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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 15, 2000)
Opinion ZM/vNebraskan Since 1901 Editor Sarah Baker Opinion Page Editor Samuel McKewon Managing Editor Bradley Davis Have patience Election debacle not solved with American quick-fix While U.S. culture places high value on instant gratification, it’s heartening to see many peoples’ new-found addiction to the tedium of ballot counting. The surreal events that unfolded on elec tion night seem to have quickened a new American civic spirit - a spirit the likes of which haven’t been seen over the past eight years of unprecedented economic success. Riding the tide of the United States’ soaring economy, too many have turned a deaf ear to talk of politics and policy, instead leaving that to the pundits and lobbyists who swarm Washington. But now, it’s as if when Dan Rather on Nov. 7 declared the election a toss up, Americans realized, for the first time in a long time their country is not infallible - not above an elec tion debacle the likes of which are more likely to be seen in a Banana Republic, as one UNL international student was quoted as saying in a news story today. Certainly the United States is not teetering on the edge of ruin, but the entire process by which we elect a president is under a well deserved microscope. Is the Electoral College fair? Should the popular vote be the end-all, be-all? Did George W. Bush play dirty tricks in Florida, where his brother, Jeb, is governor? Is A1 Gore trying to manipulate the political system to eke out enough votes for a win? All questions the vast majority of Americans - indeed citizens of the world - are asking tnemseives. And all questions that for a long time have begged answers. Now, Americans must have the patience to sort through the pieces of presidential elec tions. Already, talk from the Bush camp of speed ing a process that involves the fundamental right of suffrage has led some to get all hot and bothered about finding a typically American quick fix to a problem that has festered for many years. The election problems that surfaced in Florida certainly aren’t specific to that state - they may occur everywhere, and a long, thor ough and comprehensive discussion of how we elect our president is necessary to fix what’s wrong. Maybe it’s time for the Electoral College to be scrapped. Maybe so-called special inter ests and political action groups will be forced to take a back seat to the will of the people. Maybe big money will become more or less influential. Regardless of the outcome of the now-infa mous Florida recount, it’s time for Americans to have the patience and wherewithal to engage in a discussion about how we elect our president. With the heartening sights of Florida resi dents on both sides of the issue protesting the outcome of the vote, with the reports of peo ple being glued to their television sets and newspaper pages and with a general feeling of excitement and anxiety regarding U.S. poli tics, the stage is set for a new era of political activism and engagement. Editorial Board Sarah Baker, Bradley Davis, Josh Funk, Matthew Hansen, Samuel McKewon, Dane Stickney, Kimberly Sweet Letters Policy The Daiy Nebraskan welcomes briefe, letters to the editor and guest columns, but does not guar itee their publication. The Daiy Nebraskan retains the righttoecMt or reject any material submitted. Submitted material becomes property of the Daiy Nebraskan and cannot be returned. Anonymous submissions wi not be published. Those who submit letters must identify themselves by name, yeer in school, major and/or group affiliation, If any. Submit material to: Daily Nebraskan, 20 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St Lftcoln, NE 68588-0448. E mafc lettersOuninfo.iri.edu. Editorial Policy Unsigned editorials are the opinions of the Fan 2000 Daily Nebraskan. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Nebraska-Uncdn, 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 pubisher of the Daily Nebraskan; poi cy is set by the Daly Nebraskan EdHorial Board. The UNL Publications Board, estabKshed by the regents, supervises the production of the paper. According to polcy set by the regents, response MiSTeft ROGERS Ahm Mis U£iGHeoR4ooD PiAyeRs AwswKTweSueJiow. WHAT WlU- you po NoW TUfiJ joU'RE RETIRED FfW T&£VIS/ofy? We AlfiEP /l bjAfifruP BEFORE PWfNG-THf &L08RT- STARS. ToVKI IS -tyE!R URIMCkJ pfty. , 'uS’AE 50lN&1t) CHAu£M6e N£6RA5kA To A SASK£T8AZJ OAM6! 