It's budget time again
It appears by the budget request approved by the Board of
Regents Monday that University officials are well aware that Gov.
J. J. Exon, a fiscal conservative, is sitting in the Statehouse.
A year ago the Board of Regents approved a budget requesting
a 30 per cent increase in state funds for 1971-72 that was
designed to give NU a good start on becoming the finest
university in the area. Although the University had ordered a
full-meal with dessert, Exon and the Legislature told the school it
would have to go on a diet with a budget that provided only a
slight increase in state funds.
The Regents Monday pared down their earlier ambitions and
requested a 15.5 per cent increase in state funds and an 11.1 per
cent in all funds for the 1972-73 fiscal year.
With an eye toward the Statehouse, President D. B. Varner
said "the economic and political reality of 1971" had led him to
suggest the Board ask for a smaller increase than it had last year.
However, Varner said the request "in no way lessens our
enthusiasm to move to the top of the Big Eight in this decade."
Although the University substantially scaled down its request
this year, the proposed budget will stHI probably meet some
opposition from Exon.
The governor has told state agencies not to submit requests for
increased state aid for the 1971-72 fiscal year, and he has
repeatedly said that the University should not expect to receive
large increases in state aid.
The Regents wisely asked for no funds to develop new
programs in their request. With the current tight fiscal situation,
the University should concentrate on maintaining and upgrading
existing programs.
The request also anticipates no increase in tuition rates, which
were hiked substantially for the current school year. This is only
fair since the tuition increase was based on the premise that the
University would receive a large increase in state aid for 1971-72.
However, the large boost in state aid never materialized, while the
tuition increase was adopted.
The Board Monday also approved a capital construction
request of $15.9 million, including $8.27 million for UNL. The
Lincoln funds would include monies to build an addition to Love
Library, a new home economics building and a law college and to
plan a life sciences building.
These building projects are long over-due and should be
adopted In the governor's capital construction budget.
The Board of Regents, which has its own fiscal conservatives,
has submitted a realistic budget this year. Hopefully, it will start
the University on its long climb to the top of the Big Eight as well
as reduce the friction between the governor and the University
that developed from last year's budget battle.
What after Attica?
The recent bloody uprisings at New York's Attica Prison and
California's San Quentin Prison are tragedies in that 46 human
beings were killed. But an additional tragedy of the riots is that
they will probably create a backlash which could jeopardize the
current interest in penal reform that is taking place across the
country.
The two prison rebellions could easily produce more repressive
conditions in prisons and hinder the move to improve the
facilities and methods that are needed to better rehabilitate
prisoners.
This would be unfortunate since the riots are largely the result
of racism and poor prison conditions. Repressive punishment of
the participants without removing the conditions that caused the
rebellions will do little good. More will be accomplished by
continuing the push for reform rather than restoring to repressive
punishment.
A drive for prison reform is just taking roots in the Nebraska
Legislature. Nebraska state officials, as well as other government
officials across the nation, should not fall victims to a possible
backlash and discontinue their interest in penal reform.
The experience of Attica should also force prison officials to
improve their security and develop new ways to handle future
outbreaks.
The matter in which the Attica rebellion was handled is open
to serious question. Granted, New York officials could not offer
full amnesty to the rioters as was demanded. However, force
should not have been used to smash the rebellion when further
negotiations would have spared the lives of many of the hostages
and prisoners.
Vernon Fox , a noted authority on the causes and preventions of
prison riots, said New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller was
wrong to use force at Attica. There is probably some truth in
Fox's contention that the motive for the attack was to give
Rockefeller's administration "an image of strength with the
public."
Undoubtedly Attica and San Quentin will have a large impact
on how the American public views criminal justice and prison
reform.
Gary Seacrest
I
Telephones: editor: 472 2588, news: 472 2589, advertisir
472 2590. Second class postage rates paid at Lincoln, Nebraska.
The Daily Nebraskan is a student publication, independent of the
University of Nebraska's administration, faculty and student
government.
Address: The Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, University of
Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68508.
bob russell
The art of creative cursing
People seem to be slinging around the English
language quite loosely, as of late. These people are not
"them or "us", these people are nearly everyone,
including us and them. But there are certain people who
seem to sling around the language a bit more than most
of us do; these people being "word mongers.'
Now a word monger can do several travesties with our
tongue, or whatever is left of it. Word mongers usually
use our language to allure or to obscure, or they are just
plain lazy. .
To keep all of you relevant and meaningful people on
my side, I will first launch certain epithets against what
is loosely referred to as the "establishment, and
particularly, the Defense Department, since they are
1 superb word mongers. The Defense Department, mostly
on the defense lately, mostly mongers words to obscure;
for to obscure is to defend. Examples abound.
Defensive missies are supposedly used only to defend,
but many people seem to think that they can be just as
offensive as an offensive missle. In fact, some people
can't . tell the difference between a defensive and an
offensive missle. The difference can be as little as the
difference in the looks between a cue ball and Melvin
Laird's bald head.
