Editorial
Nebraskan
University of Nebraska
Mike Reilley, 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
Initiative 300
Three-month battle ends for corporation
Imperial Onion Sales,
Inc. has found a way to
beat the system. The
corporation has battled Initiative
300 for almost three months, but
its long fight has come to an end.
Attorney General Robert
Spire filed a lawsuit against the
company Nov. 17, charging that
it violated Initiative 300 despite
its status as a non-family faim
corporation.
But under a new arrangement,
the corporation will stay in Ne
braska. The agreement allows
eight area farmers to grow about
475 acres of onions and sell them
to Imperial Onion for processing
and marketing. Imperial owners
previously farmed, processed
and marketed the onions them
selves.
And that’s how Imperial On
ion landed in trouble.
Under Initiative 300, a family
farm or ranch corporation is de
fined as one in which the major
ity of the voting stock is held by
members of a family. One mem
ber of that family must be “resid
ing on or actively engaged in the
day-to-day labor and manage
ment of the farm or ranch.’’ Un
fortunately, none of the three
owners held the majority of the
stock.
The Imperial Onion owners
could have restructured the com
pany, but they didn’t. They al
most gave up, but they didn’t.
' The Imperial case was a seri
ous test for Initiative 300. It
showed the amendment’s weak
nesses and some of its strengths.
But in the long run, the family
farm stayed intact, which is
what’s important.
This is a story of folks in
western Nebraska helping each
other out. Instead of competing
with Nebraska farmers by grow
ing its own onions, Imperial
Onion has helped them out by
processing and marketing the
crops for them.
The new plan also shows that
Nebraska can have good new
crops and agriculture processing
businesses built on a base of
family farms. Onions have devel
oped as an alternative crop in
Nebraska during the past two
years.
“I don’t think it’s over,” said
Imperial Onion co-owner Bill
Weir in an Omaha World-Herald ,
article. ‘‘I think there’s going to
be some ramifications over Im
perial Onion in the Legislature
and with the people of the state. It
may not come until an off-clec
tion year, but it’s already being
discussed.”
----————
Abortion, murder differ only in legal terms
This letter is in partial response to
Charles Lieurance’s column (Daily
Nebraskan, Jan. 26). It’s a reflection
on the Roe vs. Wade decision of
1973, which legalized abortion.
Why is it that we put restrictions
on our lives? Is it human nature? It is
beyond me how and why a couple can
just “decide” to kill an unborn baby.
I ’m not saying the “decision” is easy,
but I am saying that I believe no
decision exists when it comes to the
life or death of an unborn child. Even
after 15 years of legal abortion, there
arc still people who have not come to
grips with the realization of it. Is it so
hard to understand that abortion actu
ally takes the life of an unborn child?
The only reason I can see it is not
murder is because by definition,
murder is illegal, whereas abortion is
not. It is very disheartening to think
that unborn children are denied the
right to life for any number of rea
sons. To be completely honest, I
wouldn’t trade life for the alterna
tive. Would you?
Marie Hart
senior
speech-language
pathology/audiology
Persona] life not an issue
I would like to make some com
ments regarding Joel Carlson’s edito
rial column (Daily Nebraskan, Feb. 1)
entitled “Rather can be appreciated,
too.”
I agree with Carlson that “the
American public deserves to see can
didates who are pushed to the limit.”
However, this pushing needs to be
done on legitimate government/po
litical issues. The media doesn’t need
to hound a political candidate about
his or her personal relationships.
I think the Dan Rather-George
Bush episode is not an appropriate
comparison to the Joni Hoffman-Bob
Kerrey incident. Rather was inquiring
into Bush’s role in the Iran-Contra
affair, while Hoffman wanted to
know about Kerrey’s personal rela
tionship w ith Debra Winger.
I’m not saying that the station was
justified in demoting Hoffman or that
Rather was not being rude. What I'm
saying is that the media needs to stick
to the significant and material politi
cal issues. If they do soduring the U.S.
Senate race, Kerrey will not have any
problem with the “heat in the
kitchen.”
Jack Cheloha
first-year law student
Women can t challenge me
In reference to Jay VanDerWerff’s
letter about my views on Nebraska
women’s basketball (Sports letters,
Jan. 28), I feel a one-on-one contest
with any women’s player would be
unfair. I’m not a “couch potato,” and
any money bet “on the barrelhead”
would be a waste.
•** 1 don’t think any of the women
cdttfd match up with me. 1 stand 6
fpot-4 and weigh 185 pounds. So go
annead and line up a one-on-one game
i’V.
with whoever you want, Jay, and
we’ll see who does the “whipping.”
Jay, you don’t understand my
view. I’m not criticizing women’s
basketball at all. The Cornhusker
women arc having a great season and
I’m enjoying it. My whole point is
that, generally, women’s basketball
will not put fans in the scats, and we
both can figure out why that is.
