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Net>rayskan
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
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[ 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 Rezae, Copy Desk Chief
Linda Hartmann, Wire Editor
A union alternative
i Student center to be a welcome addition
A little entrepreneurship
will go a long way this
spring on the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln campus.
David Hunter, a Lincoln devel
oper, announced plans Monday to
open a new student center in the
old OMC Warehouse on 16th and
W streets on campus. It will open
in March, he said.
The student center will be a
bright alternative for students liv
ing in the Harpcr/Schramm/Smith
and Abel/Sandoz residence halls
and Triangle fraternity. Hunter
said the new student center will
offer a dry-cleaning service, bank
ing services, sundries, a copy cen
ter and casual clothing store. It also
will include a food court with six
restaurants.
Although officials say the new
center won’t be competitive with
the Nebraska Union, it will still
give students located several
blocks from the union a place to
shop and eat.
The new center also will be a
boost to the student job market.
Hunter said the businesses plan to
hire student employees.
Hunter said he wanted to do
something “for the students.” He’s
even having a contest to name the
building. A survey of the DN siafl
produced several interesting
names, including:
— Our hOUsc
— The Hall of Justice
— The New Student Union
— Me Union
— The Bill Allen Memorial
Union
— The Yuppie Center
— The Tom Osborne Student
Center
But no matter what you call it,
the new student center will be a
welcome addition to the UNL
campus.
Annual snowball tights
irresponsible, dangerous
For ihc \asl three years,
University of Nebraska
Lincoln students could
count on three things in late No
vember and early December:
— Thanksgiving vacation;
— A loss to Oklahoma in foot
ball;
— and a snowball fight between
residents in Greek houses and stu
dents in residence halls.
For children, snowball fights
can be a harmless, playful pastime.
For UNL students, it has evolved
into a vicious, dangerous annual
event,
Sunday night, about 150 UNL
students caught motorists in a
crossfire near 16th and Vine
streets. The result: $1,000 in dam
age to windows of Greek houses,
residence halls and cars.
According to newspaper ac- j
counts, snowball damage has to- ]
tiilal $3,500 during the Iasi three j
years. Damages totaled S500 last /
year and S2,(HK) in 1985.
This damage comes ai a time
w'hen letters pour into the Daily
Nebraskan from students com
plaining about tuition increases,
engineering surcharges and access
to the new indoor practice field.
But at the same time that stu
dents ask for more and belter
equipment, they don’t show re
spect for the properly and equip
ment they already have.
There’s no way to stop this
immature behavior. Lincoln and
UNL police have already tried to
slop the fights. But it’s lime for
UNL students to stop and think
about the consequences of their
actions.
Letters
Senators aren't elected to find other jobs
At an annual salary of $76,000 plus
expense accounts, adequate compen
sation and benefits should not be a
x factor in attracting the finest and most
qualified candidates for the Univer
sity of Nebraska-Lincoln’s position as
head lobbyist, contrary to the issue of
faculty salaries facing UNL.
University of Nebraska President
Ronald Roskens is scheduled today to
announce the appointment ol a vice
president of university relations as
UNL’s chief liaison with the state
government and the Legislature Al
though declining to comment on the
five candidates and their credentials
for the post, state Sens. Pal Morchead
and IvCC Rupp have announced they
Letter Policy
Letters will be selected for
publication on the basis of clarity,
originality, timeliness and space
available. The Daily Nebraskan
retains the right to edit all material
submitted.
Readers also are welcome to
submit material as guest opinions.
arc two of the five finalists in conten
tion for the position.
Prior to its amendment in 1968, the
Nebraska Constitution prohibited a
state senator from accepting such a
position prior to a one-year absence
irom the Legislature due to a pre
sumed conflict of interest. Slate sena
tors should not be encouraged or al
lowed to pursue a tax -supported influ
ential position under the pretense of
serving their constituency. We do not
elect our senators to assist them in “job
hunting" at the taxpayer’s expense,
only to have them resign one year into
off ice and leave their districts without
elected representation for the balance
of their terms.
Moreover, the serious issues facing
the university on appropriations may
well be overshadowed by allowing a
senator to resign to assume the vice
president’s position. President
Roskens would be ill-advised to ap
point Rupp or Morchead in the face of
a presumptive conflict of interest
controversy that will compromise the
focus from the real issues facing the
university in the next legislative ses
sion.
