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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 26, 1987)
Daily Nebraskan Monday, January 26, 1987 Safe-sen radices leave bo room for Page 5 HARRAH from Page 4 has slept with, and if you engage in sex with a person who has come into con tact with the virus, you are doomed. The most ridiculous argument about AIDS, especially in the Midwest, is that only people in heavily populated coas tal cities are at risk. Wrong. You have no way of knowing if the man or woman you pick up in a bar has been on a trip to, say, Los Angeles or Miami. And what about the nice little Midwestern girl who flies to Steamboat Springs over spring break and has sex with a bisex ual man from Boston? Just because she lives in a city where AIDS is scarce does not mean she's disease-free. The AIDS virus has no geographic prefer ence it's just as deadly in Lincoln as it is in LA. In December, Reagan voted to in crease federal funding for AIDS research 23 percent. Koop estimated that in 1987 alone, over $1 billion will need to be spent on research and another $1 billion will need to be spent on educa tion and safe-sex campaigns. But right- wing factions and the Catholic Church have helped to extinguish support for education because they feel that im moral measures are being taken. The reason? The nature of safe sex and its educational practices. The term safe sex connotes preven tive measures that can help stop the transmission of the AIDS virus. Sexual intercourse with a condom, dry kissing and mutual masturbation have been labeled "safe" practices because no body fluids are transmitted. Sex with out a condom, French kissing and oralanal and oralvaganal contact are considered high risk practices, accord ing to experts. It is not currently known whether the virus can be passed through saliva, so some feel that kiss ing is possibly safe and sharing bever ages is probably safe since the virus can only live for seconds outside the lEOdiesiLy body. Koop said he feels that safe sex edu cation should begin in elementary schools because children between the ages of 8 and 9 are often on the brink of discovering sexuality. By the time they enter junior high, they may already have had their first sexual experience and it may be too late to warn them about the dangers of unsafe sex. That's something many cannot han dle because they feel that AIDS and early sex education will introduce children to immoral practices. In the words of Paul Cameron, Lincoln's self proclaimed sex expert, "Koop says we should be teaching young children about AIDS, and that means your kids are going to be learning about how homosexuals stick their tongues on their boyfriends' anuses." Well, maybe so, Paul, but children would also be learning about how to prepare themselves for things their hormones will make them do in a few years, such as hopping in the backseat with cheerleaders. The Catholic Church has vehemently protested the burgeoning use of con doms because it feels that sex is a sacred virtue reserved for marriage and birth control is a sin. But how many people actually save themselves for marriage? The National AIDS Task Force recent ly made a commercial about AIDS that metaphorically shows how promiscuity and unsafe sex are modern forms of the game Russian roulette. However some feel that the commercial is too abrupt and will cause hysteria. Fear is in the air, but AIDS isn't. Maybe the Ameri can public needs to be scared into fac ing what is becoming a major tragedy. Europe has already started national television campaigns about AIDS edu cation. In England, primetime viewers are being shown commercials with this slogan: "Protect yourself from AIDS. Don't die of ignorance." France and lis service NigM b not only prop KMJk presioen t says A Jan. 20 article in the Daily Nebras kan, "ASUN fights for night bus," por trays the All-University Fund Board of Trustees as bearing the fault for that most-needed service not being funded. ASUN First Vice President Dan Hof meister, as quoted in the article, seemed to feel: a) that the ASUN night-busing proposal "was by far the best pro posal," and b) that the failure of AUFto fund the proposal was the result of personal bias by me against one of the ASUN proposers, specifically Hofmeis ter himself. In light of my position as direct representative of RHA, I would like to clarify the facts. Guest Opinion First of all, a little background: The $20,000 that the AUF Board of Trustees was to distribute was not part of a constant flow of cash from some magi cal source. The funding was a one-time, one-chance proposition that the mem bers of the board took very seriously. We wished to wisely place the money in projects where 1) the entire campus community would be at least indirectly benefited, and 2) where alternative funding was not likely. The ASUN prop osal, while fully meeting the first re quirement, was less than convincing on the second. Hofmeister's statement about his proposal being "the best" is certainly debatable in the light of nearly three dozen other proposals for such things as remodeling of the Coliseum pool for handicapped