EDITOR
Erin Gibson
OPINION
EDITOR
Cliff Hicks
EDITORIAL
BOARD
Nancy Christensen
Brad Davis
Sam McKewon
Jeff Randall
Bret Schulte
Our
VIEW
Famine as
fashion
Media images lead to
unhealthy habits
Walk among the Rolling Stone covers on
display in the Nebraska Union. Gaze at Janet
Jackson bearing almost-all in a gold bikini
top. Or Jenny McCarthy in a tiny black biki
ni and biker shorts. Or Cameron Diaz sport
ing silver bikini bottoms.
If they’re entirely overdressed for your
tastes, check out Jennifer Aniston lying
naked on a bed. Brooke Shields - yes, she’s
naked, too - as are Cindy Crawford and
Demi Moore. Liv Tyler and Sheryl Crow
aren’t naked, but their skirts don’t leave much
to the imagination.
The messages are clear, and they’re
resounding in popular culture: Thin is in, thin
is sexy, and being thin and sexy is everything
- isn’t it?
Well, in our business, thin doesn’t win
Pulitzers. It doesn’t matter what you look
like, it matters what you produce. But the
same isn’t perceived to be true on college
campuses.
As a result, colleges and universities
nationwide are experiencing a resurgence of
eating disorders among both male and
female students, but especially among
females.
Recently, we’ve heard strong evidence
that this resurgence has gripped many soror
ities as well as non-greek women on the our
campus.
We’re hearing stories that border on the
bizarre - groups of women binging together,
downing piles of forbidden foods and then
purging together. We’ve also heard about
women who go out to eat in groups or on
group dates, then take turns throwing up their
food in bar bathrooms before drinking.
The existence of college “binge parties”
is reaffirmed on the Mirror Mirror eating
disorders Web site. These events are frighten
ing, considering that groups can affirm dan
gerous behavior, and those practicing the
behavior might believe it was normal,
healthy and necessary to fit in.
The answer to reversing the increasing
trend of eating disorders is unclear. An
important step could be increasing the rigor
of courses at UNL, so that grades become a
more important measure of students’ success
than their social calendar and image.
Still, many turn to eating disorders so
they don’t have to deal with the stress of col
lege. They feel that controlling their weight is
the only area they can succeed in, so they
thrash their bodies with extreme workouts
and resort to eating disorders to keep them
selves thin. Of course, starving students can’t
concentrate in class, studies or on tests, so the
cycle continues.
Perhaps a more realistic answer, there
fore, is for sororities and residence halls to
lend their full support to promoting on-cam
pus education about eating disorders. Even
though such educational efforts have
become almost cliche in film and television,
they’re clearly important.
No students should be starving them
selves or throwing up in groups in order to fit
into an “academic” environment. The trend
must be reversed.
Editorial Policy
Unsigned editorials are the opinions of
the Spring 1999 Daily Nebraskan. They
do not necessarily reflect the views of the
University of Nebraska-Uncoln, 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 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
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not be published. Those who submit
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Submit material to: Daily Nebraskan, 34
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LETTERS
A matter of perspective
It is one of the most tragic events
that took place in Littleton, Colo.
Whoever saw the news was horrified,
how could it have taken place? How
could 23 young lives be wasted for no
reason? Well, wake up, people. That is
exactly what people of Kosovo think,
too! As Colorado is next door to us, the
news shocked us more than the stealth
bombers going and bombing the hell
out of a city. So what is the big deal if a
bomb or two falls on innocent people
being carried on a train? It can be
passed off as a mistake and life goes on.
It seems like they are just war movies
being shown on TV
How many people supported the
bombing in Colorado? My guess is
except for one or two demented people
in the whole United States, no one.
Then how can 50 percent of Americans
support the war in Kosovo, considering
the fact that it looks like another
Vietnam-like situation, which has no
defined end and is only aggravating the
pain and suffering of thousands of inno
cent people?
Dipanjan Nag
assistant director,
instrumentation
Department of Chemistry
• Munson’s last stand
I would like to take this opportunity
to say thanks and farewell to arguably
the greatest journalist in the history of
this storied third-tier land-grant institu
tion. I have enjoyed Todd Munson’s
columns for the last two years, topped
off by his eloquent swan song in which
he incorporated not one but TWO Top
Gun references on a single page. His
genius will be missed.
