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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 20, 2000)
ZM/vNebraskan Since 1901 Editor Sarah Baker Opinion Page Editor Samuel McKewon Managing Editor Bradley Davis Shame on us ACLU to continue fight against 416 in court With its vague language, intolerance for diversity and support for discrimination, it wasn’t hard to imagine Initiative 416 being taken to court. It was just a matter of who would do it first. Saturday morning, the American Civil Liberties Union Nebraska unanimously voted to lead the crusade to end the absurdi ty of Initiative 416. Flat out, in the plainest of language, Initiative 416 is not fair, and it sickens Nebraskans wishing to live in a progressive state where tolerance is encouraged. The initiative, if enacted, will deny gays and lesbians the same constitutional protec tion that heterosexual people have. How can anyone think that this is OK? How did 70 percent ot Flat out in Nebraskans vote for this meas the plain- UTe2u , f * The answer is simple: est of a - pe0pie let ambiguous influ guage, ences, values and tradition Initiative among others, cloud their 416 is not minds. fair, and it Fifty to 60 years ago, most sickens Nebraskans probably would Nebras- have voted for an amendment kanswish- depriving blacks of equal ing to live rights of whites. in a pro- Why? Because it was tradi tion. What other reason could gressive fherebel state where A level-headed person tolerance is woujd not deprive a certain encour- sect of people rights just aged. because of the color of their _skin. In the same way, people are clouded by a tradition of dis criminating against gays and lesbians. In half a century, hopefully less, the ances tors of those who voted for Initiative 416 will hang their heads in disappointment, just as we cringe at the thought of segregation. Regardless of the reasons why 416 passed, it should never take effect in the state, and we commend the ACLU for fighting for the civil rights of all Nebraskans, regardless of any physical, mental or sexual attribute. The use of the amendment’s broad lan guage, sirmiar to mat oi me aooraon amena ment that was shot down by the Supreme Court last spring, will be the death of 416. The term “domestic partnership” has been already used in-state statute relating to a father and son owning a farm together. It’s that type of ambiguity that cannot be tolerat ed by a court. Call us idealists, but we are confident jus tice will prevail in court, where judges won’t be clouded by tradition. But then again, we thought Nebraskans were smart, compassionate and supportive of justice and equality. They proved us wrong. We truly hope that the courts will produce a result based on equality and tolerance. At any rate, the ACLU is showing that it is an organization that will stand up for all Nebraskans. We should all support that. Editorial Board Sarah Baker, Bradley Davis, Josh Funk, Matthew Hansen, Samuel McKewon, Dane Stickney, Kimberly Sweet Letters Policy Hie My Nebraskan welcomes brlefe, letters to the editor and guest columns, but does net guar aneethetpublcation. Hie Daly Nebraskan retains Ihe righttoedit or reject any material submitted. Submitted materiel becomes property of Ihe Daly Nebraskan and cannot be returned. AnonymouB submissions wi not be pUbfehed. Those who submit lettera must identify themsehres by name, year in school, major and/or group affiaUon, If any. Submit material to: Daly Nebraskan, 20 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St Lincoln, NE 68588-0446. E ma»: totteraOunlnfo.unl.edu. Editorial Policy Unsigned edMortoto are the opinions of the Fall 2000 Daily Nebraskan. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Nebraska-Uncoin, Its employees, its student body or the University of Nebraska Board of Ftegants. A column to solely the opinion of its adhor, a cartoon is solely ihe opinion of Its attot Hie Board of Regents acts as pubisher of ihe Daily Nebraskan; pol cy to set by the Daly Nebraskan Edtortol Board. Hie UNL Pitoicattons Board, estabished by the regents, supervisee the production of the paper. According to poicy set by the regents, reaponal' btoty for the edtortol oontent of the newspaper fee aotoly in thehands of Its employeee. __ \$M\IEIS„, - PIP SOU C£X > ilAMGif3 I TOO H> SHow Aiy OF GAV) SgMAl, AW £0 f&puoflriow^ / ivef free at thb I NS£L ReSiV<E HAU ASSoClATtOK) Office1. Tf£Y l me a fWertML supply > 0FTH6M AVAlLABif flWTWe (V*\ 0Pf|(£ M>R! t ) / Wsvmuy-^ W conscious Fei&jbs V\ 4 *HPXW£8&J igW \ sfmDiNc- rue Sms—N. 6<w s/wce \S&m&Rty NealObermeyer/DN I Worthwhile Web The new design of the UNL Homepage is a big improvement over the plain old red wrapper. The university is attempting to be informative about the variety of activities happening from day to day on our campus. While some people may have little patience for the few seconds extra the new format requires for loading, perhaps they need to be better educated to the many offerings which are available to them. In