Big Red priorities
Theoretically Nebraska football games are played for
the benefit of the students. However, it appears that the
athletic department hasn't found this out.
Less than 60 per cent of the students who entered
the Orange Bowl ticket lottery will receive tickets. More
than 3,600 students registered for the lottery and 2,000
will receive tickets.
This unfortunate ticket situation points out the
urgent need for a new ticket policy to accommodate
students.
According to Nebraska ticket manager Jim Pittenger
the decision to reserve only 2,000 tickets for students
resulted from an agreement with the student senate five
or six years ago that the athletic department reserve 20
per cent of its i tickets for bowl games for students.
Pittenger said Nebraska received 12,500 tickets for the
bowl and reserved 2,000 for students in accordance with
the student senate's request.
Apparently Pittenger's arithmetic isn't very good.
Normally 20 per cent of 12,500 turns out to be 2,500,
not 2,000.
Where will the extra 500 tickets go? Although they
should go to the students, they will probably go to the
next priority group-members of organizations that
make major contributions to the athletic department.
This situation reaffirms the fact that the Nebraska
football team is just as much a professional organization
as the Chicago Bears.
Granted Pittenger has a hard job since he has received
over 27,000 request for only 12,500 tickets. But it is
unfortunate that less than 60 per cent of those students
who request tickets will have a chance to see their
fellow students perform on New Year's night.
Honor thy
grandparents
"Golden years" is a term that is used to describe the
retirement years of America's older citizens. However,
the term "golden years" for a large percentage of the 20
million aged Americans is cruelly ironic since they are
faced with poverty, rising health costs, a desperate
shortage of suitable housing and isolation from their
families.
Last week'.. White House Conference on Aging again
focused attention on the plight of America's aging
citizens. The sad thing is that many of the older
generation's demands will probably not be met since the
group is not militantly vocal.
President Nixon's track record over the last 34
months concerning the aged is nothing to brag about
However, the President last week made a package of
promises to older Americans: some kind of minimum
income plan, tax breaks, pension reforms, greater
opportunities for involvement in service projects and
modest expansion of several existing programs.
Glowing promises have often been heard by
America's older generation and most of the time they
have not been fulfilled. Nixon may have good incentive
to live up to his promises since the aged make up 1 7 per
cent of the electorate.
' However, it appears that any plan of guaranteed
annual income has a rocky road ahead of it Nixon has
personally led a campaign to build up anti-welfare
emotions, with the result that his welfare reform bill
(with a minimum income provision) faces a bleak
future:
Society should have ah added interest in the plight of
the older generation since it appears that many of the
problems of the aged can not be solved apart from those
of society as a whole. The nation should probably be
working toward national health insurance and a
guaranteed annual income for everyone instead of
piecemeal programs designed specifically for the aged.
"And what indeed, have we
here? Phase '72"
h'Jr ki totn braden
!jJ Foreign morality
Gary Seacrest
WASH I NGTON-Sen. Fred Harris (D-Okla.),
who ran one of the shortest Presidential
campaigns on record, espoused the thesis that
the United States ought to have a foreign policy
"based on morality."
Morality is always an easy target and no
doubt the Harris slogan was simplist. But grant
the sophisticates their point, and then try to
explain why the interests of the United States
require that we should back a dictator in
Pakistan against the only democracy in the
East.
Not only that Why should we back a
dictator who is certain to lose? Is this
realpolitik? Is it in the interests of the United
States to be on the wrong side of the moral
questions and to be on the wrong side of the
power relationship, too?
The answers at the White House are not very
convincing. First, it is argued, that when
Madame Gandhi was here last month, she gave
no indication that her timetable was so rapid.
United Nations action to halt this aggression
is already discounted. But, it is pointed out,
there is no good reason why the United States
should reward aggression by continuina
economic aid to India. If nothing is done to
condemn aggression, so the Nixon
Administration is saying, Russia may get false
ideas.
As for Madame Gandhi not telling Mr. Nixon
and Dr. Henry Kissinger what she had in mind,
isn't there anybody at the White House to read
the newspapers? Surely it seems possible that
somebody might have figured out that 9 million
refugees pouring into India constituted a
political and economical threat to which India's
THE DAILY NEB RASKAN
leaders might feel she had to respond.
In short, the White House explanation is as
simplist as the Fred Harris slogan. There must
have been other reasons on President Nixon's
mind, and it is not hard to guess what they
were.
Kissinger has told the Indian ambassador
here that there was a slight delay in the cutoff
of arms to Pakistan because the Administration
did not want to take action which interfered
with Pakistan's help in arranging his trip to
China. Since this is so, it seems at least
permissible to guess that U.S. condemnation of
India is related to the President's trip to China.
If so, Mr. Nixon is paying a very high price for
Chinese rapprochement
He is breaking off ties with our oldest and
only democratic friend in the East and making
us an apologist for a policy of ruthless murder
all for the sake of not antagonizing China.
How much is Nr. Nixon's China visit worth?
What price must we pay to have good relations
with Russia's potential enemy ? Will it create a
balance of power? Or will it encourage Russia
to move against the Chinese in order to escape
that balance?
Until now, the only opposition to Mr.
Nixon's Chinese policy has come from the far
right. Only George Wallace, among Democrats,
has doubted the wisdom of the President's trip.
But these and other questions seem certain to
be asked by responsible men now that the
United States has made a fool of itself in order
to ensure that the President's trip will come off
as scheduled.
Copyright 1971, Los Angeles Times
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1971
PAGE 4
