Daily Nebraskan
Since 1901
Editor Sarah Baker
Opinion Page Editor Samuel McKewon
Managing Editor Bradley Davis
Secret's out
Refusal to discuss openly gay
member reeks of intolerance
It took courage for Ryan Grigsby and Jaron
Luttich to come out of the closet.
It took amazing courage to announce their
homosexuality to their fraternities.
And it was yet another act of courage when
Grigsby and Luttich agreed to be interviewed
by Rolling Stone magazine, which in its Oct. 26
issue, profiled the two in the article, “Coming
Out on Fraternity Row.”
Grigsby and Luttich must be commended
for their bravery, as should Chi Phi Fraternity
President Jason Bottlinger, who spoke to the
Daily Nebraskan about his and other house
members' support for Luttich.
But Grigsby's fraternity, Sigma Nu, has
shown an act of cowardice by refusing to com
ment to the Daily Nebraskan on the Rolling
Stone story.
Sigma Nu members’ tight lips are an abom
ination to the spirit of diversity talked about so
much on this campus and are a slap in the face
to Grigsby, who is also under an apparent all
fraternity gag order - forbidden to discuss the
situation.
Dan Sindelar, Sigma Nu president, told the
Daily Nebrsakan numerous times he simply
would not comment on the story- a story that,
by the way, painted the fraternity and the uni
versity in a positive light. i
“Won’t you at least say you support Grigsby,
your fraternity brother?” the Daily Nebraskan
asked Sindelar. “Do you realize what kind of
message this sends?” we pleaded. “Don’t you
understand that not commenting on the
Rolling Stone story makes it look as if you have
something to hide - that you don’t support
Grigsby?” we prodded.
“We will have no comment,” Sindelar said.
Sigma Nu’s refusal to even discuss their first
openly gay member reeks of the hatred and
intolerance so many in the Greek system and
elsewhere on campus have tried to eradicate.
It makes one wonder if the fraternity didn’t
want Grigsby to “go public” with his homosex
uality, perhaps for fear that Sigma Nu would
be labeled the “gay house.”
A Sigma Nu member Russell Willbanks
freely admitted in the Rolling Stone article that
some in the fraternity were worried if Grigsby’s
homosexuality became common knowledge,
the house could suffer come recruitment time.
“It’s a sad state when one brother coming
out in the house can kill rush, but it’s the
truth,” Willbanks said in Rolling Stone.
Willbanks, also presumably under the
Sigma Nu anti-gay gag order, wouldn’t com
ment to the Daily Nebraksan. Willbanks is
chairman of the Daily Nebraskan Publications
Board, the body that sets policy for the news
paper.
bigma Nu s lack ol comment on the situa
tion, while maddening, ludicrous and quite
simply wrong, is also cruel and sad.
Sad for Grigsby, who tried desperately to
gain his fraternity brothers' acceptance,
despite the fact that his homosexuality was
taboo in the Greek system's underworld.
Sad for the fraternity and the Greek system,
which has paid lip service to increasing diver
sity and inclusiveness, but has failed to do so
in practice.
And sad for the campus as a whole - that
such outright and vicious discrimination and
hatred is accepted in a cloak of secrecy.
What does this say about Sigma Nu? About
the Greek system? About the university? About
society?
We have no comment.
Editorial Board
Sarah Baker, Bradley Davis, Josh Funk, Matthew Hansen,
Samuel McKewon, Dane Stickney, Kimberly Sweet
—
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Beautiful Nebraska
I would like to address Dane Stickney’s column in
Wednesday’s DN. Iflowa is such a great place, then go
live there. It seems to me that you, sir, have never been
off of the interstate.
Nebraska’s landscape is very diverse. We have
rolling hills down in south central Nebraska. Or per
haps you should drive through the Sandhills some
time.
Another option would be to drive down toward
Nebraska City and southeast Nebraska if you would
like to see trees, and it is beautiful this time of year.
Of course you are going to feel like you are sur
rounded by cement if you are in the middle of the city
on 1-80. Omaha is very beautiful in places if you just
take time to look.
So Mr. Stickney, before you bash the state I love,
maybe you should make an effort to see more of it
than what you can see from 1-80. Your views represent
those of most people who just pass through this state
on die Interstate and never get to see the real beauty of
Nebraska. After all, there is no place like Nebraska.
SamMortensen
senior
ag education
Dubya s wealthy buds
George W. Bush insists that he can spend less of
the federal surplus on education, health care, mili
tary defense, debt reduction and environmental
protection, and greatly improve them all, and still
get rid of all the money.
Those spooked by the thought of a return to
voodoo economics might cry out, woe oh woe is
me, are we not all bound to be cast once again into
a deep pit of economic deficit?
The answer is no, not all of us. Bush plans on
putting a huge chunk of the surplus into die pock
ets of wealthiest beneficiaries of our system. You
ask, what might this cost the rest of us?
