Daily Nobrcskan
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Thurcdsy, April 10, 1035
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Gather-Pound president ca3 10 the hath of th8 enc?l ppulatlca
criticizes RHA coverage
A campus newspaper should: 1) inform and 2)
entertain. Lately, it eecms thai feature writing
has demanded first priority at the Dally Nebras
kan. To be mors specific, I am referring to the
covered (cr rather the lick cf coverage) cf the
recent E!L elections. Listing the recently elected
cClcers in rJphibeticel order cn the list page of
the April 12 edition does not constitute proper
Journalistic coverage cf & government election.
Furthermore, if the EHA election commission
had not paid for the announcement, the officers
irsy not have tven been recognized.
lt'3 true that j t--.Ier.t3 can be s pathetic about
student government. It's also tree that msny cf
the cSccs were uncontested Dat not ghlng the
. EHA end its elections sufficient coverage eon
doses this already tighy apathetic attitude. In
light cf the fact that more than 5,030 students '
Ike in residence halls, this newspaper viU look
more closely at its tevcrsgs cf the Ecsideace
Hall Association in the future.
, Brian P. Nocnaa
president-elect
, Gather Pound & cmmer.t
Editor a note: Tfee BaiNelrrnan r&a
jia cxtte! April S befave thz fllA elec
tion tbmst ib 02 partly rciarJLng for
excessive office. On Apiil 12, xve raa ca
ertida pa&a 0 aostraBsciBS the cseca
the officers sstd res&lcsca bs!l rotas'
Ksjpcrt cT BffliSisritcd fasd service. We
dMn't ran tSe list f oncers for each
residence fcslL .
John Oldson
freshman
history
Reader questions
(ML toiving policy
Tuesday night my car was tewed by the Uni
versity Police because cf unpaid parking tickets.
I had to wonder why. It seems to me that a much
better and safe way to deal with the problem of"
unpaid tickets weald be to chirp a student's
university account far the amount due and with
hold the student's grades cr transcript until this
money is paid. But then I thought, Lincoinland
Towing sure world lose a lot cf business if this .
policy were implemented.
Maybe there is more to the university's towing
policy than meets the eye. Maybe it's something
that deserves the attention of the state's attor
ney general. .
Robert J. Stable
third year law student
Gather would want
2
freedom.
rrotessor reeomm
article on deaihpmu
I wish to congratulate Jame3 A. Fusr-sll for Ms
column against the death penalty that appeared
in the April 1 1 issue of the Daily Nebreskaa. It is
one of the best-written articles I have come
across on the- subject. I etror.y reeo:a:.:c:ri this
article to anybody interested ii the suls:et cf
death penalty -who may have missed reaiUng it
S.S,Jaswal
physics and astronomy
Reader says
set m
feelings are tm
lids is in response to Eickard Andrews
Koiyta's letter, "Eeader says minorities entitled
to freedom too" '(DN, April IS.) Freedom and
feelings, at lesst in this instance, don't have a
single thing to do with on sacther. I'm Mrly
secure in my own beliefs, &nd I still get slsk
when I run into so much m a semi-tranavastite.
Mascara's just the straw that breaks the camel's
back.
Yoa're right cn one point: If someone h gaj, I
don't care. It's not got a thing to o wi& me. My
rJy problem conies when Fm approached, and
God fed? the nan.
And, by the way, I don't know of anyone in the
EGTC who has AIDS. So it couldn't hn rrped
that military types are potential! mere haaard-
native prairie gras
In reference to Thomas Sullivan's letter stat
ing his displeasure with the sorry state cfWilla
Gather Garden (DN, April 17): I agree, something
needs to be done to fix the garden. However, I
don't think that we should be misled into think
ing that covering the area with flowering trees
and a carpet cf blue graas would be a fitting
memorial.
Gather knew what Nebraska was like before it
became one big cornfield. It was a prairie state,
with prairie plants as tough and adaptive as the
settlers that Gather wrote about. The prairie'
grasses and flowers could withstand tremendous
drought, bdfah grazing and untimely frost, The
plants could even be burned to the ground by
huge fires and coma back ins few weeks, rejuv
enated. The prairie can withstand any calamity
except one the plow. Today in Nebraska only
a few remnants cf the tail grass prairie that once
covered the ground remain. ."
