friday, September 26, 1 975
page 4 .:; -,
daily' nebraskan
the word iunhecM
Consumer group exhorted
to become self-supporting
By Del Gustafson . ;
While meandering through our glorious and fiscally
mismanaged Nebraska Union the other day, my eyes
became fixed upon the letters NUPIRG boldly printed
across the top of a long, white sheet of paper.
Upon perusal, I discovered that NUPIRG was not, as
I had hoped, an organization dedicated to the purging of
the NU administration, but rather a consumer protection
group solemnly sworn to the protection of the consumer
and the environment, to the safeguarding of equal rights,
to the infuring of corporate responsibility and, finally,
to the fostering of greater government responsiveness.
Given the economic woes besetting tnis country, due in
large part to the activism of our government, it would
seem to be more in the interests of America to form an
organization which advocated government unresponsive-ness-possibly
the Committee for the Mass and Prolonged
Hypnosis of Congress.
Wliile the explicitly general goals of NUPIRG are
worth , it, like other consumer groups, probably runs into
problci is because it tends to view "The Consumer" as seme
monolf hie entity with one discernible hierarchy of
consumption priorities.
Experience reveals that there are many different
consumers with many differing, and at times conflicting,
sets of consumption priorities; hence any group which
presumes to represent "The Consumer' on a certain issue
may frustrate as well as satisfy the wishes and interests
of many consumers.
Still, my main fear of NUPIRG was that it, in the name
of my own consumer interest, would find ifs way into
my wallet via that most brazenly successful thief of
campus, mandatory student fees.
My fears were allayed when the propaganda sheet re
vealed that NUPIRG would be funded voluntarily; allayed,
that is, until I later learned that NUPIRG does receive
student fees.
I exhort you, NJJPIRG, to let this campus see a practical
demonstration of your active commitment to the worthy
goals of student volunteerism, student interest, and plain
old honesty by henceforth supporting your organization
exclusively through voluntary contributions.
From the cave: Re, the pro-student fee pamphlet (and it
does in fact take a position favoring fees): A student refer
endum in 1937 was given as the justification for the
payment of student fees.
Why docs the majority -vote of some hoary old men
obligate me to pay $61.50 a semester in 1975? While there
may have been referendums since 1937 on the fees
question, nonetheless I have attended this university for
three years and have never been given the chance to vote
on the issue of student fees. The time has come; let us hear
the voice of the fee-payers.
'So heed this:
submit a name
If the nominations and selections of NU admin
istrators seem to be an upper-level and somewhat
secretive process, it may be because so few "lower
level" members of the university community take
an interest in it.
So heed this: Anyone may nominate a candidate
for UNL chancellor, as long as the nominee falls
within the guidelines established by the chanceilor
search committee.
Those guidelines were published on the front
page of Wednesday's Daily Nebraskan ("Chancellor
search group seeks 'champion for UNL'").
We urge UNL students, facttlty members, staff
and administrators who have chancellor candidates
in mind to submit their names to Richard Gilbert,
chairman of the search committee, or to encourage
the possible candidates to apply. ,
Transfer students and faculty members who
have taught at other schools might recommend
administrators they think would be qualified.
Others could recommend UNL officials as well.
Gilbert is a professor of chemical engineering.
His office is 222 Avery Hall. The deadline for
applications and nominations is Oct. 20.
Take part in the search for UNL's new
chancellor, for all our sakes. ' "
. Rebecca Brite
U)0K ftT WIS, 3"v
I WHAT W THE WORLD I I CfiNl OH NOl I WH
U I tin I f DLUCVt I fWrE y
i
Dear editor, , ,
. The UNL library system is totally inadequate for both
undergraduates and graduate students, not to mention
Books are difficult to locate because the libraries use
two different call number systems and the books are spread
out all over the campus. When you locate the correct
library building the books often are not there or are
damaged so they cannot be used.
The number of volumes in the libraries is inadequate
for a major university with a large graduate school.