Well, if hardheaded conservatives like Reagan
and Bush Sr. could leave us a tax on our future that
runs into trillions of dollars, just think what a com
passionate conservative like George W. Bush might
be able to do.
Been there, done that? Me too and I will vote for
AlGore.
Sam Osborne
West Branch, Iowa
The wide world of discovery
erasing i^aigary irum my
mind isn't a human possibility.
Driving home, the trees
melt into one another above
me, creating this pattern of
green and brown.
They drown out the sun
above me; only shadowed
light drips down to the street,
light spanking die street
Pockets of this golden river
reiaiuma
Watson
await me.
There’s a guy crossing the street ahead of me; I
almost hit him.
I want to know, I want to know. I want to know. If
please God, somebody could explain the iceberg, if
somebody could break it down for me, I’d wish it so.
Sifting the back part of my history, I find nothing, like
surface tension is all I have for a back story. I look
around, at them looking at me and start to wonder if
the fixed gaze is actually a non-gaze.
How much of me is real? Why don’t their eyes
move? Why is my universe self-contained? Why is any
of it the way it is? Why am I seeing the same pocket of
light, the same pattern of trees, over and over? Am I
that boring? Is this what we come to, some sort of
record that skips to the same part over and over?
I feel like breaking down on the stoop of my car
and crying crying crying. My God, do you know what I
think? I think somebody is seriously messing with my
life over and over over over and scene to scene to scene
to
we women of the house trot about in nightgowns
and terry cloth robes and steal single finger massages
when we think no one was looking.
This is me, at this moment, on the grape-colored
couch. There’s Nadia, above me, peering down at me
from behind the grape, down on me with her bread
sopping eyes. Black bow in her hair, tied back tight,
she grasps a yellow dropper bottle of dye. Her dye.
That she found in my room.
The explanation of dye is simple as a tracer - in
that you eat say, triple stack fudge cake and, consider
ing one has reached a particular stage of bulimia, a
stage in which texture and body of food have no
meaning, one can goop the fudge cake all up into bitty
chunks and drown all soup-like in milk, swirl it around
and make this cold, fudgy gruel.
Dye comes in when you want to make sure that
you exit all the fudge gruel, and so you add the dye, so
it traces the food into your tum-tum, and when it
comes up yellow, all yellow, then you know it wasn't
just water, not just left over amino acids from the pre
vious binge and purge, but said cake, triple stacked
and fudgy once but now all soupy, staring one back
from the bowl below.
Dye is an insurance plan.
Upon her discovery of-what? My bulimia, my dis
covery of her dye, I don’t know, I haven’t been told -
Nadia’s voice is wavy, unsure. How does she figure
this? Am I her replicant? Am I playing games with her?
Hiding her tools of the trade?
"What were you doing with this?” Nadia says,
crouching, peering, searching.
I shrug, sheepish, smiling weakly. I don’t tip my
hand.
“Look, I want you to tell me,” Nadia presses. “Are
you doing this?" Bulimia, for her, has simply tran
scended into pronoun status.
And I look to her, my browns meeting her deep,
sopping, muddy eyeballs. And I want to scream, in the
I
umuuiicu wuius ui uie poimeiMup iui a uiug-ucc
America: “ I learned from watchingyou, MOM! I
learned it from watchingyou!”
But I don't say a word.
Nadia shakes just this bitty bit, afraid of an oncom
ing breakdown, quite sure, in fact, that if her daughter
drops into chasm of addiction, she may never forgive
herself for it
My brain, of course, is this globule of pus. Like I
know what’s going on. I’m thinking “this is under the
iceberg, this is under the iceberg.” At this moment, I
recall nothing, I breathe in the moment I couldn't tell
you, now, here, what my own name is.
Have I spoken it?
Nadia snatches up the dye from my face, brushes
her teased hair angrily from her face, storms into my
room. My pus brains stays that way, I’m thinking “plot
twist plot twist”
Did I write this?
I follow her in, and she’s standing at the closet
door, odd shock gracing her face like an aborted fetus
was slimed all over the carpet
Oh God, what a gross reference! Oh, God, I’m being
self-referential!
So I look inside the closet and see them, all stacked
up like Lincoln Logs: mason jar after mason jar of
corn-colored puke, all nicely preserved for winter.
Like 60 or 70, right next to my sandals.
“Oh my God,” Nadia says.
Um, yeah.
Moms can’t hesitate to pluck one of the top jars, or
at least what she thinks is one of the top jars, and
inspect it up close.
But it isn’t the top jar. There a stack above it, and
just like Jenga, the top one comes toppling down, right
on her arm.
jarcrasnes. LX>m puKe gusnes. i\aaiauoesanmie
rior hack, then looks at me.
"This puke is so acidic that it has broken down the
walls of the glass mason jar!” she screams.
What?
“This puke is so acidic that it has broken down the
walls of the glass mason jar!”
“Stop saying that!” I scream back.
"But it is.”
“I can see it! I know!”
“But I mean, you did this all this time, never telling
me. you’ve been doing this?"