Anomer Defense Department favorite is the
"protective reaction strike." This means that we
barbecue people and things in Vietnam with bombs and
other implements of destruction because they had the
gall to shoot at one of our planes flying over their
territory.
Then there are those people who intend to both
obscure and allure. Add to this a generous portion of
laziness. This group of people could be put in a
sub-group called the "labelers."
The "labelers" see something they don't like. They
might not know quite what they don't like about it, but
the first relevant and meaningful derogatory label that
comes to their mind is obviously what is wrong with
whatever they don't like. Take a disliked institution, for
example. This disliked institution can be either a) sexist,
b) racist, c) fascist, or d) whatever else comes to their
mind.
The final group of people I want to cover is all of us.
I wanted to wait until the end to offend everyone. All of
us have this slackness of the tongue, this lack of
imagination, which causes us to use a four letter word,
whenever we don't feel like exerting any effort to think
up a really creative curse. I myself have just taken up
creative cursing. I used to, and still do, sprinkle
conversations with four letter words. But now I try to
reserve the use of four letter words to those occasions
when only they would be appropriate.
For example, I was one of those lucky people to have
the privilege of waiting in line for my student ID sticker.
I had come all prepared for waiting in line, with loads of
paraphenalia. With me I had two gallons of Grape
Kool-Aid, seven boxes of the laxative cereal Bran Flakes,
a bucket, fourteen pieces of Banana Bubble gum, six Zap
Comix, an 8x11 autographed glossy of R. Crumb, a
folding chair, a dorm pancake allowed to harden for use
as a Frisbee, etc. Worse finally came to worse and I got
bored. Then all of us stalwarts who were left, started to
string together all of the four letter words we could
think of, ending the phrase with that vilest of words,
University.
Creative cursing need not be a great burden on your
intellect. If you know a foreign language, you are
halfway there. Besides using foreign gutter language, you
can say such things as, "Mi Universidad es el moton de
basura", or "Die Universitaet ist voll mit Sinnlosigheit."
Otherwise, words such as wombat, gncrd, vasch (French
equialent for s.o.b.), varmint, polecat are useful, with
appropriate adjectives modifying them to the worst
extent.
Verbosity not being a virtue, I will leave you with
this. Curse if you must, and if you must curse creatively.
Environmentalists implement ecotage'
by M.J. Wilson
Newsweek Feature Service
Have you ever seen a gaudy advertising billboard
blocking the scenery on a country road and wished
you could transport that billboard to the front lawn
of the man who put it there?
Have you ever looked at a river ripe with industrial
pollution and wanted to dump some of that scummy
water all over the private office of the chairman of
the board?
Have you ever watched a factory belching black
smoke and thought how satisfying it would be to
drop a dynamite charge down the smoke stack?
These migh once have been considered only the
fantasies of a mad ecologist. But at a time when
environmental laws are weak and enforcement weaker
still and when militance seems in many cases to pay
off-more and more people are beginning to take an
extreme view of pollution and polluters.
Though the dynamiting hasn't begun yet, the
direct action has. Along Michigan Route 23, for
example, a group calling itself the "billboard bandits"
sawed the suppqrts off 40 highway billboards,
toppling the signs to the ground. There they remained
because they were illegally placed to begin with.
In Florida, "Eco-Commando Force 70" has made
its presence felt on several occasions. Once, it put
yellow dye into sewage treatment tanks to
demonstrate just how insufficiently "treated" the
water actually is, as it makes its way back to the
households of Miami. Another time the group placed
signs on beaches giving the true bacteria counts of the
water which local health authorities had labeled safe
for swimming.
In dozens of communities from New York to
California, groups have denounced, picketed and, on
numerous occasions, interposed their bodies to
prevent roadmakers from bulldozing sections of
parkland or unspoiled wilderness.
Now, there is even a name for this kind of
militance: "ecotage," a combination of the words
ecology and sabotage.
The art or science, or sport of ecotage already
possesses two of the ingredients needed to inspire a
successful movement: a hero and an organizer.
Its hero is a near-fabled and still anonymous
Illinois man called "the Fox" whose deeds have
confounded giant U.S. Steel Corp., to say nothing of
the Kane County, III. sheriff': office.
Its organizer is mild, mustachioed Sam Love, 24,
head of Environmental Action, the Washington, D.C.,
based antipollution lobby that put together last year's
Earth Day observances. -Now, the group is judging the
entries in a well-publicized essay contest to find
new -but nonviolent- ways to ' harass corporate
polluters.
"Violence is against the spirit of the contest and of
ecology," says Love. "The object is to find tactics
that can be directed toward the corporate image
without really hurting anybody."