. Wilis Gather Garden is in sad shape. Bare
ground, dandelions and, even worse for a prairie
aSicianado, blue grass. But the idea cf planting
the native buffalo grass was a good one. Maybe
the grounds department could get same grasses
like big Muestea or side-oats-grama to grs and
maybe some wild violets, false iadlga or pent
stamon. These plants can't be ordered from a
nissery like most of the ether plants on caaapus:
Planting them would take a real effort, but I
' think the grounds department em do it.
I don't want to sound like some reactionary
nisi the cornfields that have replaced. the
prairie are necessary (aSer sli, people have to
eat) and I enjoy the bloesife;! masiolia, pear and
BSBZTGrBliQOVm. MWSS
w trapiTO of c anp mmsi
t',5 lira a commiGm mm
cv:m mm mm as m wmm,
71
t-.- ,...,.Usw
LawmaKers must seeic
to reiueayia
aniel Patrick Moynihan came back to
Harvard last week in search of common
ground. The New York senator, the former
Harvard professor, delivered three lectures on
the American family, or to be more precise, on
American families.
iimues pilgllt
' t
oodman
asnle trees cn camnss. Cat I would like to see
some native plants toe, so we can gppreclate
X came before us. I think CatherwoKid have
ecoky
It vas no coincidence that Mcynihan's words
came cn the 20th anniversary of his famous or
infamous analysis of the Negro family. In that
work he described the shattering relationship
between family disintegration and poverty.
This time, Moynihan reappeared as a social
policymaker in an era of limits. The problems he
described have been engorged by social change.
.Today, the feminization cf poverty, the child
iiatkn cf poverty are endemia to the whole
society. A national family policy never did evolve.
The rate of poverty among the very young in the
United States is nearly sis times m great as
. among the very old. In 1833, 23 percent of the
pre-school children lived in poverty.
Eat this neo-Mcpikn didn't oSer any massive
.program for. change, nor did he support any
social-science solution to family troubles. There '
is no single way for government to turn around
' the social forces that are affecting families.
Instead, Moynihan said, "Social policy must flow,
from social values and not from social science."
In & flight of academic humility, the professor-
: cum-polltkian said, "We do net know the
processes of social change well enough, so as to
be able confidently to predict them; far less to
aSectthem."
What the senator tried to do then was to cull
out cf the morass cf conflicting values and
information, armsmber of things we can, as a
nation, agree spoa. "What is necessary," he
. feslipres, for. solving the deepest problems of
poor femlties, 1s the willingness and ability to
act in some coherent manner in accordance with
some coherent objective." Even in this inhospit
able era, 'We can act if w can agree ..."
If we can agree for exsmpte, that government
should not tax people into poverty then, Moynihan
said, we can enlarge tax exemptions so that once
again they aredarge enough to push families cut
of poverty. If we can agree that certain govern
ment programs do work, saving live3 and saving
money, then we can improve on the model of
Head Start or job training for women.
If we can agree that the needs of poor children
aren't being met, then we can tie their benefits,
like those of the elderly, the disabled, the
veterans, to inflation. If we can agree that drugs
are destroying families, then we can make a
wider commitment to law enforcement.
This piecemeal approach to problems does
not quite make a national family policy, and the
senator was the first to admit that. He talked in
the most general philosophical terms "We
value self sufficiency. We are offended by poverty"
and in the most specific about money and
programs. There was a tentative, pared down
quality to his words. No panaceas, no promises,
just pieces of progress. No, we do not know
everything about making families strong, he'
inferred, but "... There' are places, to begin."
What i liked about the speeches was that he
sounded less like a politician than like an
archaeologist trying to salvage pieces of common
ground. In the last two decades Americans have
le arned what we can't do to eliminate poverty or
to empower families, but in the process may have .
lost the belief that we can do anything at all.
The philosophers in power today maintain
that government itself is the problem. But the
man who coined the misunderstood phrase
"benign neglect" says, "... no government ... can
avoid having policies that profoundly influence
family relationships."
The current inertia cf social policy malignantly
neglects the young. Moynihan's disparate
approach is not new, or neat, but fits the
pragmatism of the times; we have to focus our
vision on what we do know and what does work.
If we are obsessed by rasjor arguments over "the
family," then it's time to find pockets of con
sensus. If we can agree, we can act, said the senator.
We can help at least help the lowest and
youngest quarter of our population. The problem
is that first we have to agree that we want to act.
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