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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 30, 2000)
Opinion /M/vNebraskan Since 1901 Editor Sarah Baker Opinion Page Editor. Samuel McKewon Managing Editor Bradley Davis - BAD. Allen Perlman viewed as right choice for chancellor We don’t feel the need to expound too much further on the comments Hastings Regent Robert Allen made to the Board of Regents regarding Interim Chancellor Harvey Perlman in an Oct. 20 letter. Calling an organization that supports gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered students a “dating service” is asinine. Saying he “loves dearly” his one homosexu al employee, but is afraid of what happens when “you get too much of that” shows that Allen’s attitude and ideology toward homo sexuals and others is completely paternalistic. Allen’s quotes about his reservations toward Perlman published in Friday’s Daily Nebraskan speak for themselves. For the most part, anyway. An interesting question arises when one starts to wonder why Allen felt the need to write his colleagues of his concerns about Perlman. Sure, he could be upset that Perlman pub licly denounced the controversial Initiative 416, which would not recognize any sort of ^ domestic partnership in the Pprlmnn'c state of Nebraska. . But we’re starting to wonder actions so his real reasons for writing the far seem to ietter. have gotten Could it be that Perlman is approval close to getting the job? Is this around Allen’s real concern? campus So far, a committee has been and around formed to advertise for, inter file state view and select UNL’s next hjn nvu> hn* chancellor. Earlier this month, ... a firm was hired for $90,000 to vocanzea help with the recruitment - a discontent standard procedure when with the head-hunting for top adminis job trators. Perlman Search committee members has done. have said they hope to start _reviewing candidates by November. But, the meetings have been held behind closed doors. It would be interesting to know the conversations that are really going on between members of the search committee, which is overseen by NU President Dennis Smith. The university requires a standard search process. But we wonder how seriously this process will be carried out and how much of a leg up Perlman has right now - nearly four months into his term as interim chancellor. Perlman’s actions so far seem to have got ten approval around campus and around the state. No one has vocalized discontent with the job Perlman has done. He showed courage when he stood up against Initiative 416, even though he proba bly knew he would draw criticism from people like Allen. For some, Perlman is the solution to the problem many at the university and the state have complained about: The tendency of our most talented to pack their bags and head out to better universities after they’ve been here just four or five years. Perlman has shown ’dedication to the University of Nebraska and the state of Nebraska. It seems that he would stick around if he took the position. Considering the timing and contents of Allen’s letter, it looks to be a real possibility. Editorial Board Sarah Baker, Bradley Davis, Josh Funk, Matthew Hansen, Samuel McKewon, Dane Stickney, Kimberly Sweet Letters Policy The Daly Nebraskan welcomes briefs, letters to the editor and guest columns, but does not guar antee their publication. The Daly 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 wi not be published. Those who submit letters must identify themselves by name, year in school, major andfar group afNiation, if any. Submit material to: Daly Nebraskan, 20 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St Lincoln, NE 68588-044& E rrat: latlsrsOuninfo.unl.edu. Editorial Policy Unsigned editorials are the opinions of the Fai 2000 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 a cartoon is solsly the opinion of its artist The Board of Regents acts as publisher of the Daiy Nebraskan; poi cy is set by the DaMy Nebraskan Edttorial Board. The UNL Publications Board, established by the regents, supervises the production of the paper. According to policy set by the regents, responsi Hfty lor the edtesW content of the newspaper ies solely in the hands of its employees. Pirates a»p Nebraska Football placers have rational/zee -tub 3;-/v l«s5 j we Mow 'tiUZS&XBT, OkLAUOttit! VotfJ WASTg BRANDS, YOV 3£fil<s! omlGes AR£ a x/Atweie souRtg of vitamin c. vitamine peficieno'f CAUSC5 SfrttW. Scurvy CMiSfe BRUISES ANP 6l££b ING- &U#I S - Not TH£ SwJ£*S! ' Neal Obermeyef/DN Change focus In the Oct. 27 DN, the Daily Nebraskan tries to make an issue of the fact that the Chairwoman of the Defense of Marriage-Yes to 416 committee, Guyla Mills, plans to leave Nebraska for Virginia. I think that anyone reading the article can see it for what it is; a chance to create more press and discuss the DN’s own views in opposition to the Initiative. Other than two off-hand remarks from a well known campus leader, there is no discussion of why her leaving is actually of any relevance. So a person wants to get out of Nebraska (No offense, but really, why wouldn’t they?), I say more power to them and best of luck in their new career. I’d like to see the DN concentrate on the issue of Initiative 416 rather than grasping at any chance to sway voters by questioning a person’s career choice. Joe Spicha graduate student . Notfit Do you seriously mean to say that Chancellor