Daily Nebraskan
Wednesday, November 3, 1982
Paga4
Converting R Street into mall
would be welcome addition
Picture this: an R Street lined with
trees and benches instead of parked cars,
an R Street where bikers and motorists
don't have to compete for their fair share
of the road, and R Street where pedistri
ans coming to or leaving the university
don't have to dodge vehicles.
Such a picture is in the plans - the UNL
comprehensive plan, that is. Within 10
years, university officials hope to have
converted the area from 12 th Street to
16th Street on R into mall.
By all early accounts, the plan seems
unobjectionable.
No university or state funds would be
used to finance the project. According to
Kim Todd, the campus landscape archi
tect for the UNL grounds department, the
project would cost about $500,000. It
would be funded entirely by donations.
No parking spaces would be lost. In
fact, Todd earlier said that 40 additional
parking stalls would be added to the area
under the plan. Thirty-four perpendicular
stalls would be available on R between
16th Street and the Centennial Mall.
Parking along 13th and 14th streets
would be converted from parallel to
perpendicular stalls, creating a total of 42
spaces. A lot for perpendicular parking also
would be added to the west end of R Street
with space for 54 vehicles.
The plan seems workable, too, because
access to campus buildings would remain
intact. The proposed perpendicular lots
at two different spots along R would allow
access to Greek houses, the yet-to-be-completed
Milton I. Wick Alumni Center,
the Nebraska Union, The State Historical
Society and R Street retailers.
Considering that a mall wouldn't cost
members of this university community
anything, wouldn't eliminate any parking
and wouldn't seriously hamper access to
buildings - and would add a bit of beauty
and a lot of safety to the campus - we'n
all for it.
But we do have one suggestion for uni
versity officials: call the mall anything but
plain ole "R Street Mall." Lacking a title
of our own, we suggest the adminstration
sponsor a mall-naming contest. If we're
going to have a spiffy new mall, it ought
to have a spiffy name.
Legal cocaine might add life
to nation's sluggish economy
Letters,
Shipment of nuclear wastes unnecessary
John DeLorean had the right idea.
You remember - he's the rich guy
who was .indicted for the $24 million
(or $50 million, if you believe Time
magazine) cocaine deal to save his car
company from bankruptcy. The only
problem was that cocaine is illegal.
Now the U.S. government is in debt
too, isn't it? What, about $1 trillion?
As a Lincoln native, I grew up and
developed an appreciation for the positive
relationship between the city and university
community.
But recently, city government has made
some decisions that haven't been in the
best interest of students.
The Lincoln City Council issued a
permit for underground fuel storage near
the campus.
The council imposed a wheel tax on
students, but left the intersection of 14th
& R streets in the terrible and dangerous
condition it has been in for years while
managing to completely resurface Sheridan
Boulevard in south Lincoln.
But of primary concern is the possi
bility that the city will allow Burlington
Northern Railroad to transport highly
radioactive wastes on the tracks that separ
ate the city campus from the North
Bottoms Neighborhood, directly adjacent
to Harper, Schramm, Smith and other
campus housing facilities.
The first of these shipments was sched
uled for last month. Presently, Burlington
Northern and the Nebraska Public Power
District are awaiting a City Council de
cision slated for January. f
This waste is en route from the Cooper
Nuclear Power Plant in Brownville, Neb.,
on its way to be stored in Morris, 111.,
until the Reagan administration chooses
a national waste dump site (in some lucky
state) where it will then be moved again!
The tragedy of this situation is twofold.
First, the shipments are simply unnecessary
at this time. Second, shipments of this
nature by rail are very dangerous shipments
come at a time when America's railroads
are changing from inspecting their trains
every 500 miles to only once every 1,000
miles in an effort to keep maintenance
costs down and profits up.
These shipments are unnecessary but are
being expedited only because a contract
exists between the railroad and NPPD.
The government has a responsibility
to ensure our safety and prevent us from
being used in such a dangerous costeffect
experiment of the railroads and utilities.
As students, we must be heard on a
potentially life-and-death issue.
Councilman Eric Youngberg has intro
duced a restrictive resolution to the
council. If we do not stop these shipments,
we must demand maximum safety pre
cautions be taken.
We must petition the council and tell
it we don't want to be subjected to the
dangers the nuclear power industry has
perpetrated.
Bill Swearingen
junior, speech
Burlington Northern trainman
( or Bob
) Glissmann
Why don't they legalize cocaine and use
the money they make from taxes to
repay the debt? Is that simple or what?
It's not even a new idea. People have
been talking for a long time about legaliz
ing marijuana and taxing it. But 1 don't
think marijuana should be legalized. It
smells bad.
