/>«/)Nebraskan Since 1901 Editor Sarah Baker Opinion Page Editor. Samuel McKewon Managing Editor Bradley Davis Controversy rising Appointment of conservative Ashcroft a concern for liberals The battle cry of compassionate conser vatism wasn’t on the mind of President-elect George W. Bush when he made his most contro versial appointment of the cabinet. His selection of former Missouri senator John Ashcroft for attorney general was not met well by many liberal advocacy groups, as Ashcroft has shown in his long public service career the will ingness to adopt a strongly conservative agenda often linked with the religious right groups of America. * The nomination is the first sign of a conserva tive, Christian lobby trying hard to stake its claim in the Bush administration and keep its claim there for four years. Ashcroft has a checkered past, if you’re a liber al. If you have more conservative leanings, he has a stolid record of values and morality. Either way, we aren’t sure it is a positive nomination for Bush to make, as the arbiter of law in this land should not be so one-sided when it comes to major crim inal issues. A past record shows that his personal beliefs have directly affected his views on crime. Possibly the clearest cases come when he worked for Missouri, both as governor and as a senator. These cases were well outlined in the Jan. 7 Kansas City Star Sunday package. They point to Ashcroft’s certainty in his belief that issues such as hate crimes and racial discrimination aren’t as major as most American leaders say they are. In 1988, it was Ashcroft, as governor, who was the only member of a 40-person panel, which included former presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, that refused to sign a report finding America was moving backward in achieving equal opportunity for Blacks, Hispanics and American Indians. Also as governor, it was Ashcroft who signed into law a Missouri hate crime bill in 1988 that gave further penalty to crimes of vandalism and assault He would not sign any special stipula tions regarding gays. As a senator, Ashcroft co-sponsored the Civil Rights Act of1997, which would outlaw all kinds of affirmative action. In 1998, he spoke at length in ' th^Southern Partisan Quarterly Review of pro tecting the heritage of prominent Southern rebels of the Civil War such as Lee and Stonewall Jackson. The Southern Partisan Quarterly Review is considered a neo-confederate rag that has praised the Ku Klux Klan and writes extensively of how races have dissipated the gene pool, according to the Kansas City Star. This is iust what’s out there about Ashcroft now. Who knows what will surface with the sen ate confirmation hearings. Conservatives snap back that Ashcroft, as attor ney general, can’t do anything but enforce the law the Supreme Court hands down. As Janet Reno’s somewhat imperfect stint proved, however, there’s more to the job than holding the line. Can anyone, without any doubt, say that Ashcroft’s extreme right views won’t come into play? Of course, it seems clear that this nomination came with some pressure attached, as Ashcroft is held up as a paragon of the conservative, Christian right Bush, who won a needed primary in South Carolina over Sen. John McCain, largely through the power of these voters, cannot aban don them without some risk. For now, he seems willing to play ball with a few of their demands. And yet, if this is a sign of things to come, it plays directly against Bush’s stated goals to usher in a new cooperation between Democrats and Republicans. In this harsh era of partisan poli tics, Ashcroft’s nomination will polarize the belt way once again. We oppose Ashcroft’s ascendancy to the attor ney general. It is no way, in Bush’s words, to start the healing. Editorial Board Sarah Baker, Bradley Davis, Josh Funk, Matthew Hansen, Samuel McKewon, Dane Stickney, Kimberly Sweet Letters Policy The Daiy Nebraskan welcomes briefs, letters to the editor and guest columns, but does not guar antae their pubication. The Dally 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 wH not be published. Those who submit letters must identify themselves by name, year in school, major anchor group affiliation, if any. Submit material to: Drtfy Nebraskan, 20 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St. Lincoln, NE 68588-0448. E maH: lsttereOunlinfb.unl.edu. 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-Ljncoln, its employees, its student body or the University of Nebraska Board of Regents. A column is solety the opinion of its author, a cartoon is solely the opinion of its artist The Board of Regents acts as publisher of the Daily Nebraskan; poli cy is set by the Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board. The UNL Publtcatons Board, established by the regents, supervises the production of the paper. According to policy set by the regents, responsi bility for the editorial content of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of its employees. 1/dw« lou mn Hgjf th£ anmRstvf sm M?n£Y on its aie«&Y etas■. c**3!WS*et. (S£StfS8?i®*5^ t» not P* ASS/^gwrs THAT iS JPJf sw m *Z2r z**??««* WAS ahym*r mm COWfUTeR. 7ANT T*SWwYai,H£ouT5, i fPPW*11 1 ' Sto# (OOtZ'TUkJ to f&T FfroMAU ~ - - vt'OTamwwi*w BmimiMmwxs. IXS wS’ilr w«w»w*fawM«ti(wjwi jo rn*4 iouR NA^otrn airnootj, m m jN ^ t&mjcnou of tu ma******** ffim m ported!! NealObenneyer/DN Hunting the stealthy beast I tell you what, this break has been fan-to-the-tastic. Not only did I get to “cook" with my best friend Deena, I got to “chill" with tier as weu. ixiuse mai s wnai I do baby, I cook and then I chill- Karon I started out the vaca- irairen shun! in Kimball. Where? ^ Exactly. We talked about misused cliches, what cliches mean, how to master cliches and, finally, how to make your own cliches so they become popular. My favorite thus far is “don’t grip the dinosaur by the buttocks.” Since I have the power to invent cliches arbitrarily, I too have no idea what this means. Aside from contemplating the power of the cliche, I saw how people only come home for the holidays to see how much weight others have gained (thank god the cocaine kept mine off) and who has a baby. I can't believe the people I spent my life with are now breeding. The only thing I breed is mold in my room because there is still food in there from the early ’90s. The mold in no way resembles a baby, and it never wakes me up crying. In fact, it’s the other way around, as the mold is so poisonous I wake up crying. When I went to the bar where my old preschool friends were hanging out 20 