their rush to condemn, they are missing out on the true richness a university brings to the com munity. Personally, I find the new page mature and helpful; anticipating it along with my NY Times e headlines and a good start to my day. Robert Crisler has done a fine job and should be com mended. Mo Neal associate professor art & art history Nomorefinger-pointin I was greatly disappointed to read t the head of the Services tor Students with Disabilities office seems to want to place some blame on the volun teers for the disappointment of those students her department is supposed to be assisting. As a volunteer, I found that the staff was far less reliable in getting the needed materials ready for me to pick up than I was in getting the task com pleted and returned before the school term began. I had a span of about five days to read five chapters of a text onto audio tape, but got it done so as not to hinder the student’s ability to keep up in his course. I urged die department to contact me if I could be of further assistance and did not hear another word from them. If Ms. Thompson and her staff won’t take advantage of such offers, why will they place any blame on the volunteers? People need to stop pointing fingers. It is Ms. Thompson’s responsibility to operate things smoothly, and for the sake of those students that depend on the department’s services, I hope things get resolved immediately. Alisha Hardee pre-radiology senior A conversation with God "When a certain shame less fellow mockingly asked a pious old man what God had done before the creation of the world, the latter aptly countered that he had been building hell for the curious - Calvin, Institutes Jeremv Setting: The philosophy section of a library near clos ing time. A young scholar sits at a table thumbing through the pages of Cosmopolitan. Scene 1: God enters stage left in a flash of blind ing light. GOD: Rejoice my child! I am the Lord thy God. The Day of Judgment nears! Repent, and heaven shall be thine. JAY: Yeah. You know, I’m really not into that right now. GOD: What impertinence! Blasphemy! I am thy Lord and Savior. I have come to absolve thee of thy sins; one must only profess thy faith and the Rapture shall begin. JAY: I guess, whatever. I really don’t think I believe in you anymore. GOD: But thou art speaking to me! JAY: True. But I could just as well be dreaming, having an acid flashback or suffering from an organic brain disorder. Besides, I don’t think it’s rational to believe in God. GOD: Rational! My pious servant, St. Thomas Acquinas, once said “If the only way open to us for the knowledge of God was solely that of reason, the human race would remain in the blackest shadows of ignorance." JAY: Yes, but Locke believed in you too, and he said, “I find that every sect, as far as reason will help them, make use of it gladly, and where it fails them, they cry out, ‘It is a matter of faith, and above rea son.”’ And wasn’t it Hume who said “A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence”? GOD: Hume! That dam atheist! Look what his little triumph got him: a special place in Hell. JAY: You sound different GOD: What do you mean? JAY: Well, you were talking all “Thee” and “Thou” and shit; now you sound like a normal guy. GOD: Oh, right. That's mostly just to impress people; I get tired of being so formal all the time. JAY: Anyway, the library's closing* and I really should be going. GOD: Wait! There is still time to save your soul. All you have to do is believe. Have I not always been there for you? Remember that time in seventh grade when you wanted to ask Michelle Wolford to your first middle-school dance? You were so nerv ous! But you prayed that she’d say “yes,” and I deliv ered. JAY: Yeah, that was pretty cool. If all life were like seventh grade.... But hey, where the hell were you a few months later when she ditched me to go to Mari: Anderson's birthday party? I was crushed! And ever since, I stopped praying, pretty much the same number of good and bad things have hap pened. I think it’s really all based on chance. GOD: My son, sincere prayer is a sign of love and obedience. JAY: So it's really just to pump up your ego? That sounds silly. I think it was Kant who said that prayer “is nothing more than a wish directed to a Being who needs no such information regarding the inner disposition of the wisher; therefore noth ing is accomplished by it” GOD: Yes, but that good philosopher argued convincingly that my existence was necessary for the existence of morality. JAY: Only for an almost ridiculously rigid morality which nobody ever follows. Besides, you have to admit that there's plenty of evil-acting the ists and plenty of good-natured disbelievers. GOD: Perhaps. JAY: And his belief that the existence of morali ty was an inarguable feet was simply wishful think ing built upon metaphysical clap-trap. Or, as Nietzsche might have said, “There are no moral phenomena at all, only moral interpretations of phenomena.” GOD: You misunderstand Kant; he