users, minority-student scholarships, a transport to take the handicapped from their residences to classes on icy days, a seminar on the agricultural crisis, alcohol education, undergraduate advising awards, Mor rill Hall exhibits, the recreation cen ter, etc., etc., etc. The ASUN proposal was actually one of the least-researched of all the proposals. While other groups gave us page after page of carefully estimated figures, ASUN gave us a sin gle page with a few statistics. The ASUN proposal asked for the entire $20,000, stating at the time that no lower amount would be acceptable. Night busing was certainly a worthy project, but was it worthy at the expense of everything else? Hofmeister, in his second statement concerning my "personal bias," seems to forget that there were five members on the board, not just one. The board in its deliberations went through several phases of examination, eliminating a few proposals at each level for various reasons. During these examinations the ASUN proposal was trimmed from $20,000 to $7,000, an amount the board felt reasonable for one semester of funding. Early support for the proposal came, predictably, from the two ASUN repre sentatives on the board, who reasona bly upheld the viability of the project. Early rejection came from not only myself, but also from the then-presidents of the Intrafraternity Council. The dem ocratic manner in which the board was operated made it impossible for me, a single vote-holder, to dictate the deci sions of the board. We felt, as Hofmeis ter states in the Jan. 20 article, that the "UNL administration should subsidize the night-busing service in the same way that they subsidize the day ser vice." We felt that, with adequate research, ASUN might be able to con vince the administration of this. It wasn't until the last phase of examination that the night-busing pro posal was eliminated. Prior to final elimination I proposed that AUF fund the busing for $5,000 and challenge the administration to make up the rest. AUF had limited funding, and this was all that I felt could be reasonably spared. The proposal, while receiving some positive response," did not spur any action. So it was that the ASUN proposal to AUF for night-busing ser vice was voted down, not by personal bias, but by sound decision-making. The members of the board were quite pleased with their decisions, and the visible benefits' that they had made possible with limited funding. Michael J. Baacke UNL-RHA president Norway have also started similar cam paigns, but in Ireland the Catholic Church has prevented AIDS educat ion because it doesn't want to endorse condoms. Many European governments have started handing out free disposa ble needles to heroin addicts because cities like Amsterdam and Glasgow are drug meccas loaded with AIDS victims, according to numerous news reports. We must realize that AIDS is no longer an obscure illness that only strikes gays in San Francisco. By 1991, the number of AIDS fatalities will be in the millions, the Center for Disease Control predicted in July 1986. A poll in a recent issue of the Wall Street Journal showed that 73 percent of those questioned did not feel that AIDS was a personal threat to them. That fact deeply disturbs doctors be cause they fear that many women thinking about having children will not engage in safe sex practices and may pass on the virus to their unborn child ren. Since 90 percent of AIDS carriers don't know the virus is in their body, many women will give birth to babies with AIDS. According to Koop, 70 per cent of children born with AIDS die before they are 6 months old. So what can be done? It's simple. Funding for AIDS research and educa tion should become the government's top priority. Safe sex and condom commercials should be aired on national TV, and we should stop evading the issue and put things in perspective. There just isn't time to worry about how "moral" AIDS education is or how embarrassing safe sex is. As Dr. Marie Crenshaw, a spokesper son for the National AIDS Task Force, eloquently put it: "We just don't have the luxury to be embarrassed anymore." We are not immortal. AIDS has the potential to kill everyone on this cam pus and millions in this country if we don't wake up. The longer we wait to do something about AIDS, the more peo ple are going to die as a result. This is more than a matter of politics; it's a matter of the way we value the preser vation of life in society today. The choice is entirely up to us. Would we rather change our behavior on the basis of intelligence, care and caution or out of terror brought on by the corpses that may soon be falling around us? liar rah is a senior English major and the Daily Nebraskan Arts and Entertain ment editor. 1 1... ,-. i TM Featuring the hot 'n juicy new Big Classic! Wendy's is the BMOC Best Meal On Campus. Best deal too with these dollar-stretching coupons ! Clip them out andbring them to any participating Wendy's. They're our way of saying "Welcome Back!" fc-.-i.ii.-ii. T- r.-.,r rT-T--n T-nv V- . n , - - ----- - - J Buy one at the regular price, get the second for just 25C! 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