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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 13, 2001)
Opinion Page 4 Daily Nebraskan Tuesday, February 13,2001 ZM/yNebraskan Since 1901 Editor Sarah Baker Opinion Page Editor Jake Glazeski Managing Editor Bradley Davis Pretty pictures Transient poster show hardly proper Rotunda use What, exactly, the Nebraska Union’s Rotunda Gallery is for continues to boggle us. We, as well as a presumably large portion of tbe rest of the campus, believed it was for the display of art. We expected to see a constant stream of unknown artistic talent flowing through the space, accompanied by a constant stream of interested - and sometimes previously unaware - students and faculty taking a gander at some of the local talent We remember writing stories and editorials about the gallery and its purpose, and we remember Unions Director Daryl Swanson saying the union was a “cultural wasteland” without it The only thing we can discern is that our definition of “art” must be different than every one else’s - especially those in charge of filling the space. The University Program Council must define art as a few cheap posters tacked hap hazardly to the wall, the rest for sale. Somehow posters of Limp Bizkit and the Godfather on sale for $15 bucks each don’t trip our aesthetic trigger. The Nebraska Union must define art as empty walls with _tables and chairs set about for students to study, or as a dark, locked space with no art displayed whatsoever. To its credit, die Nebraska Union has sched uled art shows in the space a few times during this year. But this still isn’t what we’re looking The University Program Council must define art as a few cheap posters tacked haphazardly to the wall, the rest for sale. ior. In the face of what the Rotunda Gallery often contains -which is nothing artistic - we're heartened by the opening of the Eisentrager/Howard Gallery in Richards Hall. Its first show, “Seven Nebraskans,” opened last week to a crowd of about 300, Art and Art History Department Chairman Joseph Ruffo told the Daily Nebraskan. The gallery, housed in Richards Hall, the newly renovated home of the university’s art department, is located near Memorial Stadium on the outer edge of campus. It's heartening to see such a large turnout to the opening show at the Richards Hall gallery, and it proves that there is an audience for art driven shows on the UNL campus. It’s sad that more students weren’t there, and it’s sad that most students probably aren’t even aware of the gallery space, and therefore, the talent residing there. But what’s most unfortunate is that we have a perfectly located, wonderfully designed gallery space right in the midst of one of the most well-traveled buildings on campus that’s hardly ever used to it’s full potential. With our shiny, new union all ready to be a gathering place for students, why is this space constantly wasted? And with all that shiny new space, why can’t we find another place for the poster sale? We don’t know, and we certainly don’t understand. Our definition of art, you see, is much differ ent. And we’re glad that, at least for now, we have it on campus, even if it’s not in the union. The Eisentrager/Howard Gallery is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. It’s out of the way. But at least it’s there. Editorial Board Sarah Baker, Jeff Bloom, Bradley Davis, Jake Glazeski, Matthew Hansen, Samuel McKewon, Kimberly Sweet Letters Policy The Daly Nebraskan welcomes brief letters to the edtoor and guest columns, but does not guaran tee ttMir puMcaDon. The Daly Nebraskan retains the right to edit or reject any material submitted. Submitted material becomes property of the Only Nebraskan and cannot be retimed. AnonymouB aubrntoetons wB not be pubfahed. Those who aubrrtt Mars must identify themselves by name, yaarinschooi, major anchor group afntabon, if any Stixni material to: Daly Nebraskan, 20 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St Lhooln, NE 68588-0448 r maft tottersOctolynob com Edttorial Policy Unai|piededtorMs are the opinions of the Spring 2001 Daly Nebraskan. They do not neceesarty reflect the views of the University of Nebraska-Uncoin, its employees, its student body or the IMverafty of Nebraska Board of Regents. A column to solely the option of Its author; a cartoon is solely the opinion of its artiet The Board of Regents acts as publaher of the Daly Nebraskan; pol ey to set by the Daly Nebraskan Edtorial Board. The UNL Pubtcations Board, established by the regents, supervises the production of the paper. Aocordng to policy set by the regents, reeponsi b»y for the edtortal content of the newspaper lee solely in the hands of its employees. * J* / tt£LLO,S M I^T£PHmii(£LU)R, HMlXe/ ?ewlAK. Mow 1rnr my CAmDAOt fbfi.aw&tcp. m 6&1 opficiau-y nmmcep, x m*r am OfMl **> Apflrr that x onuy CALLS? Off SCHOOL SoTWT 'Tou'p imiK Xflt cool. AM? uaitt MB As cmtceUoK. !*&?