EDITOR
Paula Lavigne
OPINION
EDITOR
Joshua Gillin
EDITORIAL
BOARD
Brad Davis
Erin Gibson
Shannon Heffelfmger
Chad Lorenz
Jeff Randall
1 —
Our
VIEW
Stopping
the drain
Legislation won’t make
Nebraskan students stay
As thousands of students stream through
the gates of academia every semester, they
also walk across the state borders for new,
promising futures in other cities far, far away.
It is a phenomenon now popularly known
as the “brain drain.”
But now, Gov. Ben Nelson, Sen. Jon
Bruning and the Nebraska Legislature are
hoping to pass LB 1176, a desperate attempt to
lure students into living the good life. About
$2 million would be used to create 200 to 300
scholarships available for Nebraska students
to attend accredited Nebraska colleges and
universities. The scholarships would pay half
the eligible students’ tuition or up to $5,000.
But wait, there’s more.
The recipients would then have to com
plete an internship at a participating
Nebraska business, then remain in Nebraska
to work for three years after graduation. This
new bill is aptly named the “brain gain” bill.
The quintessential question remaining,
though, is if there is no place like Nebraska,
why does no one want to stay here?
The answer is quite simple: There’s noth
ing here for young people to stay for.
The largest urban center of the state is
largely scorned by the rest of the state. Locally
owned businesses focus on farming, irriga
tion, pesticides, beef packing or agriculturally
related concepts. There are no big-name pro
fessional sports franchises..Wefeave a small
_stat6um*ersity system, aridthefhostexciting
thing the state can producers a college football
team that regularly duels for supremacy with
three teams from Florida alone.
In short, there’s nothing that would make
a young person want to stay here.
This is a breadbasket state. Nebraska’s pri
mary reason for existing is to provide suste
nance for the rest of the nation and, unfortu
nately, it doesn’t take too many people to do
that with today’s technological advancements
Nelson and Bruning hope to win the
hearts and census points of young
Nebraskans, but they have to realize most of
the students who would apply for these schol
arships would be planning on staying in
Nebraska anyway. All this plan would do is
guarantee a job somewhere other than their
hometown’s co-op.
The money used in the hopes of retaining
students would only be providing another test
on which students could milk the government
for tuition money.
If the governor and the Legislature want
to keep Nebraskans as Nebraskans, they
would be wiser spending their money on
maintaining Nebraska’s unspoiled plains
parks, clean air and safe, crime-free towns.
Many Nebraskans now tend to be former res
idents who missed the good life and returned
later in life from wherever they had moved to.
That may be a better idea than planning
three years of indentured servitude for our
college graduates.
Editorial Policy
Unsigned editorials are the opinions of
the Spring 1998 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 for the editorial
content of the newspaper lies solely in
the hands of its student employees.
Letter Pti icy
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
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Submit material to: Daily Nebraskan, 34
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Haney’s
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DN
LETTERS
Seeing red
“My name is Katya Ovcharenko,
but you may have to take a phonetics
course to pronounce it,” as she says in
her first article.
What? No, actually Katya, I’d hope
that just asking would do the trick. In
her article she gives us all a culture les
son and informs us that “Soviets”
indeed do have writing utensils
(History lesson, Wednesday). Most of
us assume that much of the former
world power. However, it is arrogant to
assume that everyone automatically
knows everything about Russia (oops!
I said it).
The key here is to lose this defen
sive attitude, probably fostered by
some perceived, remaining Cold War
sentiment among people our age (who
were most likely more interested in
“Sesame Street” and Lucky Charms
than bomb threats) and answer their
questions.
Sure it can be annoying, even
appalling, when people ask if
Nebraskans still parade around in cov
ered wagons and “are we scared of the
Injuns,” but taking offense at such
things, like a childhood pen pal’s hon
est inquiry, is useless. If they are asking
at all, they are, in fact (SHOCK) inter
ested in learning about you and your
country. Relax; a little patience is in
order.
Sara Hossaini
freshman
broadcasting
In defense of the father...