0*1 NealObermeyer/DN Let students decide ASUN better think long and hard about the grading changes they propose. There is already sentiment around campus that ASUN doesn't represent the students. Whether or not the proposed grading scale is a good idea, I doubt that the majority of students are for it. Think about the number of scholarships that will be thrown into uncertainty. That may not scare ASUN, but it may be the difference between being able to afford college and not for some sttidents. Why is it that I am never asked by my ASUN representatives how 1 feel on Letters to the editor any issue? Personally, I feel like I got duped into voting for Kourtney Mueller, and now I deeply regret it I am starting to think that the online vot ing is a great idea. However, not for electing ASUN reps, let’s use it to get rid of ASUN “non-representation.” I propose turning ASUN into a committee that brings issues to the table and then lets the students decide. Chris Hartley computer engineering sophomore God bless America's system Well, we still don’t have a president-elect. The country continues to wait for Florida to Finish all its recounts, which branch off and inspire yet more recounts, day after day, while both parties bicker about who has the right to recount, threatening to recount in new and original ways, in Jake Glazeski new anu original counties, continuing on and on. The only hope that we citi zens have for any sort of closure lies in the inescapable need to have a president next year - someone will be president, it will all be finished eventually. Or so one would hope. The relevant issue revealed in the whole pro ceedings, though, is not the inadequacy or antiqui ty of polling procedures in Florida or any other state. These procedures would be just as inade quate, outdated, unjust, whatever, regardless of the election year - what brings our attention to bear in this particular case is the closeness of the presiden tial election. me procedures ior voting in other states may need just as much revision as Florida’s - who knows, maybe we Nebraskans really voted for Nader but by accident voted for Bush. ju way vyas uic vote so close? Political scien tists and journalists have already provid ed an answer to this question: Neither can didate inspired the American people, the American people’s pockets and stom achs are full, and we are relatively at peace. There were no issues to moti vate the voters to side one way or the other, and the result is a dime-toss on the national level. Gore/Bush, heads/tails. There is another issue, though, which is generally ignored, which may have had just as much an effect on the presidential election as any of the above factors, and it is voter apathy. Generally, the term “voter apathy” is used to describe the phenomenon where people who are eligible to vote simply don't go out and vote, for whatever reason. There is another level of apathy, though, which can be seen in active voters and nonvoters. This more subde voter apathy inclines the individual to fail to be thoroughly or properly informed. They don't care. The fact that they are motivat ed enough to vote is enough to overcome the guilt they would have if they did not vote, but not enough to compel them to be thoroughly informed about the issues or their candidate's positions on the issues, their candidate’s qualifications, what have you. They are convinced by the latest head lines, the latest commercials, the latest breaking storv about the driving record of one of the candi dates. These voters don’t care so much about the issues; they don’t even really understand the issues. They don’t need to be; they don’t feel the need to be. So they vote more or less arbitrarily and they tend to gravitate to candidates who don’t offend - which is why Gore and Bush resembled each other to such a degree in their centrism and why the outcome in the election is pretty much a toss-up in states that don’t have strong, traditional party affiliations. The result of this apathy is an election of farcical proportions, where people don’t vote, or do vote but don’t care. Government officials pass down control of the state like a bestowed crown, and they do so with our consent and validation. How can this be changed? The media suggests, more often than not, that we need a candidate that captures the dreams of the American people. But what we need is just the opposite - we need a candidate who embodies our nightmares. If either Gore or Bush took a stronger party stance, those who would oppose the traditional stands of the Democrat or Republican parties would come out in droves to stop tneir opponents - much more than they did this elec tion, anyway, where it seems people were voting on a few billion dol lars of surplus and little more. And, in coming out in larger num bers to oppose a given candidate, the electorate would become invigorated - they would become more self informed and they would more likely work to spread their opinion. Thus, voter apathy would be pushed back. Ultimately, cen trism is the death of democracy. People need to take posi tions and reason those positions, and Jake Gillespie/DN meY neea 10 seceK out and vote for those individuals who best exemplify their positions, instead of voting for candidates who seem to