Editorial—
Nebraskan
University ot Nebraska-Lincoln
Mike Reilley, Editor, 472-1766
Jeanne Bourne, Editorial Page Editor
Jen Deselms, Managing Editor
Mike Hooper, Associate News,Editor
Scott Harrah, Night News Editor
\ Joan Rezac, Copy Desk Chief
Linda Hartmann, Wire Editor
Law holds little water
Liquor law is paradixical for local bars
A rule in Nebraska’s liquor
laws provides a loophole
that seems to contradict
the purpose of the law.
According to the present mul
tiple drink act, a drink means “a
container containing no more than
1 1/2 fluid ounces of the same
spirits.”
It does not regulate containers
containing 1 1/2 fluid ounces of
several different liquors.
The controversy started last
week when Lincoln police ordered
Duffy’s Tavern to stop serving its
fishbowl drinks. The fishbowls
contain the equivalent of six regu
lar-sized drinks. The tavern’s pol
icy was to serve fishbowls only to
groups of two or more.
At a State Liquor Control
Commission meeting Thursday,
Reynold McMecn, part-owner and
manager of Duffy’s Tavern, said
the commission should clarify the
rule. The rule doesn’t make provi
sions for “group” drinks.
It doesn’t make sense to allow
large drinks that contain several
types of alcohol but not allow
those drinks that have only one
kind.
The State Liquor Control
Commission rcCDTffmendcd elimi
nating the rule that prohibits the
sale of large drinks. A final hearing
is scheduled for Jan. 13.
Meanwhile, large drinks that
contain more than one kind of
alcohol arc still available — and
they’re potentially more potent
than those now prohibited.
AMA decision only noble
The American Medical
Association released new
guidelines Thursday
dealing with the treatment of
AIDS patients.
The Council on Ethical and
Judicial Affairs said it is unethical
for doctors to refuse patients who
arc infected with the AIDS virus.
This is a very noble proclama
tion. Unfortunately, the AMA is
acting like a dog with dentures —
its statement has no “bite” to it.
I The A MA has no legal authority to
enforce these guidelines.
It shows good intentions, hut in
a society where poor people are
refused medical attention because
they aren’t able to pay, it means
very little.
The council also urged doctors
w ho have the AIDS virus to refrain
from activity “that creates a risk of
transmission of the disease to oth
ers.”
In a Washington Post article
last w-cck, Dr. Nancy Dickey, a
council member, said, “This
makes it dear''If there is a chance
you can pass on the virus, you have
no place operating on a patient.”
This is an issue the AM A might
have more power in enforcing. It
also reassures patients w ho may be
hesitant to opt for non-emergency
surgery.
AIDS testing is still personal choice
Mandatory tests at work hurt employees hy invading privacy
Employees at the Eastern Ne
braska Community Office
of Retardation have been
told they must comply with a fright
ening precedent.
Mandatory AIDS testing.
A report on Omaha’s KMTV
channel 3 said employees who di
rectly work with the mentally re
tarded are required to take an AIDS
antibody test. But office administra
tors aren’t. That has incensed em
ployees who believe everyone at the
office should be tested — not just
certain workers.
Scott
Harrah
Jackie Stoysich, an employee at
the office, wrote the Omaha World
Herald about the testing. Stoysich
wrote: “Some employees may test
positive for the disease, just as em
ployees of restaurants, hospitals and
department stores would be if they
were required to be tested. If I am to
be tested, the clients should also be
tested. I have the right to know that
they arc AIDS-free. Why not test the
high-school kids who make my ham
burgers at Burger King? Let’s also
test everyone at my doctor’s office,
including the secretary and the clean
ing man. And don’t forget my hair
dresser and paperboy.”
Stoysich closed her letter with a
cogent message about the futility of
mandatory testing: “1 thought AIDS
was contracted through intimate sex
ual contact and sharing needles, not
casual contact.”
Mandatory AIDS testing, like
drug testing, unjustly invades the
privacy of an employee. Unless an
employee is having sex at work and
spreading the virus to co-workers, it’s
unnecessary. A person’s AIDS anti
body status is simply none of the
employer’s business.
In a medical environment, there’s
a slight possibility of transmission
through blood, but proper precau
tions and a little common sense can
obliterate that risk. Syringes with a
plastic guard on the needle are now
used in hospitals to avoid transmis
sion through a pricked finger.
