Editorial
Nebraska n
University of Nebraska
Mike Reilley, Editor, 472-1766
Diana Johnson, Editorial Pag<‘ Editor
Jen Deselms, Managing Editor
Curt Wagner, Associate News Editor
Scott Harrah, Night News Editor
Joan Rezac, Copy Desk Ch ief
Joel Carlson, Columnist
Tests are detectable
A total nuclear test ban is enforceable
A seismic study has found
evidence of 71 secret
nuclear bomb tests in
Nevada that were conducted be
tween 1963 and 1978, according
to the Natural Resources De
fense Council.
_ It’s alarming that the tests
were even conducted, but the
study proves that any nuclear
testing by the United States or
the Soviet Union could be de
tected should the countries
agree to a test ban treaty.
“The study does offer evi
dence it is difficult to hide a
militarily significant testing
program,’’ said Thomas Co
chran, a senior staff scientist for
the Washington, D.C.-based
NRDC. “We can verify (U.S.
Soviet compliance with)^ com
prehensive test ban.’’
The NRDC’s new compila
tion of U.S. nuclear tests was
released during the Interna
tional Scientific Symposium on
a Nuclear Test Ban, which drew
300 environmental and peace
activists who want the super
powers to halt all lest explo
sions.
The report said the United
States conducted at least 919 nu
clear weapons tests, both atmos
pheric and underground, since
1945. They included 802 an
nounced tests, 46 unannounced
tests revealed in a 1986 NR DC
report and an additional 71
found in a new study of Califor
nia Institute of Technology
earthquake records.
The U.S. Department of
Energy has long said that it
conducts unannounced test ex
plosions at the Nevada Test Site.
Department of Energy
spokesman Jim Boyer argues
that the numbers of tests are off
base — a bit loo high.
Robert S. Norris, chief author
of the report, doesn’t agree. He
says there may be yet another 60
undisclosed blasts.
But the point is that the
number of tests being conducted
unannounced make up as much
as 10 percent of all tests con
ducted.
Without a total nuclear test
ban, it is also possible to con
tinue nuclear testing at a low
power. Previously unralified
treaties in 1974 to 1976 limit
tests to 150 kilotons.
Although the study suggests
that any secret nuclear testing by
either party could be detected
easily, a total nuclear test ban
would discourage it even fur
ther.
It also might prevent an entire
generation becoming viclimsof
the nuclear threat hanging omi
nously over our heads.
Unsigned editorials represent offi
cial policy of the spring 1988 Daily
Nebraskan. Policy is set by the Daily
Nebraskan Editorial Board. Its mem
bers arc Mike Reillcy, editor; Diana
Johnson, editorial page editor; Joan
Rezac.copy desk editor; Jen Dcsclms,
managing editor; Curt Wagner, asso
ciate news editor; Scott Harrah, night
news editor and Joel Carlson, colum
nist.
Editorials do not necessarily re
fled the views of the university, its
employees, the students or the NU
Board of Regents.
The Daily Nebraskan’s publishers
arc the regents, who established the
UNL Publications Board to supervise
the daily production of the paper.
According to policy set by the
regents, responsibility for the edito
rial content of the newspaper lies
solely in the hands of its student edi
tors.
The Daily Nebraskan welcomes
brief letters to the editor from all
readers and interested others.
Letters will be selected for publica
tion on the basisofclarity, originality,
timeliness and space available. The
Daily Nebraskan retains the right to
edit all material submitted.
Readers also arc welcome to sub
mit material as guest opinions.
Whether material should run as a let
ter or guest opinion, or not run, is left
to the editor’s discretion.
Letters and guest opinions sent to
the newspaper become property of the
Daily Nebraskan and cannot be re
turned.
Anonymous submissions will no
be considered for publication. Lcttei
should include the author’s name
year in school, major and group aff ili
ation, if any. Requests to withhok
names from publication will not b<
granted.
Submit material to the Daily Ne
braskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 H
St., Lincoln, Neb. 68588-0448.
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Let sleeping dogs lie /
A nightmare in Arizona governor's mansion
Flying over the Phoenix/
Tcmpc/Scotisdalc mctro
plex—plopped like Monop
oly properties in a primordially
painted bowl of desert — one first
notices that everyone has a swimming
pool from which to escape the waver
ing mirages of reality caused by the
often obscene, breathless heat.
Here, people drive in their sleep.
Nothing is real. The light might be red,
but itcouldjustas easily be green. Life
is on automatic pilot until you get to
the walled-in Mediterranean-style,
air-conditioned villa, change into
trunks or a bikini (or just strip com
pletely) and then dive clumsily into
the walled-in pool.
People will tell you that thousands
of people migrated here looking for
something. They will tell you that
people, after one summer of mind
bending desert heat, forgot what that
something was. They stalled in the
desert and floated on their floatation
mattresses trying to remember. And
most of them made enough money to
spend a good deal of leisure time
contemplating just why it was they’d
come here to the nightmare swelter.
The simpler folk say things like,
“Never have to scoop another icy
I sidewalk in my life.”
Not only do they drive in their
sleep, they apparently vote as som
nambulists too. Because sometime in
the middle of a particularly heinous
swelter, the sweating, semi-conscious
people of Arizona elected Evan
Mecham as governor of their slate.