It makes your room smell bad, your
clothes smell bad and your hair smell
bad. Something that stinks shouldn't
be legal. I'll even go as far as to say that
stinky things that are legal now should
be made illegal. Onions. Sulphur. Beer
breath. Tomato soup. Babies. Everybody
else's house.
Cocaine should be legalized. Look
how much money the government could
raise. Time magazine said DeLorean was
"charged with conspiring to acquire 220
pounds of cocaine in the expectation
of making a $50 million profit." With
a couple hundred tons, the country would
be further down the road to economic
recovery. Remember: "Stay the course."
The legalization could even help far
mers. We could set up rows upon rows
of greenhouses out in the Sandhills, where
they're losing all the topsoil anyway. So
Nebraska corn farmers could turn into
coca plantation owners and get much
better prices than what they're getting
now.
Of course, as in any new enterprise,
there would be offshoot industries that
could help the economy. Little spoon
factories could be built to help the finan
cially strapped utensil industry.
A $100 bill-roller-upper factory would
be good too, as would a factory that
manufactures nosewash. (One possible
advertising slogan: "Eliminate those embar
rassing white nostril stains with Naso
clear - the nosewash of the stars.") Ad
vertising, merchandising, packaging and
distributing firms could all benefit from
the legalization.
As far as the effects of the drug it
self, cocaine supposedly has an immediate
euphoric effect on the users and leads to
no apparent physical addiction (as opposed
to the "New Federalism").
Oh, there can be some psychological
addiction, and excessive or prolonged
use can lead to insomnia, restlessness,
paranoia, violent outbursts, hallucinations,
inflamed nasal tissue, perforated sep
tums, seizures, heart attacks or death, but
these are insignificant.
For every John Belushi we lose, we
gain .at least three successful entrepreneurs
who reinvest in America, creating more
jobs and improving the quality of life.
How lucky we are to live in the free
enterprise system. H
So let's legalize coke. Write your con
gressman. Write your senator. Or write
your favorite movie star or pro football
player. Better yet, just find some jet
setting, ambitious rich guy. He probably
could give you the best line on the situation.
Producer plans televised link to suicide hotline
In the ever-escalating race to satisfy the hungers
and desires of the American viewing public, a fledgling
Los Angeles television producer has embarked on a
project that is destined to "chill "even the most jaded
social observers.
The producer is a man named Laurence Schwab. The
program is called "Suicide."
p Bob Greene
The premise is simple:
Schwab will list a telephone number for his private
suicide hotline in the Los Angeles phone book. He will
also advertise it in newspapers and on the radio.
When a person, feeling despondent, calls the number,
Schwab will send a psychiatrist out to talk to that per
son. He will also send a camera crew.
"And that's the show," Schwab said the other day.
"What happens? Does the psychiatrist talk the person
out of suicide? Or does the person blow his brains put
right on camera? You never know from week to week."
Schwab is trying to sell his idea to a cable TV operator.
He feels that regular broadcast stations would never
buy it - but that some cable operator somewhere, in a
desperate move to lure viewers, will give the show a
chance. x
"There are no laws that prohibit showing someone
killing himself on the air," Schwab said. "Look, we live
in a gladiator pit. What do you call hockey, football,
boxing, auto racing? People are secretly hoping to see
death, whether they admit it to themselves or not."
Schwab has started a company, Ridaldo Productions,
that is preparing a pilot for "Suicide." The pilot will
feature actors; it is just intended to show cable operators
what the real show will be like.
Schwab said that most episodes of "Suicide" probably
will end with the person deciding he does not want to
kill himself. But viewers will not know the outcome
of the specific case until the end of each show - and
Schwab admits that he expects most viewers to tune
in because they want to see if the week's "star" actually
commits suicide.
Asked what his moral reaction will be the first time
someone pulls out a gun and, on-camera, shoots him
self, Schwab said: "I don't have a problem with that."
He said he has two reasons for trying to produce the
"I can
frankly,
able to
seen on
show. The first is money. The second reason is more
complicated.
"I like drama, and I like power," he said
think of nothing more dramatic than this. And
I can think of nothing more powerful. To be
give people a forum for their own death to be
television . . .
He said he is not worried that he will set up the hot
line and that the phone won't ring.
"People will call he said. "There is a tremendous
craving out there to be seen on television. If a person
has decided to commit suicide, he has to make a decis
ion. Does he want to go out alone? Or does he want to
be seen by a potential audience of hundreds of thous
ands of people? I don't think there's any question -some
people out there will choose to have our cameras
there." - '
Schwab said that he has consulted with attorneys
and is taking steps to protect himself legally.
"We are going to do everything we can to show that
we are not culpable," he said. "For example, when a
person calls us, we will always notify the police before
we send our camera crew out. And we will not egg a
person on; our psychiatrist will try to prevent the ruicide.
Continued on Page 5