Until recently, the infamous
Northwest Airlines banned AIDS
victims, including employees, from
scheduled (lights. Vociferous pro
tests from AIDS education groups
forced the Minneapolis-based carrier
to change its policy.
The same thing must be said to
employers. The work world is no
place for an AIDS witch hunt. If an
employee tests positive, word will
surely get out in the office and the
person will face either termination
from paranoid supervisors or dis
crimination and scorn from col
leagues.
Since the virus is often dormant for
'.wo to five years or more, an em
0 oyce in perfect health who is carry
1 '» the virus shouldn’t have to face
tit t fear a positive test result can
briii;.
AIDS has most definitely hit the
Midwest. There have been only a
handful of deaths in Lincoln, so far,
and the statistics are slightly higher in
Omaha. More than 30 people have
tested positive in Lancaster County
alone, according to reports from the
AIDS counseling and testing site in
Lincoln.
But those people volunteered to
take the test.
Currently, a person can be tested
for free and use an assumed name to
assure anonymity. We must make
sure that freedom continues.
It’s probably only a matter of lime
before insurance companies require
an AIDS test before a policy can be
issued. AIDS might force many insur
ance companies to fold if they don’t
require tests.
But in the workplace, one’s pri
vacy and dignity must be preserved.
An employee carry ing the AIDS virus
is tantamount to a pregnant woman.
Like a pregnant woman, AIDS carri
ers have a certain amount of time in
which they arc able to perform their
d ut ics normal I y. Employers don ’ t ask
all women to take pregnancy tests just
because they arc female, so they
shouldn’t ask everybody to take
AIDS tests just because they are sus
ceptible humans.
AIDS is a personal matter. Em
ployers have no right to force people
to make a decision about their per
sonal health. Many who believe
they’ve been infected avoid the test
simply because they don't want to
know if they’regoing todic. An AIDS
test is a metaphorical way of looking
into a crystal ball at the future.
And we must remember that it is
the individuals who must decide il
they want to be gypsies gazing into
that ball — not an employer, the,
government or anyone else. ■
llarrah is a senior news-edito- I
rial and English major and a Daily I
Nebraskan night news editor.
Readers denounce abortion, DN revie w, roach critics I
Letters
Reasons for abortion
self-centered excuses
This Idler is in response lo the
abortion issue that has raised so much
attention lately in the Daily Nebras
kan.
First off, allow me to slate clearly
my position on abortion and why 1
have this conviction. I stand on the
premise that conception is when life
begins. One cannot effectively argue
that life begins when a child is able to
live and function away from any
motherly support. The reason this is
ineffective is threefold:
— Life then becomes a function of
technology and medicine.
— The definition of life is not
definable from one person to another
or from one culture to another.
— Babies cannot function on their
own.
Certainly, one who stands on the
argument that life begins when achild
is able to live on his or her own is
merely reaching for a way to justify
that which has no reasonable grounds
for justification. Life isn’t something
that fluctuates like export demand for
U.S. beef. It cither is or it isn’t. In
addition, I believe this thinking sets
the stage for further irrational justifi
cations that would appear to be well
steeped in our current materialistic
self-centered culture: justification of
the elimination of babies with defects
and the elimination ofcldcrly whoarc
“no longer usel ul to society.” The list
wouldn't necessarily stop there.
Equally, one cannot effectively
argue that life begins before conccp
lion. II something exists, then it has
gone beyond the potentiality ol exist
ing. If something couldcxist if certain
events happen, then it doesn’t exist
before those event* happen. Even
though sperm and eggs arc living
tissue, they arc still not unique life
until they unite.
Go back with me to the day each of
us was born and ask yourself hon
estly: Barring an abortion, wasn’t that
day written in stone nine months
prior? Something that is now a cer
tainty , barring interference, no longer
has a potential of ndtoccurring. What
difference docsthc day you were bom
have from the day you grew of three
feet in height? Both were inevitable
barring physical harm, and both could
not have occurred unless conception
or life started the process.
The fact that women have to go
through considerably large amounts
of social, physical and emotional
traiyna is not a proper foundation by
which to make the decision on legal
ized abortion. Nor should the deci
sion be based on the expected quality
of the life or of the cost/bcncfit to
society. (One can effectively argue
about the social-economic damage
abortion is causing.)
