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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.
Jake
BLEED
Jump in
Group affiliations often beat
out desire for individuality
JAKE BLEED is a news-editorial
graduate student and a Daily
Nebraskan columnist
Americans like to pride themselves on individualism
We see ourselves as individuals, work within an entrepre
neurial system that rewards the individual and look to a
past interpreted through the eyes of the individual.
But in our effort to define the individual, we seem
to forget that we are essentially members of a group
or many groups. More often than not, our outward
personalities are dictated by the social groups of
which we are a part. We interpret information and
events more through the eyes of the group than
through the eyes of an individual. And often, our
identity as a group is based off what makes our group
unique. And confrontation between groups vindicates
the identities of diose involved.
We can all relate with college football. It is a domi
nant feature of life in Nebraska. I have never been that
great of a fan, but when I visit friends in Michigan, I
am immediately a Husker. Whether or not I am a
Husker doesn’t matter, my friends from up north don’t
give me much choice. Because I am from Nebraska,
and they are very much from Michigan, I am a
Comhusker and, more importantly, had a hand in rob
bing their team of a national championship. Frankly, I
don’t care who won and who lost But having pride in
my home state, I will quickly sing the praises of coach
Tom and the rest of die boys, vehemently defend my
identity as a Nebraskan and in general become the
Husker they had originally accused me of being. Am I
a Husker now? My opinion doesn’t really matter. I
identify myself with the state of Nebraska and, in the
eyes of otters, am therefore a Husker.
This happens to everyone in every sort of group.
We cling to group identities and group conflicts in
everything we do. There are plenty of examples: peo
ple who use PCs over Macintosh, drive Fords over
Chevys, or vote Democrat or Republican. Why we
choose this side or that isn’t very obvious, or in many
cases, a necessary question to answer.
And resolution of conflict between groups needs
to be as decisive as the conflict itself. One side must
WIN and the other must LOSE. There are few things
more un-American than a tie game. Baseball games
will go to extra innings until the cows come home.
The heart and soul of a true fan will come out for
sudden death overtime, and how could the tie-ridden
game of soccer ever make the leagues in America?
Going back to Nebraska football, look at how
controversial the decision to award the National
Championship to both US and THEM was. Fans can
only shake their fists, put the last nails in the coffin of
the Bowl system and wait for next year.
The sports analogy is a good one to use because it
is relatively benign and we can all relate to it Were I
to have used a current situation in the Congo, where
ethnic violence between Hutus and Tutsis has broken
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 DaHy Nebraskan and cannot be
returned. Anonymous submissions will
not be published. Those who submit
letters must identify themselves by name,
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affiliation if any.
Submit material to: Daily Nebraskan, 34
Nebraska Union, 1400 R St. Lincoln,
NE. 68588-0448. E-mail:
letters@imlinfo.unl.eclu.
I
I
Barb
CHURCHILL
It takes two
Blame shouldn’t rest solely on Clinton’s shoulders
CHURCHILL is a graduate
student in saxophone per
formance and a Daily
Nebraskan columnist
If you are a public figure, you give
up your right to privacy under the law.
This is what the Chnton-Lewinsky
sex scandal is all about. The lack of pri
vacy, combined with President
Clinton’s atypical version of morality
and Monica Lewinsky’s supposed
youth and inexperience, has given most
media organizations a new lease on life.
Pity poor Monica Lewinsky. How
could she be taken in by that evil man,
who just happens to be the President of
the United States?
At least, this is what everyone
wants us to believe—Lewinsky’s
lawyers, Ken Starr, most major news
organizations. Every single one of
them has used Lewinsky’s relative
youth (she’s 24) and lack of experience
to exonerate her, and excoriate Clinton.
But is this angle really right?
Linda Tripp believes so. Tripp
wants evervone to know what a hack.
Lewinsky and Clinton are possible sex
addicts. And sexual addiction, according
to Sex Addicts Anonymous, includes die
feeling of powerlessness over debilita
tive, compulsive behavior relating to sex.
And, on Lewinsky’s part, how
could anything be more debilitating,
not to mention demoralizing and just
plain stupid, than to have oral sex in the
White House? With a married man?
One who has had affairs before?
This is not the rational, assured
behavior of an adult And isn’t
Lewinsky supposed to be an adult,
someone who is supposed to be able to
make her own choices?
Look at die choices Lewinsky has
made. She chose to live on her own, in
Washington, D.C., in order to positively
promote growth and change in her own
life. She wanted to be in the most power
ful place in the world, to associate with
the most powerful people and hopefully
make a difference in the world.
But die fact is, life doesn’t give you
what you want We start out with
acciimntinnc cnmp nfwhirh nmw tn
tion to Lewinsky’s mistakes. And by my
count, she’s made several whoppers.
Number one: She (allegedly) had
oral sex with a married man. Number
two: she bragged about it to “loose
lips” Tripp, not exactly the most trust
worthy person in the entire universe.
Number three: she can’t seem to realize
her problems are of her own making.
Lewinsky is a deeply flawed indi
vidual, which makes her just like the
rest of us. And, no lie, it must be diffi
cult for her to have her peccadilloes
flaunted before every major newscast,
on the Internet and everywhere else
there is a media outlet
As this week’s Time Online story
“Ova-to You, Bill” says, the whole
Levvinsky-Clinton scandal may come
down to an aigument over the definition
of what, exactly, is sex. Marty men do not
consider oral sex to be in the same cate
gory as full-fledged sexual intercourse.
So, if Clinton said he never had sex with
her, he could very well have been telling
the truth—from a certain point of view.
Hie polls haven’t been kind to
be true, some of which prove to be
false. And one of the curses of being a
public figure is that you must make
your mistakes in public, which adds to
die pain and suffering you feel.
But sometimes, making mistakes is a
gift, although it can seem to be a curse.
Making mistakes and living through
them, living with the pain, disappoint
ment and the disillusionment, is part of
being human. And we all make mistakes,
Lewinsky and Clinton among than.
Everyone knows the mistakes Clinton
has made. But no one has paid any atten
stabbing, wife-abusing adulterous
lowlife Clinton really is. That’s why,
she says, she’s told everyone everything
poor old Monica said to her. Just to set
die record straight
The possible book deal had nothing
to do with it
Why is it, anyway, that Lewinsky’s
behavior has gone unchallenged? Why
has she “gotten of!?’ both literally and
figuratively, if she’s to be believed, with
bad behavior at the least, and sexual
addiction at the worst?
I mean, think about it Both
LewinsKy, euner. /vunougn inany people
in the United States believe she is telling
the truth as she sees it, they also see her
as flighty, flaky and extremely light
weight The American public believes
she deserves everything she gets, from
political cartoons to the unauthorized
explicit Wfeb sites hawking nude pic
tures. One lawmaker, quoted anony
mously in Time^ story, said “The
President is going to say ‘I didn’t do it’.
And ills going to go down to, who do
you trust, the President or some floozy
who wants to get herself out of trouble?”