I don’t remember it "I don’t remember this,” I say.
"I didn’t do this.”
“So this is somebody else’s... oh I can’t even say it
I can’t even say it”
“Mom, I’m not a bulimic.”
Nadia looks up behind me, scowling. “Get out of
here,” she says. I turn, and it’s Jayme. Whatever brain
matter I had left is truly pusified now. But I’m getting
smarter; my toes tingle in anticipation of my newest
discovery.
"So you found it," Jayme says to Nadia. “’Bout
time.”
“Get out get out out out out out," Nadia screams.
“OK, I’m out,” Jayme says. She’s got this squirrely
grin. When Jayme leaves, I make a hitchhiker motion
backward toward the now empty doorway.
“My sister?” I ask.
“Oh God,” Nadia snorts, “nice time to joke.”
I ask a pardon of my written French, but consider
ing my life has become somebody's idea of dramatic,
cheap joke, I find profanity an appropriate response.
Fuck.
See you in the eating disorder ward.
V
Bush plus
Gore equals
snooze time
According to
a webcast from
OnHealth with
Dr. John Shepard,
100 million
Americans suffer
from insomnia.
That's a lot of
sleepless nights.
But last
Seth
Felton
Wednesday
night, something strange and exciting
happened. Insomniacs all across the
country could be found in their beds, on
their couches, even collapsed on the
floor, sound asleep.
What caused this national wave of
rest? I ’ll tell you. I’m selling it That’s right
for only $5, you too can cure your insom
nia for good! I'm selling a special tape
that quickly lulls you into beneficial REM
deep. Let’s hear an excerpt
"Boy, with all this fuzzy math, I’m
beginning to think not only did he invent
the Internet but the calculator too.
Sighhh.”
Wow, my eyelids are drooping
already! Still not convinced? Let’s hear
another
“The fact is that he spends more on
the wealthiest 1 percent than he does on
Medicare, education...” Oh that's it! No
more, I’m out!
That’s right, lucky consumer, it's the
2000 Presidential Debate Series!! Cure
insomnia for good! $5 for individual
tapes, $12 for die set of three!
***
Seriously, there’s a reason why people
snooze over die debates. It’s not because
of the average American’s apathy, dull
ness of mind or laziness as we are led to
believe.
Not at all. I have a lot more faith in
average Americans than I do in the coun
try's leaders, to be honest
The public snores because it knows a
debate when it sees one, and these aren’t
it I would go fur
ther and say that
it’s the media, the / don’t Care
two parties and {f R .
the candidates */ DU$ri
who are lazy and hangs
unimaginative. UY)c\dp
And I’m tired of upsiae
Americans get- down from
ting blamed for it n rhprrv
Get this: Last u Lntsrry
week I opened tree While
the Lincoln gnawing on
Journal Star to 17 , 17
find this head- Q turkey
line: “Stand-up leg, he’s Still
guys. Tonight’s rnnrnn
(Oct. 11) face-off a "lOron.
will be the first -
sit-down presi
dential debate. It
might matter.” One of the captions reads
“Republican George W. Bush insisted at
least one debate be held with the candi
date sitting, believing that would favor
his laid-back demeanor.”
You’re kidding! We’re going to pick the
president based on whether he likes to sit
when he’s jawin’? I don’t care if Bush
hangs upside down from a cherry tree
while gnawing on a turkey leg, he’s still a
moron.
This is the guy who last week said we
need to be less dependent on foreign oil
“Yeah,” I thought, tentatively. So let’s drill
more in Mexico, he finished. Less foreign
oil, so drill in Mexico? Are we annexing it
soon? I hadn’t heard.
I don’t want to elect a leader based on
how comfortable he looks while sitting. I
don’t want the media to tell me that I
should care about what each president
will give me.
I want to elect a leader hased on what
he will do for everyone, how he will work
to improve both this country and our
relations with other countries. Iwanthim
to seriously reduce poverty, not just kick
everybody off welfare and then talk
about what a big shot he is (like Clinton
and his cronies).
I’m tired of the bar being lowered, of
calculating my vote on who will do the
least damage rather than who will do the
most good.
And I’m tired of people telling me
that’s the way it is, so I’d better get used to
it. It’s our country, our democracy. We
deserve and should demand better
In the meantime, I hope Gore wins.
Now I know what some of you are saying.
“Hey, isn’t this the same fruitcake who
wrote about voting for Ralph Nader, and
that Bush and Gore are a couple blobs of
protoplasmic goo with little American
flags stuck in them?”
Yes, and I stand by that Butl’mnotso
delusional that I think Nader will win this
election. However, the point of Nader’s
campaign is more to provide a voice of
dissent against mainstream assump
tions, and help solidify a sizable number
of people who want change (rather than
empty promises), but are less than
thrilled with the choices provided.
The strength of a democracy lies in
the vigilance of its citizens. Out of the
realistic choices, I think Gore will do the
least damage. But I’m not about to let
him lull me to sleep either.
ad m.
