Thursday, November 20, 1933
Paga4
Daily Nebraskan
Mi
Nebraskan
University of Nabraika-Llncoln
More 'gifts of
News stories, books and TV
shows talking about human
organ transplants often sum
up the experience with phrases
like 44The Gift of Life" or "A
Second Chance at Life." The
phrases may be trite by now, but
they're still accurate and approp
riate. Those receiving new organs
quite literally get a new chance
at life.
However, it takes two people
a donor as well as a recipient
to make organ transplants
possible. And Nebraska, like
other parts of the country, doesn't
have enough people in the first
category. Bob Duckworth, direc
tor of organ procurement for the
Nebraska Organ Retrieval Sys
tem, says Lincoln and Omaha
surgeons could do many more
transplant operations if only
enough donor organs were avail
able. Some who need transplants
make it in time, as did a North
Dakota woman who received a
new heart last weekend after 16-year-old
Adrian Jordeth of Ne
hawka died in a car-pedestrian
accident. Many more 7,000 to
10,000 nationwide, Duckworth
says have no race against
time until a suitable donor organ
is found. You can help lessen the
need to wait by signing an organ
donor card to be used in case you
should die suddenly.
For a newly dead person to be
a successful organ donor, Duck
worth " says, the organs to be
donated. must be undamaged and
the- person declared . "brain
dea(d.';:That means the person's
Team needs support,
The Nebraska and! Oklahoma
football teams are again vying
for a Big Eight Champion-,
ship and a berth to the Orange
Bowl. And every year fans from
both schools use the field for
target practice with oranges or
anything else handy that serves a
a projectile.
Not Nebraska fans, you say.
Yes, even Nebraska people, the
same ones that have been touted
by the media as the best fans in
the entire world. These same
people have caused property dam
age and personal injury.
Several years ago a man work
ing stadium security was struck
by a frozen orange and left ser
iously injured. In 1982 after Ne
braska beat Oklahoma, the fans
tore down the goal posts and
paraded through the city, mak
ing driving and even walking
hazardous.
This unacceptable behavior
doesn't only happen here.
Last week at the Oklahoma-
Editorial Policy
ESzjgeCttte
The Daily Nebraskan's pub- According to policy set by the
Ushers are the regents, who regents, responsibility for the
established the UNL Publications editorial content of the news
Board to supervise the daily pro- paper lies solely in the hands of
duction of the paper. its student editors.
JcfTKorbcIlk, Editor, 472,1766
James Rogers, Editorial Page Editor
Gene Gcntrup, Managing Editor
Tammy Kaup, Associate News Editor
Todd von K am pen, Editorial Page Assistant
life' needed
brain functions have ceased irre
vocably, although it's still possi
ble to maintain other life func
tions with drugs and life-support
systems. And that's where some
people have reservations about
organ donation because some
wonder if brain-dead people
might somehow be revived.
Persons declared brain-dead
can't come back to life even in
theory, Duckworth says. Such
declarations are made only after
electrical activity of the brain
has ceased and bodily responses
that indicate brain activity aren't
possible.
The late Karen Ann Quinlan,
the subject of a famous "right-to-die"
case whose example is often
cited by opponents of organ dona
tion, never woke up but wasn't
brain-dead, Duckworth says. She
breathed on her own after she
was taken off the respirator,
which wouldn't be possible if
she was brain-dead, he says.
In other words, once they're
gone, they're gone. But donors
can live on in some sense through
the organs they can give. A fami
ly's grief of a donor's death will
still be there, Duckworth says,
but families sometimes can lake
solace in the gift ef life their
lived one made possible in death.
Organ donation is a very per
sonal decision, but those who do
it can help others live. A signed
organ donor card gives your per
mission to transplant usable
organs once you're declared brain
dead, The Daily Nebraskan en
courages any who feel so inclined
to give this gift of life. : .-;. .. '
4
noi bombardment ;
Colorado football game, Buffalo
fans with Orange-Bow! hopes pel
ted the field with oranges and,
other debris. A Colorado cheer
leader was injured after she was
struck by a bottle.
