Editorial _
Mike Reilley, Editor, 472-1766
t> .. Jeanne Bourne, Editorial Page Editor
MonmC|C.1 n Jpn Deselms, Managing Editor
1 1 Mike Hooper, Associate News Editor
University of NebrasKa-Lincoln J“*<ott Hurrah, Sight Sews Editoi
Joan Rezac, Copy Desk Chief
l inria Hartmann, Wire Editor
Selling suicide
Novelty products for kids glorify death
For wnaievcr reasons,
teen suicides over the
last few years have in
creased by massive propor
tions. About 600,000 10- to 24
ycar-olds try to kill themselves
every year, and 5,121 youths
between the ages of 15 and 24
succeeded in ending their lives
in 1985, according to the Na
tional Center for Health Statis
tics.
Gcsner Militia in Washing
ton, N.J., sells double-edged
razor-blade pendants through
the mail. Triple M in Venice,
Calif., sells hats with “suicidal”
printed on the bill. Plan 9 from
Lodi, N.J., sells coffin-shaped
skateboards. RIP is a heavy
metal rock magazine that adver
tises products like these.
What purpose do these prod
ucts serve? Do any of them have
redeeming qualities?
Cash.
Hawking “suicide” products
is fast becoming the new
American growth industry, ac
cording to a Nov. 5 Gannett
News Service article in The Dcs
Moines Register.
ine occurrence oi icen sui
cides is skyrocketing fast
enough without the added glori
fication of the act. Making
money the easy way is great.
Everyone likes to make a buck.
But profits from the sales of
these products do not replace
the loss of teen lives.
Sam Heilig, a psychiatric
social worker in the Los Ange
les Suicide Prevention Center,
said the popularization of sui
cide reflects the despair of some
of today’s teens.
“This reinforces the idea that
may already be in someone’s
mind,” Heilig told the GNS
writer. “It can be the straw that
breaks the camel’s back.”
But RIP Executive Editor
Lonn Friend denied his maga
zine is cashing in on teen sui
cide.
“That would be wrong,” he
said, adding he doesn’t think
teens are influenced by suicide
products.
“Kids are a lot sharper than
that.”
Too bad nearly 6,(XX) teens in
1985 weren't.
Court ruling sets dangerous precedent
Must landlords pay?
A Douglas County Dis
trict Court judge has
awarded a rape victim
$90,000 to be paid by her land
lord for providing inadequate
security.
If this decision is not over
turned, there could be danger
ous repercussions. If landlords
arc to be held responsible for
crimes committed in the build
ings they oyn, the effects could
be dangerous.
The Omaha woman who
brought the suit sued the land
lord for ignoring repeated re
quests to repair a lock on her
apartment door. 'I’he building
didn’t have a lock either.
The victim claimed the land
lord should have foreseen the
possibility of rape.
The suit was filed in 1984
and was dismissed. After an
appeal to Nebraska’s Supreme
Court, it was sent back to Dis
trict Court.
The apartment building, at
19th and Jones streets in
Omaha, is noi considered to be
in the “safest” area.
If the woman felt uneasy
about tile security she should
have hired a locksmith to repair
the lock and sent the bill to the
landlord, or she should have
moved.
To hold the landlord respon
sible could have serious effects
on costs of living to compensate
for insurance increases.
Letter
Voltage is questioned
in UNL residence halls
Wc arc writing in response to the
article (DN, Nov. 9). In the article
about microwave use in residence
hall rooms, we were told that wc
could use microwaves in our room;
because they now use less “voltage’
than the older inefficient models. We
were wondering how this could be
The change in “voltage” was men
lioned several times, so wc arc fairly
confident that it was not a simple
misprint. Wc see two possibilities
Appliances do not have control ovci
how many volts they gei, so the Firsi
possibility is that the volts dial are
provided for us by UNL must be lowei
than the standard 120 or so. Thi;
makes many, many students very
concerned, because much of the elec
tronic equipment that we own needs
110-115 volts to operate correctly. Is
it still safe to leave these things
plugged in?
The other possibility is that the
UNL maintenance department really
doesn’t know what it is talking about
; much of the time. This is very disturb
ing as well, but not very surprising.
Jeremy W. Burgeson
John M. Willman, III
juniors
Editorial Policy
Unsigned editorials represent off!
