Editorial— __
Nebraskan
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Mike Reilley, Editor, 472l1766
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
Clean up your junk
Picking up student litter is a real waste
University ofNebraska
Lincoln’s grounds de
partment spends about
$100,000 a year to keep the
campus clean of litter. What a
waste.
The worst problems occur at
Daily Nebraskan distribution
sites, vending machine areas
and at the main lounge of the
Nebraska Union.
For example, advertising in
serts fall out when students pick
up the Daily Nebraskan. The
paper’s advertising manager,
Marcia Miller, said some adver
i tisers like to see their ads plas
j tered all over the floor. Some
use inserts because they want
the four-color effect and others
use them because they want
perforated coupons, she said,
j All we can say is please pick up
these ads when they fall out.
Frank Kuhn, assistant direc
tor ot the unions, said students
do a very poor job of picking up
after themselves and the main
lounge is a constant litter battle.
Vending machine waste is
easily rectified by dropping
wrappers and bags in garbage
cans. The grounds department
could put more waste cans
around campus to alleviate the
problem.
Students should know by
now that no one should have to
pick up after them. Leaving pop
cans, candy wrappers, Burger
King trays and litter is more than
just a problem for the mainte
nance staff to worry about. It
also inconveniences other stu
dents who want to sit or study in
the main lounge.
Maybe some people just
don’t stop and think about it.
But please be considerate of
others — pick up after your- I
selves.
Note-selling Iowan
shows a bad attitude
s rofessors and administ
rators.at the Uniyersity
, = M of Iowa are having a
dispute with a professional note
taking service.
Educators there say the enter
prise is “less than above-board.”
One professor said the note
taker’s presence in his classes
are an intrusion.
The entrepreneur, Laurie
Knepp, said that “students who
believe a teacher is too boring or
too difficult or have other rea
sons for not wanting to attend
class everyday” should have the
option of paying for the note
taker’s time.
She charges $18.75 for a se
mester-long class. So far 1,800
students have taken advantage
of her business.
It is her attitude, not the serv -
ice, that is causing the crisis.
The University of Nebraska- \
Lincoln also has a note taking I
service, but its owner, Jon
Donlan, says his notes should be !
used as a supplement to, not a
replacement for, attendance and j
the students’ own notetaking.
He said students would be
hurt if they promoted the notes
in place of class because this
might cause them to miss a lot.
Donlan said he asked instruc
tors’ permission to take notes in
their classes. He said without
their permission he would have
run into a legality problem
called “intellectual properties.”
He said he works with profes- |
sors because their lecture con- 1
tent is their property.
If Knepp would change her
approach the business might be
more readily accepted. But in
this case the professors have a
legitimate point.
AIDS forum
Last year the Daily Nebras
kan had an open forum on the
anniversary of the Roc vs. Wade
abortion decision. The response
was overwhelming.
With the recent controversy
about AIDS, the DN has
planned another open forum in
conjunction with its Sower sup
plement. On Tuesday, Oct. 13,
the DN will run letters from
readers responding to the fol
lowing questions:
• Should children with
AIDS be allowed to attend pub
lie schools'
• Should health-carc pro
fessionals undergo mandatory -
testing for AIDS? If they test
positive, what consequences
should they face? Should the
test results be made public?
Please center your letter on
only one of the questions. Drop
off letters at the DN from desk,
Nebraska Union 34. Show iden
tification to secretary when you
leave the letter. Deadline is Fri
day, Oct. 9, at noon.
Editorial Policy
Unsigned editorials represent
official policy of the fall 1987 Daily
Nebraskan. Policy is set by the Daily
Nebraskan Editorial Board.
The Daily Nebraskan’s publishers
are the regents, who established the
UNL Publications Board to super
vise the daily production of the paper.
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Long live the revolution!
Ortega revives Lenin’s ideals
In April of 1917, Vladimir
Ilyich Lenin presented
the April Theses before the
Bolshevik Party Conference. In it, he
presented an eight-part plan for the
Soviet refurbishing of Tsarist Russia,
which included a short period of op
pression in order to keep the revolu
tion strong. Lenin believed that the
masses had to be inundated with revo
lutionary principles so they could sec
that the Soviet revolution was the right
path to equity and justice. This part
of the theses led to the closing of
opposition newspapers, the repression
of writers or artists that were believed
to glorify capitalism and bourgeois
values and a general shutdown of
Tsarist influence. The shutdown was
to be temporary, until the new revolu
tionary state became impervious to
outside influence through the edu
cated, enlightened strength of the
masses.
The shutdown became, for the
most part, permanent. It didn’t help
matters that the United Stales became
the leviathan of world capitalism,
breaching in impressive money —
green waves around the globe. Where
it could not impress the nations of the
earth with its monetary monsoon,
America breached in a froth of covert
or overt military threat.