-) some fRofemes feet THAT 7me MISS& MS Htm HURT TH&R CLA5SBS, So /W TUB SPlRiTof fAHWeSS AH) AtAVBmic&mt&CB, M? CLASS 1KIS lhJBBK otmc l\ p/vi 1WPSPAY! A Nlc£ 6R£AK!) NealObermeyer/uN Not God, but pretty dose I have done it I have readied utopia A little background: When I came to this university five years ago, I had high-falutin’ dreams of knowing everything. I was going to be a math, music turn cumpuiei suciitc nmjui, and I was going to get minors in English, physics and philos ophy, while at the same time pursuing interests in anthro Jake Glazeski pology and history, with maybe a tad bit of journalism for good measure. Yeah. Well, I don’t need to walk you through the sequence of decisions between then and now; it will suffice to say that I’m just a music major now. My dreams of knowing everything - to use a word current ly in fashion - have been quashed by heavy reality. I have pretty much resigned myself to die darkness of specialization - to knowing nothing but music; fur ther, to knowing nothing but oboe. I used to hate such people. I was in Academic Decathlon in high school! We made fun of specialized professions as a matter of course! We were devoted to the pursuit of knowledge, whatever that means. But now I have rediscovered the dreams of my youth. I can't reveal the name of the Web site, but it has inspired the further pursuit of my dream to know all things. You connect to this Web site, and you become a god. A minor, local deity. The Web site is basically an interconnected ency clopedia - where you write the entries. Each subject is connected to another through the magic of (I know this from my comp sci days) pointers, so that, while a reading a given subject, you can connect to any of / dozens of other related subjects (as well as dozens of / other non-related subjects). The result is a tangled / network of free-association strings. Through this tangle, you can learn about all sorts of things you never knew about before - never even thought to look into. Obscure authors, new takes on well-known ones. History, science, math, \ it’s all there. There’s no "copy-date horizon” - no \ point where the information isn’t up-to-date because \ everything can be updated immediately. ^ Every member is morally compelled to do their best to write well on a given subject A system of voting supports thismoral requirement because if your work is down-voted too often, you will lose certain privi leges in the system. So, in composing a new entry, one must do a good amount of research and revision. An example: I have just finished reading a book by a British author, named Alan Hollinghurst, “The Swimming-Pool library.” A search on die site reveals that an entry already exists - it’s the attributed transcrip tion of a press release. But no entry exists for Alan Hollinghurst So I entry for ol’ Alan can exist without a good biography, of course. A Google search (Did I mention, Google is almost absolutely necessary to writing good entries?) reveals that Alan Hollinghurst attendee college in Oxford: Magdalen College. While at Magdalen, Alan was part of a society of writers called die Florio Society. The Florio Society is named after John Florio, a late-16th - early-17th century scholar whose main works included “Queen Anna's Worlde ofWords," an Italian-English dictionary, and a translation of Montaigne’s “Essais” into English (an important fact, actually, because this translation helped expose Shakespeare and Francis Bacon to Montaigne’s Montaigne? Oh, that's Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, 1533-1592, a French near-aristocrat (his grandfather bought his way into the aristocracy, so he was nouveau riche, you know - in European terms anyway). His life wasn't particularly fascinat ing, but he did invent the essay as a literary form, and \ he also introduced a way of thinking about moral \ truth that would ultimately find its fullest expression t in the Enlightenment None of this is in the encyclopedic network. I have made it my duty to put it all on there. Bit by bit, this chain of associations will find its way into the tangled net A Because that’s the thing - you feel like you have to add what isn't already there. Whether it's in your cur rent, every-day life, or if ids not there at all, you have to add it. You have to make the network complete, in clear and accessible language. It's about preserving everything- quite simply, everything that is. I don’t know everything, but this is a good start When you connect in and study this four-dimen sional library, where every book is the source of a new library, your mind stretches and presses in directions you’re not accustomed to. The world around you loses coherence. The colors fade like old cotton shirts. I look at die people around me just now, and I’m rather unimpressed by their limited nature, the fact that they don’t bleed outside of the lines, the fact that I cant peer into them without being stopped. And around this library, hovering like bees around a hive, fellow networkers hover in and press their