years later, I kept try ing to tell them about my new hobby - hunting the Purple Buffalo - while they were trying to see if I was any fatter. I kept trying to explain “teasing” and “trapping” the elusive beast, and*they kept telling me about Suzy and little Johnny’s pee stories. It was painfully obvious everyone there had traveled different lines in this here uni- L vvtou. iviui w vv aa iu South Dakota, where the Purple Buffalo lurks and drinks champagne, and everyone else's was to the Heaven’s Gate cult house to eat the ethereal applesauce of "life.” When I visit Kimball, there are two or three “hard” lessons I learn every time I go. It’s not really a vacation because I still get nagged by the parental units for spilling beverages on the new carpet and yelled at for rolling my eyes at my mother, but it is a break from the Purple Buffalo and all of his buffalo shenanigans. But that’s neither here nor there. Let's get back to the "hard” lessons. Small towns, you must love r them. If you don't, they will gossip about you. "Look at that Headier; she’s fat now.” “But she has a PHD in molecular biology.” “But she’s fat.” The most astute lesson (ha!), is that nothing much changes, but my parent’s home won't ever have the same feel again. Since my parents still live in the same town I spent my whole life abhorring, I am constantly searching to place old memories with old faces, and it just don’t matter no more. Hometown is no longer home. It’s nice to be home now in Lincoln and back to the normal life. Normal means having not one, but two fine ladies puke in and on your father’s car and then, as you’re getting your car washed in the auto matic dealy-mo-bobber, the doors don’t open so your car is trapped in the metal cage. After you gig gle for five minutes, the gods decide to grant mercy, and they open the doors to vour sweet freedom. But no, this freedom only leads to more heartache. As you go to your apartment, you notice that your dead car has been towed from the front of your home. You spend your Christmas money get ting it from the impound lot and, as no one grants mercy upon you, you realize that this is your life and this is what you must deal with. You smile and notice that all the cops have lost weight because they’ve been extremely busy tick eting cars and not sitting at the donut shop (those cop/donut cliches never become trite), and as they take advantage of vacationing college students who have no place to park their cars except, well, on the street where they belong, nobody cares because it’s business as usual, and it’s the person’s responsibility to take care of thoir <.v0n when they're not :eive the warnings, ia’s even worse off le because her car Yt work either and Home sweet home. / Jerry Morgan/DN Becoming a brother for others The other day, some homeless guy was pestering me for change. When I told him I had none, he immereu a nou- — day greeting in a very sarcastic tone. It really hit me that I needed to make a change in my life and in how I act. The old me would have just walked away and said nothing. But I decided to start the new year off right by turning over a new leaf in my per sonal life. So, I went up to him and said, “Buddy, I didn’t get a Play Station 2 this Christmas ’cause it was sold out every where, so don’t bitch to me about crappy holidays!” Ohhhh, it felt good. This newfound confidence has changed my attitude about many things. For instance, I realized I have to quit laughing out loud every time I hear someone refer to the man as “President George W. Bush.” I know, I know, everything is gonna be fine. Let’s all just keep telling our selves that. We had Reagan, he was the guy we all wanted to be. No matter what, he never got in any trouble. Clinton was like our homy uncle - he never got the benefit of the doubt, and he never should have, but he always got out of trouble. W. is who we are. How’d he get inrougn college; a steady diet of rum Clinton \VdS and coke (not the ... mixed drink). “KG OUT" How’d he get rich? homy Wide Who the hell knows, and who never cares? What’s he got the going to do in a benefit of more hostile world , \ / atmosphere with *he UOUut, an economy slow- and he ing down fast and violent crime on the rise? Start pray- should tag Ms ass off! ftflVC, but ent from us. We’re he always all coasting got OUt Of through college, trnuuip - we’re all rich (even , the poorest Americans are rich by third-world standards), and we’re all uncertain about the future. Anytime someone stumbles into good fortune through family connec tions and luck, I propose we term it as “pulling a W.” Say the guy on “Millionaire” gets the million-dollar question right because his dad was somehow associated with the correct answer. We shall now say he “pulled a W.” Got it? Good. And when someone gets screwed due to technicalities and questionable circumstances, we will term it as “get ting Gored.” Remember when Colorado got a fifth down and it cost Missouri the game? They “got Gored.” Speaking of college football, now that the season is over, I think I need to reevaluate my role as a Cornhusker fan. Now I ain’t saying the Alamo Bowl wasn't a grand affair, but troubled times are on the way. I can feel it com ing on like a bad mushroom trip. The old me would have encour aged everyone not to call for Solich’s head just yet. I would remind them that for a good part of his time here, Saint Osborne was not worshipped. People questioned his play-calling ability (“Up the middle again!” people would yell at the TV.) and doubted that we would ever win “the big game.” But it’s the year 2001, and I’m pay ing good money for that football pro gram. If we aren’t winning the national championship every year, something is wrong. In the meantime, the new me wants the football staff kicked out of their posh offices as punishment for not bringing home a respectable bowl trophy. Put the bastards in offices like the rest of the faculty have and put the department with the highest reevalua tion rankings in the football offices for the semester. As for the basketball team - oh, who really gives a damn? ' The new me is looking forward to a semester of academic stimulation here at the university. I’m not just going to go through the rest of the school year on auto-pilot. I’m going to take off my headphones in class, put down my Southern Comfort and Citra and actually pay attention. In 2001, I’m not going to use my syllabus as rolling papers. I’m going to read it and attend all relevant classes and tests. OK, none of this is probably going to happen, but hopefully I'll “pull a W.”