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torn braden
Sleeping beauty?
Previous Daily Nebraskan editorials have stated that
this year seems to be one of relative quiet on campuses
across the nation. And we've also stated that this applies
to Nebraska. I will go one step further. This campus is
asleep.
Perhaps there are some drowsy individuals who are
merely going along with the blissful . snoring and
yawning. Whether this is a distictive quality
characteristic only of this year, or also applicable to
students of years to come, the fact still stands that a
definite mood of apathy reigns.
Lest this editorial lapse into the kind of "get off your
rears" variety so prevalent in impoverished high school
journalism, I will get to the point. There exists
discrimination of women on our campus. The existence
of a double standard is bad enough. But the real crime is
this. Men and women alike are too asleep to realize what
is happening.
That does not mean that males are off the hook.
Drowsiness is no excuse. Neither does it condone
general griping by coeds concerning womens' rights.
This is not specific enough. This does no good.
Personal happiness will not be achieved by screaming
at the wall about a lack of freedom of women in
general. Begin by thinking through the past couple of
weeks. Perhaps you've unconsciously accepted a
situation you didn't like just because you were a
woman. Perhaps a step in the right direction is to make
those males aware who have never considered the fact
that they might be putting a woman down, just because
she is a woman.
This editorial cannot be grouped with other flaming
womens' lib oratories that proclaim the freedom of
women and the demise of chauvinist males.
As somebody once said, I want to make one thing
perfectly clear. Oppression of women's rights on the
University of Nebraska campus may not be outright. It
just may be an ingrown attitude which males and
females are taking for granted because they're never
known any other way of thinking.
The solution is an attitude of action. Challenging
each day and separate situations can only lead to a
better education in the end. This challenge is twofold.
Men should realize their double standard. And women
should individually expect themselves to achieve at their
highest level, instead of falling back on the premise that
they are women and therefore somehow inferior.
Perhaps soon it will be the dawn of another morning,
the alarm clocks of reality will ring, and we will all wake
up to a new set of values.
Laura Willers
fflSDSMi
Editor: Gary Seacrest. Managing Editor: Laura Willers. News
Editor: Steve Strassar. Advertising Manager: Barry Pilger.
Publications Committee Chairman: James Horner.
Staff writers: Bill Smitherman, Carol Strasser, Marsha Kahm,
Bart Becker, Dennis Snyder, Vicki Pulos, Roxann Rogers, Steve
Kadel, H, J. Cummins, Randy Beam, Lucy Lien, Ouane Leibhart.
Sports editor: Jim Johnston. Photographers: Bill Ganzel, Gail Folda.
Entertainment editor: Larry Kubert. Literary editors: Alan Boye,
Lucy Kerchberger. East campus writer: Terrj Bedient. Artist: Al
Chan. Copy editors: Tom Lansworth, Jim Clemons, Sara Trask, Jim
Gray, Night editor: Leo Schleicher.
, BUSINESS STAFF
Coordinator: Jerri Haussler. Add staff: Greg Scott, Beth
Malashock, Jane Kid wall, Sue Phillips, Mick Moriarty, Jeff Aden,
Steve Yates, O. J. Nelson, Suzi Goebel, Phil Merryweathar, Larry
Swanson, Laurel Marsh, Kris Collins, Secretary: Kathy Cook.
Telephones: editor: 472-2588, news: 472-2589, advertising:
472-2590. Second class postage rates paid at Lincoln, Nebraska.
Subscription rates are $5 per semester or $9 per year. Published
Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday during the school year
except during vacation and exam periods. Member of the
Intercollegiate Press, National Educational Advertising Service.
The Dally Nebraskan I a student publication, editorially
independent of the University of Nebraska's administration, faculty
and student government.
Address: The Daily Nebreskdn, 34 Nebraska Union, University of
Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68508.
( KEEP AMERICA BEALTIFUl)
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The old traditions change
WASH INGTON-In his study of "Democracy In
America," Alexis de Tocqueville argued that lawyers were
the most powerful security against the excess of
democracy. "They derive from their occupation certain
habits of order," he wrote, "a taste for formalities and a
kind of instinctive regard for the regular connection of
ideas which naturally render them very hostile to the
revolutionary spirit and the unreflecting passions of the
multitude."
