Editorial
Nebrayskan
Mike Reiiley, Editor, 472-1766
Diana Johnson, Editorial Page Editor
Jen Deselms, Managing Editor
Curt Wagner, Associate News Editor
Scott Harrah, Night News Editor
Joan Rezac, Copy Desk Chief
Joel Carlson, Columnist
Pell Grant priority
Athletes must earn extra spending money
The University of Ne
braska-Lincoln will sup
port a piece of legislation
j at the NCAA convention today in
Nashville that will set student
athletes’ priorities ahead of other
students.
James O’Hanlon, UNL fac
ulty representative to the NCAA,
said he will vote for a proposal to
increase the limit of an athlete’s
Pell Grant from $900 to $2,100.
The grants are based on need and
the maximum a regular student
can receive is $2,100.
O’Hanlon said that if the
$2,100 proposal doesn’t pass, the
convention members will vote
on a second proposal that would
increase the limit to $1,400.
Many supporters of the pro
posal argue that the athletes need
more spending money for living
expenses than the current limit
permits. But they’re forgetting
one thing: Athletes’ scholarships
pay for room, board, books and
tuition.
Outside of the major school
expenses, $900 should be
enough for athletes to “survive”
cm.
The NCAA members also
need to remember that student
athletes can work during the
summer. This gives them a
chance to earn extra pocket
money to survive on during the
school year.
One success of the proposal is
that it points out a major flaw in
the NCAA rules. The NCAA
should allow athletes to work
during the school year. Cur
rently, the Nebraska volleyball
team’s season runs September
through December, but the
scholarship players aren’t al
lowed to work during the second
semester.
This rule applies even to
graduating seniors. This was a
factor when former Nebraska
volleyball player Karen
Dahlgren decided to join the
professional ranks during sec
ond semester instead of staying
in school. Dahlgren had said she
wanted to work to earn some
money before graduation, but
she risked losing her scholar
ship if she took a job.
The NCAA convention
needs to be fair to all students
when it votes today. Let’s make
the student-athletes earn that
extra spending money instead of
just handing it to them.
Proposed law may send
high tuition up in smoke
At a time when smok
ers and non-smokers
are fighting for their
rights, state Sen. Scott Moore of
Stromsburg has introduced a
bill that could redirect money
raised from a cigarette tax to
raise money for college tuition
assistance.
Moore’s effort should be ap
plauded. Moore, 28, obviously
remembered what it was like to
pay tuition at the University of
Ncbraska-Lincoln, having
graduated in 1983.
UNL students have suffered
through tuition increases and
departmental surcharges this
semester, and the assistance
program should bring some re
lief to their woes.
However, the timing of
Moore’s bill is ironic. Debates
between smokers and non
smokers have heated up in the
news lately.
Forcxamplc, CBS’ “60 Min
utes” recently carried a story
about how more and more ho
tels are setting up non-smoking
wings. One hotel in Dallas even
banned smoking.
Moore’s bill could raise up to
$2.5 million a year to assist eli
gible students in public and
private colleges. According to
an Omaha World-Herald ar
ticle, the money had been ear
marked to pay off bonds for
renovation and construction at
three Nebraska colleges, in
cluding Morrill Hall at UNL.
The state used a similar ciga
rette tax in the 1970s to build the
Bob Devaney Sports Center,
which doesn’t allow smoking
inside its doors.
Moore wants the Nebraska
Legislature to use about $12
million in surplus revenue to
pay off the bonds, then use the
cigarette tax money for the tui
tion assistance.
At a time when low faculty
salaries at UNL arc a hot topic at
the Legislature, it’s nice to see
that someone remembered that
students have to pay bills, too.
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If? -f* .rtfoY; I
MEWS ITEM MORE PETAL TISSUE TRANSPLANTS ON THE WAY. I
Grammar, not virtue
The monster with the most adjectives wins
11 wasn’t until I discovered
that Time magazine had
elected the Ayatollah
Khomeini and, much earlier, Adolf
H itler People of the Year that 1 divined
entirely what Time was looking for
when it makes its year-end choice.
As a youth, I assumed Time’s Per
son of the Ycar was c hosen a 1 i tile 1 i kc
the local newspaper’s Father of the
Year, or Secretary of the Year —
nominated by pals at the office or
some such thing. I figured Goebels
had mailed a list of Hitler’s admirable
characteristics by Rcichsposl to the
editor of Time, including one or two
veiled threats like, “You have rela
tives in Chicago maybe, hmmm?”Of
course the nomination for Khomeini
was received in the wee hours of the
morning and was delivered on the end
of a knife.
But it seems Time has an interest
ing system that’s slightly more fair in
these new times of moral ambiguity.
After all, evil and virtue aren’t the
clear-cut adjectives they used to be.
