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IMPORTANT PRODUCTION!
Pavement or pines? ASUN alternatives
At Saturday's Board of Regents meeting officials
were given the go-ahead on a construction project in
conjunction with the city of Lincoln, The project
calls for the widening of Holdrege Street from 48th
west to 45th.
A part of the proposal is the destruction and
removal of 34 large Austrian pine trees. Plans call for
the replacement of the trees and landscaping of the
renovated area using the money received from the
City of Lincoln in exchange for the land.
Very simply, trees take a long time to grow and
only a short time to remove or destroy.
Many people can remember a few years ago when
the Sculpture Garden was being planned a number of
students rallied to protest the alleged removal of
several large trees from the mall area in front of
Architecture Hall. That incident demonstrated the
ecological consciousness prevalent on this campus
then. It can only be hoped that that same
consciousness still persists in an effort to save the 34
Austrian pines now beautifying the Holdrege street
area between 45 th and 48th.
Barry Pilger
A committee known as the ASUN
Reorganizational Committee is setting about the task
of investigating alternate structures for the UNL
student government. They have stated that "the
student community at UNL can only be truly
determined by the members themselves."
Tommorrow, Tuesday, February 8, they are
holding an open hearing in the Union to listen to
ideas anyone has to present concerning the future
direction of student government on this campus.
They will be willing to hear comments on any phase
of government as it now exists and how it could or
should become in the future.
ASUN has now the authority to appoint most
student members of faculty-student committees,
including the Council on Student Life. This is the
most important aspect of student government.
Regardless of what many critics of ASUN have said,
this input can be most influential in decisions that
affect many aspects of everyday University life.
The hearing tomorrow is everyone's chance to be
heard. ASUN is willing to listen. The UNL student
association in the future can be only as influential as
the students who compose it.
President Nixon's dramatic relevation
of his Vietnam peace offers not only
stunned the nation, it came within a
hair's breadth of destroying the two-party
system in America.
For in the week that followed the 43
Democrats running for President
cancelled a total of 207 major addresses,
312 press conferences and 1,407
kaffeeklatsches.
"After all," glumly said one who was
nailed by a reporter while trying to sneak
out of his hotel room disguised as a
chambermaid, "what's there to say?"
It seemed as though the President had
now adopted every solution the
Democrats had offered to the country's
ills-from wage and price and controls to
a guaranteed annual income. They could
hardly attack him for that. So each
retired behind locked doors to think up
something to say. And there each stayed.
By the time the primaries began in
March, few Democrats bothered to
vote-few Democrats being able to
remember the named of the candidates.
And so the Democratic Convention
opened in July with every single delegate
uncommited. Not to mention
unenthusiastic. Indeed, a motion was
made to disband the party and go home.
dearly, the moment was ripe for a
dark horse to galvanize the throng. One
did the hitherto-unheard-of Homer T.
Pettibone.
Pettibone, an alternate delegate from
Decatur, was given the podium because
no one else had anything to say. He
electrified the crowd with a vitriolic
attack on President Nixon's deficit
spending policies.
Spend and spend, elect and elect,'"
cried Pettibone, "that's all the
Republicans know!
The Democrats, who hadn't heard an
attack on Nixon in six months,
nominated Pettibone by acclamation.
And he lived up to their fondest
expectations.
In his first campaign speech, Pettibone
ripped into the President's welfare reform
plan. Toddling loafers saps individual
initiative," he thundered. "Let's get these
bums off the welfare rolls and on to the
payrolls!"
In his very next speech he attacked
Mr. Nixon's wage and price controls as a
"desperate, hare-brained scheme of a
fiscally irresponsible Administration" and
"a clear threat to our free enterprise
system which made this country great."
When elected, he promised, he would
remove all controls immediately and
"restore our cherished freedoms."
This went over well with the public,
which was getting as tired of controls as it
was of welfare. But what roused the
Nation was Pettibone's attack on the
President's foreign policy.
First, he talked of Mr. Nixon flying
"all the way to Peking and Moscow to
cozy up to the Communists." Then he
demanded to know who had sold the
President his "no-win policy in Vietnam."
And lastly he charged that Dr. Kissinger's
third cousin on his mother's side was a
known friend of Alger Hiss!
By October, Pettibone was describing
the Republicans as "the party of treason"
and contending the President was at the
very least "soft on Communism," if not
"a conscious tool of the Communist
conspiracy."
It looked like Pettibone in a landslide.
But in the last weeks of the campaign, the
President balanced the budget, abolished
welfare, removed all controls and
declared war on China, Russia and
Albania. Thus was the two-party system
saved.
"Well, gentlemen," an angry Pettibone
told the press in his hour of defeat, '"you
won't have Homer T. Pettibone to kick
around any more."
Copyright Chronicle Publishing Co. 1972
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THE DAILY NEB RASKAN
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1972