EDITOR
Josh Funk
OPINION
EDITOR
Mark Baldridge
EDITORIAL
BOARD ~
Lindsay Young
Jessica Fargen
Samuel McKewon
Cliff Hicks
Kimberly Sweet
\
i
Our
VIEW
-Trading
places
Protesters take to
streets to find solution
It’ll be a show, that’s for sure:
About 240 “mock” sea turtles (pro
testers in cardboard outfits) will take to
the streets in Seattle today, along with
thousands of their “human” counter
parts, in an unprecedented attempt to
disrupt the World Trade Organization
gathering, already called the largest
trade event in U.S. history.
Protesters cross all sorts of political
boundaries. Human rights and animal
-rights activists will link arms with labor
organizers and food safety groups to
bring a threatened 50,000 protesters to
the streets for a conference with only
3,000 delegates.
What’s it all about?
The power of the WTO crosses bor
ders, streamlining international trade in
products that may have been produced
under inhumane conditions, by unorga
nized labor and involving unacceptably
high levels of pollution - to name a few
concerns raised by protesters.
We should clarify that the standards
involved are American and may not be
_l i ____ r- .i_i j
aiicuvu ujr vvvi y iiatlUil Ui 11IV WU11U.
That is sort of the point.
In this country, environmental,
humanitarian and other activist groups
have labored long and hard in support
of legislation regulating how products
may and may not be produced - only to
_face the possibility that the globaliza
tion of trade may make all their efforts
pointless.
In this country, we believe, for
instance, that children should not be
exploited as labor. If the sweater you
buy tomorrow (at a discount) was made
in another country where childhood is
not valued in the same way, well, what
good does your value system do you?
Protesters are right to try to pressure
the WTO to see things their way, as
there is no public referendum, no at
large voting on its policies. They are
trying to make their voices and con
cerns heard.
However, international trade organi
zations do seem to be an inevitable
product of our times.
Trade will become less and less a
matter of legislation as economic
forces come to bear within the protect
_ ed context of the WTO or similar insti
tutions.
As an instrument of the future, the
WTO should do more with the growing
power it possesses to ensure that human
rights violations and ecological disas
ters become more and more things of
the past.
Editorial Policy
Unsigned editorials are the opinions of
the Fail 1999 Daily Nebraskan. They do
not necessarily reflect the views of me
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 pubfisher
of the Daily Nebraskan; policy is set by
the Daly Nebraskan Editorial Board. The
UNL Publications Board, established by
the regents, supervises the production
of the paper. According to policy set by
the regents, lasponsibmtv for the editorial
content of the ne^papdr 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 pubfcation.
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 wilt
not be published. Those who submit
letters must identify themselves by name,
year in school, major and/or group
affiliation, if any.
Submit material to: Daily Nebraskan, 20
Nebraska Union, 1400 R St. Lincoln,
NE 68588-0448. E-mail:
lettets@unl.edu.
Obermever’s «’
VIEW
/fWW MAN, nFs^\
mLjL'kc stories
V ant> stvjffI J
-vt
DN
LETTERS
JNOt All
I am writing in response to the
supplement titled “Holiday Guide”
(Nov. 22) in the DN.
I opened the supplement to see a
story titled “Celebrations for all.”
I am a Muslim, and, as I read the
article, I didn’t even see a single ref
erence to Islam.
During most of December,
through Hanukkah and Christmas,
over 1 billion Muslims and the 8 mil
lion Muslims that live in America
will be observing the holy month of
Ramadhan.
Ramadhan is a sacred month
when Muslims abstain from food,
drink and smoking from sunup to
sundown.
We do this for many reasons;
namely for our great appreciation of
all God gives to us and so that we
might understand the feeling that
many people have when they go hun
gry
I hope the next time an article
called “Celebrations for all” is pub
lished, Muslims are also included.
Tareq Khedir Al-tiae
freshman
biology
Christian
As the religion rant slowly begins
to cool off, I just want to add that hav
ing faith is not easy.
Turning your life over to a being
who is impossible for the human
mind to grasp is a huge undertaking,
especially when you have no concrete
proof that this being even exists.
But faith is a matter of trust. It is
extremely easy to believe in some
thing that you can prove. You never
hear of people not believing in trees,
for example. And, for that matter, I
can’t think of anyone who doesn’t
believe in reason, either.
True faith is believing in some
thing that you can t understand and
can’t pin down - something like love,
or hope or religion. As I said, this is
not easy - to be blunt, it can be down
right scary!
But as a Christian, I have to admit
that presented with the choice of rea
son or religion, my “social construct”
has always proven to be the strongest.
Christy Linnell
freshman
computer science
Where’s the beef?
Why has the DN taken all the sub
stance out its paper and replaced it
with idiotic and campy bullshit at the
expense of the reader?
Your Monday edition had FIVE
pages of sports, including three
extremely large articles about the CU
vs. NU football game.
Everybody watched the game!
That is, anybody who cared (me
included).
So why do they need to read three
stupid pages about it?
Maybe you should take your
classically weak news section
(remember the word NEWSpaper)
and bolster it by cutting a few pages
off the sports novella you throw
at us every day.
And, as if that isn’t bad enough,
Monday’s opinion page was about as
substantive as a cheese sandwich!
Where are the issues, folks? Why
are we wasting precious space (and
trees) babbling on about the editorial
writing process (which I’m sure was
funny for the five guys that work
down there in the DN but not for us
little people) and rehashing what we
saw on TV the night before and then
not even making a point about how
TV enslaves small minds and traps
them in a maze of mediocre material
(kind of like the DN did today).
It is your job to set the agenda, so
have some guts and have an opinion!
Joe Fraas
sophomore
pre-medicine
Abort!
The anti-abortion advertising
supplement “What you don’t know
can hurt” (November 18,1999), talks
at length on the undesirable effects of
having an abortion.
What it neglects, though, is to
compare these with the parallel unde
sirable effects of NOT having an
abortion.
Yes, an abortion can, rarely, lead
to health complications. But so can
carrying a fetus to term. Any medical
procedure carries risks, including
childbirth.
And abortion actually is less dan
gerous than childbirth.
Yes, a woman who has an abor
tion might regret it and might have
psychological problems afterward.
But post-partum depression, some
times severe, is common even in
mothers who sincerely want their
babies; a woman who carries to term
and then gives up die child for adop
tion might regret that far into the
future; and a woman who keeps her
accidental child might regret that,
too, although it would be hard for her
to admit it
Yes, abortions usually cost
money. But obstetrician-gynecolo
gists who perform them cap get much
more from caring for a woman
through full-term pregnancy and
delivery.
The upshot of all this is that the
difficult decision to abort or not to
abort has to be made in the individual
case, and neither decision is guaran
teed to be right.
Edgar Pearlstein
professor of physics, emeritus
A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste
If you want to offer the campus a piece of your mind, there is not
a better way to do it than to have it printed weekly in the Daily
Nebraskan. Apply for a columnist or editorial cartoonist position
at the DN and you too can have one of those cool mug shots run
with your silly ideas. Get an application at the DN offices or online
at www.DailyNeb.com, and return it with two sample columns to 20
Nebraska Union by Friday, Dec. 3,1999. The Daily Nebraskan is an
equal opportunity employer and adheres to all applicable hiring
guidelines.
-s-' _J