Editorial
Nebraskan
University ot Nebraska-Lincoln
Mike Reilley, Editor, 472-1766
Jeanne Bourne, Editorial Page Editor
Jann Nyffeler, Associate News Editor
Scott Harrah, Night News Editor
Joan Rezac, Copy Desk Chief
Linda Hartmann, Wire Editor
Charles Lieurance, Asst. A & E Editor
Change permanent
DNgets VDTs, plans more coverage
Heraclitus, the early Greek
philosopher who thought
the world was made of fire,
once said that nothing is per
manent except change.
And that’s the philosophy of
the Daily Nebraskan’s staff this
fall. Staffers have planned several
changes to better inform Univer
sity of Nebraska-Lincoln stu
dents, faculty and other readers
about what’s happening on cam
pus.
The most noticeable change
will be the new video display
terminals in the newsroom. In
the past, DN reporters wrote
stories on typewriters and copy
editors used fat, red pencils to
edit them. The copy was then
sent to a typesetter and later
proofread. The process took al
most 45 minutes.
With the new system, reporters
and editors can move stories in a
matter of seconds. Editors also
will lay out pages, and redesign
the paper once the system is
completely installed in Sept
ember.
The computers will be put to
good use this fall as the paper
has planned several special pro
jects, Including extensive cover
age of the FarmAid III concert on
Sept. 19 in Memorial Stadium.
The Sower, the paper’s depth
supplement, will explore the farm
crisis on both a local and national
level and will appear in the DN
the week of the concert. Also, a
supplement containing band pro
files and other features will be
distributed the day of the con
cert. Advances and coverage of
the concert will appear in the
daily news and arts and enter
tainment sections.
Other supplements also will
run this fall, including issues on
basketball and Christmas as well
as other Sower topics.
But not all has changed at the
DN. The paper’s editorial policy
will again be set by the DN
Editorial Board. It’s members
are Mike Reilley, editor; Jeanne
Bourne, editorial page editor;
Jann Nyffeler, associate news
editor; Scott Harrah, night news
editor; Joan Rezac, copy desk
chief; Linda Hartmann, wire edi
tor; amd Charles Lieurance,
assistant arts and entertainment
editor. The board meets weekly
to discuss the paper’s stand on
timely issues. Editorials do not
necessarily reflect the views of
the University, its employees, the
students or the NU Board of
Regents.
The DN’s publishers are the
regents, who established the UNL
Publications Board to supervise
the daily production of the paper.
According to policy set by the
regents, responsibility for the
editorial content of the news
paper lies solely in the hands of
its student editors.
The paper also welcomes brief
letters to the editor from all
readers and interested others.
Letters will be selected for pub
lication on the basis of clarity,
originality, timeliness and space
available. The DN retains the
right to edit all material sub
mitted.
Readers are also welcome to
submit material as guest opin
ions. Whether the material runs
or not is left up to the editor’s
discretion.
Anonymous submissions will
not be considered for publication.
Letter, should include the
author’s name, year in school,
mgyor and group affiliation, if
any. Requests to withhold names
will not be granted.
Submit material to the DN,
Nebraska Union 34, 1400 R St.,
Lincoln, Neb. 68588-0448.
Burgers, buildings and bricks:
all part of changes at UNL
he world ivver stops chang
ing and neither does the
University of Nebraska-Lin
coln campus.
Several changes have been
made during the summer. One
major eyecatcher is the “disco”
Burger King in the Nebraska
Union. The food tastes good, but
the service just isn’t the same
without Dan Dolan, the friendly
bus person who used to work in
the Union Square. He was one of
the most popular persons on
campus and we don’t understand
why he wasn’t hired back. Appar
ently he just didn’t fit in with the
new decor.
Progress in the form of con
struction and destruction have
also taken place on campus.
The recreation center’s skele
ton has emerged from the rubble
of the former Men’s P.E. building.
It should be finished in time to
save the football players from
freezing their tootsies this win
ter. For now, the structure re
minds us of the Old Glory sculp
ture in Cather Gardens.
The Lied Center also is taking
i
shape. The approximately $20
million structure should be
completed by April 1989. Since
the piledriving stopped this sum
mer the music departments have
to come up with a pounding
rhythm of their own.
If you didn’t notice, the bricks
have been torn out of most of the
sidewalks around campus. Kudos
to the grounds department. Those
bricks were slippery during the
winter.