In Manhattan, Kan., National
On Campus Reports noted that
fans caused $30,000 in damages
to area businesses after Kansas
State defeated rival Kansas. About
6,000 fans from both universities
swarmed the business district,
and threw full bottles and cans
of beer through windows and
looted stores.
For this Saturday's game, be
loud in showing the Huskers
your support, but please:
Leave the oranges at home.
Leave the alcohol at home.
O Act responsibly.
The actions of a few can really
deter what really could be a very
exciting game. Let's show a na
tional TV audience as well as
ourselves that Nebraska fans are
a class act.
intervention into market place
J-.l-.t- U . 1
With the apparent hostile take
over attempt of Goodyear, cor
porate mergers suddenly have
become a salient issue in Lincoln. The
rhetoric surrounding the event almost
immediately entered the realm of blith
ering condemnation (e.g., portions of a
teleconference meeting between may
ors with Goodyear plants in their cities
at times bordered on emotional and
incoherent denunciation. Corporate
takeovers have become a rapidly in
creasing American economic pheno
menon, especially since 1980.
The question is what, if anything,
government (local or otherwise) should
do about the phenomenon. Preceding
this question is the issue of whether
government can legitimately intervene
in the area of economic decision
making. I think that the answer is a
fairly clear yes and that such an answer
neither entails the demise of American
capitalism nor a reduced commitment
to non-statist property rights.
The location of units of economic
decision-making in decentralized,
"private" decision-makers or govern
mental "centralized" decision-makers
has economic and moral (political)
aspects.
Most of the best economic evidence
points out that conglomerate mergers
are unhelpful at best. In a compre
hensive literature review in 1977 Mary
land University economics professor
Dennis Mueller impressively concluded
that the empirical literature "draws a
surprisingly consistent picture. What
ever the stated or unstated goals of
managers are, the mergers they have
consummated haver on average not
generated extra profits for the acquiring
" firmsand have not resulted in increased
economic efficiency."
Homosexuals deserve consideration
by UPC, says GLSA member
I must take issue with some of the
points voiced in Tim Teebken's guest
opinion (DN, Nov. 18).
The formation and financing of a
LesbianGay Programming Committee
within the University Program Counsel
is well within the scope and purpose of
UPC. UPC describes itself as purposely
reflecting the diversity of the student
population it serves in its program
ming. One aspect of the student popu
lation at UNL is that 10 percent )! its
students are gay or lesbiarf, iif the
nationwide figures that qualified experts
e. 3rywhere agree on apply to our uni
versity, and there is no reason to
believe that they do not.
Is the creation of this committee a
political question? In the view of one
political science professor at UNL,
politics is the art, science and study of
who gets what and when. Since the
members of the GayLesbian Students
Association, on behalf of the gay and
lesbian student population at UNL as
well as others interested in this type of
programming, have asked for both a
committee to handle such program
ming and the money to fund it; in this
sense it is indeed a political question.
It becomes obvious that the formation
of any programming committee is a
question of politics, as it involves a
given population getting a committee
to represent its needs.
Beyond this satisfaction of a cursoiy
definition of political question, I think
I understand why. Teebken and many
others view this as a "political group
pushing ideological propaganda." Any
thing involving gays and lesbians is
labeled "political" because it is con
troversial; because we are living in a
world, and enrolled at a university, that
is homophobic, discriminates against
people based on whom they can fall in
love with, and presumes to think that
people care whether or not others
approve of or "condone" their sexual
orientation. I don't think heterosexu
als tend to care what others think
about the fact that they are attracted
to people with genitalia different from
Muller's 1985 uDdate study indicates
probable economic losses to merged
corporations.
As interesting as the economic data
is, the more important question is
whether there is a warrant for political
"intervention" into the wilds of the
marketplace. Drawing carefully on the
moral basis for American political and
Jim
Rogers
SO
economic constitutions, I think the
answer is a fairly compelling yes.
A helpful perspective on the question
revolves about how just property claims
can arise in a modern economy. This
question is not obviously answered by a
traditional appeal to laisserz-faire
economic decision-making. You see, in
the central case of the free-market
paradigm, there is assumed a large
number of buyers and sellers each
individually unable to affect market
supply and demand. This central-case
instance is so palpably different from
the case of "modern" monopoly capital
ism that additional moral and political
questions are raised in the latter case
that are not applicable to the former.