John R. Linn
Lincoln
Wedlock no short cut to a visa
Marriage to a foreigner for money, pity not worth the trouble
Marrying for money or sympa
thy can be big business, and
it can break hearts as well as
pocketbooks.
In an article in Monday’s Daily
Nebraskan, James Cole,districtdirec
tor for the Immigration and Naturali
zation Service for Nebraska and Iowa,
said he thinks only a minority of resi
dent aliens marry to get permanent
resident alien cards, also known as
green cards.
But I know of many cases. And
there must be multitudes more the INS
doesn’t know about.
Motives vary, and sometimes they
are honorable.
For example, I know several
women who were dating Iranian men
when the hostages were taken during
the Iranian revolution in 1979. They
probably would have married eventu
ally, but imminent deportations sped
things up considerably. They fell they
were saving their husbands’ lives by
sparing them from having to return to
a war-tom country.
In Monday’s article, one woman
who married a foreigner made an
important point. She said, “The law
isn’t always right. When I made that
decision, a human life was at stake.
The fulureof that life was more impor
tant than that law.” Her husband faced
deportation to Lebanon while its civil
war was at its peak.
Other times the reasons seem less
pressing. Some foreigners feel they
have better chances for success and
more job opportunities here. Marry
ing an American seems to be the easi
est way to take advantage of these
opportunities.
Sometimes foreigners make citi
zens believe they arc serious about the
marriage and then, after they get their
permanent visa, they file for divorce.
Some aliens believe this is the lastcst,
easiest way to get green cards.
But it’s really not so easy.
In November 1986 Congress
passed the Marriage Fraud Amend
ments. This makes it much more dif
ficult to get a permanent visa.
I know couples who married and
were harassed by INS before these
laws were passed. First they were in
terrogated separately. „ .They were
Jeanne
Bourne
asked questions like: What kind of
underwear docs their spouse wear?
And what color is the kitchen phone?
If the responses didn't match, they
were in big trouble. They were occa
sionally awakened at 3 a.m. by INS
officials checking to see if they lived
together “as husband and wife.”
These new laws force couples to go
through two interviews two years
apart. After the first, the alien is given
a temporary visa. Then, if the couple
is still together after two years, the
foreigner will get a permanent visa.
It is a risky business, and the lor
cigncr is usually the most vulnerable.
Say a couple gets married and later
the woman decides not to wait for two
years. She can simply leave and file
lordivorcc.il ineiorcignci paiuneno
marry him, he has no legal recourse to
retrieve his money.
If an American man marries a for
eign woman, he could be held liable
for her economic support. The same
goes for the foreign husband. Many
states still have laws that say men are
responsible for economic support and
women are responsible for child care
and domestic duties.
A man once offered my brother
$10,000 to marry one of his relatives
from Korea. They just wanted her to
become an American citizen.
I have even heard of scams where
American men marry Oriental women
for pay and they never meet them. The
women are sent to large cities to be
prostitutes.
One of the women quoted in
Monday’s story was asked for advice
by a friend who was offered $ 1,500 to
marry a foreigner. She said, “Don’tdo
it.”
This is sound advice. For foreign
ers who are considering this alterna
tive: You are bound to lose. You can
easily lose your money and never gel
residency. The price you may have to
pay is too high to gamble on the con
sequences. If things arc so dangerous
in your home country you could
probably apply for political asylum.
For Americans: Don’t sell your
friendship so cheaply. At the time you
may think it is noble and good, but you
probably will regret it later.
Bourne is a senior news-editorial major
and Daily Nebraskan editorial page editor.
Assumptions need questioning
The recent exchanges in the Daily
Nebraskan about vegetarianism and
animal rights demonstrate that con
fronting complex questions without
attempting to separate value issues
from factual issues leads one into dif
ficulty. Brent Boettcher’s letter (DN,
Nov. 23) is a good example of what
happens when we fail to question the
basic assumptions we have all grown
up with. Honestly questioning our
assumptions is not easy, partly be
cause it often leads one to make deci
sions that require substantial changes
in the activities we take for granted.
1 have been a vegetarian of one sort
or another for about 16 years. My
reasons have varied over time, but
right now 1 do cat meat on very rare
occasions, either out of a feeling of
togetherness and friendship for
friends who cook it, or out of a sense
ol curiosity and adventure when eat
Guest Opinion
ing in restaurants serving exotic loods
I have never tasted. I suppose this
makes me suspect in the eyes of those
who nc ver make exceptions, but given
my reasons for not eating meat, I don T
Itxtkai it as an all-or-nothing decision.
