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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 27, 1997)
EDITOR Paula Lavigne OPINION EDITOR Matthew Waite EDITORIAL BOARD Erin Gibson Joshua Gillin Jeff Randall Julie Sobczyk Ryan Soderlin i-—,,M Guest VIEW Literally speaking America Reads should prove positive (U-WIRE) ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Illiteracy can strike a debilitating blow to a person’s chances at success in life. It can prevent them from getting adequate employment opportunities or furthering their education. The America Reads Challenge, a pro gram proposed by President Bill Clinton last May, recently came under fire from Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives. The proposal, a drive to increase youth literacy rates, would help all students read proficiently by the time they reach the fourth grade. The program would employ college students to tutor die children as part of federal work-study programs. Clinton’s proposal also calls for volun tary national tests in reading for fourth graders and math for eighth-graders. This is where the proposal runs into trouble - House Republicans oppose the testing aspect of Clinton’s legislation. Consequently, all work on the proposal has been stalled until the president and the legislators resolve their dispute. National testing should not be a part of the program. Standardized tests are often biased against minorities in poor, urban areas. In addition, it is unclear what influence the test scores will have - if they are to play a role in deciding which students receive fed eral financial aid dollars, many students may be unfairly penalized - these groups have the most need for the tutoring program. Without the voluntary tests, the pro gram will still help children learn to read. The testing is not an integral part of the plan - rather, it is one that can and should be dropped. This would end the political debate over Clinton’s proposal and allow students to get the help that they need. It would be a mistake to end or delay the program, but dropping the testing require ment would only enhance the program’s benefits. It is extremely important for the future of the nation’s educational system that the America Reads program is suc cessful. Increased literacy among young people should be a national goal, regard less of political differences. The America Reads Challenge is a good plan that should prove extremely helpful to all involved - children will learn to read, the volunteer tutors will have the opportunity to help their community while earning money to offset tuition bills and the job market will get the promise of a stronger, more-literate future work force. It would be a great shame if political dis agreements between Congress and the presi dent brought the initiative down. The best solution is to abandon the tests, allowing the program to be success fully instituted so that it will benefit the students across the country who need help with reading. Editorial Policy Unsigned editorials are the opinions of the Fall 1997 Daily Nebraskan. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, its employees, its student body or the University of Nebraska Board of Regents. A column is solely the opinion of its author. The Board of Regents serves as publisher of the Daily Nebraskan; policy is set by the Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board. The UNL Publications Board, established by the regents, supervises the production of the paper. According to policy set by the regents, responsibility tor the editorial content of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of its student employees. letter Policy The Daily Nebraskan welcomes brief letters to the editor and guest columns, but does not guarantee their publication. The Daily Nebraskan retains the right to edit or reject any material submitted. Submitted material becomes property of the Daily Nebraskan and cannot be returned. Anonymous submissions will not be published. Those who submit letters must identify themselvesby name, year in school, major and/or group affiliation, if any. Submit material to: DailyNebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St. Lincoln, NE. 68588-0448. E-mail: letters@uniinfo.unl.edu. Haney^s VIEW f DN LETTERS Choice In response to Daniel Munksgaard’s column, I would like to take the issue one step further. The opponents of a wet campus point to MITandLSU These deaths, while tragic, affect only the ones who choose to consume alcohol. This is a risk we all take when we open a beer. However, when drink ing is forced off campus, and driving is involved, this affects everyone, drinkers and nondrinkers alike. I would like to pose a question to anyone in the administration who controls the alcohol policy. What if someone close to you, say a child or spouse, were totally sober and killed in a car crash because of your policy. What would you think then? Keevan Simmonds * sophomore electrical engineering Backward math I am writing in response to Gregg Madsen’s article about pornography on Wednesday. Though I agree that