Perlman has the sheer audacity to be supportive of a group of students within the university? Outrageous! Where does it end? Next thing we know, he’ll be com ing out in support of minorities, or even (gasp) women! Mr. Allen, I’ve heard statements like yours before, but I had hoped that they were relegated to the chap ter on white segregationists in my history textbook. “I don’t have anything against [blacks, homosexu als, insert your favorite minority group here]. Why, I even employ one of them in my store!” If this is your idea of tolerance, try again. "Too much of that hurts your school?” Too much of what? Diversity? God forbid we should have more than one kind of student on this campus. Last I checked, this university was trying desper ately to attract talented students no matter what their background. For you to tell a significant number of them explicitly that they are not welcome here is sui cidal. The “vast majority of Nebraska citizens would prefer” that you not do anything further to run this place into the ground; it can do that just fine on its own. For you to criticize Perlman’s voicing of his per sonal opinions, when you seem so ready to express yours, is merely hypocritical. Butforyoutotakeaimat your own students - any of them - is absolutely unfor givable. Perhaps it is you who are not fit to be Regent Matthew Beermann junior computer science Goo oIRejunt Allen I agree with Mr. Rejunt Robert Allen when he said that Harvey Perlman is not good. He is real bad. I, to, think that this universitee has spent to much time promotin’ hi-falutin’ book-lernin’ city slicker tipes like Chanselor Perlman. He is not good. And why can’t I major in squirt huntin’? We need more good Nebraskens like "Billy Bob” Allen to run our skool so them homersexuel-lovin' smart folk don’t take over our grate state. Like Mr. Rejunt Allen, I don't think Nebraska needs to be movin’ into the twenty-furst centuree just yet GO HUSKERS!!! THEY ROOL!! Perlman does not tool! Mr. RejuntAllen, ifyourreadin' this, I wuntto sell femiture too. Can you help me get a start in this nobel, gay-free profeshun if I can’t get a job as a profesh’nal squiri-hunter which is my dreem? Sometimes my pa lets me play with a hammer and sum nails, so I think I’d be good at makin’ femi ture that is good. Perlman is not good becuz he s'p ports homersexuels and the rites of peeple evrywear, ev’n peeple who are immorel. ThAnkyou for yur time. Richard H. McWilliams UNL law stoodent second yer Liberalism, We knew ye well So when a great man dies For years beyond our ken, The light he leaves behind him lies Upon the paths of men. - Longfellow My friends, we are gath ered here today to celebrate the life and mourn the unfor tunate passing of a great and controversial figure in our shared history; liberalism. The exact cause of death is still unknown, but his ill health appears to have been due to politicians increasingly avoiding him and by the “New Left’s” embrace of centrist, pragmatic politics. If you will allow me to misquote Shakespeare, we come here today both to bury liberalism and to praise him. His life, although fleeting, and his death, although sudden, must not pass unremarked. We are bettered by his having lived and enriched by the memories and challenges he has left for us. The details of his early years are well known. Bom during the 18th Century (a child of rationalism and individualism) liberalism always held two things close to his heart: freedom and equality. His striving for these ideals led directly to the American Revolution and the Civil War, but, after these early successes, he disappeared from society for decades. Yet liberalism was notreally gone, only waiting. He made a sudden and dramatic reappearance in the early 20th Century. You see, my friends, he returned to us in our greatest time of need. This proverbial savior of mankind rescued us from the throes of a Great Depression. When Americans were literally starving on the streets, his disciples enacted drastic reforms in his name. Social security. Minimum wage. Free access to labor unions. His great and still controversial successes contin ued. In just a few decades, he helped humankind make more progress toward recognizing the essential digni ty of the individual than we had made in centuries. He was instrumental in the Civil Rights movement and strongly advocated free speech, due process, women’s rights and racial equality. His ill health began in the early 1980s. He began to wither under the attacks of his enemies. Soon he was known as “bleeding-hearted,” “weak" and “soft on crime.” All of society's ills were attributea to him, whether deserved or not, including high divorce rates, drug use, “immorality” and AIDS. There was nothing he could do to retain his image. His steadfast supporters, the Democratic Party, stayed with him as long as they could, but eventually i they abandoned him as well. They considered him a liability and felt they shouldn’t be seen with him any more. Issues central to liberalism, like abolishing the death penalty and providing expansive welfare aid, were dropped in an effort to appeal to middle-class voters. In his greatest time of need, only a few hard-core activists and intellectuals really stood by him. In some ways, liberalism was simply too naive to survive in our 21st Century. He championed the weak and the powerless: the homeless, persons on welfare, people accused of crimes, children attending inner