusations?), one of the
*
most popular forms of torture was to
have the sinners led into the pope’s
chambers where they were forced to
listen to his pet basset hound sing
“Ave Maria” for hours. One historian
wrote that the pope’s basset hound,
with its horrendous voice and
alternate lyrics, was personally
responsible for the conversion of
thousands of non-Catholics.
Today these strict teachings are
still enacted as Catholic schools
across the nation hold their own
“Interpositions.” So many of us who
have survived Catholic schools still
“hiss” like frightened cats whenever
we see a nun. I still have the telltale
physical indentions of a plastic ruler
across my forehead from my Catho
lic-schoolin’ days in Mississippi.
m my ^arnoiic scnooi, we were
forced to wear uniforms. Now, I
realize that many schools nowadays
require uniforms, but our uniforms
were actually miniature pope
costumes—only, for some reason,
we were required to wear our sash
vertically.
My school was so strict, the
students were collectively referred to
as “Demon children.” Nuns are
always so realistic about life, you
know. I remember honestly being
told by Sister Mary, in grade school
that I was “too fat to be an astro
naut.”
It was, for me, just another push in
the back away from the religion.
Who knows, maybe one day I’ll
return to the religion I was baptized
in. But it probably won’t be until the
Catholic powers that be relax their
policies a little bit.
Telling me I won’t have any time
in purgatory, for example, might be
just enough to bring me back.
Former Bishop Steve Willey
says the first thing he’B do when
appointed pope is to install a
“mayonnaise-style buffet” inside of
the Vatican.