pT3 4
Daily Ncbrcskan
Tuesday, March 13, 1C24
I Q f-? O
Every year, someone argues that the
Daily Nebraskan, because it is the only
student publication at UNL, should
not endorse a candidate in the AS UN
elections. Thi3 yczr, the people who
hold that view win by default.
There will be no endorsement for
Wednesday's elections, not because of
any outside pressure, but because there
is no candidate deserving of one.
This year's candidates, like so many
before them, have failed to recognize
the limitations of ASUN and have spent
the past several weeks talking about
idealistic goals that they have no chance
of achieving. It sometimes has been
difficult to distinguish the three major
candidates Kevin Goldstein of United
Students, Mark Scudder of Aim and
Mike Geiger of Unite from the joke
parties.
For that reason, there was a strong
temptation to encourage students to
vote for the Don Ho party. Don Ho has
set absurd goals such as covering the
entire city with a dome so that Lincoln
could host a post-season football game.
The sad truth, however, is that their
goals are about as realistic as the ones
set by the "serious" candidates.
Still, many students, including most
of the people on this staff, need to
make the distinction between ASUN
and the candidates running for ASUN
positions. While the candidates often
do a good job of making fools of them
selves, the organization itself should be
taken seriously.
President Matt Wallace and others
involved with ASUN this year have
proven that it can be an effective body.
They have worked for and achieved
realistic goals, like keeping the libraries
open on football Saturdays, developing
student legal services and cutting down
on the amount of litter on campus.
These are the kinds of things ASUN
can and should work for, yet all the
candidates seem to offer us are lofty
plans for keeping tuition down and
helping students work together, with
no real plans on how to achieve those
goals.
Because of the potential ASUN has,
the Daily Nebraskan strongly encourages
students to take an interest in their
government and go to the polls Wednes
day. This newspaper has been presenting
a week-long series examining the issues
and will publish a special election
guide in Wednesday's edition. From
that, we encourage students to pick
the candidate Goldstein, Scudder or
Geiger they think can do the best job
and cast their ballot accordingly.
The Daily Nebraskan also suggests
that in the future, ASUN presidents
candidates set realistic goals and offer,
viable plans for achieving them. ASUN
could be more effective if it solved its
image problem. It h up to the candidates
to work in that direction.
Unsigned editorials represent of
ficial policy of the spring 134 Daily
Nebraskan. llirj are written by this
semester's editor in chief Larry
Sparks.
Other staff members will write edit
orials throughout the semester.
Editorials do not necessarily reflect
the views of the university, its em
ployees, the students or (he NU Board
of Regents.
USA. . w . '
yg Letters
Madan 's logic twisted
As correcting the deluded assertions of Krishna
Madan has become rather habit forming, I feel the
need to respond to the convoluted logic and twisted
conclusions drawn in Friday's column. Madan
attempted to thrn the rapidty of social and techno
logical change into a catalyst for socialist revolution.
His simplistic generalizations rest on a maze of
warped sociological observations.
While he may be correct in stating that the
nuclear family is breaking down and that day-care
centers are freeing women from the need to choose
between family and career, I disagree with his new
social collectivity. Far from leading to a sharing of
resources and communal living, the inclusion of
women in the work force and the economic recovery
under Reagan have led to an increase in the pur
chase of single family homes. The individualism and
competition that characterize capitalist society are
not stifling and oppressive factors but rather
represent the libertarian ideals of social mobility
and freedom.
Madan then brings in the computer as the great
proletarian instrument of social leveling. How he
can see 220 million people sitting at their terminals
to decide on wheat subsidy levels or other policy
matters is a question I cannot hope to answer.
Representative democracy is not threatened by the
peace of social change. The Constitution has shown
itself to be a remarkably elastic work which deals
aptly with unforseen situations. Our government,
for all its shortcomings, is still astabe, workable and
uniquely American contrivance.
Daniel A. Zariski
senior
political science
Letters continued on Page 5
y t! Daily r
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0443. ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 1S34 DAILY NZDRASKAN
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uGpanGS, oudo Iiiglilifjlit Seaman campnign
Newsweek magazine reDorts that the Rpnsan
campaign plans a television blitz to woo female fans
of soap operas in hopes of closing the gender gap.
Given Mr. Reagan's lifestyle, appealing to this
segment of the electorate won't be easy. What is
needed, obviously, is a new daytime drama to com
pete with the old favorites like All Whose Children?
and As John 's Other Wife Turns.
I'm always glad to help. Here's a synopsis of the
first episode of Ronnie's Hope: ' -
We open with Ronnie and Nancy sitting with their
est '"TS
' A
' Hopps
best friends, Wuffie and Herbert. All their knees are
almost touching. They are playing hist.
Suddenly, Herbert throws down his cards. "What
the heck," he says with a man-of-the-world grin.
'We're all adults. Let's wife swap." Nancy and Ronnie
exchange significant glances. Nancy nods almost
imperceptibly. Ronnie nods back. Nancy and Wuffie
get up and change places at the table.
Wuffie announces she has finally made a crucial
decision based on her reverence for human life and
her respect for Ronnie and Nancy's ideals: She has
decided not to get an abortion. Ronnie says that's
good. Herbert agrees because Wuffie isn't pregnant.
A mysterious brunette dashes in, throws herself
at Ronnie's feet and gazes up at him adoringly. "At
last I've found you!" she cries. "You are the illegiti
mate son of my only brother's second wife's sister
who abandoned you in St. Anthony's Next-to-New
Shop when you were seven in order to become an
itinerant gandy dancer not knowing that your real
godfather would leave you $17.2 million and his
Playboy Club key."
"No I'm not " says Ronnie.
"Darn," says the mysterious brunette, dashing out
as the phone rings. Nancy picks it up and we see on
the other end a bald, sweating man at a cluttered
desk. He says he had to call her to say that he had
altered the company books to protect Sylvia's
nephew from Don Ricardo's hit men and that's why
he wasn't going to shoot himself.
"Are you calling 557-6726?" asks Nancy.
"Darn," says the man, hanging up as Herbert's and
Wuffie's 18-year-old son, Lancelot, enters, looking
distraught.
"Dad? Mom?" says Lancelot, rt nning his fingers
through his hair. "I can't hold it back any longer and
I don't care if the whole world knows it: I'm not gay!"
Herbert says that's good. Ronnie says what's "gay"?
Wuffie confides that she has never even suspected
Lancelot of having an affair with his sister, Miiiicent,
who has been lost in the jungles of New South Wales
since 1953. Herbert says that's good. Ronnie says
what's an "affair"? Nancy tells Ronnie to take the
baby-sitter home.
The baby-sitter's name is Daphne. She's wearing a
T-shirt that's shrunk or something and says "Born to
Win" on the front, though Ronnie's never noticed. In
the car, she begs him to stop for a moment at the
hangout of a big drug dealer. Luckily, it's open all
night and she buys a bottle of zit cream.
When he pulls into her driveway, she sidles closer
to him and whispers: "Nobody's home, you big hunk.
Would you like to come upstairs and tuck in my
collection of 19th-century teddy bears?"
"No, thank you," says Ronnie.
Well, tune in to the next episode of Ronnie 's Hope
when well meet Ronnie's second best friend's grand
father, Flasher Flanerhatty, who comically bursts
into a formal "coming out" dinner party for Lancelot
and whips open his trenchcoat in front of one and
all to reveal an impeccably tailored, three-piece'
Brooks Brothers suit.
Tune in to the next episode, that is, if anybody
buys the idea that selling Mr. Reagan to soap opera
fans is the way to close the gender gap.
134, Chronicle Publishing Co.
