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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 20, 1985)
Friday, September 20, 1985 Pago 4 Daily Nebraskari 1 A Commission on itatus of Women must stay open ebraska will be without an important service if the state Commission on the Status of Women perishes because of the severe budget cuts the organization suffered this year. Instead of receiving the $220,000 it had requested this summer, the commission was granted only $30,000 just enough for the commission to close its doors and hand out unemployment checks to its staff. . Because the' commission's work was not yet finished, its members refused to terminate the organization, said Ada Munson, commission chairwoman. Instead, the commission has reduced its staff from eight to two people, moved to a smaller office in the State Office Building where rent is cheaper and cut back considerably on its services. The organization now relies on private support, Munson-said. With private funding, Munson said, the commission should survive until next June. But without public money, the future of the organization is uncertain. Without proper funding, the commission will not be effective in helping women and the state. Last year, the commission received about 6,000 phone calls requesting information about legislation, publication, tech nical assistance and legal action. Many times, Munson said, women seeking legal advice used the commission as a type of referral service. Because of the reduction in staff, no commission members can help callers. Statewide forums on the status of women, which are presented by the commission, also could be eliminated because of the cut in travel expenses. Nebraskans need and use the commission's services. Without it, women and others will have difficulty getting needed help. The commission merits enough of the state's tax dollars to help it continue until members think their work is done. But the commission still has work to do. In 1980, Nebraska women earned only 64 percent of the amount paid to men. And in 1983, 75 percent of women government employees in Nebraska were in the lowest paying jobs office and clerical work. And Munson said rural women and single parents still need support from the commission. State legislators should be concerned about the plight of Nebraska women. After all, about half of Nebraska's 1.5 million voters are women. The Daily Nebraskan 34 Nebraska Union 1400 R St., Lincoln, Neb. 68588-0448 EDITOR NEWS EDITOR CAMPUS EDITOR ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR WIRE EDITOR COPY DESK CHIEFS SPORTS EDITOR ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR PHOTO CHIEF ASSISTANT PHOTO CHIEF NIGHT NEWS EDITOR ASSOCIATE NIGHT NEWS EDITORS ART DIRECTOR ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR GENERAL MANAGER PRODUCTION MANAGER ASSISTANT PRODUCTION MANAGER ADVERTISING MANAGER ASSISTANT ADVERTISING MANAGER CIRCULATION MANAGER PUBLICATIONS BOARD CHAIRPERSON PROFESSIONAL ADVISER VickiRuhga, 472-1766 Ad Hudler Suzanne Teten Kathleen Green Jonathan Taylor Mlchiela Thuman Laud Hopple Chris Welsch Bob Asmussen Biil Alien David Creamer Mark Davis Gene Gentrup Richard Wright Michelle Kubik Kurt Eberhardt Phil Tsal Daniel Shattil Katherlne Pollcky Barb Branda Sandl Stuewe Mary Hupf Brian Hogtund Joe Thomsen Don Walton, 473-7301 The Daily Nebraskan (USPS 144-080) is published by the UNL Publica tions Board Monday through Friday in the fall and spring semesters and Tuesdays and Fridays in the summer sessions, except during vacations. Readers are encouraged to submit story ideas and comments to the Daily Nebraskan by phoning 472-1763 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The public also has access to the Publications Board. For information, contact Joe Thomsen. Subscription price is $35 for one year. Postmaster: Send address changes to the Daily Nebraskan, Nebraska Union 34, 1400 R St., Lincoln, Neb. 68588-0448. Second-class postage paid at Lincoln, NE 68510. ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 1985 DAILY NEBRASKAN 65T A!PS. IPON'T ASSOCIATE I PONT GiveBtoop OR VISIT V HOSPITALS. ID R55W RANTS 7 Vfoves... em 1m Hi ipwriMK row (N THIS ROOM. J ft ft r x IfoNTKISS tWBOW FROM RJ&I(! WNTAIHS ihi ....ITS GREAT- 10 BE uwe. II 1 I(h Ironing depresses columnist My laundromat is a grim, depres sing place. Not only is it dank and seedy, but it spells trouble for me in one little word: wrinkles. I can't go there without thinking of Duncan, a character in one of the books I read for Canadian literature class. Duncan was a compulsive ironer. He was always begging his friends to loan him their wrinkly blouses. I wouldn't want him for a love interest, but I'd fix him a good dinner if he would come over once a week and do his thing. There's no money to be made on an "I Hate to Iron" book, but I could write a million words on the subject. Ironing is an unpleasant, boring, incredibly short lived task. Plus, you have to pay atten tion or you'll iron in creases that look worse than the wrinkles. My roommate and I struggled for years with the little table-top ironing board my mother gave me one year for my birthday. I guess its diminutive size was her concession to my known distaste for the pressing game. It was supposed to be handy and unobtrusive, just for minor jobs or something. But it was never unobtrusive, and we never used it on a table. It was permanently set up in a corner of the dining room and we sat on the