; cial policy of the fall 1987 Daily
Nebraskan. Policy is set by the Daily
Nebraskan Editorial Board.
Cleaning out politicians’ closets
Those fat, stupid and tacky dudes have no place in public office
Well, I must say that I am quite
relieved that we’re not
going to have a pot-head on
the Supreme Court. What difference
docs it make that the guy hasn't
touched the stuff for more than a
decade? Do you know how long that
stuff stays in your system?
Chances are, at a most crucial
moment in jurisprudential history,
DouglasGinsburg’s rational faculties
would have been replaced by some
delusive notions concerning the bal
ance of universal karma, and the next
thing we know it would be illegal to
buy bananas by the pound. 1 want to
thank those who so forthrightly came
forward with the shocking newt
about this facade of a model Ameri
can,
James
Sennett
I
In fact, all across America it’s
springeleaning in November as poli
ticians, judicial officials and garden
variety public servants of every stripe
arc dusting out the closets and
‘fessing up or reassuring constituents
that they have nothing to which to
‘fess. Our own Nebraska representa
tive and would-be senator Hal Daub
announced last weekend that he has
never touched a tainted substance. In
addition, Dapper Daub reportedly
asserted that no one who has ever
broken the law should seek public
office. Hal must be the only person in
America who has never gotten a park
ing ticket.
First we were shocked by the news
of Pat Robertson’s closc-but-no-ci
gar premarital tryst,and now we learn
that federal judges arc former joint
tokers. It is good to see that no level of
immorality or illegality will be toler
ated by this newfound social con
sciousness of ours. In fact, I’ve got a
few other confessions I’d like to see
forthcoming from those who dare to
suppose themselves worthy to lead
our local and national business. Who
knows what tawdry secrets have been
swept under rugs, kept under wraps
and otherwise metaphorically ex
cluded from public perusal? We’ve
uncovered immoral and illegal ac
tivities; now here arc some more cate
gories of questionable behavior I d
like to sec explored.
•Fattening. This is the natural third
counterpart to the two aforemen
tioned atrocities. In this health-con
scious, new-age fitness world of ours,
we cannot tolerate those who have
once engaged in, or currently do
engage in, culinary customs invidi
ous to the body beautiful. How many
closet junk-food junkies line the halls
of our legislative houses? How many
benches arc filled by those who have
spent many a hard-earned dollar on
Hostess Twin kies or have never even
counted the first calorie? Jesse Helms
sure doesn’t impress me as a Richard
Simmons devotee. Some hotshot
reporter better get on this right away.
There’s a lot of contraband sugar
flowing through the veins of Ameri
can leaders.
•Stupid. No matter how hard we
try, we cannot make everything that
ought to be discouraged illegal. It is
quite possible fora person tolivealife
completely clear of lawlessness and
yet never rise above the level of just
plain dumb. I want to know how many
of those who think themselves ca
pable of determining my future have
ever acted in any way that is regret
table, unforgivable or even dull city.
The aforementioned statement by
Daub, while clearing him in the ille
gal category, makes him a prime
candidate for this one. What evidence
is there that public officials do not
have both oars in the water, arc not
hilling on all cylinders, arc missing
the two of clubs, arc three bricks shy
or arc just half a bubble off plumb?
We have a right to this information.
•School Days. I don’t know about
you, but I was surrounded all through
school by kids gelling into trouble.
How many ol mem arc now ostensi
bly serving our best interests? How
many truancy violators want to be
your ncxtcounly commissioner? Did
Orrin Hatch ever smoke in the boys'
bathroom? Detention, suspension,
and writing “I will not talk in class'’
100 times — any one of these is
enough to disqualify anyone who
might think himself or herself worthy
of my vote. Incidentally, if a guy
named Ned Nadderson ever tries to
run for mayor of your town, get in
touch with me. The stories I could tell
you ...
•Tacky. This has to be the grand
prize category. There is a lot of taste -
icssncss in this country, and it has no
place in the halls of justice or the scats
of power. How many current leaders
once owned Nehru jackets? How
many weekend polyester paladins are
setting public policy? Rumor has it
that an announced Democratic presi
dential candidate, as yet unnamed,
was once seen shopping for black
velvet paintings while listening to
Slim Whitman tapes. We cannot have
this kind of behavior. If these charges
arc not investigated, we could wind
up with Naugahyde furniture in the
Oval Office.
