Opinion
Zte/yNebraskan
Since 1901
Editor Sarah Baker
Opinion Page Editor Samuel McKewon
Managing Editor Bradley Davis
Nothing new
Debate only reinforces
Gore's, Bush's reputations
While the good times roll economically and
socfally for most in the United States, the
presidential candidates tried Tuesday to con
vince the American people that things need to
change.
Unfortunately for Republican Presidential
Candidate George W. Bush, who, behind in
national polls, had the most to lose in
Tuesday's debate, convincing Americans the
country is in dire straits is about as easy as
convincing them he has a firm grasp on the
English language.
Democrat A1 Gore, on the other hand, rid
ing on the coattails of a soaring economy,
painted himself as a well-informed - if not
Beltway-connected - populist who will con
tinue the good times, while being all things to
all people.
The debate solidified Gore’s reputation as
an issues monger anu master
orator, and further besmirched
Bush as an academic light
weight and oratory joke.
But despite the hoopla and
fanfare surrounding the first of
three nationally televised
debates, the 90-minute session
told us little more than we
already knew.
Perhaps the format for the
next two debates - one a talk
show, the other a town hall -
will better highlight the differ
ences between the candidates
and not allow them to dodge
key questions.
When asked whether he’d
work to outlaw RU-486, the so
called abortion pill, Bush
hedged, saying simply: “I support a culture of
life.”
Gore, in pne of his most pointed state
ments of the night, laudably stated his posi
tion on abortion rights, despite what one may
think about the issue, without hiding behind
rhetorical tricks: “I support a woman’s right to
choose.”
But, when criticized by Bush for his alleged
campaign-finance violations involving a
Buddhist temple, Gore refused to explain
himself, instead painting the Republican can
didate’s valid attack as an out-of-line charac
ter assassination.
The debate
solidified
Gore’s
reputation
as an issues
monger
and master
orator, and
further
besmirched
Bush as an
academic
lightweight
and oratory
joke.
Gore’s preparedness was obvious, as his
missteps were few, while the harried Bush
seemed to fumble during several answers.
Both spouted prepared sound bytes, from
which neither seemed willing to deviate -
Gore’s constantly repeating that he would put
Socidl Security funds in a “lockbox,” and
Bush’s contending that Gore uses “fuzzy
math.”
Even veteran television news man Dan
Rather, the CBS anchorman, said the debates
were a canned snooze.
“Pedantic, dull, unimaginative, lackluster,
humdrum - you pick the words,” Rather
quipped after the debate.
“Governor Bush's father was criticized for
looking at his watch during the presidential
debate in 1992, but there were many across
the country tonight doing much the same
thing,” he said.
At a time when the country is relatively
prosperous, perhaps these debates are des
tined to be mundanely scripted and lacking
substance.
Editorial Board
Sarah Baker, Bradley Davis, Josh Funk, Matthew Hansen,
Samuel McKewon, Dane Stickney, Kimberly Sweet
Letters Poticy
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Submit material to: Daily Nebraskan, 20 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St Lincoln, NE 68588-0448. E
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Editorial Policy
Unsigned editorials are the opinions of the Fall 2000 Daily Nebraskan. They do not necessarily
reflect the views of the University of Nebraska-Lincotn, its employees, its student body or the
University of Nebraska Board of Regents. A column is solely the opinion of Its author; a cartoon is
solely the opinion of its artist The Board of Regents acts as pubfisher of the Daly Nebraskan; pol
cy is set by the Daly Nebraskan Edftorial Board. The UNL Publications Board, established by the
regents, supervises the production of the paper. According to policy set by the regents, responsi
btty lor the adNorW content of the newspaper Kes solely in the hands of its employees.
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Letters to the editor
Spacing it Out
I am an avid reader of the Daily Nebraskan and
consistently read the editorials and opinions.
While I do not agree with all, I respect the opinions
of those writing and can usually make sense of
their views.
However, in the case of Monday’s editorial I feel
the editorial board are way off the mark.
I simply want to inform you that you do not
speak for all
NU students. Your survey was very limited, and
your view even more shortsighted. Students do
have alternatives to drinking, but this was not even
the intent of the program last Thursday.
The program was intended to
encourage students to use spacers, eat high-fat
foods and various other techniques to reduce the
likelihood of getting drunk.
Also, it may benefit you
as well as your readers to know the facts. The
money you refer to as yours is far from yours; it
comes to this campus
through a grant, not your pocket. So please, when
writing your opinions in the future, realize stu
dents actually do
read this paper, and we expect factual information
and not just your ramblings.