Jayson Bishop
sophomore
engineering
True blame
Let me respond to both Tim
Sullivan’s column “Happy birthday,
Adolf” (April 23) and your April 26
editorial “TV casualties - Some medi
ums handle crisis all wrong.”
First, my background: I am a
Nebraska native; UNL class of ’85, BS
Mechanical Engineering. I am current
ly a resident of Jefferson County, Colo.,
lately more commonly known as
Littleton. My home is just over two
miles due west of Columbine High
School. Were we not home-schooling
our children, my two daughters would
probably have been at Columbine last
Tuesday. Several of my co-workers
have children attending Columbine,
and at least one employee of our com
pany lost a child in die killings.
Now, Mr. Sullivan’s column. He did
fairly well when he was stating facts: I’ll
add that Columbine has an enrollment
of about 1,900 students, with approxi
mately 100 staff, plus an on-campus
sheriff’s deputy. But then Mr. Sullivan
started to answer his “why” question by
attacking “Reaganomics and the self
centered materialism and disregard for
the welfare of others that the evil
Republican party line espouses,” and
blaming conservative values for tearing
apart the moral fiber of our country.
To be conservative means that you
believe things such as: there should be a
limit to what government is allowed to
do; one should be able to enjoy the fruits
of one’s own labor; the weak should be
protected by society; life is valuable;
and that there is an authority higher than
the individual or the state.
Hitler was not a conservative; nei
ther were Klebold and Harris, nor is
there any evidence to suggest they had
been heavily influenced by conserva
tives. Rather, these young men were the
products of 40-plus years of liberal edu
cators and politicians who have brought
us the war on poverty, expelled God
from school and expatriated him from
government, traded standards for diver
sity, replaced family with the nanny
government, protected pornography
and violent games in the name of free
speech, promoted alternative lifestyles
in place of purity, espoused pregnancy
termination if financial hardship could
result from birth, ad nauseum. I give
you the true materialist and those tear
ing at the moral fiber of our country, lib
erals.
Next, your editorial about how tele
vision mishandled the crisis and how
we can be thankful for the “rational”
print media. Let me tell you about your
print cousins, the Rocky Mountain
News: The following morning, they
printed a large, color photo of a dead
student’s body lying outside the school
as part of their graphic and emotional
coverage. The student’s parents still
didn’t know their son had died (author
ities had not yet been able to positively
identify all the dead, for various rea
sons), but recognized him by his cloth
ing in the photo. I’d say the total media
coverage has been, as you say, “a bad
journalism how-to manual.”
Your editorial also took a shot at
blaming the parents, classmates,
friends and teachers for tolerating the
actions of these two. In reality, Harris’
parents responded in what can only be
considered a reasonable fashion when a
classmate’s parents complained to them
over a year ago about vandalism Harris
blamed on their son. When confronted,
Harris confessed and apologized, but
later made death threats. The same
classmate’s parents notified the sher
iff’s department about his hate-filled
Web site. Klebold’s parents were not
told because the complaining parents
expected the authorities to contact
them. Classmates, friends and teachers
told school authorities about their activ
ities but were ignored (remember
“diversity”?). The only ones so far that
can be seen to have “tolerated” these
two hoodlums were the very authorities
that liberals expect to save us, the
school and the government.
Your editorial concluded by pooh
poohing any possibility that the separa
tion of church and state led to this
tragedy, and by saying “hate fuels hate.”
Things such as what happened at
Columbine last week didn’t happen
when parents were expected to be par
ticipants in determining what constitut
ed a good education, when God was
considered essential to self-govern
ment and when life was considered
valuable. When these things ceased to
be true, we started stationing police
officers at schools. While portrayed by
the media as hate mongers, conserva
tives actually prefer “whatever is true,
whatever is honorable, whatever is
right, whatever is pure, whatever is
lovely, whatever is of good repute, if
there is any excellence and if anything
is worthy of praise, let your mind dwell
on these things.” If you can find any
connection between these words of
Paul in Philippians 4:8, and Harris’ and
Klebold’s actions, then yes, we “evil
conservatives” should shoulder the
blame for Columbine.
Tim Larson
Littleton, Colo.
Q 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 "R" St., Lincoln,
' "V v ' I w 472-1761, or e-mail <letters@unlinfo.unl.edu.
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