So the Soviet revolution was
stalled in its formative, temporary
stages and has become mired over the
years in opposition politics, con
cerned more with maintaining the
status of a superpower than with main
taining the goals of V.I. Lenin.
So where is the successful Socialist
revolution to be found?
On the first of this month — fit
tingly October, the month of r vi lu
tion — the Nicaraguan Sam u»ista
government, auspiciously led by a
hero of our time, Daniel Ortega, reo
pened an opposition newspaper, La
Prensa, and allowed the Roman
Catholic radio station, La Catolica,
back on the air.
The paper and station were closed
in June of I9K6 when the U. S. govern
ment threatened to destroy the
Sandinista government by granting
SKX) million in aid to that pack of
Reagan supported hyenas, the Con
tras.
That the paper and the station were
reopened while U.S. Secretary of
State George Schultz campaigned to
getCongrcssto appropriate $270 mil
lion more in Contra aid, only goes to
show that the Sandinista and Ortega
are intent upon fulfilling the promise
of Lenin’s April Theses. It proves
Ortega’s sincerity. It proves that the
Sandinista government is maybe the
last bastion of honest governmental
effort in this hemisphere.
But still mythology persists about
the Sandinista, buoyed by our
government’s policy of disinforma
tion. In the Friday, Oct. 2, issue of the
Lincoln Journal, Douglas Kagan,
Slate Chairman of Nebraska Conser
vatives for Freedom (an oxymoron if
ever there was one), had a letter pub
lished concerning the recent pencil
drive for Nicaraguan schools spon
Charles
Lieurance
sored by Nebraskans for Peace:
“Nebraskans for Peace recently
congratulated itself on collecting
22,000 pencils for children taught in
Marxist Sandinista schools in Nicara
gua.
“Communist Cuban teachers in
struct these children. School text
books, printed in communist East
Germany, teach children math by
having them count grenades and AK
47 Soviet rifles. Each morning, the
children recite the Sandinista national
anthem, which calls us Yankees the
“enemies of mankind.’
“We should wonder how many
donors of those pencils would have
donated had they known the truth
about Sandinista education.”
This set of ridiculous assertions
borders on grounds for institutionali
zation. But let’s say for a minute that
little Nicaraguan boys and girls are
being taught by Cubans, that the text
books for these children arc printed in
East Germany, that the little kids have
to line up in front of an armory full of
Soviet-made weaponry to learn to
count, instead of adding and subtract
ing various good old American apples
and pears.
Well, before the Sandinista revolu
tion in Nicaragua there were mainly
schools for Anasla/io Somoza’s kids
and their pals. The rest of the populace '
learned to count by subtracting mem
bers from their family as they were
taken away in the dead of night by
death squads.
Imagine calling the U.S. “enemies
of mankind” as they do everything
monetarily possible to see to it that
Somoza’s lackeys arc still allowed to
gun down Nicaraguan civilians from
outposts on the Honduran border. The
Contras learned to count by counting
illegal arms shipments from the U.S.
While the irony is rolling around
like a roomful of marbles, let’s look at
why Nicaraguan children even have
any dealings with Cubans or bast
Germans. When the Sandinislas suc
ceeded in ousting Somoza, the first
thing they did was try to gain support
from the United States. Just when
Jimmy Carter was about to grant that
support, recognizing that the U.S.
support of Somoza was tantamount to
financing genocide and mandatory
mass pederasty, the age of Reagan
began and we all know how that story
goes.
The Sandinista have since built
hospitals, schools and initiateddo/ens
of successful programs to help the
indigenous population of Nicaragua
make a go of it in the 20th Century.
They have done it with any and all
help they could gel from the more
prosperous nations of the world. They
have released most of their pohucal
prisoners, they have faithfully at
tended to even- possibility of a cease
fire with the Contras and now, while
U.S. opposition still threatens to turn
the revolution to rubble, they have
lived up to their promise to maintain
freedom of the press.
While Peru’s moderate progres
sive government cowers at the mania
cal hands of lunatic Maoists who dis
embowel dogs and civil authorities
and hang them from the lampposts,
and Chili and Argentina stew in their
totalitarian juices, there is still one
place in our hemisphere where you
can yell "Long Live the Revolution!
and not feel like you're going to re
gret it later.
Hope.
Letter Policy
The Daily Nebraskan welcomes brief
letters to the editor from all readers
and interested others.
Letters will be selected for publica
tion on the basis of clarity, originality,
timeliness and space available. The
Daily Nebraskan retains the right to
edit all material submitted.
Letters and guest opinions sent to
the newspaper become property of the
Daily Nebraskan and cannot be returned.