If De Tocqueville had known William Rehnquist, whom
President Nixon has nominated for the Supreme Court, he
might not have felt it necessary to devote a whole chapter
to his argument. He could have pointed to Rehnquist and
saved himself from the necessity of making the general
argument that lawyers value legality more than freedom;
are not altogether averse to tyranny and "provided the
legislature undertakes of itself to deprive men of their
independence, they (lawyers) are not dissatisfied."
Rehnquist is what De Tocqueville was talking about. Can
police arrest thousands of people on the street and toss
them into jail without so much as a specific charge? Of
course, argues Rehnquist, that's nothing more than "limited
marital law."
Does the government have the right to spy upon its
citizens? Of course, says Rehnquist. It would be a waste of
the taxpayer's money, he told Sen. Sam Ervin of North
Carolina, in apparent compliment to the senator's conduct
in peace and war, for the government to put him under
electronic surveillance. But he saw nothing illegal about it.
Does the President have the right to put whomsoever he
pleases on the Supreme Court regardless of the
Constitution's express proviso, "by and with the advice and
consent of the Senate"? Rehnquist says he does.
It was he who drafted President Nixon's letter to Sen.
William Saxbe of Ohio at the time of the Carswell debate.
The letter argued the President's power to appoint in a
fashion which must have caused high school civics students
to wonder whether their President could read plain English.
Rehnquist is no "strict constructionist," to use Mr.
Nixon's phrase. For example, he would certainly not agree
with the last Justice Black's strict construction of the First
Amendment right to free speech. Nor is he a conservative
in the sense that Justices White and Stewart are
conservative. One of his former classmates at Stanford Law
School describes him as "a bright, able, decent human being
with a set of philosophical assumptions in favor of force
and authority which only a few years ago we were calling
'extremist.'"
Should a man's philosophical assumptions be weighed in
determining his fitness for the Supreme Court? The chances
seem good that the Rehnquist record will be bereft of
Haynsworth-like conflicts of interest, or Carswellian
pronouncements on race, and senators will have to make a
clear-cut decision as to whether they want to put on
extreme conservative on the bench.
.The struggle between liberal and conservative has existed
in our land from long before DeTocqueville made his
famous study. But the two traditions have usually been
maintained and expressed by moderate men. So long as we
thought of conservatives as tracing themselves to John
Adams and of liberals as heirs of Thomas Jefferson, the
struggle could be maintained without the excesses which
threaten reasoned debate. Rehnquist is a different breed.
"The mildness of our government," John Adams once
argues, "is a pleasing, delightful characteristic, and though
it will probably give encouragement to some disorders, it is
too precious to be relinquished without absolute
necessity."
On the record, Rehnquist's temperament is of no such
judicial caste.
To paraphrase one of Adams' descendants, that 200
years after John Adams, Rehnquist should be put forward
by an American President as the embodiment of the
conservative tradition, defies Darwin. Copyright 1971, Los
Angeles Times.
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Quarterback becomes computer jock
Dear editor,
This is one that is probably "too hot" to print, at least in your
eyes, but here it is anyway:
Like many other people I couldn't help but notice the great
increase in the Journal's interest in The Daily Nebraskan lately.
And, as a forced subscriber to the Nebraskan I have marvelled at
the frequent reprints from the Journal's editorial page.
Why this marvellous sudden "rapprochement?" It's all part of
the greatest father-son act in the recent history of the city of
Lincoln. It seems to me this might really be an effort to make The
Daily Nebraskan appear more responsible and acceptable.
But any newspaper that takes such irresponsible stands as the
Nebraskan continues to take, makes me think that any such
efforts are only because the editor of the student paper, Gary
Seacrest, is the son of Joe, the , Journal's managing editor.
Is this an example of controlled selection from above in the
Journal's news columns?
