j
Nebraskan
University ol 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_
Curtis gets a chance
Gov. Orr backs the 'Year of Education'
On Tuesday, the Curtis
High School band
played and everyone
cheered. Maybe they were cele
brating the “Year ol Education.”
Gov. Kay Orr backed her
designation of 1987 as the
"Year of Education" Tuesday
when she announced that the
Nebraska School of Technical
Agriculture in Curtis should
remain open.
That gave the folks in Curtis
! — and the rest of the state —
something to cheer about.
Orr decided to keep the
school open despite pressure
I from some senators and busi
ness leaders. They’ve been call
ing for the university to “reduce
its scope” — a euphemism for
taking the ax to programs to
I save money.
In order for Nebraska to grow
economically, it must educate
its students in fields they can
apply within the state. This will
keep students in the area after
they graduate instead of leaving
for more lucrative fields.
As a state-owned university,
it’s NL’s obligation to the state
to give its greatest resource —
its people — an education Cur
tis officials have been try ing to
tell Orr and the Legislature the
same thing for about seven
months.
NCTA officials have been
fighting to keep the school open
since last spring, when the NU
Board of Regents voted last
spring to stop university fund
ing of the school because of
budget cuts.
And the battle ended Tuesday
in Norfolk, with Orr telling the
Legislature to make room in
NU’s current budget and in next
year’s to support the school.
Specifically, she’s seeking
amendments to the 1987-88
biennial appropriation in the
amount of $350,000 for the
current fiscal year and $ 1.4 mil
lion for the following year.
But Orr’s sense was more im
portant than the dollars. She said
Curtis should remain open be
cause Nebraska’s economy is
linked to the state’s educational
efforts.
Her decision, which she de
layed once this fall, has caused
some problems for Curtis offi
cials. Officials complained that
because the future of the schml
was uncertain, they were unable
to recruit high school students
for upcoming semesters. Only
58 students currently attend the
school, and recruiters need all
the time they can get to boost
enrollment.
Officials bombarded with conflict
European chiefs send U.S. officials, military different signals
At the presidential Republican
debate in Houston a collision
occurred when the subject
came up of the forthcoming INF
treaty, which is designed to eliminate
from the European scene theater nu
clear weapons of a range in excess of
300 miles. Vice President George
Bush reaffirmed his approval of the
treaty by citing the approval of it by
European leaders. I have just come
' back, he said, from a trip to Europe
where I spent lime with the chiefs of
government of Italy, West Germany,
Great Britain, France . . . and all of
those leaders welcome a treaty.
Flash to Gen. Alexander Haig.
Well, he said, he had just come back
from a similar trip to Europe, he had
visited the same leaders, and he re
ports that they look on the proposed
treaty with dismay. Gen. Haig, sitting
six inches from George Bush, looked
him straight in the eye, and Vice Presi
dent Bush, silting six inches from
Alexander Haig, looked him back
straight in the eye; and they both held
their ground.
Now, in such a quandary there is no
obvious solution. Bush does not lie,
and in any event he would hardly elect
to lie about this, should it occur to him
to begin lying. The chiefs of govern
ments involved arc publicly recorded
as approving the proposed treaty.
On the other hand, neither is Alex
ander Haig, running for president of
the United Slates, likely to make
something out of whole cloth. And the
observer, doing a little thinking on his
own, has got to acknowledge that
sensible Europeans can hardly rejoice
over a treaty that disarms them from
the capability of returning a Soviet
conventional offensive with a touch of
nuclear grapeshot. Why would Euro
peans be willing to trade such weap
ons as cruise and Pershing II missiles
for bombers and submarines, let alone
strategic weapons fired exclusively at
the will of a U.S. president?
One arrives at the conclusion that
Thatcher et al. are saying one thing
officially to Ronald Reagan and
something quite different to Haig and
to others in whom they confide. W hy
the difference? Because since the
reduction of intermediate nuclear
forces is perceived to be a step toward
disarmament, the European public
inclines to applaud any such develop
ment. This need not coincide in any
respect with private convictions of
Western European leaders.
William F.
Buckley Jr
11.
So,sccking furthcrperspective,the
questioner addressed Haig in Hous
ton: If it is true that Western Europe
will be much weaker after an INF
treaty than it now is, why can’t wc
count on representatives of the armed
forces to make that point in their tes
timony before Congress? Arc they
intimidated by protocol?Or by loyalty
to the commander in chief, or both?