pornography is a disgusting product of our society, I cannot agree that it needs to be censored, as Madsen is obviously implying. He talks of facts, and yet all of his are slanted opinions. Sexual deviants have a dysfunction, which cannot be attributed to their reading or viewing of pornography. While Madsen’s statistics show that many of these people are obsessed with pornography, they do not prove that this is a cause for them to commit crimes. Their behavior is based rather on a psychological prob lem. Madsen has it entirely backwards. These people are not sexual deviants because they read pornography, rather they read pornography because they are sexual deviants. The ques tionable material itself is nothing more than some large organization’s attempt to appeal to that particular crowd. I don’t think people should read or watch such trash either, but I also believe in our right as Americans to express ourselves freely. We are not bound by morals handed down from the government, but by an ethical I ... 1 ‘ - 1 code, which we choose and desire to follow. That is what they meant when they wrote the Bill of Rights. Dan J. Rempe sophomore computer science and German Agree, disagree Gregg Madsen is without a doubt the best columnist on the DN staff this semester. Nobody else has the ability to bring a tear to my eye one week, as he did with his column about his high school principal and coach with brain cancer, and infuriate me the next, as he did with Wednesday’s column on pornography. To begin with, I will not attempt to explain or defend my own personal views on pornography. It is irrelevant whether or not I read Playboy. What is relevant is whether or not it should be published, and whether or not I should be able to purchase a copy. Madsen began by questioning the morality of pornography, and pro ceeded to claim that “Countless rapes, incestuous acts and other sex crimes have a direct link to pornogra phy.” He then presented a page of sta tistics, which he then calls facts, to support this claim. Gregg, please, don’t fall into the statistics trap. Statistics can be mold ed, twisted and manipulated to sup port almost any hypothesis. They are far from being fact. I almost have to laugh when people fall into the statis tics trap. What isn’t so funny is when statistics from so-called “scientific studies” are used by those who wish to infringe on our basic liberties. The fact that pornography flour ishes in our country has less to do with the immorality of our govern ment and its citizens than it does with their ability to use common sense when making laws. That may sound strange, but think about it. Is the age of consent, for example, set where it is because our morals tell us that peo ple above that age shouldn’t be having sex with people below? Or is it because common sense tells us that an age of consent needs to be set, and 16 seems reasonable? Statistics, such as those that Gregg presents, are useless because unreasonable and illogical conclu sions can be drawn from them. Are we to believe that Ted Bundy went on his brutal murderous rampage because he liked to look at dirty books? Did porn contribute to his killing spree? Maybe, but common sense tells me that if Ted Bundy would never have seen a pornographic image in his worthless life, he still would have killed just as many people. Common sense also tells me that rock music has never caused troubled teen-ager to commit suicide. But I’d music weiistento could swrelriinreiip with some statistics that would sup port the link between rock music ami teen-age suicide. At the end of his column, Gregg also attempts to enter the mind of our founding fathers. This is also a trap. What they could and could not antici pate should not be heavily weighed when we, as a society, decide what we can read, listen to, say, etc. This is a progressive society, and it’s obvious that there’s a lot that they could not foresee. Gregg is confident that they could not have predicted the prolifer ation of pornography. I am equally confident that they could not have predicted the proliferation of nuclear energy as well. One could make an argument as to which is more danger ous, but it is clear to me that laws, which govern a lot of things in 1997, must be made without considering what Thomas Jefferson would think about them. Remember, Gregg, these men and the Constitution they wrote were noi perfect. Their genius was that they allowed for flexibility id 'the Constitution because they knew that public morals would change. And what if they didn’t? Would we ques tion the morality of slavery? Who would be able to vote if we wanted to outlaw something we considered immoral? I respect Gregg as a good, decent man and a damn fine columnist, but let’s face it: Censorship sucks. Joe Thompson senior geology 1■ ■ ■ -- .P.S. Write 3« . — *t;~‘‘7 - *. »: Daily .Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 "R" St, Lincoln, NE 68588,. or fax to <402) 472-1761, or e-mail <let1ers@uniinfb.iml.edii. Letters must be signed and include a phone number for verification ~ ^. .J-U —- - *.. • •iV ; H ' . . • r .