compete to out-do each other in a contest that reminds me of a song ... “Anythingyou can do, I can do better This explains, too, why the existing candidates and parties aren’t too inclined to appeal to apathet ic voters of the stay-at-home variety. They don’t want the apathetic vote because they can get elect ed without it They don’t want to combat the apathy of the voters who vote for them either, because they real ize, appropriately, that inspiring these voters to actually care about issues will lead ultimately to the desertion of their white-bread parties. So it is, the story of two fat cats. We face our selves with the problem of voter apathy without embarking on reforms that would actually inspire the voter - it’s politics of capitalism, built for the lowest common denominator. God bless America. „ ■/ Answers found within steak paper l sit now in a room that is freezing cold. My jacket is draped over my shoul ders to stop the shivering. It wasn’t this bad last night. I need to get the Dane Stickney neater nxea. it s only a few steps down the hall. Steps I just made too late because no one is there. Trying to time the connection between two people is hard. So I'll end up freezing tonight, my feet will have jagged pieces of frozen water hanging from them. Dripping interrupted by the slowing down of molecules. When they eventually get in after they heat the outside of the door, they'll find my rigid body on the bed, plastered to the sheets. As a space heater will begin to thaw me out, they'll look over at my comput et The black table holding it up will still be covered in a thick layer of dust like the ridge of fat on a piece of top sirloin sliced from a frozen beast Its hazy cov ering hides the color underneath. They’ll run their finger along its surface, leaving a trail where the dust used to be. Next they’ll see all of the paperwork lined on my desk. Form after form clearing me to study in a land I have no idea about Course work, passports, let ters of recommendation; they'll all con tinue to rot on a hardwood tabletop. The people will try to pry me off the bed, like the sirloin steak from the white paper that’s usually soaked in blood. They’ll move _ their eyes up to the books on my shelf. The ones that have never been opened. They’ll see just how much I actually taught myself about the history of mass media-nothing. They'll see how many soliloquies I’ve memorized for my Shakespeare test-none. They’ll see how many good poems fill my notebook - none. Eventually, they’ll look down to see a rug with tiny pieces of white on it. They won’t know what the lit tle specks are, and I never did either. They just grow there until I vacuum, which is never. One thing they may see, if they dig deep enough, is a pile of gray papers. Inside there are Arts pages, usually on page 8 or 10. Hopefully it was a good art day, a day I gave a good effort to fill the page with interesting art and well-edit ed stories. On page 4, my face might appear - if it’s Wednesday. Underneath it will be a jumble of words trying to say something but instead leaving its read ers trying to understand. They won’t understand why I didn’t take more time to read those books, clean the room or take the time to get the heater fixed (the latter always being remembered as my tragic flaw). Surely it wasn’t for those papers, they'll think. But I would have to say that it is all for the papers. This paper. The one you’re looking at right now. I’m not alone, though. There are people who sell their college career to this paper. Coming home with newsprint on my hands and a semi interesting page to look at in the morning isn’t exactly what I wanted to do, I’ll think. And, as 1 11 lay there, trosty arms stuck to my side, I’ll wonder why exact ly I did it Coming home with newsprint on my hands and a semi-interesting page to look at in the morning isn't what I wanted to do, I’ll think. I wanted to get some good poems in my notebook. Great ones even. I wanted to read short stories and write some of my own. Go to a college with creative writing department where I could get an MFA. Then teach others how to do it. Teach them to harness that emotion, mix it in the can of their minds and splatter it on a white sheet of paper like a Jackson Pollock painting. But differ ent Their words would show the action of Pollock's layers of paint And I’d collect my paintings in the shape of poems and stories into a book - hardbound with that crisp paper smell. Students would ask me to sign it I’d read in libraries and bookstores. But instead I spent my time here, putting out gray pages, page 8, where people never look. When you get that far into it, the cheap paper and newsprint smell sharply stale. Kind of like the blood soaked paper that frozen meat sits in. Not really, but that's what I'll think as they try to thaw me out. That and just how I’m going to fill my page the follow ing day.
