Wed nesdayi December 8, 1982
Page 4
Daily Nebraskan
dlitona
ILj
Two firsts
in life science
This past week in America, we have
used modern technology to kill one man
and to keep another man alive.
We killed - executed, really - Charlie
Brooks by injecting a lethal dose of three
drugs into his blood stream. The style
of execution was a first.
We kept alive - saved, really - Barney
Clark by replacing his diseased heart with
a mechanical heart. The style of salvation
was a first.
Brooks was a black man, a convicted
killer, a death row convict. Six years ago,
he killed an auto mechanic while stealing
a used car. So at 12:16 a.m. Tuesday,
officials at the Huntsville (Texas) Prison
strapped Brooks to a hospital cart' and
wheeled him into the chamber that used
to house the state electric chair. Minutes
after an executioner shot the lethal
liquid into Brooks' arm, he was dead.
Newspaper accounts said that Brooks
was relatively calm about dying and that
the death was quick and quiet.
As Brooks was killed Tuesday morn
ing, Barney Clark lay resting in a Salt
Lake City hospital. Clark is a white man.
a retired dentist, a man with a bad heart.
Last Thursday, that bad heart was removed
and replaced by u mechanical heart.
By Sunday, Clark was sitting up in bed,
swinging his feet over its side. On Satur
day, he was returned to surgery to cor
rect a leaking lung. The problem solved,
doctors said their patient was in serious
but stable condition and that his vital
signs were normal.
Thus, it seems, we have come a full
circle. We have adopted our medical
technology to both kill and save with
sophistication. We used to kill our con
victs with bullets the kind you feel
or electricity. Now we can simply inject
them with painless lethal drugs. We used
to put our heart patients on strict diet
and exercise regimes. Now we simply
can give them new hearts.
But our medical finesse doesn't stop
with heart implants and executions. We
:.eep thousands of people alive each day
by hooking them to machines. We create
life in test tubes, by mixing various sperms
and eggs of various men and women. We
even have the capability to reproduce
cells to create genetic duplicates.
And we know which' drugs ' taken in
what amounts and in what combinations
cause instant death. And vhich, . when
taken and how, cause prolonged death.
We have spent millions, billions study
ing both life-givers and lifetakcrs. It
seems almost perverse that wc -should
perform "fusts" of both in one week.
It seems a contradiction of purpose.
Perhaps now, then, is the time for
those who study medicine and science,
those who strive to save lives or end
them, to examine where their practices
are headed.
Without monitoring, someday tech
nology will enable us to extend life for
ever, and then, when our planet is pushed
to its limits, require us to end the lives
of some.
Supporters feeling relieved
as Kennedy skips campaign
What 1 keep remembering is the exit
poll. A month ago, as 1 left the voting
booth, someone from a TV station handed
me a short questionnaire.
That second "ballot" has a list of ques
tions about Ted Kennedy. Had 1 voted for
fj Ellen
Goodman
him? Did I think he was a good senator?
Did I want him to run for president?
Ye.s, I answered, I'd voted for him. Yes,
1 rated him pretty high as a senator. But
no, in my gut, 1 didn't want him to run for
president.
That day 1 questioned some other
friends and neighbors in my precinct. Most
of them had voted for the man and, yet,
when you got down to it, they hoped he
wouldn't run for president.
Well, I thought .about that when Ted
Kennedy stook up in a Senate chamber last
week and said he wasn't going to run in
1984. The one word that seemed to come
automatically from friends who heard or
read that announcement, the most
spontaneous feeling I picked up all day,
was "relief."
These were not Mondale people, nor
Glenn people nor Republicans. These were
Massachusetts people and, to some degree,
Kennedy people. And yet they were "re
lieved." Just like his kids.
A good deal has been said about
Kennedy's decision to drop out for the
sake of his children. Some people, cynical
about everything but their own cynicism,
doubt that rationale. 1 don't. Anyone who
has seen Ted Kennedy with his kids, any
kids, has seen him at his most human.
Fathering may be the thing he does the
best and talks about the worst.
But nobody has said why his kids want
Ted out. These aren't small kids who want
their daddy home every night. Two are in
college, one in a boarding school outside
Boston. I'm sure they want and need time
with him. But it's more complex than that.
If Ted Kennedy was thinking of his sons
and daughter, they were thinking of him. If
he did it for them, they did it for him.
My bet is that his kids just want to
protect their father. They don't want him
vulnerable to some nut out there with a
gun, a nut who belongs to a culture in
which a rock group is named The Dead
Kennedys. They don't want him vulner
able to another round of interrogations
about his "character" and his private life.
They may not even want to see him, with
his back brace and his exhaustion, running,
running, running. Tliey surely don't want
him to lose again. .
1 catch a similar feeling among more
distant Kennedy supporters. In this, his
home state, we have our own collection of
Kennedy lovers and Kennedy haters, but
there is a streak I can only label "protective."
Continued on Page 5
yw
Letters
More inmates seek letters Nuke 'speech' bombs
On Nov. 19, editorial readers learned
that in the Daily Nebraskan office is a
bulletin board - a board on which we
post letters that arrive from prisoners
requesting mail.
We got good response from that
editorial. Many who read it came down
to our office and copied down the names
and addresses of the letter-writers.
