Wednesday, October 12, 1977
daily nebraskan
Is steSdl
opinion
help mra ffsisk feirs
It's an old story around here-inaction and
resignations delay a process. Student government
was faced with the problem at times last year as
were several other organizations.
It is disappointing to see inaction also plague
the task force studying student government. One
of the reasons the task force exists is to eliminate
such problems in student government.
Fortunately, it seems that the task force finally
is moving. It has met on Sunday nights for several
weeks now and interviewed past members of
some student government bodies.
The moving task force seems to be ambitious.
It has surveyed 16 schools about their student
governments. It has concluded that some student
governments with more power draw more
participation.
But, it points out, some other governments
have about the same control as the ASUN Senate
and executives, yet they get better participation.
Now where?
The issues have been talked about. (The dis
cussion prompted the creation of the task force.)
And as ASUN President Greg Johnson notes,
any task force recommendation must go through
campus political channels. So why not open those
channels now?
The best way to do it is to establish the frame
work for discussion.
The task force needs to continue to seek
student comment, but mostly it needs to promote
talk.
To promote talk it needs some solid issues
that means specific proposals. Without neces
sarily making decisions, t could present a list of
proposals considered-basically an agenda. Such a
list might be considered the definitions for the
debate.
Let's start discussion with some concrete
proposals and let politics run their course. The
sooner, the better. .
' letter
' to th ditof
In a recent article on former President Ford's visit
to Lincoln and (the University of Nebraska at Omaha)
UNO, I was quoted in such a way as to convey the
impression that I was critical of Ford for not being a
political philosopher.
My intentions was to make the opposite point:
that we who teach the art and science of politics can
learn a great deal of importance from those who
practice it, especially at the level of the American
Presidency.
On the whole, I thought the President's visit to our
campus constituted a valuable learning experience, but
,1 would agree that the format was such that we did
not take full advantage of our opportunity.
Looking forward to the spring visit, the question
is: how best to learn those things that Ford, because
of his vast political experience and considerable skill,
can teach us?
In the case of the UNO format, we think it might be
wise to get away from broad abstract topics ("The
President and Congress") and attempt to direct his
attention to specific subjects,, such as the Mayaquez
incident, electoral college reform, the Nixon pardon,
and the War Powers Act,
By concentrating on such concrete issues we might
gain valuable insights into the practice of presidential
politics that could be of considerable theoretical
significance.
Kent Kins an
Chairman
UNO Political Science Dept.
Carter takes safari in New York's concrete desert
New York Jimmy Carter did not make a pit stop on
Fox Street;
Two motorcycles swung onto ihe block first, then
came a car filled wtih agents, then two more motorcycles,
a car, another car, more motorcycles, more cars, sirens
crying, red lights blinking-you've done something wrong,
you've done something wrong-and then a brown limou
sine with flags on the front fenders and Carter in the back
seat, looking out the windows and, you hoped, seeing
something.
The motorcade, rolled along the stone desert. Then it
turned the corner and was gone. The captains and the
kings had departed, and you were left in an empty lot in
the middle of the 800 block on Fox Street, The view was
of 10 gutted five-story apartment buildings, and the piles
of rubble where a half-dozen other buildings had stood
until scorched earth became an official policy in the
South Bronx.
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Life resumed on the street. Carios Fontanez, who is 13,
came out of a slum-gray building on the comer of Fox
Street, walked over to a body-and-fender shop and began
throwing a rubber ball against the wall. He caught it one
handed with a first baseman's glove. Frail brown arms
came out of a yellow T-shirt. When he smiled, a mouth
full of chipped teeth showed .
"Did you see President Carter?" he was asked.
He stopped throwing the ball and pointed to the top
floor of his apartment house. "From the window," he
said. v . ,
Your block
"What did you think of him coming to your block?"
he was asked.
Out in the street, a man leaning under the hood of a
suddenly looked up and saw the boy talking to a visitor.
"It that your father?" Carios was asked. We were about
to go over and ease the suspicions of the adult.