floor to use it, generally one after the other at 7:30 a.m. My great aunt Mabel died last year, and I got first crack at an 82-year accumulation of households goods. I felt fortunate, since most people have to get married to score a windfall like that. Not only did I get muffin tins, placemats and myriad other fun stuff I would never actually buy, but I got her rickety old ironing board. It's one of those full-sized, primitive wooden models with thick padding and shaky legs. Colleen Holloran We've got it set up in the extra bedroom permanently, I'm afraid, because it makes a swell coat rack, too. I was hoping some of Aunt Mabel's karma would come along with her ironing board, because she and Duncan would have had a lot of common ground. She went after sheets, towels and underwear. She was just a step below Erma Bombeck's old neighbor, Mrs. Beck, who ironed the tongues of canvas tennis shoes. I recently ruined a silk blouse on the ironing boardcoat rack, so I'm more wary than ever now. Certainly I know all the tricks: Wearing suits is the best one because all I have to do is smooth out the wrinkles on a six-inch panel across the front of the blouse. Like practically everything, my aver sion to ironing probably goes back to my Catholic upbringing. Every Sunday night I had to stand in our musty laundry room and iron five white uniform blouses. . Maybe I could do a takeoff on my favorite Tillie Olsen short story, "I Stand Here Ironing." Mine would be about a young girl whose mother refuses to let her go to school in wrinkled blouses. She can hear all the neighbor kids outside playing kickball while she toils inside next to a mountain of blouses and her father's handkerchiefs. I would call it "I Stand Here Seething." When the royalties start pouring in I'm not going to waste any time. Forget Tidy Troops and personal secretaries I'm hiring an ironing service. The tough life of a convicted killer It's impossible to ignore a letter that begins with the poignant words: "A mother's plea." Especially when the mother says she is fighting for the life of her son. And as Delores Maxey describes it, the situation does sound desperate. Her son, Brian, happens to be an inmate in an Illinois state prison, first in Joliet, and most recently at Pontiac. Mrs. Maxey writes: "My son's life is at risk because of violent inmates and gang members who control the inside living of other inmates. . ." Last June, she says, her son was "brutally stabbed" in the face by pri son gang members because he refused to join a gang. The wound required 32 stitches and he has almost lost the sight of one eye. Because of the attack, she says, she pleaded that her son be transferred to a safer prison. But instead, she says, he was trans ferred from Joliet to Pontiac, which isn't any safer. The gangs, she says, are still after him. She has written to newspapers, state officials, prison officials, anybody she thinks might help in her crusade to save Brian's life. And she has had some publicity. After I read her most recent letters, I phoned Mrs. Maxey and asked her to elaborate. "Brian wouldn't go along with the gangs, he wouldn't join, so they came into his cell and two of them stabbed him. Now he might lose the sight of his eye. "They have put him in protective custody. That means nobody can get near him. He's isolated from the other prisoners. But that wouldn't have to be if they would just transfer him to one of the other prisons, where the gangs don't operate that way." She was talking about one of the more benign institutions, where there are fewer violent, hardened criminals. (f'TY JliRl Mike Royko After she talked about this, I asked her what her son had done to get into prison. She has never mentioned that in her letters. She paused, then said: "Murder." But she was vague about details of the crime. She turned the conversation back to her son's safety. "They keep saying they are review ing the case, they are always reviewing it. But my son is in danger. And he should be better protected. He should be transferred." After talking to her I decided to check on how her son, Brian, landed in prisoa We can begin with Sarah Harmon, age 16. She was in a Chicago disco and rejected Brian't amorous advances. So, he followed her from the place, raped her, strangled her and dumped her body into a South Side river. Then there was KatrinaTolbert, age 14. He decided to have sex with her, too. And when he finished the rape, he strangled her and left her body to rot in a nearby forest preserve. He pleaded guilty to those two murders, as well as to another rape along an expressway in which he allowed the victim to live. He also was accused of a rape murder in Alabama, but never stood trial for that one. And that's why Brian, now 29, has been in prison for the last seven years. Simply stated, he liked raping and strangling teen-age girls. Well, state prisons can be harsh pla ces, as Brian has discovered. Inmates do get hurt or killed. There are gangs that are extensions of the city street gangs. But those brutal prison conditions are something that a person should really think about before he squeezes the life out of some kid's throat and tosses her into a muddy river. That's one of the reasons why many of the prisons are overcrowded, unplea sant, even dangerous places: Most of society knows that they are filled with people like Brian. And most people would vote "aye" to having Brian taken from prison and tossed into that same " Please see ROYKO on 5 art-