Haig answered: both.
The American public is left with a
problem of some gravity. If indeed
most of the friendly leaders of West
ern Europe deny the advisability of
removing our Pershings from Europe
in return for the destruction of the SS
20s, wc can understand that their
domestic political concerns will pre
vent us from knowing this. But
shouldn’t our own military' speak up
and give their opinion of the question?
Americans will argue that if indeed a
general or an admiral saw the pro
jected situation as truly serious, he
would reach beyond protocol and
communicate his doubts publicly,
prepared to pay the price of premature
retirement in return fordoing his duty
by his conscience.
The trouble with that facile reas
surance is that there are those who
believe that loyalty transcends objec
tive analysis. When, at the same af
fair, Bush was asked whether he
would describe those situations in
which he, as vice president, disagreed
with Ronald Reagan, as president, his
reply was simple: “Yes, I could, and
no, I won’t.” Here is an extension of
the concept of loyalty that reaches
over to the point of subordinating
one’s judgment about national secu
rity. One wonders whether members
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will be
guided by the same hierarchy of felt
obligations.
There is no way to know in advance
the ultimate costs of removing the
Pershings from Europe, and one
would rue the day when a military
officer would consider his first obi iga
tion to be that of telling the truth as he
saw it. The appropriate gesture would
be first to resign from the Army (read
Navy, Air Force) and then testify to
what exactly is on one’s mind.
Not easy to do. The career is for
feited, and the day after tomorrow, life
becomes lonely. But it is reassuring to
think that we could count on the loy
alty of our Navy, Air Force and Army
admirals and generals sooner than we
can count on the loyalty of Thatcher ,
and Mitterrand. Our military wit- J
nesses would lose a great deal, hut 1
they would sleep better; and so would
Europe.
c 1987 Universal Press Syndicate
Decisions of life, death,tuition hike debated
Letters
Men often absent
This is in response to the uproar
caused by Nanci Hamilton’s letter
(Daily Nebraskan, Oct. 30), which
addressed James Sennctt’s anti
choice editorial.
I have many valid pro-choice argu
ments that could be presented here.
However, 1 would just like to offer the
following observations.
All the letters 1 have read opposing
Hamilton’s views have been written
by men, members of the population
who will never have to make difficult
and possibly devastating choices re
garding an unwanted, unplanned
pregnancy.
In addition, the prevalence of
single mothers who arc heads of
households gives support to the asser
tion that men arc notoriously absent
from child bearing and child rearing in
the United States.
H.E. Hayden
junior
special education
Who decides life?
This is written in disbelief of the
response to James Sennett’s column
on abortions (Daily Nebraskan, Oct
30).
I do not see how anyone can just
dismiss another human life, a possible
Nobel Peace Prize winner or president
of the United States, because it will
cause a woman nine small months of
discomfort out of 60 years of her life.
A couple knows what they’re
doing, and no pregnancy is a surprise
to the mother. A mother is what she
becomes, not five days later or three
months later, but at that moment.
From then on, there is not one but two
lives to consider. All I hear is how it
will affect the lives of the parents.
What will they have to sacrifice to
give this child’s life? The small
amount of pain, time, gossip behind
their backs, and letdown to those
around them will end in less time than
it would have taken to give another
human life a chance to make a differ
ence somewhere in this world of ours.
Maybe the couple should start
thinking of what is going to happen to
them before there is another life to
consider.
Hamilton brought up ineffective
birth control or babies resulting from
rape. 1 can’t believe that God would
create a life in any situation unless
there was a very special purpose for
that life. Where did we get the idea
that weehoose who lives and whodics
because it will be an inconvenience in
our life?
Polla Ita
junior
food science and technology
Babies need chance
This is a response to Nanciana
Hamilton’s letter (Daily Nebraskan,
Oct 30) in which she advocated abor
tion.
Yes, a woman has the right to
choose whether to have children, but
she does not have the right to take the
life of another human being. If she
can’t handle the responsibility and
“burden”of achild, then she shouldn ’t
put herself in a situation where she
could get pregnant. You say absti
nence isn’t a social reality. Well,
maybe we’d better do something
about that. Among unwanted preg
nancies, venereal disease and AIDS,
it’s becoming stupid and downright
dangerous not to abstain in many situ
ations.