"Nah, got no father," Carlos said. "You say Carter. Is
Carter going to send people here to build houses?"
"Do you think he should?" Carlos was asked.
"That's what somebody say before. Carter going to
send people here and build houses. They could build
houses here that the rats, they won't come into the
houses."
Ik started throwing the ball up against the wall again.
'Where does hi live, Jimmy Carter?" he asked.
"In Washington."
New York
Carlos stopped, "f thought he lived in New York."
"In the White House in Washington," he was told.
"J thought that was in New York " he said.
It was about 1 0 a.m. "Don't you go to school?" Carlos
was asked.
"P.S,52." ;
"Why aren't you there?'-
"I got to go to a doctor. I got working papers and the
principal says I got to go get the doctor to sign them."
"You have to be 14 for working papers," he was told.
"Going to be 14 in May and I get a job then. The prin
cipal says I have to get the doctor to sign my papers. So I
go there today."
"But why don't you wait until May for that?"
Now he concentrated on throwing the ball against the
wall. : ' .
"Do you stay home from school a lot?" he was asked.
He smiled and nodded yes.
"Where were you born?"
Spelling lesson
"In P.R. We came over here on account of we had no
house. I lived in P.R., in Carolina." He spelled it out,
hesitantly, holding a finger up and thinking of each letter.
At the letter "o" he faltered and then said, "i." Then he
said, "No, no. That's T and then iV He smiled proudly.
He looked up at his apartment and waved at his
mother.
"Isn't she mad that you're not in school today?" he
was asked. ,
"Sometimes she is mad at me. Today she's not so mad.
Today she's mad at my brother,"
He went back to his learning for the day: throwing the
ball against a wall while his mother watched from the
window, ' ,
At the corner, an immense woman in a red pants suit
stood drinking a bottle of soda. In the other hand she held
a long stick of brown gooey candy. '
"I'm on a diet," she smiled. In the South Bronx, the
worry is about getting shot, not getting fat,
'Not much
" I wonder what he thought of it up here," she said. "I
know what I think of it. Not very much."
In front of the next building, a woman named Nilda
stood with a small boy who held a toy car. Nilda said his
hame was Gilbert and that he was 7. Gilbert was asked
why he wasn't in school.
"Cause the teacher curses at the kids," he said. "When
my regular teacher is sick, this other teacher comes i" and
curses at the kids."
"That's right," the mother said. "I told the principal
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last year. When the sub teacher comes, she curses at all the
little kids." .. ..
1 "What does the teacher say to you?" Gilbert was'
asked.
"She saysi 'Get the out of here,"' the little boy
said.
'Did you see?'
The mother nodded. "You see, that's what she says,"
"Did you see the President?" the mother was asked,
"First when I heard all the sirens, I thought it was a big
police raid. Then when I heard the helicopter over the
house, I thought it was something else, I look out the win
dow and here comes all the cars. So he was here. He.
comes once in a blue moon. I get up in the morning and
live here every day. Tell him make the neighborhood
better.'
Some of the people on Fox Street live in buildings that
have been rehabilitated by so much federal money it is a
continuing political scandal. But the rest of the
street, and the lives of those on it, has been formed by
fire. Coming out of the emptiness of the next block on
Fox Street, were two women in dungaree suits.
"So he should come here next and do something about
this dump," one of them, Maria Morales, said, "I moved
10 times in five years, They either don't give you hot
water or something like that. You got to move.
Then fire
'Then you got a fire. Fire on top of me. Fire under
neath me. Believe me, the fire underneath me is the
scariest. How you can't get through it. When that happens
I go to the roof and jump from roof to roof. I once
jumped roof to roof with my three children when they
were only 1 , 3 and 4. Now they're older. They're 9, 8 and
6 . . .
"Did they see the President?" she was asked.
"No they didn't see any Carter," she said.
"That's too bad. Were they in school by the time he
got here?" 3
"No, they were not in school. They were at my aunt's
house."
She and her friend walked away, and Fox Street, a
charred street once considered to be in the middle of a
great city, was completely empty..
Copyright 1 977, Jimmy Breslin
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