believed that the existence of morality was a necessary pre requisite to the existence of freedom. Besides, if you don't believe in God or immortality, what's the purpose of life? JAY: I really aon t Know, i minx Deiore we ury iu figure out what the meaning of life is, we should find out whether there is a meaning to life. GOD: That's nothing more than nihilist rheto ric. You’re going to end up like your hero Nietzsche, insane and dead. JAY: I’m really a fan of Sartre myself, but that's beside the point Kant’s belief in morality as neces sary for freedom is a contradiction; for if eternal, universal morality exists, man is reduced to a mere automaton, always following the dictates of some thing he has no control over. GOD: The same is true of your materialism, except it's the dictates of your much vaunted “laws of science.” As Kierkegaard said, “The fatalist is in despair - he has lost God, and therefore himself as well; for if he has no God, neither has he a self.” JAY: I’m not sure what he means by “self." But I do know that if freedom really does exist, it means that I am free to define myself as I wish and decide upon my own reasons for being. If, that is, I decide I even need a reason for being. GOD: I can see that there is no hope for you. With over 95 percent of your fellows believing in me, you’re sure going to be lonely in Hell. JAY: I don't think so. As Sartre said, “Hell is other people.” God departs stage right in another flash of light. The young scholar closes his Cosmopolitan and picks up the newest issue of Harper’s Bazaar. rhe song that simply derails you | “Bartender, Line'em up. IWo tequila shots, right here,” I slap my open palm on the ban nanenuer looks at me, five o-clock shadow Yasmin framing his McEwOTI bewildered face. He knows my sister - she introduced me to him about 10 minutes ago - already I’ve forgotten his name. It could be Matt I look for her now, but can’t seem to find her. In the last hour, she has amazed me by showing me what she has been doing all of this time instead of going to her classes. At only 23, she is the monarch of all social butterflies and seems to know everyone every wuere. _ At one point, one of my friends says, “I just want a cup of coffee.* I laugh cynically, “HA! You're funny* But my sister says, “wait,* and flies off. She returns mug of coffee in hand com plete with cream and sugar. Someone calls her name from the back of the bar, she flies off. This can’t be happening. Bartender lines up my shots, “You've been sipping your Amaretto Sour for the last half an hour, now you want these? What's up?* I point to the jukebox, “Someone freakin’ went and played this song, _i_n ■mmhmmhbhh UKUd miy. —— And I am as perplexed only seconds as the dead ago, I had been fly that aot sipping my drink W ir}ai 9UL and talking StUCK On the leisurely with my tane friend about how ^ it is vital for every hanging single person to from the have just one full course meal they Ceiling. Ive can cook well, only heard This is so that *«. when you finally inis 5°n9 have your first once before date over for din- and (f was ner, you can cook this and show ’em many you’ve got style. months Of course, if things don't work ago. out then in the _ end, they never find out the truth. You can't cook. And if pigs ever do fly and things go further, you can both go out to eat every weekend while you secretly take your cooking class at night, and at the end of the course, suddenly you can say, “Let me cook you another one of my great meals.” My friend wholeheartedly agrees with me on this one, only as we begin to compare the foods we can cook, I am once again saddened to find that in comparison to my measly three main course meals, he's got, like, 10. And as I am pondering why I never learned to cook in the first place, it happens. One single note from an electric guiiai a in go uui uvci uic iiuiou, vuio through massive clouds of smoke and torpedoes straight to my heart. That one note was like a switchblade snap ping open. It was now going to pick at the edges of my barely scabbed over heart Let the carving begin. And I am as perplexed as the dead fly that got stuck on the tape hanging from the ceiling. I've only heard this song once before, and it was many months ago. And here is the really sick part of it all. When I heard it I hated it. The only reason it matters is because die person who played it for me was someone I was falling in love with. Someone I fell in love with hard. Hence, two tequila’s. “Downtown Train,” by Tom Waits car ries my dead heart with it as it winds around the bar and wraps me up in memories that can only suck. I commence to curse Tom Waits’ voice the entire time he sings. And when the song is over, I know that tomorrow I will break down and head for Best Buy to get this CD, and I will now love this song more than any thing. “Go to Hell Tom Waits," I yelL My friend looks at me. “You don’t really care for this song do you?” ■ “I freakin’ love it. Bartender, line ’em up.” write back. Ietters@dailyneb.com