In John Locke's "Second Treatise of
Civil Government," property rights arise
"naturally" out of the necessities of
human existence and its organization.
For example, the apple becomes a
person's property when it is picked off
the ground (being previously unowned)
their own; and I also don't think gays
and lesbians care much how others feel
about them being attracted to people
with their own kind of genitalia.
This is an environment in which the
ability for two people to walk hand-in-hand
in public comfortably is based on
the sex of those people. Two men or two
women who would attempt such a
Guest Opinion
warm display of affection would be
seen by many as "flaunting" their
orientation while heterosexual couples
walk by unaccused. Verbal abuse, gay
bashings and firing from jobs are just a
few symptoms of a disease known as
prejudice. I'm not surprised; we've
seen it before.
Gays and lesbians have no more con
trol over their belonging to a minority
group than do Blacks, Hispanics, or
physically challenged students (a.k.a.
"the handicapped"). To illustrate this,
it is patently and manifestly ridiculous
to think that a heterosexual can simply,
by force of will, stop being attracted to
members of the other sex and start
being attracted to people of his or her
own sex. The converse is equally ludi
crous, although Teebken writes of "for
mer gays." Perhaps he knows of pre
viously sexually active gays and lesians
who are now celibate, but nonetheless
gay or lesbian. Or perhaps he knows
people who thought they were lesbian
or gay, but upon introspection realized
they were heterosexual. This is a pos
sibility; the opposite has certainly hap
pened. Nobody knows what causes a person
to be homosexual, and nobody knows
what causes a person to be heterosex
ual. Sexual orientation simply exists in
each of us. Teebken's statement that
homosexuality is a learned behavior
should be accompanied with the state
ment that to the extent with which this
is true, with regard to homosexual
acts, it is also true with heterosexual
precisely because it makes no sense to
draw ine une eisewnere. Similarly, in
modern society, I think we can speak of
certain property rights as justly arising
from certain expectations of a com
munity given the involvement and bene
fit of an industrial institution in that
community.
Writing in the conservative journal
"The Public Interest," business pro
fessor Peter Druker gives at least an
amorphous vent to this idea: The term
'free enterprise' was coined 40 or 50
years ago to assert that the shareholder
interest, while important, is only one
interest and that the enterprise has
functions well beyond that of producing
returns for the shareholder functions
as an employer, as a citizen of the
community, as a customer and as a
supplier."
In sum, the modern corporate struc
ture is enmeshed in a whole host of
"power" questions that are completely
uninvolved in the central-case instance
of "free" market activity. And all ques
tions of power are political questions.
The very moral foundation of Ameri
can political and economic society
requires that analysis proceed down
this avenue. It is the only avenue that
avoids the foolish and injurious con
sequences of socialism and libertarian
ism. The Anglo-American property
tradition does have the requisite
analytical framework with which to
grapple with this problem. This tra
dition is a realistic and fact-based
perspective which has too long been
ignored by policy makers and public
alike.
Rogers is an economics graduate, a law
student and Daily Nebraskan editorial,
page editor.
acts. Remember the birds-and-the-bees
talk, everyone? That's called learn-
ing. Sexual orientation itself, how j
ever, is not learned. We are not taught
to be gay or straight; it just happens as ;
a result of who we are, our environment
and perhaps genetic predispositions.
By the way, "biblical facts" have nol
place in UPC's decision, as we do still I
have a thing called separation between
church and state, even in the "semb-'
lance of justice and democracy on the l
campus" as exists. j
The bottom line is that gay and les-1
bian students pay student fees like;
everyone else and deserve program-'
ming that serves their educational and ;
entertainment needs and desires in ;
return. UPC has agreed and approved
the funded formation of the Lesbian
Gay Programming Committee and de
serves applause and support for their
well thought-out, understanding and
logical stand. Hopefully the union Board .
will follow suit, as well as anyone else
who needs to approve it. To do other
wise would be a step backwards with
regard to treating people as people,
with dignity.
Marc D. Seger
coordinator of internal affairs
UNL GayLesbian
Student Association
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