As the signifiers float around impo
tently over an endless series of flaccid
signifiers, Time has taken, wisely, to
avoiding value judgements.
The contest rules arc clear. The
entire staff of Time gets together in the
big Time conference room, sends
Julie — one of the operators there at
Time—out for coffee, turns the ringer
off on the mauve Time phone and, for
three hours, they list as many adjec
tives as can possibly apply to each of
the nominees. The nominee with the
most number of applicable adjectives
wins, and Time’s ace photographer is
sent out with his Time pocket 35mm
I camera to capture the Person of the
Year in a dignified pose, preferably
not beheading indigent peasants or
stoking the coals of the flesh ovens.
i Occasionally the year-end winner
! is an unscrupulous messianic monster
because some cynical Time reporters
could think of more lively synonyms
t for unscrupulous messianic monsters
» than for the bland, ascetic sycophants
, of virtue who selflessly strive for a
better world. Often the adjective
I “efficient” has been a tie breaker,
1 giving the messianic monsters the
winning edge. Of course, Mother
Teresa limping through crowds of
lepers giving them sips of milk is
majestic, but it’s hardly as efficient as
simply lopping off their heads and
having done with it. And majestic can
simply mean powerful, which a great
many messianic monsters certainly
are.
There arc always a few wide-eyed
optimists in the room who stutter in
disbelief, “But Mother Teresa is gtxxl,
virtuous, noble ...”
“Noble and majestic arc syno
nyms,” the cynics counter.
“. . . Loving, nice, uh, good, you
know, really good!”
-1-\
I
*———————
J
“And the Ayatollah is nasty, vi
cious, monstrous, scabrous, lunatic,
maniacal, messianic, powerful, tyran
nical, totalitarian, autocratic, de
monic, repressive ...”
“But..
“And do the trains run on time in
Calcutta?”
“Uh ..
“In fact Gandhi stopped the trains
in Calcutta.”
“She has a fine sense of humor
“Do you really want to be saddled
with awarding MothcrTcrcsa Woman
of the Year based on the adjective
‘humorous.’”
Cynics are hard dogs to keep under
the porch.
Lists like this make it easier to
write the actual profile of the Person of
the Year, too:
“Although perceived as nasty and
vicious throughout most of the free
world, the Ayatollah’s monstrousness
seems to be lost on his own people.
His scabrous approach to public order
have branded him a lunatic, but this is
an instance when what seems mania
cal resonates in the minds of Islamic
Iranians as messianic. The
Ayatollah’s power becomes the
power of Allah; his tyranny becomes
the tyranny of God. Khomeini’s totali
tarian autocracy is far from demonic
in the eyes of Islam; it is the way
mankind is meant to live until freed
from the corrupt burden of the flesh.
For millions the repression attributed
to the Ayatollah is voluntary; for thou
sands il is deadly ..
And so on.
There arc, by historical necessity,
years when unscrupulous messianic
monsters take a break. Khomeini still
metes out dismemberment like park
ing tickets, but hi* year has come and i
gone. 1987 was one of those years
when talkativeness was valued. So
vict leader Mikhail Gorbachev won
Man of the Year on the basis of adjec
tives like “talkative, open, amiable,
good joe for a red, popular, snappy
dresser, provocative/’etc. Most of the
other candidates had similar attribu
tions, but it is reported that “good joe
for a red” clinched it for Gorbachev.
Next year, the possibility of having
a madman once again grace the cover
of Time magazine is great. The world
is in perfect shape for unscrupulous
messianic monsters with a jones for
genocide. 1987 was the year of subli
mated evil, a bunch of obviously
grisly folks carrying around the dark
ness of hell in their leather briefcases,
waiting for the appropriate moment to
walk into a room and say, “Here in this
case I have the answer to your ques
tion, let me show the five-part plan ..
and then unleash the harpic of live
part plans.
My personal favorite is a certain
Senor Guzman of Peru, the Maoist
theorist who inspired the inlamous
Sendero Luminoso, a group of hell
spawned dog gutters who have nearly
closed off half of Peru as they go on a
seemingly indiscriminate Andean
killing spree to rival Pol Pot’s Khmer
Rouge. Guzman is reportedly dead,
but it's quite possible he’s just hiding
out wailing for the bloodshed to topple
the first reasonable government Peru
has had in decades. There would be
little problem coming up with enough
fine adjectives to describe the activi
ties of the Sendero Luminoso:
“Bloodthirsty, dogmatic, apocalyptic
it
Of course, the photo on the cover of
Time wouldn’t show a picture of
Guzman disemboweling the mayor of
some Andean village. It would show
him, head slightly turned to show his
good side, looking to the side and
evcr-so-slightly upward, toward the
inevitable future of public abattoirs
and five-part plans. Majestic.
I.ieurance is a senior Kngl ish major and Daily
Nebraskan arts and entertainment editor.