I am writing in response to
Anthony Colman’s editorial “A cross
to bear” (Wednesday). The folly of
your article lies in the fact that you do
not separate the message of
Christianity from the people who
claim to be its teachers. As humans we
have our own view of the world sepa
rate from others. Some people try to
use the Bible and the messages of
Christ as justification for their actions.
Of course, you do die same thing with
your quote from Peter 1 “Servants, be
subject to your masters with all fear.”
This quote does not deal implicitly or
explicitly with slavery, and it is stupid
for either side of the issue to use it as
such.
I find it hard to believe that people
i-—-—
do not agree with many of the Bible’s
teachings. How about “Do unto others
as you would have done unto you?”
Jesus was never about hanging with the
rich and famous but instead devoted
his time to the lepers, prostitutes and
tax collectors. He always brought a
message of hope for the downtrodden
and a message of wrath for the self
righteous. “The first shall be last and
the last shall be first,” or maybe this old
favorite, “Blessed are the meek for
they shall inherit the Earth.”
I would be remiss if I did not point
out the hypocrisy that is prevalent in
your article: Condemn and stereotype
those that you claim condemn and
stereotype. That’s pretty funny from
someone as presumably intelligent as
you are. But this is the problem with
moral relativism: It excludes just as if it
didn’t preach against exclusion. It has a
built in logical fallacy that leads to
hypocrisy.
Don’t get me wrong, though. There
are those Christians who wrongly use
the Bible as a guidebook for the judg
ment of humanity. To those people and
to you, also, Anthony, I say “Judge not
lest ye be judged.” The golden rule
ain’t for nothing.
Joe Fraas
sophomore
secondary education and
English
... the son...
I happen to agree that Christianity
has made its share of mistakes.
However, that does not mean that we
should abandon all faith. I have trouble
with the line of reasoning that we
should end Christianity because of
some mistakes in the past. If that line of
reasoning holds, then we should end
science. How many scientists believed
that the world was flat? How about
medicine? How many people die on
operating tables every year?
To say that we should end an insti
tution because of some mistakes is
ridiculous. So, you ask, how do we
judge the value of an institution? I
think we should look at what they do
right. So what does Christianity do
right? It provides food for the hungry
(Mother Teresa) and clothes for the
naked (Salvation Army). Christianity
has filled the spiritual need of 1.5 BIL
LION people around the world. We can
argue until we are all blue in the face,
but the fact is that Christianity is filling
a need in the world, and is here to stay.
Jeremy Penn
sophomore
secondary education
... and the holy ghost
Another group was attacked today
in the DN. * ^ t ^
Yes, today’s subject of attack were
the Christians, in Anthony Colman’s
column entitled, “A cross to bear.”
While Colman does make some very
good points in the column about orga
nized religion’s oppression of certain
groups in our society, he somehow
fails to see his own generalization of a
group which is much too large to even
possibly be as homogeneous as he
would have us believe.
Colman frequently quotes the
Bible. This bothers me because, first of
all, the Bible is not a historical docu
ment, and second of all, because the
Catholic Church and most Protestant
churches are not fundamentalists, as
they have been throughout history.
Everyone knows the colorful history of
the Catholic Church; His implication
that the past equals the present is some
what insulting.
I agree that Christianity as an orga
nized religion is unaccepting and
oppressive, but those of us who still
believe attend church not because we
are ready to have beliefs crammed
down our throats, but because we hope
to gain something, some understand
ing of ourselves and our actions that
goes beyond science. I consider myself
a Christian, and yet I am accepting of
groups and actions that the church has
called wrong. Does that make me a
hypocrite?
One last point: Christianity is a
broad and varied religion with hun
dreds of separate denominations with
differing belief systems. To group
them all together as one and denounce
diem is to defeat your own point. Your
accusations will not cause me to let go
of my “timeworn” faith, and I would
guess that a lot of others feel the same
way.
Dan Rempe
sophomore
computer science and German
1^5. I
.