city schools. Yet their powerlessness became his; these groups were either unwilling or unable to vote, and he suf fered for it Some of his most successful reforms were simply co-opted by his enemies. Education for all, a persist ent theme of liberalism, became the agenda of a polit ical party that once proposed to abolish the Department of Education. Conservatives, the most strident critics of Social Security in the early days, became its biggest defend ers. They became “compassionate,” at least to the extent necessary to appeal to the middle-class and the elderly, and robbed liberalism of his greatest strength. Ultimately, however, liberalism was a victim of his own success. By eliminating the most shocking exam ples of society's evils, he lost support to eliminate the rest It was hard for people to understand why he kept advocating racial equality when they no longer read about lynchings or saw police attack protesters with dogs on television everyday. He had trouble convinc ing people about reproductive freedom when they had either forgotten or refused to acknowledge the thousands of women who died from illegal abortions. Yet, although he is dead, liberalism's achieve ments have stood the test of time. His life opened up an unprecedented freedom for intellectual inquiry and debate; a freedom that, although many treasure, few remember its origin. His great economic reforms, social security and the minimum wage, are still with us today and stronger now than ever before. His most controversial civil rights successes, such as Brown vs. Board of Education, Miranda vs. Arizona, and Roe vs. Wade have been repeatedly affirmed by the Supreme Court We should remember liberalism with joy and not despair. There will be other movements and other causes. His spirit will live on, regardless of the label it operates under. When we think of liberalism, we should smile and be comforted with the knowledge that, if even for one brief shining moment, he made it possible for all of us to dream of something better. And this, my friends, is all one could ever ask for, in life or in death. Angel's lost: Do not let life pass by “When I get around to it...” I would like to be able to send this mes sage to all of you, but the disheart ening truth is that many of you either won't get it or will choose to ignore it. Yasmin McEwen This is for the others who need to hear it. An exercise in divinity per se. Sometimes I walk around this campus, and I feel as if people are in a trance. Trance of mediocrity. Trance of denial. Trance of apathy. Trance of naivetd. We are fill of us angels here, and I think most of us forget or ignore that All of us are here to learn to ascend in some form or another. Yet we take our time, we fold our wings so to speak, and refuse to acknowledge our great ness. • It seems that people spend more time and energy trying to grapple with meaningless drivel, trying to explain the minuscule. So many of us try to fit ourselves into smallness: small think ing, small clothes, safe and small neat ly packaged boxes. Imagine for a second that each of us is walking around with majestic wings of potential, buttery soft feath ers of inspiration that fan together and create a wingspan capable of carrying your soul to dizzying heights. Yet still you settle. Of course there is bound to be fric tion. Sometimes the mind hurts when it stretches and grows, but let it grow, don’t try to push it back into place, back into the ignorant box that it has risen up from. All ofushereoncam pus are bound to So many of get aggravated f f with each other, us w with the world. OU KSelveS The pressures jfqtn we encounter are enough to ground SmallneSS a person indefi- small nitely. Don’t stay ,. . . grounded. Give thinking, each other room small to breathe, room « .._ to think, to fly. Clothes, Give your fellow Safe and classmate some cm nil slack; they are just brriul1 trying to learn to neatly fly, too. packaged So my chal- 17 lenge to you is boxes. this. You can con- - tinue to squeak by giving in to your own personal mediocrity, letting your greatness slip through die rafters. Or you can believe in yourself and pull in the tides, take the world by the teeth and shake it up a bit. Pull the curtains back on your mind, bare your soul and let your greatness shine through. We’ve all got our own set of morals and standards but ask yourself: Are you living up to your own standards? Not my morals, not your parents' morals or your friends’, simply your own. You want to tell me it’s your per sonal goal to drink X number of cases of beer this semester? I call bullshit. You want to tell me you can’t get started on your homework this semes ter until the planets are properly aligned? I call bullshit. You want to tell me you can’t stand up for what you believe in until you have graduated from college? I call it again. Recognize the evils, see them, note them and rise above. You know what you are capable of, so get busy and do it. This world is full of people who’ve been blind to their divinity, their wings have grown dusty and gray. You are young, you are new, your dreams can come true. Put down your excuses and take flight. And when the Lord looked down, he saw that they had found their wings. And for this He gave them wide blue sky. For this he gave them all of the earth and golden sunlight. He wanted them to fly. Tell us what you think. E-mail your letters to: letters@unl.edu. or call us at 472-2588.