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daily nebraskan
friday, march 20, 1981
Regents' timing shows disregard for students
Scheduling discussion of important student
related issues at NU Board of Regents meetings
can be described in a variety of ways most
appropriately as interesting, ironic and insulting.
The regents will hear reports on several topics
of concern to university students at their meet
ing Saturday, which just happens to be the first
day of UNL's spring break. On the regental
agenda for this month's meeting are recommen
dations to limit class enrollments, discussion of
proposals to cut classes after the first few class
meetings if not enough students register, and a
progress report on the university's Five-Year Plan.
dranted, if students are concerned about these
issues they are free to forfeit the opportunity to
get away from campus for a week.
However, it isn't really fair to penalize students
by making them change plans during the late
March hiatus because they may want to take an
active part in their education. After all, spring
break is a much-deserved and badly needed
change of pace, whether a student decides to go
on vacation or to stay at home to work on term
papers or class projects.
Besides, not all students have the option of
staying in Lincoln during spring break. The major
ity of students who live in UNL residence halls
must find off-campus accommodations during the
break. For most, that probably means returning
to their homes wherever those may be.
This is just another example of the continual
disregard for students displayed by the regents.
And it doesn't just happen during the spring.
Many critical decisions directly affecting univer
sity students also are made during the summer
months when most students have left the area.
The regents should consider the students when
thev decide when to discuss important matters
such as those on the agenda for Saturday , even if
that means changing meeting dates.
That really isn't asking too much since the uni
versity exists for the students. Doesn't it?
Break brings sanity
All right everybody. Go ahead. You deserve it.
At long last students can lean back, kick off their
shoes and breathe a sigh of relief. Spring break, that often
dreamed about week of retreat from the daily drudgery
and grind of classes and studying, is finally here.
Whoever invented this week of anticipated glory and re
freshing break from the routine should be heralded as a
genius from the lofty heights of all academia. Nothing can
be more beneficial for a student than having a week
to try in varying degrees-of desperation to regain at
least some measure of sanity.
And sanity will become very important for that final
push culminating in May when term paper due dates
arrive and final examinations commence.
Fnjoy it while you can everybody because you deserv
ed it and boy are you going to need your strength!
Sunstroke traded for happy hour
R. Lauderdale. Ha. Ask any number of the
quarter-million college students why they've descended
on Florida's white-sand beaches for spring break, and
they'll probably say "the sunshine." But it's hard to
believe that's the only reason.
One need only walk down the main strip here as
early as 3 p.m. to find as many kinds drinking in the
bars as sunbathing on the beach. Indeed, the bars do
their utmost to keep the vacationers from siitleiing
sunstroke.
Dozens of pubs begin their happy hour early, otter
ing rock-bottom prices for pitchers of beer and
specialty drinks. Some watering holes lure their first
customers of the day with free kegs.
Others sponsor various contests between different
campuses, fraternities and sororities; winners usually
receive you guessed it drinks on the house.
Fvcn the major beer companies are involved. Cele
brities from the popular "Lite Beer" television com
mercials are emceeing afternoon poolside activities at
16 hotels here and in Daytona. Former football stars
Ray Nitschke and Buck Buchanan and baseball not
ables "Boog" Powell and Marv Throneberry hold tugs
of war, pose for photos with students and hand out
"Famous Lite Beer Drinker" buttons.
"You've got a concentration of young beer drinkers
all in one place," said Ben Banta, who is running the
Miller Brewing Co.'s publicity campaign for Florida
this month. "They're just at the age when they're
deciding their own taste preferences."
It's no surprise that by dinnertime many of these
young Americans are stumbling out into Atlantic
Avenue, clogging traffic and thinking the evening's just
begun.
cently from 18 to 19), watch for fights and keep the
dizzy kids from getting run over.
By the last call at 1 a.m., many a disoriented reveler
has already passed out on the beach or returned to a
hotel room feeling nauseous.
Spring break in Florida is for many a first test of
good sense and good times away from school or home.
For far too many, it is also a rude awakening to the
daimcrs of alcohol .
shearer
Most of America's casual drinkers don't know that
alcohol is a very powerful poison, a toxic which not
only blurs one's vision hut kills liver cells, rips apart the
stomach lining and eats away the brain tissue.
And in men. it stops production of testosterone.
Alcohol's effect on the body is prodigious but still
considered somewhat mysterious by the medical pn
tession.
"Heavy drinkers can have enormous livers," said one
doctor. "Theirs are too hard and too fieshy. The
poison builds in the blood and the liver can't handle it.
And then it's all over."
Many parents may have been relieved to hear that
today's more conservative teenagers are smoking less
pot than their older brothers and sisteis. But they
should also know that alcoholism among teenagers has
reached epidemic proportions in this country.
Doctors say that between 15 and 20 percent of all
teenagers are "heavy risk" drinkeis. Not surprisingly,
the "six-pack syndrome" among those under 20 leads
to lower grades and increased auto latalities.
To countei these trends, legislatures have raised the
drinking age in neaily two doen slates since lu7..
Nevertheless, the law has never been able to sepaiate
people from goods of mass consumption.
Can anything be done to prevent future collegians
from hitting the beaches here simply to indulge in
mindless alcoholic excess'.'
One solution may be to affix a health warning label
on alcoholic beverage containers, as California Con
gressman George Broun has suggested.
"The industry spends $700 million a yeai to soothe
the public attitude that alcohol is part of the good
life." said Dennis Hernandez, a Brown aide. "We're try
ing to break up the message a little with the notion
that it can also harm your health."
As proposed by Brown, the warning label reads:
"Using this product too fast may cause sickness or
death; may impair driving ability; may create depend
ence or addiction, and during pregnancy may harm the
unborn."
Lnough said?
(c( 1981 Field Enterprises, Inc.
Life with three 'critters'
makes spring break great
Author Steve lawhead once said.
"Roommates are handy critters to have
around "
Student Kent Warncke always says.
"Roommates ma he critters, but they sure
aren't handy."
One rotten apple
In fact, if there is one reason that I'm
ecstatic that spring break starts soon, it's
because I won't have to be subject to the
stupid, disgusting, illicit and purely im
moral activities of my roommate.
I should explain that I live in a fratern
ity and the members change rooms every
semester. So at the end of last semester I
s;it down and made out a list oi the five
guys that for no reason u.iih vvat, to
room with. Brotherhood is tine, but sanity
is more important.
Out of my list of five. I was blessed with
No. 1 . two and four. I could have died. The
only good thing was that I didn't get stuck
with. No. a fat. ielativel weird art major
u ho snores.
But let me tell you. one. two and four
.lie bad enough .
Roommate No I is one of those
bioned sun gods from Omaha. He also just
happens to be Catholic and is assured of a
$2 .000 starting salary when he graduates
because Ins father is el richo. And then
someone like me. who is really talented,
won't even eain half that much. That's
depressing.
Roommate No. 2 is a real loser. First
olt. he has got frizzy hair he won't cut. He
also weais Vietnam radical coats, votes
Demociat and listens to the Rolling Stones
What is uoise is that lie writes had checks,
even to collection agencies
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