The ground by which to make a
stand on the legalization of abortion
is: When docs life start. Because if
life starts at conception, then abortion
is no different than first-degree mur
der. None. oLthe other arguments
seem to outweigh the incredible so
cial atrocity of taking human life is
mass quantities.
From the position of the followers
of Jesus Christ, of which I am one, if
is a known fact dial Jesus did more
and is doing more to break through
barriers concerning women’s rights
as individuals than all the liberators of
our modern day. He did it with a
loving, caring heart and it was walked
out in his everyday affairs. I feel very
much assured the biblical stand on
abortion is not designed to lock
women intocagcs with noescape. It is
grounded in a clear, perfect under
standing of who we are as humans and
what is right for us and what is wrong
for us.
Kyle Sliegert
graduate
agricultural economics
Roaches do not bug
food service worker
As a student employee and patron
of the Harper food service, I am ex
tremely angered by the stories and
letters recently published in the Daily
Nebraskan concerning roaches.
In the year that I have worked in
the kitchen, I admit that I have seen
roaches — three on three occasions.
To me, this is not alarming. In a
kitchen of its size, or any size, it
would not be feasible to think it would
possibly remain roach-free. I ask
Nancy Bauman, Michelle Ebadi and
Jeffery R. Psola — the three people
who have voiced their complaints
against the food service — if their
kitchens arc so clean that they’ve
never had any problems with bugs. I
think it is highly unlikely.
As for the food, it would be more
than impossible to prepare foods to
everyone’s liking because of the vol
ume of students being served.
Granted, the foexi is not just like
Grandma’s, but Granny never cooked
for 1,100 people, cither.
So if the f<x)d is so bad and Ihe
roach problem so great, why not “go
elsewhere.” You’re not forced to live
in the residence hallsand be subjected
to the “abuse” that you’re suffering.
Cancel your housing contract, get a
few bucks from Seaton Hall, move off
campus and cook yourself.
Ron W. Eis
sophomore
broadcasting
More support needed
for alternative bands
In response to Steve Kaiclman’s
letter critical of my assessment of the
band Sidekick, let me say this:
I was at all the shows he mentioned
and enjoyed what I heard. I was a
roadie for Suicidal Tendencies along
with other employees from
Chesterfield’s.
Sidekick is one of the best bands I
heard, but that doesn’t mean that all
the other bands stink. The Finnsters
were very successful here and at The
Drumstick. (Yes, the Finnsters did
play the1 Stick). Many people came to
see both of these bands.
Other shows—flREHOSE, Leav
ing Trains — only had a few people
show up. You can’t afford a $500
band when only 40 people at $3 a head
show up. Yet Chesterfield’s has per
sisted in pursuing these bands.
The local music community obvi
ously doesn’t come to these shows
despite our advertising, posters and
help from local record stores and
newspapers. Talk about terminal ill
ness — where arc the people inter
ested in alternative music during
these shows? If 40 people is it, then
we can t al ford to keep losing money.
Charlie Burton has a loyal and
local following that doesn’t wince at
paying a S3 cover charge, but there
aren't t(x> many other bands that can
say that.
If people want to dance to cover
tunes, let them. If people want alter
native music, let them have it. But
don’t knock them for their decisions.
Brady Wiebcck
manager
Chesterfield. Bottom sley and Potts
R.E.M. for listening;
not a ‘spiritual’ event
I don’t know what Kevin Cowan
expected when he went to sec R.E.M.
the other night, but I went to hear
good music. I’m 5-foot-4 and sat 21
rows back from the stage. I couldn’t
see or care what Michael Stipe was
wearing or the light show and could
barely sec the slide-show backdrop
when I stood on my chair. But, oh
God, could I hear. And what beautiful
sounds I heard. We danced in a frenzy
to “Pretty Persuasion” and rocked to
“Crazy,” definitely the highlight of
the show. “Moral Kiosk” was a pleas
ant surprise early on in the show that
swept me away. So what they didn’t
play “Radio Free Europe”? It was just
an oversight to tick off people like
Kevin. The only weight created by
the commercial market comes from
people who are jealous the whole
world loves their favorite band.
So, what were you expecting,
Kevin? A spiritual awakening,
maybe? Not me, buddy. I was there to
dance.
Carrie Rau
sophomore
language arts