Bill Connors
UNL alumnus
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Coming inside from the cold
Moving from the Midwest doesn't move you to a better life
You can easily feel its pres
ence this time of year, ad
vertised on the impatient,
pensive faces numbed by the sub
zero Midwestern weather. If this was
any other decade or any other place,
you would call it cabin fever, but
somehow that diagnosis seems false
in the winter of 1988.
It’s nothing tangible or concrete,
but it’s there, hovering above intoxi
cated people in bars, solemnly gulp
ing down beers that make them forget
where they are and where they’re
going.
If you must place a label on it, then
call it the disillusion of youth. Butthe
term “youth” just seems more de
pressing, for the notions of one’s
youth seem much more elusive after
•J OA ^ 1 MflAA if/Ma rAA/'k 01 '"l "3
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supposedly the prime of your life, the
pressures of responsibility and the so
called future become intimidating, if
not menacing.
The last year or two of college are
incredibly sobering. Parties become
boring, classes become cither mun
dane or intense, and the alcohol
consumed on Friday afternoon drink
a-thons just magnifies the week’s
pressures.
You soon realize that the degree
you’re working for may not be the
ticket to big-city glamour and a new
life. If anything, you’re just prepar
ing yourself for a life of nine-to-five
labor, altercations with colleagues
and employers, meaningless titles,
promotions and vacations.
You read the papers and sec sto
ries about economists predicting
impending recessions that will
mostly affect the middle class in the
1990s. You read over and over, until
the prophecies render you inarticu
late, how millions are going to die
from AIDS in the next few years.
Time suddenly seems priceless.
You realize you’ re indirectly wasting
your life in this dead-end, lackluster
Midwestern town, telling yourself
you’ll one day get out and wallow in
the fast lane. As you ponder this,
Mayor Bill Harris naively tells the
press that a downtown redevelop
ment project will make Lincoln ex
citing.
|
- H r
Harris tells reporters, in imperial
istic tones, how w onderful life will he
here when Lincoln has a Saks Fifth
Avenueoulletdowntown. Hcdocsn’t
mention all the small, established
stores that will have u> dig up their
roots and move elsew here to make
room for Manhattan in the Midwest.
You hear the same thing every
day: Another one of your friends is
either quilting school or graduating .
.. most likely quitting. They mention
the usual destinations— New York,
California, Florida — firing off
names of cities that they feel will he
lacile solutions to their situations.
They want to be modern-day Jack
Kcrouacs, gravitating toward the
freedom and romance of being broke
and mobile in those cities on the
coasts, looking for all-night baccha
nals and an attitude that w i 11 c loud the
automatism of their lives.
They arc children of the false
America we hold so sacred — a world
of stability, security, prestige, split
level homes and block parties. And
instead of coming to terms w ith the
ugliness of their middle-class back
grounds, they make fun of it and filter
it through a flippant sensibility. They
watch the game show “Remote Con
trol’* on MTV, a program based on
parodies of the American television
pop culture they were raised on. :
As corny as it seems, it’s much
easier to laugh at the innocence of
“The Partridge Family” than to look
forw ard to the pestilence and poverty
of later days.
Some become so fed up with the
present that they regress back to their
childhoods... or high school and the
first years of college, w hen parties
were new and school was interesting.
I (Hi luii even see u hi mis pd^v.i,
chronicled in columns written by
former students who moved awa>
and yearn for their former glory days
writing for the Daily Nebraskan. ?
And as you let everything men
tally sink in, you feel insensate, see j
ing the futility of it all. As the cliche
attests, winterkills. In 1988, sex kills,
the future kills, the present numbs.
You watch, with restrained trepi
dation, the people stuffing resumes,
boasting about jobs and internships
— self-indulgence in its most honor
able form. Work gets you places, but
some things in its nobility seem cal
lous, idiotic and plastic.
A generation is trite. Generation is
a trite word ... end of metaphor.
So you slide through these winter
days,comatose, recording, not think- j
ing. You search for something to end
these years lived in limbo as you
ignore the icy blur of faces around
you and wait for the thaw.
Harrah is a senior news-editorial and
K.nglish major and a Daily Nebraskan night
news editor.
The Daily Nebraskan welcomes
brief letters to the editor from all
readers and interested others.
Letters will be selected for publi
cation on the basis of clarity, origi
nality, timeliness and space avail
able. The Daily Nebraskan retains
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Readers also are welcome to sub
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....
unsigned editorials represent of
ficial policy of the spring 1988 Daily
Nebraskan. Policy is set by the Daily
Nebraskan Editorial Board. Its mem
bers arc Mike Rcilley, editor; Diana
Johnson, editorial page editor; Joan
Rezac, copy desk editor; Jen De
selms, managing editor; Curt Wag
ner, associate newscditor; Scott Har
rah, night news editor and Joel
Carlson, columnist.
Editorials do not necessarily re
flect the views of the university, its
employees, the students or the NU
Board of Regents.
The Daily Nebraskan’s publishers
t
are the regents, who established the
UN L Publ i cations Board to super vise
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 tends of its student edi
tors.
% . ’ ) / , l e