Wayne Stuenkel
Editor's note-While it is true the two individuals mentioned
are related, the two newspapers are financially and editorially
independent of each other.
The Daily Nebraskan has reprinted only one Journal editorial
this semester. The editorial was reprinted because it reflected the
views of the editor of The Daily Nebraskan and not simply
because it was a Journal editorial.
For many years the Journal has frequently quoted both
editorials and news stories from The Daily Nebraskan. This
practice is continuing this semester.
This semester The Daily Nebraskan has been in the news of all
local news media, not just the Journal, because of a court
challenge to the Nebraskan's use of mandatory student fees and
an editorial by Gary Seacrest suggesting the possible legalization
of marijuana.
Dear editor.
Why must ASUN continually function only as a revolutionary
tool? Do the senators honestly claim to be representative of the
student body?
I did not support the ASUN endorsed student strike in May of
1970 and was not in accord with the telegram sent to the
President at that time. I am not in need of a lecture series on
leftist revolution and was less anxious to spend money for a
conference on sexual deviance.
I am not in sympathy with draft evaders and am not a social
do-gooder proposing free everything. I do not now wish to
endorse anti-war demonstrations, nor public resolutions opposing
American presence in Asia.
I pursue social change with personal, nonconscripted funds. I
do not ask tax paying citizens to provide me a free ride. When I
address public issues I use only my name. ASUN members should
do the same!.
Tim A. Dettmann
by Peter Benchley
(Newsweek Feature Service
WASHINGTON--Frank Ryan is a
searcher, a man for whom satisfaction is the
most elusive goal on earth.
When in the mid-1960s he was one of the
premier quarterbacks of the National
Football League- leading the Cleveland
Browns to one NFL title and one divisional
title-he wasn't satisfied with being just a
football player.
He spent his off-hours studying for a
doctorate in geometric function theory and
writing a thesis bearing the mind-boggling
title of "A Characterization of the Set of
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
Asymptotic Values of a Function
Holomorphic in the Unit Disc."
Off-season, he was not content with
relaxing, selling insurance or peddling beer,
as many of his teammates were. He taught
advanced math at Case Western Reserve
University in Cleveland and started a
computer software company.
And now that he has finally retired from
football-he came to an amicable seperation
agreement with the Washington Redskins
earlier this year-he is not content with
teaching or making money.
Instead, he has taken on the awesome
task of modernizing one of the government's
most anachronistic bodies, the House of
Representatives.
Now 35 years old -still handsome, lean
and, as he has been for several years,
prematurely gray- Ryan is head of a new
group called House Information Systems,
and he and his 17-man staff have a mandate
to bring the computer age to some of the
House's more out-dated functions.
"It struck me at one of the really great
opportunities to do something pioneering in
the modern age," he says. "Here we have the
greatest, most complex democratic process
in existence, and to be a part of instigating a
crucial change in an area in which it is so far
behind the times is very exciting to me."
Ryan's first task for the House is to
install an electronic, computer-coordinated
pushbutton voting system. Under the
current system, it can take up to 40 minutes
to run through all 435 names twice, in
alphabetical order, in order to record a vote.
The new procedure will feature 49 voting
stations -small boxes with a slot into which
members will place special identification
cards. Three buttons on top of the boxes
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 27,
give a choice of votes ("yes," "no,"
"abstain") which will be instantly registered
and permanently recorded by a computer.
He is also working on a computerized
mailing system which would store mailing
lists for House members, and convert
addresses from computer format to printed
slips.
But his biggest and longest-term project is
the eventual installation of a retrieval system
for legislation. "Right now," says Ryan, "it
often takes hours just to track down the
status of a particular bill."
When the computer takes over, he says, it
will be possible to check up on a certain
kind of legislation by going "to a
conveniently placed terminal and typing in
your request according to a simple format. A
video screen will flash back the bills pending
and you can then request, for example, an
abstract of one of the bills."
Ryan's job with the House came along at
a critical point in his career. For the 1970
season had been a trying one for him.