Since that tune we have received two
more letters. In the interest of equal lime,
today we publish their requests:
Joe Guzman Garcia is serving lime in
Leavenworth, Kan. He docs not tell us
anything about himself.
Denver I . Lemmons is an inmate at
This letter is in response to W.P. Swcar
ingen's guest opinion of Dec. 6 titled
"Nuclear weapons, power dangerous at
any stage."
t-irst I would like to ireat the article
as a speech. One of the first things I
learned in Speech 209 was to present
sources of facts and information. Just
exactly where did the numerous "facts"
come from that Swearingen presented?
His facts may or may not have come from
valid sources. If we were given the sources,
we could have determined their validity
ourselves.
But since no sources were given, we turn
, lo lh credibility of the uu:iLir nr inilwu
ihe Arkansas Department of Corrcctions"tn ie article Swearingen states, (and I
lie says he has no family, likes sports, :;quol9) "The reprocessing and transpor
music, astrology and art. tat ion of waste produced by both weapons
Each ended his letter with a wish for and electrical production are dangerous,
happy holidays. If you want lo lighten unsafely executed and insufficiently re
GarciVs or Lemmons' holiday, you can gulated." But Swearingen lists his major
retrieve their addiesses from out board, as speech communication. Does this
qualify him to be a valid source on nuclear
engineering? Since no sources, or worse,
no facts were given to back up the above
quote, the only source wc have to judge
the validity of that statement is Swear
ingen, who majors in speech communica
tion. .
One other note. What do doctor-patient
ratios, infant mortality rate, life expec
tancy rate, nuclear-generated electricity
being 13 percent of electricity output m
the United States since 1979, fines that
are passed on to consumers in rate hikes,
and Ihe Price-.Anderson Acl to limit the.
liability of utilities have lo do with what
Ihe article's title suggests?
I am not commenting on the use of
nuclear energy, jusl on ihe arguments
concerning it. Surely a third-year speech
communication student should be able lo
pick up (he technique of presenting facts
to an audience if someone who took jusl
one speech course and gave only six
speeches can.
Peter J. Mastera
sophomore, electrical engineering
What I did
during college
No more classes after Friday - just
finals.
No more classes for me here at Lincoln
after Friday, either. I'm supposed to be
studying overseas next semester, so I'll
finish out my undergraduate college career
( fr Bob
) Glissmann
away from UNL, even though I'll get my
degree from the College of Arts and Sci
ences. The only holdup is that somebody at
the school that I am to attend (I'm going
dovn to a university in Sydney, Australia)
has to sign something first to make it
official. So 1 can't say for sure that I won't
be around in January.
But that doesn't mean I can't look back
on my college career.
I've wanted to go to the University of
Nebraska since I was a little kid. (That's
not exactly true, because 1 don't think 1
thought much about college when I was 5.
Otherwise, though, that statement is about
right.) My interest in the school stemmed
from the football team.
Now this may not seem like the best
rationale for selecting a college, but my
thinking was, "Why go somewhere where
they have a crummy football team? And if
I go to another school and they play Ne
braska some year, I'd have to root for the
Cornhuskers. Forget it. It's easier this
way."
It also was cheaper, but that's another
story.
So I got down here, and I met all sorts
of kids who weren't from Omaha my
hometown. I learned that there are schools
outside of Omaha that are in Class A. I
learned that there are a bunch of little
towns 1 had never heard of - Upland, Sum
ner, Valparaiso, Lyman, Bayard. I even got
to visit some of these places. You really
learn about Nebraska when you go to
school here, even more than you might at
UNL or at a state college.
I also learned about living on a dorm
floor. And about almost getting kicked off
a dorm floor. And about eating cafeteria
food. And about studying all night, and
about dropadd and about standing in
lines, and about a lot of other things, but
not about sentence fragments, as you can
see from this paragraph.
Besides sentence structure, there were
things I wish I would have studied.
Take geography. 1 never took a geo
graphy course here, and I had never had
one before I arrived, either. So I'm still not
sure whether Australia is closer to Egypt or
to China. I'm fairly sure it's south of here.
I also never took any business courses. I
never took any math courses. I nTv?r look
any classes on Last Campus. I didn't take
enough science courses. Theli again, I had
only four years, so I was somewhat limited
by time. But I could have studied more
than journalism and English and a smatter
ing of other things.
But one's college education isn't limited
to what is taught in the classroun. Talking
lo my roommates or whomever probably
taught me more about some things than
did sitting in a lecture hall taking notes
Just learning to live with 30 or 50 olhei
people on a residence hail floor is good
training for living in society. And I prob
ably gained more understanding about how
people act by watching what goes on in a
bar than by reading a book. (There's noth
ing like justified drunkenness, is there?)
I don't like trying to be serious about
something, tike college life. And I can't
sland people who reminisce all the time.
But what the hell, I had a good time here
and I learned a lot. Now let's sec if I can
get a job.
(Hie funniest thing that could happen
after writing this is if the Australian deal
Tails through and I'm still here next
semester. Wouldn't tixat be embarrassing.
Bui if I do go, ihe Daily Nebraskan might
run "Letters from Australia" or something
"Coming in March to a paper near
you")