John D. Conley
Sociology
Senior
Bock on Bikes
As a competitive road cyclist, who rides thou
sands of miles a year on Nebraska roads, I am dis
gusted by Tony Bock's piece on cycling and cyclists
in Thursday’s DN.
What disgusts me about Bock is not so much
his idiotic arguments about banning biking, as
they are so obviously moronic (to use his own ter
minology).
What makes me furious is his opening and
closing scenario where Bock recounts, what I only
hope is, an imaginary dream where he kills (runs
over) five cyclists on a mountain road because they
had the audacity to temporarily slow him down.
Bock, do you realize how horrifying this image
is? Do you think it is funny, the killing or injuring of
a defenseless person? Or did you bother to think at
all?
Cyclists have every right to use public roads.
That right is indisputable legally and ethically.
That people like you, who take a human life so
lightly, terrify me.
What is wrong with you that a cyclist or a group
of riders, who require you to exercise caution when
passing them, incites you to a murderous rage?
You really need to step back and examine what
you have said, and while you’re at it, you should
apologize for being such an savage jerk.
Robert Aguirre
English
Graduate Student
UNL Cycling Team
Pro-life decision from indecision
I gave my muse the week
off.
I’ve been working her to
the ground recently, so when
she applied for the time off a
month ago, I felt obliged to
give it to her. We filled out
the proper paperwork and '— 1 . .
submitted it to the appropri
ate authorities, so now my UiazeSKI
muse, whose name is Edna, ^
is cruising somewhere off
the coast of Crete.
Of course, one cannot write without proper
muse-ing, so I had to hire a temporary muse. Her
name is Jude.
Jude and I were discussing possible column
ideas. I could tell her forte wasn’t in the literary arts,
because many of her ideas were too specific - she
suggested, for example, discussing the validity of
Schoenberg’s monotonal approach to music
analysis, as compared to that of Schenker - for use
in a column.
“C'mon,” she said. “It would practically write
itself. Schoenberg was such an old goat, anyway.
He was bitter about being in California and how
Stravinsky was getting all the gigs.”
“Jude, you’re right,” I say, “but we’ve got to think
about the reader, about keeping the reader’s inter
est, about writing something timely and relevant.”
She gave me a nasty look. “And don't look at me that
way. I try.”
“Well, if not Schoenberg, and you want to do
something relevant, how about abortion?”
“Abortion? How blah...”
“No, think about it. You’re pro-life, right?” ,
“Yeah.”
Ana you re an arneist, too, ngntr
“Yeah?”
“So you go with that, you write how you man
age to come up with what is usually a religious
stand on an issue when you start from your partic
ular viewpoint.”
I mulled this over. “Eh, not enough material. I
mean, it all comes down to how you think about
humanity.”
“How so?”
“Well, the question of the morality of abortion
rests pretty much with when, from conception to
death, the being is a human and when it is not.” I
watched as Jude took in my words. “Since the
killing of a human is wrong in most cases, if you
can determine when a being is human or not, you
can determine when it is moral to kill the being or
not.”
“Where are you going with this?” Jude asked,
taking out a cigarette. ,
I offered her a light. “So the question of whether
it is OK to kill a fetus or an embryo can ultimately
be solved by deciding if they are human or not. If
i
they are not human, then you can say that, since
we kill non-human things without abandon, it
makes no sense to morally prohibit ourselves from
killing a fetus. If they are human, then they deserve
the protection of law as humans who are not able
to defend themselves.”
“So that’s why it rests with the nature of
humanity?” Jude asked.
“Yeah.” I took out a cigarette of my own and
began smoking as well. For a moment, I just
watched the smoke from our two cigarettes mingle
together. “I mean, what does it mean to be human?
To have 26 chromosomes? To be viable? To be capa
ble of thought? Or further, to be capable of rational
thought? What is ultimately the difference between
killing a small child without a sense of self and an
unwanted puppy? One is more morally wrong than
the other; why is that?"
Jude just shrugged. She found a stray ashtray
and flicked some ash in. I motioned for the tray,
and she held it out for me. “Perhaps it comes down
to the instinctive protection of the young,” she
said. “We want to sustain our species, so we are
naturally driven to protect the young, or at least the
healthy young.”
I laughed. "Unfortunately, we cannot build law
on our instincts. But I think it is clear that we con
sider it murder once the human has been born,
and cognitive processes vary so much from birth to
death, that to draw the line of humanity at some
level of brain activity would be arbitrary at best.”