I do think that drastically cutting down
on society’s use of animals would
have a number of no> ilivc effects, for
us as well as for the animals.
People become vegetarians for
many reasons, ranging from an emo
tional reaction from visiting a slaugh
terhouse to a doctor’s orders or a
search for less-expensive food. Per
haps the most fundamental reason is a
belief that killing animals is as wrong
as killing people. For some, this
comes out of deep religious roots. For
others, it’s a result of a non-religious
moral view holding that animals, too,
have a right to life. This view is clearly
in contrast to Boettcher’s notion that
animals can be killed because they
can’t think. My own original decision
to slop eating meal came during the
Vietnam War, when killing of all
kinds seemed pointless. I’m no longer
a pacifist, however.
The difficult question, of course, is
determining what is“neccssary.’’This
is where values and facts get blended
into mush. Boettcher, lor example,
argued that animals are an important
source of nutrition, and that “people
who eat a balanced diet that includes
meat... arc generally healthier than
those who don’t.” What he failed to
note, however, is that a “balanced
diet” docs not require meat. The offi
cial “four food groups” we hear so
much about don’t include a “meat”
group; there is a “meal or meat substi
tute” group. Some other countries
don’t even have a meat group, calling
it instead a “protein” group that lists
meat and dairy products at the bottom
of a long list of protein-rich food.
Morc-than-adequate protein can
come from a bcan-nut-grain-based
diet, as thousands of years of experi
ence in the soy-based Asian countries
Mia*.!, uwu. rcupic wno aiso caiuairy
products arc in no danger of suffering
from lack of prolcin. To argue that we
need a meat-based diet for health
reasons is simply inaccurate.
Also false is the notion that humans
are “natural” meat-eaters, at the “top”
ol the lood chain. Many anthropolo
gists have demonstrated that our so
called hunter-gatherer ancestors most
likely were in fact gatherer-hunters
lor whom meal was only an occa
sional treat. And although our diges
tive system handles meat well
enough, it certainly doesn’t require it.
A reasonable argument can be made
that our digestive system has more in
common with thedigeslive systemsof
vegetarian animals than with carnivo
rous ones; our closest relatives, the
apes, are primarily vegetarian. There
is, ol course, nothing natural about
over-crowded, force-fed conditions
typical of American meat production.
In a world where massive numbers
of people arc hungry, our own protein
wasteful ways arc hard to justify.
More than hall the harvested acreage
in this country is used to feed animals.
The amount of grain that goes into a
cow to produce one hamburger could
instead directly feed more than a
dozen people. There is more than
enough prolcin in the world to feed
everyone right now , except for two
factors: political and profit-motivated
distribution problems, and the use of
protein to feed animals rather than
people. Boettcher’s argument that
meat is necessary to prevent mass
starvation is exactly the opposite of
the truth, as books like “Food First by
Frances Moore Lappe and Joseph
Collins make clear in abundant detail.
The United Slates actually imports
more protein than it exports, mostly to
feed animals. Our meat-eating di
rectly robs the Third World of its own
scarce resources. Although Boettcher
has a point about the disruptive short
term economic effects of a switch to a
meatless society, he overstates his
ease.
In looking at the somewhat dillcr
ent issue of the use of animals for
research, greater effort to separate
values and facts again would be use
ful. I respect those who argue that
humans have no right to maim and kill
animals for any purpose at all, but I am
selfish enough to allow for some life
saving research when no alternative is
possible. I think the point to focus on,
however, is that much research that
kills or mistreats animals can be done
in other ways. These other ways may
be more expensive or less convenient,
but expense and convenience do not
justify routine killing. Neither do
many ‘‘educational” dissections by
bored biology students, nor many
repetitive animal-killing research
projects by tenure-seeking professors.
Among the most unjustifiable reasons
lor mass animal blindingand killing is
the safely testing of cosmetics. I can
accept the death of animals to save
human life, but I find it hard to accept
those deaths simply in order to test
another brand of eye shadow.
Although it is in our routine, every
day activities that we actually have the
most impact on the rest of the world,
I do realize that our eating habits
generally seem somewhat removed
from notions of an animal’s rights or
the plight of the hungry.
Dennis Fox
research associate
law/psychology