Editorial
Nebraska n
University of Nebraska
j Mike Reilley, Editor, 472-1766
I 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
CFA changes plan
Process chance convenient for UPC
The Committee for Fees
Allocation took an un
expected turn during
Tuesday’s meeting by not ap
proving the Daily Nebraskan’s
annual budget request.
Eric Peterson, a CFA mem
ber, said the committee will dis
cuss reconsidering the approval
of the DN budget, which was
submitted Jan. 19, in order to
look at the whole budget of Fund
A. That fund also includes the
Association of Students of the
University of Nebraska and
University Program Council.
Usually, the three budgets are
considered and approved of
separately. They have been since
1977.
But Vice Chancellor of Stu
dent Affairs James Griesen sug
gests that all three budgets be
looked at as a whole in order to
discuss the possibility of shifting
money between all three instead
of approving the budgets for
each.
It’s rather convenient that a
reconsideration of approval sud
denly appears as UPC asks for a
30 percent increase over last
year’s budget — a budget re
quest that was 12 days beyond
deadline. Meanwhile, ASUN
requests a 5 percent increase and
the DN rests at zero.
If all three entities served the
same purpose, their budgets
should undoubtedly be consid
ered at the same time. But each
serves the campus community in
a different way, so justification
of their budget requests should
be made separately and ap
proved or denied separately.
The student body should not
have to suffer an inexorable in
crease in student fees, but no or
ganization should be forced to
compete for money.
Some might consider CFA’s
budget approval as minute since
it is only a preliminary to the
sequence budgets must follow
through ASUN, Griesen and
finally Chancellor Martin Mas
sengalc. But CFA sets the precc- |
dent. Its decisions should not be |
considered irrelevant to the final
outcome.
It’s just a suggestion, says
Marlene Bcyke, director of de
velopment for ASUN. The mo
tion will be discussed at a CFA
meeting next week.
“We wanted to give CFA the
idea that would give them oppor- ;
tunity to begin looking at things
down the road,” she said. Ap
proving budgets individually
could end up in a raise of student
fees, or approval of one
organization’s budget would
mean a cut in another
organization’s budget.
Looking at the budgets as a
whole is also an attempt to make
CFA more efficient, Beyke said.
It’s one of a number of readjust
ments, including a new budget
format, that have been consid
ered this year.
“Nothing is set in stone in this
case,” she said.
Explore both arguments
In response to Gail Fleenor (Let
ters, Jan. 22) and her opinion that
athletes can’t complain about golden
platters: I have been on both sides of
the coin; I’ve been both a student
athlete and a traditional student who
works to pay for an education. I am
currently employed and work 20 to 25
hours a week and go to school full
time. 1 was formerly a member of the
Nebraska women’s basketball learn
for three years.
Obviously, Fleenor can’t speak
from experience when she assumes
that the student-athlete has it cushier
than the traditional student. From my
experience, coming home from a
three-hour practice as opposed to a
six-hour work day is quite different.
Fleenor thinks the student-athlete
spends about 25 hours a week practic
ing, but they spend much more lime
than that. What about going to the
training room to get treated for an
injury or get taped before practice?
What about all the class time athletes
miss while on the road, and the time
they spend preparing for games —
films, chalk talks and one-on-one
instruction with the coaches to pre
pare each athlete for their role in each
particular game.
Working at a job 20 to 30 hours a
week is by no means as hard as 25
hours of practice. I come home alter
an eight-hour work day and can still
study, but a three-hour basketball
practice leaves you so tired that
you’re ready to go to sleep. After
practice, you usually don’t want to
read 30 pages of American history or
anything else. College athletics is a
job, just like Fleenor has a job. They
get their education paid for to make
their team the best, just like employ
ees work hard at their job to make
their place of employment the best.
In closing, 1 would like to add that
I hope all the traditional students
enjoyed their month-long Christmas
vacation as opposed to the many stu
dent-athletes who were only able to
spend a few days with their families or
no time at all. What about all the
student-athletes who give up their
spring break? All the student-athletes
are sacrificing their time home with
their families for their sport.
This by no means is saying that
Fleenor doesn’t work hard at her job,
but by no means do student-athletes
have everything handed to them on
any kind of platter, whether it be
silver or gold.
Fleenor, next time you feel you
need to speak as an authority on stu
dent-athletes, I suggest you research
your facts and not simply judge by
stereotyped, TV-exploited ideas.
Lisa LaGuardia
senior
secondary cducaiion/social sciences
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111
Those paltry newspaper blues
Columnist bored by reading news, but then there's the funnies . ..
I have a confession to make. I
never read the newspapers.
That noise you just heard
was my editor slamming down his
paper and wheeling around to his
computer to type up my termination
notice. Before I lose my $52-a-month
pocket change, I guess I’d better
| elaborate.
Actually, I do read the papers —
especially the Daily Nebraskan.
There is information about the uni
versity and related issues in the DN
that can’t be found anywhere else. I
also enjoy occasional, entertaining
walks through the Christian Science
Monitor. I just don’t pore over the
black-and-white-and-rcad-all-over
pages like many people do. My wife
can nurse a cup of hot tea and a 32
page tabloid for most of the morning.