"So, genetics, then?” Jude asked.
I nodded. “It’s a possibility. But then consider;
before a human is a baby, fetus, embryo, it is a
zygote, which is to say it's a bunch of cells that are
all essentially the same. What is the nature of the
zygote's existence?
“Is it at all comparable to the human’s exis
tence? If it is wrong to kill a bunch of cells that are
neither arms nor legs nor eyes, then why would it
be acceptable to kill any other creature which has
some degree of sentience simply because it doesn’t
share our genetic code?”
Jude laughed now. “So you eliminated develop
ment as a possible boundary between human and
not-human, and then you consider the genetic
dimension of human existence, but you find fault
with that because of a question of early develop
ment.”
“Yeah, I suppose you could say that.”
“So wouldn’t that be a contradiction of sorts?”
I shrugged. “I guess it’s a question I can’t
answer. Which is why I end up pro-life. I just figure,
if you can’t decide for sure, why err on the side of
more dead humans, potentially?’'
Jude leaned back, crossing her arms over her
chest. “People aren’t going to like that kind of con
clusion.”
“Yep.” I extinguished my cigarette. “Which is
why I’m not going to write it.”
Silence in a
chaotic state
of conformity
After the
horns, drums
and chanting of
the crowd, it's
over. All the fans
finally sit down,
and a conversa
Dane
Stickney
uon oegms.
“Oh my
God,” a voice
says over my left m
shoulder. “I’m in love.”
“Where?” another voice says.
“Right down there, in the tank
top?”
"There’s like 100 girls down there in
tank tops,” the second voice replies.
"What color: red, white or black?”
"White,” the first voice says,
annoyed. “She's right there.”
“In the jeans or the khakis?”
“She’s wearing the red capri pants,
see?” the first voice says again, even
more annoyed.
"The one with the thing in her hair
or not?”
“Yes, the one with in the thing in
her hair,” the first voice says again.
“She’s so hot. I should go down there.”
"She’s OK, but what about the other
one?” the second voice says.
vvmcn omer one - ine one in me
tight red tank top with khakis, or the
one in the looser tank top with jeans,
or the one with..."
And so the conversation continues
until the a loud voice comes over the
HuskerVision speakers singing, “Who
Let the Dogs Out,” which leads into a
beat with deep drums and bass much
like that of a Gap commercial that
aired around Christmas. It starts with a
typical Christmas song, “Sleigh Ride
Together With You.” But the familiar
beat gets all messed up with heavy
bass and electronic sampling.
Then dancers, maybe 20 of them,
come dancing out - all wearing the
same clothes, of course. Khakis with
different colored sweaters.
Then, out of nowhere, about half of
the dancers morph into each other,
and they twirl around for a while. Then
those dancers meld into about five
dancers. Then there is three.
Then at the end, it shows a profile
of one single dancer. All of the rest had
morphed into her. Wearing the same
clothes wasn’t enough; they had to
turn into one person. As the profile of
the dancer disappears from the screen
there is a moment of total black silence
much like that of the Sheldon
Memorial Art Gallery. Up the marble
staircases lined in black iron, above
the droves of people wearing black,
munching on hors d'oeuvres and bid
ding on art, there is silence.
Black silence like there is between
TV commercials.
Black silence like the color of
reflection in the big window on the
west side of the building.
Black silence like the feeling of
Hopper’s paintings.
Amidst my search for silence, there
on the wall, huge in front of me, my
ignorance is magnified. An original
Andy Warhol. The time spent waiting
elsewhere was wasted. I could have
been here looking at an original Andy
Warhol.
It's simple, really. Mickey Mouse
repeated four times on a blue back
ground. Nothing special - just four
panels of a regular-looking Mickey
Mouse. Black, charcoal-looking lines
circle Mickey’s Curves.
Moving right up to it and not being
able to touch it seems harsh. An origi
nal Andy hidden in Lincoln. Two peo
ple move in behind me. I move aside to
let them look at Andy's work.
It’s two girls and a guy. One girl is
wearing a tight tank top with khaki
capri pants. The other has on a tight T
shirt with short sleeves and flared
jeans. The guy is wearing a visor, cargo
pants with seemingly 200 pockets and
a weathered T-shirt. They’re all wear
ing Doc Martins.
“I just don't understand it,” one girl
says. She flips a strand of highlighted
blond hair behind her ear. The roots
are brown. "What is the point?” The
other two barely look at die painting
and move on.
My bitter laughter breaks the black
silence.
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