Besides the Burger King the
union is sporting several other
changes. A new set of phones
adorn the wall near NBC. They
are the open kind for those of us
with claustrophobia, who couldn’t
stand to use the wooden phone
booths down the hall. A new
vending machine area has re
placed the small meeting room
near the women’s lounge. The
Colonial Dining Room has under
gone renovation and reopened
Wednesday.
Night bus service between City
and East campuses is resuming,
fulfilling ASUN President Andy
Pollock’s campaign promise.
Angelokataluophobia strikes
Best of summer ys worst news just what the doctor ordered
In this age when everything from
chronic depression to bad table
manners is labeled “disease,” intro
duce my candidate into the widening
field of psychosomatic obsessive-com
pulsive lifestyle maladies. I call it angel
okataluophobia — the irrational fear
of newspaper columnists that a terrific
news story will go cold before they can
get to print with pithy remarks about it
(from Greek ingelia — “news,” and
kataluo — to disintegrate).
James
Sennett
_
This malady strikes student column
ists especially hard during those long
summer months when there is no
column to write, yet the world is
insensitive enough to keep on turning.
The summer invariably abounds with
inane news stories just begging to be
raked over the coals in that special way
that only we clever editorial com
mentators can do.
As a service to the new and returning
members of the student body and to
alleviate many of the anxieties 1
developed watching good fuel escape
my fire, 1 present in this inaugural
edition of the 11)87-88 Daily Nebraskan
an overview of some of the best of this
summer’s worst news stories.
The Iran-Contra hearings. All
summer long we endured inexcusable
congressional showboating and incon
ceivable administrative high-roading
in what was undoubtedly the leading
and most tedious news story of the
season. And somewhere in the midst of
it all, we discovered a new national
hero — Lt. Col. Oliver North.
North wooed Americans and infur
iated committee members with his
Oscar caliber “Why am I in trouble for
loving my country?” routine. While 1
gagged on the shallow sentimentalism
that canonized this despicable bureau
crat, I could not help but ei\joy watch
ing the pompous and self-righteous
members of Congress twist slowly in
the wind during his testimony.
Of course, it only fits that North
should be the new American hero. The
heroes of the 1940s and '50s were
military men. The heroes of the ’60s
were crooks (excuse me — "prisoners
of conscience”). There were no heroes
in the 70s, and in the '80s, our hero is a
man who fits all three descriptions.
The search goes on for something
decent to call this whole scandal. It
seems that we have settled for "Iran
contra Affair,” which has ail the excite
ment of plain-label underwear. A nat
ional political magazine ran a “name
the controvesy” contest and labeled
"Iranamok" the winner. I still like the
suggestion of my ministry colleague
Dennis Durst, who proffered "Contra
deception.”
The reflagging of Kuwaiti oil
tankers. Even the guy who first said
that politics makes strange bedfellows
would have flipped over this one. First
Saudi Arabia, then Iran and now Kuwait
comes under the umbrella of U.S. flip
flop diplomacy. We just have to decide:
Do we hate the Arabs or not? Israel sure
would like to know, and the Arabs
would feel a lot better w ith a consistent
policy one way or the other.
But Ronald Reagan and company are
eager to cover up the foibles of the
above mentioned nameless scandal and
prove that we really do still despise
Iran. We now have decided to use
Kuwaiti freighters and American war
ships to hunt for mines in the Persian
Gulf. As an editorial columnist in the
Christian Science Monitor quipped,
‘‘Our Middle East policy is simple —
we will reflag Kuwaiti tankers so Iran
won’t blow them up with weapons we
sold to them."
The demise of Gary Hart and
the rise of Donna Rice. This has
been the year of the adorable slut.
While men of prominence have been
taking nosedives in sex scandals, the
involved women have been splattered
all over the front pages and offered
six-figure contracts to show and tell all
in national smut nfagazines. For years
we have justifiably bemoaned the double
standard imposed on participants in
illicit sexual activity. While men who
indulge are heroes, women who do are
whores. Traditionally, only the woman
“gets in trouble.”
Well, please do not let the irony of
Gary and Donna, Jim Bakker and Jessic a
Hahn, and all the others escape you. It
is the men who are taking the fall,
while the women are enjoying the
spoils. Pause from your head-shaking
for just a minute to savor one of the
truly wonderful human oxymorons of
all time. If only Donna could act...
The departure of “A Prairie
Home Companion.” This one didn’t
get nearly the press that any of the
others did, but it perhaps has the most
long-term historical significance. Pol
iticians come and go, and current
issues desolve into “Trivial Pursuit"
stumpers. But for 14 years Garrison
Keillor and his beloved friends from
Lake Wobegon brought to the American
scene a cultural phenomenon that will
not soon be forgotten.