The "great" universities across the country have exten
sive holdings under one roof. If the university's goal is
academic excellence or learning and research it must have a
strong library.
This will cost a great amount of money and the skill
of a highly trained library staff, but the goal is worth the
effort. Education and learning are important values in our
society; the tools for learning, books, must be available so
that process can take place.
John S. Burger
Masqueraded Ignorance
Dear editor, (
Jim , Williams' last column was a fine example of
Ignorance masquerading' as knowledge.
Despite his protestations to the contrary, the fact is
that air bags are effective auto safety devices.
Williams scorns the fact that air bags cannot work in
the majority" of accidents where cars are rear-ended or
broad-sided. But how many two-car accidents do not
inypjve at least one car's front end? That the air bag
prevents serious injury in front-end collisions is document
ed and unquestionable.
What Williams conveniently omits is that the air bag is
only part of a , total package of safety devices Detroit should
be putting in cars now. No air bag devotee has ever claimed
them to be substitutes for structural safeguards, seat
belts or windshield standards.
Perhaps Williams prefers to spend his $200 on imitation
leopard-skin bucket seats or 70 more cubic inches of
engine. I would rather have air bags.
Max Holland
Fi!m review concern
Dear editor,
Two of her reviews have made me wonder if K. Alice
Bctts knows anything about film. Twice, she has lightly
dismissed what an overwhelming number of the nation's
critics deemed excellent films-Nashville and The Night
Porter. My main concerns are with her Night Porter
review (Daily Nebraskan, Sept. 22).
I wonder if Betts sat through the entire film. If she did,
I don't understand her bewilderment at the progression of
events.
Bogarde and Rampling were in love (sado-masochistic,
but love nonetheless). Both had committed crimes. He was
a murderer and she was a collaborator. For these reasons,
Bogarde's Nazis (bent on destroying all evidence and'
witnesses of their war crimes) pursue the couple and even
tually eliminate them.
The sex in film was never pornographic. I suggest rather
a limited knowledge of aberrant behavior on the part of
Betts. If she knew anything about Masters and Johnson she
wouldn't have made them party to her narrow view of sex.
In her criticism both of Nashville and The Night Porter,
Betts complains about the lack of good characterizations
when it was the characterizations that yielded international'
acclaim for both films. The lack of plot in Nashville was
intentional, but that fact managed to elude her.
In Night Porter there were no "messages" to "laugh
1 ,
away in disgust" ( which makes me wonder what Beits was
laughing at disgustedly). And since I doubt she could
recognize (much less explain) the motivating factors in a
sado-masochistic relationship, I am not surprised that she
found them "vague."
It pains me to think that some students wont go to see
this film solely or the basis of Betts's surface treatment of
it. If she likes films that come In nice ribbons and are
placed neatly within her immediate realm of understanding,
she is doing the art form and th tiiHnt a disservice by
reviewing any film that doesn't fall in that category.
Art Alexander
Name calling
Dear editor,
Granting Betts her obvious Virginal Plains Innocence,
one might have hoped she could critique Vie Night Porter
with objectivity or honesty. Instead, she resorts to name
calling as a smoke screen for her inability to understand the
film's treatment of history and psychology.
Given her youth, Betts can be forgiven her historical
stupidity, though she should be expected to have at least a
.passing interest in the mythic significance of violence and
dehumanization embodied in Nazism.
I also gather she must think of love as Valentine hearts
and flowers, not the bare foot on broken glass or the heel
grinding the lover's hand deeper into pain. So tell her to
get off her Masters and Johnson and confront some gut
level sex and blood. Love and pain. If she dares.
Which leads to my second point-her blithe indifference
to the workings of the human mind. Other than a crash
course in the School of Ha-i knocks, my only suggestion
to Betts would be to open her eyes and ears to the world
aroung her, and maybe to read some Freud or Jung.
Capping all is her Inability to follow a ridiculously direct
screenplay. If she can't see what is plain on the screen, she.
shouldn't pretend to be a film critic.
"Heinrich