As for women who get raped, that’s
a tragedy that soc iety needs to work on
preventing. It is also not the woman’s
fault. But killing a defenseless baby is
not going to help matters anyway.
Chances are it will give the woman an
added sense of guilt. And compared to
a lifetime, nine months is not a long
time.
The decision to give up a baby
admittedly would be a very hard thing
to do. So why is it so easy to kill the
child? Women who give up their
babiesaren’tcrueland heartless. They
are the warm and caring ones, because
they truly want the best for their child.
The people who abort babies — in
cluding the doctors, boyfriends, fam
ily, friends, etc., who help make the
decision or actually perform the mur
der-arc the cruel and heartless ones.
1 am an advocate of women’s
rights, but more than that. I’m an
advocate of peoples’ rights, including
the unborn. They can’t fight for them
selves, so we have to fight for them.
They deserve a chance to live the same
as any of us, and I honestly cannot sec
how anyone could consider it to be in
the best interests of someone to be
dead. Women and men both have to
realize that pregnancies involve three
people: mother, father and child. The
parents must behave responsibly
enough to prevent an unwanted preg
nancy. It can be done, and believe it or
not it’s really not that hard or incon
venient.
Elaine Connelly
freshman
undeclared
ASUN hike a joke
I can’t believe AS UN’s proposal to
increase tuition to faculty salaries
could seriously be made. This is a
land-grant university, not a private
college. It is the unicameral s respon
sibility to finance this institution in
such a manner that it provides a qual
ity education at a reasonable price,
promotes the public good and main
tains itself as a research facility to aid
in the economic growth of the state.
If the unicameral is not doing this,
why should there be any attempt to
relieve them of their responsibility?
Rather, the attempt should be made to
get them to accept the financial prob
lems of this university and solve them
according to the economy of the stale.
If these problems are so big that they
can’t be solved, then the unicameral
should abandon the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln to suffer the fate of
the Agriculture College in Curtis and
turn UNL into a private institution.
Since 1 doubt anyone is ready to
scrap UNL at this point, I must assume
that the financial problems arc solved
by the Legislature. I really doubt that
any kind of gross example by the
students such as a self-imposed tuition
hike should be considered. In real
dollars, that could drive many stu
dents out of the state or into accepting
more student loans than they could
afford to repay.
The Daily Nebraskan reported that
Regent Nancy Hoch apparently sup
ports such a tuition hike. What a
crock. If that's the best answer she can
come up with, she should resign her
seat and give it to someone who will
support the ideals of this university.
The regents already force the students
to do their own lobbying, isn’t that bad
enough? Why does Hoch think that
this student action will indicate the
importance of a faculty pay hike? Is
she herself int apable of making that
importance known to the Legislature?
Although I feel Pete Castellano’s
AS U N bill is a joke and that he should
be impeached for suggesting it, itdoes
point to a growing student dissatisfac
%
non for the work the regents and the
Legislature are doing to resolve the
economic woes of UNL.
Our dear governor, Kay Orr, has
called this “The Year of Education.”lf
the students want to gel involved, then
they should stop cutting their own
throats and draft propositions to get
the NU Board of Regents off its dead
butt and go in force down to the Leg
islature to make its case there.
Douglas Engh
graduate student
education
Students broke
In response to the “tuition for sal
ary bill” editorial (Daily Nebraskan,
Nov. 2):
Students and faculty of UNL need
to make their voices heard. Every
body will agree that a good institution
is based on a good faculty, not a
championship football team. Then
why do we continue to flood our ath
letic programs and leave education
behind? What is even more absurd is
that our own AS UN proposed the al
ready-broke student body pay $5 a
credit hour more.
Andy Pollock, I ask you to tell that
to the thousands of students still wait
ing for their GSLs, those with further
decreased financial aid and those who
have to pay for their educations out ol
their own pocket
It is time we decide to make the
decision for our stale and federal leg
islators, regents and governor. Recalls
are on the rise and the 1988 elections
are around the comer. Education is the
future, not defense, or football, or a
senator’s or representative’s pay
raise. The students and faculty have
bit the bullet enough.
Jim Brisnehan
junior
architecture