knowledge into the digital medium. A community spins around this tangle. How odd. But within this mess, I've found what was once my high-school dream. I thought it wasn't possible to know everything; I thought that ultimately, my dream of knowing everything would be cast by the wayside as ultimately impossible. And yeah, it probably still is. But... It fills me with optimism to know that I don’t have to let my specialization overwhelm me. I can now find a little of the art I’ve always dreamed life could be. Jake Gillespie/DN Rose petals and sweet heart candy Since Valen tine’s Day is tom orrow, I would like to announce that I’m in love. His name is Harvey Perlman OUU 11C 3 U1C I interim chancel- Tony lor of our univer- BOCK sity. I came to this realization at 5:50 last Friday morning. That was when I checked the University Web site and saw that the chancellor’s office had canceled school. The act restored my faith in the university and was so historic it required excessive celebration all weekend. I only wish that they’d canceled it Thursday night I suspect that the decision to cancel school had been made well before the official announcement, but if they had said school was canceled Thursday night, the drinking would have been off the charts. CSOs would've been over powered by rowdy, drunken mobs of students, and sacred campus monu ments would’ve been reduced to urine receptacles. rnor 10 me snow aay, it naa oeen a rough week here at UNL Students were in an uproar over the new grading scale, and they had every right to be. I've seen more common sense and intelligence from "Acid Man” (the crazy, homeless guy who lives in the union) than from die Academic Senate, which approved the change. I feel for the young students here, I really do, but thankfully I’m graduating in May, and the changes will have no effect on me. The people that made the decision to change to a plus-minus sys tem think it will help the reputation of die university. They also say it will moti vate students to work harder. Frankly, I think that’s a load of crap. No student will work harder because of the change. The guy who proposed the change, English professor James Ford, had this to say; "I think it’s sad that students will argue against working harder:” (Daily Nebraskan, 2/8/01) Jimbo, has it occurred to you that we're working hard enough as it is? The sad thing is that some students on this campus were under the impression that their thoughts on an issue made one bit of difference. Question: How can you tell when the university doesn’t care what students think? Answer: When they’re making a decision about something. In November, ASUN received 399 e-mails out of 400 against the new system, so they voted against it. Of course, what ASUN did made no difference when the Academic Senate got down to business. For those of you who still think what ASUN does matters, consider this: your real vote lies not with ASUN, but with your tuition payment. As long as you keep paying bills, you vote yes on what ever the administration wants to do, and they give you ASUN to shut you up, so you think you do actually have a voice. The student president does sit on the Board of Regents, but has no vote. Case closed. As if that wasn’t bad enough, then we had to face the reality that the Scarlets as we know them will be no longer. Due to a shortage of funds in the athletic department, all out-of-state tuition waivers were cut. The cheerlead ing squad, and the Scarlets relied on that waiver to bring in the best talent in cheerleading and dance from around the country. Whoever made this decision made a costly error. Thankfully, Perlman saved the day, at least temporarily. Monday he said those currently on the squads could keep getting the waiver as long as they make the squad in the comingyears. But even that move won't be enough to recruit good talent, Harv. If you want to become the chancellor permanently, there is one rule, and only one rule you must heed: Thou shalt not mess with die football team or anything having to do with it So when those luxury boxes fill up with dirty, rich old alumni, who love nothing more than being able to peer at the Scarlets from the privacy of their own booth, you will find yourself tread ing on thin ice, my friend. All it takes is one pissed-off contributor who asks what happened to his Scarlets, and I guarantee that heads will roll The only thing that could possibly save the week miraculously occurred Thursday night into Friday morning. A day off, with no strings attached. Had school not been canceled, we would’ve taken to the streets in protest, had we been able to walk in them. Finally, someone in the administration did what was in the student’s best interests. Harvey, I want to see you drop the interim from your title, so I think you need to launch a campaign called “SOS: Save our Scarlets.” Because at this school you can do anything you want to the students, but messing with the pres entation of football games is serious business.