He was unhappy playing for--or, rather,
not playing for-the Redskins. He was the
second-string quarterback behind Sonny
Jurgensen, a brilliant passer and, until his
pre season injury this year, a man generally
thought to be marie of concrete.
Ryan spent most games pacing the
sidelines, looking -with his scarlet team cloak
and gray mane- like a medieval bishop.
In two seasons with the Redskins, he got
to throw no more than half a dozen passes.
It was a discouraging situation for a man
who had often said, "I love to throw a
football," a man who, at the peak of his
career, honestly regarded himself as "the
best long passer there was."
He was not anxious to quit football
altogether. He was making a lot of money,
more than $85,000 a year-t w o-thirds of
which was for playing quarterback, one-third
for doing some computer work for the
Redskins' defense analysts.
But beyond the financial considerations
lay the fact that he had been playing
football for 21 year. "I think it would be
foolish to cut it off suddenly and
completely," he said near the end of last
season. "I think there should be a place in
football for me. Maybe in ethics. Football
has become a huge business and it has
nothing to help guide it, nothing like what
the law has, a bar association."
He even debated coaching if he could find
a college that would let him teach math as
well. "There's nothing wrong with the
coaching profession," he said. "There's just
something wrong with the people who
practice it." There was talk that he would be
offered the coaching job at Rice, his alma
mater, and he was interviewed for the head
coach's post at Harvard.
But when Rep. Wayne Hays of Ohio
offered him the House job, Ryan leaped at
it. He moved his wife and four children from
Cleveland to Chevy Chase, Md., a
Washington suburb.
And though his salary has slipped to
$36,000 and he has had to fold his own
software company to work for the House, he
seems happy. It is a job that will let him
expand his personal vistas, to search and
explore new fields.
"I look on this as a vehicle to enter other
areas," he says, "areas outside the tight
circle of sports. The deadly combination of
math and football had gotten to seem
humdrum to me. I need to be on the edge of
things."
bill smifherman
Big Red sanctuary
In the past few weeks
rumors have been growing that
the athletic department has
been spraying to kill birds
around Memorial Stadium.
Students have reportedly
found dead and dying birds on
campus and apparently seen
spraying operations around the
stadium. The connection is a
logical one, but probably not
correct.
A personal investigation of
as many sources as were
available found no evidence
that birds were being sprayed
at the stadium or anywhere
else on campus.
Bill Shepard, athletic
department groundkeeper,
said the athletic department
doe? not spray to kill birds.
Tht department does hire a
professional company to spray
ledges around the stadium with
a repellant, but this simply
keeps birds from perching,
Shepard said. It does not kill
them.
Johnsgard said there has
been no increase in the number
of dead birds brought to his
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
office. He added that if there
had been a significant increase
in the number of dead birds on
campus he probably would
have known about it.
It is also doubtful that birds
are being killed by insecticides,
he said. The city and the
university are now using an
insecticide which breaks down
much more quickly than DDT
and there has been very little
spraying since last spring.
But there are dying birds on
campus. How can they be
accounted for?
Johnsgard said that both
the city and some downtown
businesses poison pigeons and
sparrows. This becomes
necessary when high
concentrations of birds pose a
health hazard, he added.
It is entirely possible that
birds poisoned downtown
could have died on campus.
At times the athletic
department and other
university departments may be
forced to poison pigeons for
the same health reasons. But
this is done with poison treated
grain placed where only the
desired species is likely to get
it. Poison grain doesn't pose as
much of an ecological threat as
sprays.
Johnsgard said the city is
now being plagued with large
flocks of blackbirds. These
birds are beginning to create a
health hazard which will have
to be dealt with, he said. If the
city is forced to action we may
begin seeing more
dead blackbirds.
It seems that is birds must
be exterminated, as is
sometimes necessary, it would
be more humane to use a
chemical sterilizer. But this
proceedure is expensive and
out of reach of most
institutions with bird problems.
Still, it is good to know that
the University is not spraying
birds so that football fans can
sit in peace. Use of a repellant
as the principal means of
pigeon control shows a social
and ecological awareness rather
than the disregard which the
rumors suggest.
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