From the Sidetrack Tap to Ralph's
Pretty Good Grocery to the Our Lady of
Perpetual Responsibility Catholic
Church, this fictitious Minnesota ham
let was the address of an America
vanishing too fast and remembered tn
too few. The unforgettable sponsors —
Powdermilk Biscuits, Bertha's Kitty
Boutique, the Foarmongers Shop and
all the rest — reminded us of what is,
and perhaps what should not be. im
portant to us.
Keillor has moved to Denmark with a
new wife and family and new dreams to
pursue. He has, in his words, returned
to “the life of a shy person.” He will
continue to write, and we will continue
to benefit from his gifts. But an era has
passed.
Sennett In a graduate student in philo
sophy and campus minister with College
Career Christian Fellowship.
Confessions of Ollie:
Daytime dramas confusing
It’s a Nixon thing.
The Iran-contra hearings broad
cast by all msyor networks caught
me off guard, flashing dejavu across
my mind in pastel neon lights of
Watergate warning.
In the early 1970s, during Watergate,
Nixon’s Waterloo, he reportedly told
his top aids that when they testified
before Congress they need simply say,
‘‘I don’t remember. I don’t recall."
u
Allen
There it is, then. A faulty memory
has become the battle cry of the
republic.
Ollie North has become America’s
newest hero, not because he did heroic
deeds or starred in a blockbuster
movie, but simply because he stood
before Congress and had the guts to
say, “I don’t recall."
I get the impression that something
isn’t quite right about all this. Maybe
it’s just me, but two things immediately
come to mind.
First, I wondered how long the Ameri
can public was going to let something
as important as national security inter
rupt the more important world of day
time drama. I missed three weeks of
"Santa Barbara” and almost that much
of "As The World Turns."
On the former, I missed the recovery
of Eden, held captive by an insane
Vietnam vet in a cabin in the moun
tains, while on the latter show I missed
Craig’s downed plane off the isles of
Greece and Lilly’s subsequent runaway.
Just who are these people trying to
kid?
Nobody remembers what happened
in these top-level meetings dealing
with national security. Nobody even
keeps notes.
Comforting, huh?
It’s nice to know that top level
administrators in the C.S. government
have meetings they can’t remember.
Ronald Reagan, of course, has an ex
cuse. He was probably asleep.
1 just don't buy it. Sure, I understand
not remembering some minor things,
like shipping some unauthorized arms
to Israel or El Salvador. Maybe some
things happen so often that people
can’t be expected to remember it all.
I can’t remember what I had for
breakfast on a certain day in December
1985, but 1 know it wasn’t a nuclear
warhead.
Ollie North seems to be the only one
who knows anything, and he has im
munity from criminal prosecution.
How convenient. Ollie takes the fall,
but doesn’t really, and the rest don’t
remember.
So what happened. From North we
know the United States, one of her
many undercover forms, sold arms to
Iran for a huge profit.
Yes, this is the same Iran that held
so many Americans hostage during the
Carter administration. National secur
ity, I guess, makes strange bedfellows.
Next, these huge profits were used
to send economic and military aid to
the contras, even though Congress had
earlier decided that the United States
had sent enough aid to the contras.
Where there’s a will there’s a way.
Congress, according to my high
school civics teacher, is the governing
body that makes the law. The executive
branch, headed by Bonzo and his merry
minstrels of destruction, carries out
and “nforces these laws.
Now we see the formation of yet
another branch, which we call tne
covert branch. This can loosely he
compared to Fread's id. If things in
Congress don’t go the way the execut ive
branch wants, it turns to the covert
branch of the government, which goes
ahead and does things anyway.
And to prove just how covert the
whole branch is, when something goes
wrong, no one can remember that
anything went on in the first place.
Except Ollie North. And he has
immunity.
He’s a hero.
I hear there’s even talk of making a
movie about him.
In the meantime, all the American
people can do is trust in their country
and the man who supposedly runs it.
Reagan said that as far as he knows,
no laws were broken and no one has
done anything wrong.
And I believe him, as far as he
knows.
Two things come to mind:
First, what if every man in America
starts running his life according to top^
level administrators in the United
States government.
"Where were you last night?"
"I don’t remember."
"Where did that lipstick come from"
"I don’t recall."
"Whose phone number is on this slip
of paper?"
"Hold on, let me shred that."
And second, will Eden and Cruise
ever get back together, and why is "As
the World Turns" using the same story
line they used four years ago?
Do they think we’re stupid, or what?
Allen In a graduate student and Dally
Nebraakan entertainment editor.