It lakes me about three m inutes to find
| outcverythinglneedorwanttoknow
irom me average morning delivery.
There arc three major problems
with newspapers, at least as far as my
talents and preferences are con
cerned. The first is that it is, after all,
a printed medium and therefore must
be read. This just demands too much
of my attention. I am not so enthralled
by the importance of current news
items that they can command my total
allegiance for more than a few min
utes at a time. I get most of my news
from TV and the radio—those lovely
electronic sources that will tell me
what is going on, instead of forcing
me to dig it out myself. It’s not that 1
am lazy — I just have better things to
do with my time. I can do lots of other
things — like typing up this column
— with the Today Show or National
Public Radio going on in the back
ground and learn all I need to learn
about the state of the world today.
There is just too much investment of
time and energy in reading a paper.
This leads to the second problem I
have, which is my inability to concen
trate on reading in the midst of dis
tractions. As I said earlier, my wife is
a big newspaper fan. But then again,
my wife can do the crossword puzzle
in pen in 15 minutes while watching
television and carrying on an intelli
gent conversation with our daughter.
That’s what I get for marrying a
woman with no faults — she daily
reminds me of my cerebral inferiori
ties. I cannot read and bite my nails at
the same time.
If I am to get anything at all out of
what I am pursuing, I must have si
lence and minimal movement. At the
very most, I can tolerate low-level
elevator music to drown out possibly
distracting noises. The stereotypical
picture of the teen-ager reading quan
tum physics vyith Twisted Sister blast
ing away at 120 dcc'bels was never a
caricature of my bedroom.
=======wKSmF
So, if I am lo read the paper, I must
devote all my mental wattage to that
one endeavor, and I have never been
able to justify that kind of expenditure
of time and effort to the accumulation
of information that will, for the most
part, be obsolete before the week is
out.
Which brings me to my third point.
What counts as news is so often
momentary, fleeting and so down
right transitory that it is hardly worth
knowing at all. If I must acquire the
information, I will not do so through
the total commitment mentioned
above. The impermanence is often so
intense that the lag lime involved in
writing, filing, printing and distribut
ing the story even in daily periodical
form is enough to render it obsolete.
With a morning paper you get
yesterday’s news first thing in the
morning. With an evening paper, you
get yesterday’s news late in the after
noon. By the time either reaches me,
I already know about the matter all I
care to know.
Of course, my electronic briefing
sources seldom give the in-depth
coverage to a story that the column
inches format can provide, and this is
a definite advantage of the latter. 1
read in detail newspaper coverage of
the first manned moon Right, the
assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and ;
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the resig
nation of Richard Nixon, the release
of the Iran hostages, the explosion of
the Challenger and the signing of the
INF treaty. But stories like these
come along once in a do/en or so blue ^
moons. The mountains of trivia that
intervene and pass as worthy of my f
attention will not receive like treat
ment.
There is a notable exception to my
ignoring newsprint. I never miss the
comics page. Even there, however,
my enjoyment is not undiluted. Some
of the stuff that passes for funny or
intriguing is a sad commentary on the
intelligence of this country. 1 he Lin
coln Star finally deleted the insuffera
bly bad “Inside Out” (an inexcusable
raroiuc rip-uny, uui uivj
continuing “Heart of Juliet Jones
and “Mary Worth,” two ol the lirsl
inductees into the Worthless Drivel
Hall of Fame. The one serial comic (
worth reading, “Spider Man,” was
unexplainably yanked some time ago
— just as Peter Parker and M.J. had
finally lied the knot. While “Bloom
County,” “B.C.” and “Calvin and
Hobbes” rank among the best any
where and “That’s Jake’’ warms the
cockles of an old Southern boy s
heart, that they arc forced to appear in
the same rag-content acreage as the
aforementioned idiocy is nothing
short of indecent.
Nevertheless, I will continue to
write, and I hope that you will con
tinue to read. But there are those who
may insist that this and my other
columns are the best examples to be
found of what I am bemoaning.
Maybe there is something incongru
ous in a paper-hater writing a regular
column. But then again, I never prom
ised to be consistent or predictable
only interesting and provocative. And
what can be more provocative than a
newspaper writer who hates to read
the paper? Happy viewing.
Sennett is a graduate student in philoso
phy and campus minister with College * a
reer Christian Fellowship.
UauliiKflHl WEMMBBBi
The Daily Nebraskan welcomes
brief letters to the editor from all
readers and interested others.
Letters will be selected for publica
tion on the basis of clarity, originality,
timeliness and space available. The
Daily Nebraskan retains the right to
edit all material submitted.
Readers are welcome to submit
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opinion, or not run, is left to the
editor’s discretion.
the newspaper become property of the
Daily Nebraskan and cannot be re
turned.
Anonymous submissions will not
be considered for publication. Letters
should include the author’s name,
year in school, major and group all in- j
ation, if any. Requests to withhold I
names from publication will not be I
granted. s