Running traffic signals, swerving
wildly to avoid chimeras thatemerged
, thoughtlessly from heat-mirages and
turning the wrong way on one-way
I streets, they made it to their ballot
: boxes, forgot why they were there and
limply pulled the first lever their
hands came in contact with.
Lying back in Republican repose
on a lounge chair by his teardrop
shaped pool, Mecham glowed with
confidence in the sleeping populace.
Wearing sunglasses and sipping lem
onade, he waited for the announce
ment to come over the news.
And a million Arizonans, safely
relumed to their walled-in, air-condi
tioned adobe Camclots, realized in
horror they had elected a George
Wallace nightmare to the highest post
in their beloved, lost stale. They
begged to be allowed to try again, but
the law was the law. In the next few
months of 1987, Arizonans heard a
parade of racist slurs leaking from the
governor’s mansion to the press.
Mccham wouldn’t leave and he
wouldn’tobligingly curl up in the heat
and go to sleep. Pacing the marble
floors of the mansion in temperature
controlled alertness, he insisted upon
doing things.
Phoenix isoncofthosecilieswherc
it’s a damn task to find the poor folk,
but Mccham put the minorities and the
disadvantaged further into obscurity.
More pools were dug for those totter
ing on the verge between the middle
middle class and the upper class, so a
lot of people stopped worrying about
Mecham’s conscious pacing.
“If you can’t sec the poor from
Scottsdale, maybe they aren’t there,”
some of them said.
“If he’s calling black kids pickan
innies and there aren’t any around,
then what’s the harm....’’
But even sleeping Caucasians have
their limits. You can be awful unscru
pulous in American politics and get
away with it because people have a
soft spot in their hearts for the old
style America gangster-poiitician, a
man in suspenders who stomps the life
out of his opponents and talks like a
sailor. He may not always talk pretty,
but he knows how to make the trains
run on lime. Mccham, however, got
his suspenders caught on the “math’
machine, which is the worst place for
a gangster-politician to get caught.
Gangster-politicians arc supposed
to know how to handle their money
flow,even if the gainsarc ill-gotten—
especially if the gains arc ill-gotten.
Caught on a loan cog in the machine,
Mccham turned into the weasel a
gangster-politician can never afford
to be. He started blaming his brother,
an apparent half-wit named Willard
who couldn’t defend himself and
probably agreed to sacrifice himself
for the sake of his brother’s career
goals because their mother told him
to.
So now, a good year after Mccham
declared openly that Martin Luther
King Day would never close down the
post offices of Arizona, other politi
cians arc meekly suggesting Mccham
resign because of “math” indiscre
tions. And Mccham, elected by sleep
walkers, refuses to budge. The whole
affair will probably end with Mccham
holding his brother Willard at gun
pointon the balcony of the governor’s
mansion, forcing him to say every
thing was his fault. As the police,
awake only for this occasion, tell
Mccham that isn’t the issue anymore,
Mccham will start issuing demands: a
helicopter, a passport and some cash.
The citizens of Arizona just wail
for their George Wallace nightmare to
end, whether it be in some deranged
shoot-out or by due process. It doesn ’t
matter; they wouldn’t hear the shots
anyway, and rousting them to sign the
appropriate paperwork would be
damn near impossible.
Licurance is a senior Knglish major and
Daily Nebraskan arts und entertainment edi
tor.
ASUN doesn’t
deserve kudos
This Icltcr is in response to the
article entitled “ASUN officers vow:
Find new ways to serve UNL,” pub
lished in the Jan. 15 edition of the
Daily Nebraskan.
ASUN President Andy Pollock
was quoted as saying ASUN senators
should “pal themselves on the back”
for the hard work they contributed last
semester fighting for faculty salary
increases.
As an ASUN senator and Govern
ment Liaison Committee member, I
was appalled when reading tins quote
made by Pollock concerning the devo
tion of the ASUN Senate. The ASUN
Senate has by far the highest levels of
untapped potential of any campus
organization. However, senators have
failed to voice the opinions of all
students on an equal level. For ex
ample, the GLC, ASUN’s lobbying
group, has only two senators that serve
as members.
Laura Schabloskc
junior
speech communicalions/history
CBA priority
is Catch-22
Tuesday, Jan. 12, 1988, repre
sented the culmination of activities
concerning “priority” objectives in
the College of Business Administra
tion.
The quandary faced by fighter pi
lots in Joseph Heller’s “Catch 22” is
analogous to that facet! by CBA stu
dents. Example: Two economics 3(X)/
4(X) level courses must be taken by all
business students. The priority system
stipulates that the courses must be
required before a graduating student
can be admitted into a closed course.
Well, no one that signed up for priority
entrance into 3(X)-Ievel economics
courses was admitted, the reason
being that they are not required. One
cannot graduate without these
courses, yet they are not required. It
certainly is a vivid display of bureau
cratic wheels grinding.
My underlying disgruntlcmcnl lies
in the distorted philosophies practiced
by this institution’s administrators. I
believe the philosophical ideology of
higher education is to enlarge the
spectra of intellect and founded ideas.
Alan D. Classen
senior
marketing