As you can see, the potential for
corruption is staggering. We can only
be kept safe by our own intolerance.
Inch-getters arc invariably mile-tak
ers. I have only scratched the surface.
A few moments of reflection will
reveal how many other areas of life
there are in which unacceptable be
havior might be displayed. And we
cannot have anything less than per
fection. The definition of perfect is,
after all, a matter of record. Just ask
me — I’ll tell you what it is. Who arc
these people that want to run my life
anyway? Where have they been, and
what have they done? Inquiring
minds want to know.
Scnnett Ls a graduate student in philoso
phy and campus minister with College-Ca
reer Christian Fellowship.
Jefferson sforgotten rule: Government is best which governs least
Republicans change tune
What the Democratic presi
dential candidates had in
common in their first debate
in Houston was hostility for the Con
tras and for the Strategic Defense Ini
tiative. This is ahistorical, since the
Democrats were the great anti-isola
tionist political force of the 2()th
century, at times Wilsonian in their
appetite to move in and make the rest
of the world more like ourselves. And
it was Democratic leadership that
gave us the key to nuclear physics and
toa man on the moon. Now the Demo
crats arc increasingly isolationist and
Luddite.
William F.
Buckley Jr.
The Republican candidates in
Houston had in common, or very
nearly so, an enthusiasm for what the
slate can accomplish. Listening to
them there, one waited in vain for the
anti-statist rhetoric associated with
Ronald Reagan and with the intellec
tual forces that led to the ascendancy
of Reagan ism. There was one bracing
moment. It came when Pete du Pont
(if George Bush persists in calling
him “Pierre,” du Pont should retaliate
by calling Bush “Poppy”) said the
emphasis being placed on peace was
not entirely reconcilable with the
biographical emphasis correctly
placed on George Bush’s record as a
war hero. He didn’t have a chance to
elaborate, buldu Pont was saying that
there had to be something more im
portant than peace if George Bush
was to be acclaimed, as he should be,
for his role not in waging peace, but in
waging war in pursuit of a certain
kind of peace. The kind of peace,
measured in modem limes, for which
the American people will settle is a
peace that leaves us free of Soviet
domination, free from totalitarian
ism.
The enthusiasm with which most
Republican candidates regard the
potential of government neglects the
main axle of traditional conservative
thought in America, which is anti
statist.
Why is peace so desperately
sought after? Because it is in jeop
ardy. What is that jeopardizes the
peace, it not statist control of scien
tific skills and military concentra
tions? John Dillcngcr was a threat to
the peace, but in a pretty limited way.
Wc struggle, all of us, against
poverty, but poverty is induced by
stale action everywhere, whether in
Ethiopia by errant Marxism or Mex
ico by statist greed and incompe
tence. Human beings struggle whole
lifetimes to save money, whose value
is eliminated in a year or two by statist
inflationary activity. Statist control
of public schooling causes the worst
to survive, often at the expense of the
belter. State-enforced regulations
imposed Jim Crow and seek to govern
prices, retroactively to confiscate
landlords’ properly, to regulate for
cign commerce, to define usury, to set
minimum-wage laws.
The man next door may Ik a mur
derer, or he may run over our child
while driving a car drunk, or he may
steal from us or swindle, or he may
infect us with a deadly disease or set
fire to our house or rape or seduce our
daughter. We are all sinners, as C’on
gressman Kemp correctly pointed
out, pre-empting the point from Pat
Robertson.
Bui ihc sins ol the individual an.
transmogrified when institutional
i/.cd in the suite. And the agents ol
statist action have a way of going
through life with relative impunity,
whether former President Echevcr
ria, mourning the impoverishment ol
the Mexican people from his multi
farious palatial estates; or Adoll
Hitler, paying for the dcathsof the 10 I
million needed to stop him with his
own niggardly death. It is a pity that
Hiller had only a single life to give for
his country.
The Republicans should not sound
like anarchists, nor think anarchy.
But they shouldn’t lightly abandon
the most refreshing insight of postwar
Republicanism, which acknowl
edges the insight of the earliest
Democratic president. It was Thomas
Jefferson who said the government is
best which governs least and who
reminded us that the government can
only do something for the people in
proportion as it can do something to
the people.
© 1987 Universal Press Syndicate.