The Fox has already found such tactics. He has
ecotaged a company's smokestack (by climbing it one
night and applying a home-made cap) and several
times he has deposited dead skunks on the front
porches of executives of companies which pollute.
Little is known of the Fox, except that he is a very
cagy individual with a sense of humor, lives in a
Chicago suburb, is middle-aged and apparently has
some technical background. (Most recently, he
ecotaged an asphalt plant-leaving, as always, a note
explaining his actions and signed "The Fox.") He has
also spoken to journalists over the telephone.
But his greatest act of ecotage came when he
walked into the Chicago office ot U.S. Steel a few
months ago and told the receptionist that he
represented the "Fox Foundation for Conservation
Education" and had come to present the company
with the foundation's annual award. The award, it
turned out, was a jar of foul-smelling liquid which he
poured over tha office carpeting. The liquid was a
sample of the effluent that U.S. Steel was pouring'
into Lake Michigan from its Gary, Ind., woncs.
"I don't believe in throwing bombs or destroying
anything," says the Fox. "But man shouldn't be
allowed to ruin nature. I think man should exploit his
environment but he shouldn't kill it."
Quite properly, the prize in the essay contest for
good ecotage ideas which Sam Love is running is a
Golden Fox trophy. It is named for the Chicago
activist whom Love has never met. The contest closed
September 1 -there were some 1 ,000 entries and the
winners will be announced in January, about the time
Simon & Schuster, Inc.. publishes a compilation of
the "best thinking" in ecotage.
Some of the entries have already been made
public. One advocates digging a hole at night in the
middle of a highway and planting a tree. Another
suggests pouring concrete onto the lawns of
congressmen who advocate ever more
freeway -building.
The most provocative suggestion, perhaps, was the
one that called for a chain letter urging recipients to
send small packages of garbage through the mails to
unregenerate' polluters. If such a letter catches on,
some unfortunate corporation head might find
hundreds of packages of garbage in his in-box some
morning.
(KPOffiGDH & I
I qxpfiSuMyir
BSSnaKHBiHatiWflifariattilMfiiiiMIMtflittBMtflliflnMUflttll
Brevity in letters is requested and the
Daily Nebraskan reserves the right to
condense letters. All letters must be
accompanied by writer's true name but
may be submitted for publication under
a pen name or initials. However, letters
will be printed under a pen name or
initials at the editor's discretion.
Dear editor,
The results of the rebellion
at Attica State Prison are not
fully known yet. To date,
thirty seven human beings have
lost their lives including nine
prison guards and twenty-eight
inmates. Whether force was
necessary will never be known.
Governor Nelson
Rockefeller said, "The tragedy
was brought on by the highly
organized, revolutionary tactics
of militants who rejected all
efforts at peaceful
settlement..." Rockefeller was
probably correct in his
assumption that a small group
initiated the rebellion.
The point to remember,
however, is that leaders do not
cause revolutions, they take
advantage of situations created
by the power structure. A
rebellion as large as the one at
Attica is the product of
festering conditions too long
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
ignored by bureaucrats and
legislators unwilling to
appropriate the money
necessary to improve conditions
in correctional institutions.
Therein lies the tragedy.
The hope is that we have
learned from this unfortunate
occurance. Harsh punishment
of the participants without
removing the bases for the
rebellion will prove ineffectual.
New leaders will arise unless
the conditions at Attica and
other institutions are
improved.
I cannot condone the
actions of either the inmates or
the attacking force. The action
was hasty and irrational, but
the bulk of the burden must
fall on those who were blind
and now have the chance to
achieve far-sighted goals
instead of near sighted
retributions.
Tim Tur er
Dear Editor,
Bike riders have rights but
they are being ignored by the
city council and particularly
Mrs. Boosalis. They plan to
close off the city's arterial
streets to bike riders at times
of the day when bike riders
need the streets to get to work
or school or to get home.
A better plan for student
bike riders would be to close
down only "O" Street at
certain times of the day, since
it is becoming more popular to
ride bikes to school. Cycling is
also less of a parking problem
to the University, less
expensive than driving, more
condusive to physical fitness,
and so on.
If the law is not amended or
thrown out there will be mass
bike-ins on the main arterials
(particularly Vine Street)
scheduled for the moment
when the signs go up that
indicate police harassment will
begin.
First there was black power
and student power, now there
is bicycle power. Let the
wielders of absolute power
tremble before the might of
the organized cyclists of
Lincoln
CM. Dalrymple
Dear Editor,
I am assuming that your
omission of "planning money
for a life science building
(Manter Hall)" from the list in
your front page University
budget story, was an oversight
on your part. Please note it is
essential that this sort of
omission not be allowed to
ocurr if the crying needs of
thousands of students are to be
kept visible.
John Janovy, Jr.
Assistant Dean,
Arts and Sciences
OUT OF TOWN
COLLEGE
STUDENTS
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PAGE 6
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1971
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1971
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
PAGE 7
