Editorial
Nebraskan
University of Nebraska
Mike Reilley, Editor, 472-1766
Diana Johnson, Editorial Page Editor
Jen De selms. Managing Editor
Curt Wagner, Associate News Editor
Scott Harrah, Night News Editor
Joan Rezac, Copy Desk Chief
Joel Carlson, Columnist
Dump site opposition
Petition drive good idea, but too late
Those who oppose putting
a regional storage site for
low-level radioactive
waste in Nebraska have a valid
point for their vindication. They
officially launched a petition
drive Friday to place the issue
before voters.
But the problem is that they ’re
too late.
The group officially launched
a petition drive Friday to place
the issue before voters. During a
press conference at the Capitol,
members for Nebraskans for a
Right to Vote said they needed to
gather 39’,510 signatures by July
7 to get the issue on the Novem
ber ballot.
The group wants Nebraska to
withdraw from the Central Inter
state Low-Level Radioactive
Waste Compact Commission.
The compact — which includes
Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas
and Louisiana — picked Ne
braska last December as the site
for its storage facility.
The proposed law would
withdraw Nebraska from the
waste compact commission and
would require voter approval of
any radioactive waste storage in
the slate.
The above-ground vault will
store contaminated clothing,
equipment and tools used in
nuclear power, research and
medicine.
Sam Welsch, the committee’s
executive director, said he fears
developers for the Central Inter
state Low-Level Radioactive
Waste Compact Commission
will “cut comers” in developing
the storage site.
“They are going to want to site
a facility as cheaply as they can,
regardless of the health and
safety risk of Nebraska citizens,”
he said.
Raymond Pecry, executive
director and general counsel for
the compact, said Thursday it
could cost Nebraska as much as
$81 million if the state leaves the
compact.
Pcery’s $81 million estimate
included fines that could be lev
ied against Nebraska for leaving
the compact, the cost of Ne
braska building its own storage
site and the cost of building
another site for the four remain
ing compact states, as stipulated
by its contract with the compact.
The timing of the opponents’
outcry is poor. The group should
have discussed its opposition to
the compact before Nebraska
was chosen. True, their point is
well taken. Nebraskans should
have a voice in the location of the
waste sites, and the group’s fear
that health standards may be
compromised is a valid argu
ment. But the opposition comes
after the fact. The state certainly
can’t afford an $81 million pen
alty, although the cost in human
lives may be more severe.
Law studentsquestion columnist's loyalties
In response to Joel Carlson’s col
umn (Daily Nebraskan, Feb. 1) that
attacked former Gov. and U.S. Senate
candidate Bob Kerrey: Two ques
tions, Joel. Was that column written
by you during a lull period in your
work at Sen. David Karnes’ re-elec
tion campaign headquarters? Or was
it merely written on Karnes’ stalion
ery- Mark F. Krause
Gary A. Goebel
third-year law Students
Editor's note: Carlson's column
was written on the DN computer
system.
Housing resident questions value for cost
I am writing this letter to voice
some questions about what residence
hall residents are getting for their
money. Residence halls can be a
convenient place for many students to
live, but over the past four years, I’ve
noticed several things which make
me wonder if the University of Ne
braska-Liocoln housing office really
cares much about the welfare of the
student resident.
My first question relates to that
pot-holed and muddy mess called the
Harper/Schramm/Smith parking lot. I
don’t think there is a single person
whose car hasn’t been covered with
gravel dust every week. I’m sureUNL
officials don’t have to park their cars
in a mud hole. They’re provided with
real parking lots; students, who pay
$45 for a parking permit, should have
a real one too.
This leads to another question.
Where is that $45 per car going to? It
certainly doesn’t go to insuring the
safety of student vehicles. Because of
poor lighting and a total lack of pa
trolling, thousands of dollars in theft
and damage occurred to cars parked
in residence hall parking lots last
semester alone. Apparently the UNL
police are nothing but meter maids
who do little more than write parking
tickets. Perhaps that’s why they’re
known as the “Campus Clowns.”
Another question I have relates to
a yearly ritual that UNL housing calls
“room consolidation.” Under this
policy, students whose roommates
have moved out are sent a notice
informing them of four options that
housing has kindly provided for them:
find someone to move in with you,
move in with someone else, pay extra
money to keep a single, or allow your
residence director to assign you to a
new room or give you a new room
mate.
What is the purpose of this policy?
I have also noticed another curious
phenomenon. Students pay $425
more in the first semester than the
second. This payment schedule, in
effect, cheats those students who, for
some reason, choose to leave the halls
after the first semester, out of more
than $200. In fairness, shouldn’t all
the payments be equal?
In-conclusion, I hope this letter
will lead to a constructive debate of
these issues, and I invite UNL offi
cials with responsibility in these areas
to give hall residents some real an
swers to these questions.
Justin Evans
senior
business administration/economics
Of capitalists and Contras
YAF's Caution follows ex-communist s \isit w ith Falei o dinnei
My first encounter with
Lincoln’s Terrell Cannon
was in 1983, when he was
hawking a jaded Kruschcvite Polit
buro refugee who’d seen the light of
almighty capitalism and wanted to
share that enlightenment w ith Ameri
cans who might have become disen
chanted with the system in the first
foul years of Reaganomics.
Cannon, a Lincoln lawyer who
handles legal ins and outs and public
relations for Nebraska’s Young
Americans for Freedom, took this
capitalist manque on ihe road to small
Nebraska colleges under the guise of
an objective lecture tour about the
Soviet Union.
Cannon knows how' to jump out of
the way just before he loses his cool.
He ushered the Soviet to the dais at
Hastings College and introduced
himself and then the Russian. The
Russian wore my father’s suit, as if he
were fresh in from a VFW meeting,
complete with rhinestone-studded
American (lag lapel pin. He looked
more like a dyed-in-the-wool Repub
lican God-fearing American than
Ronald Reagan himself.
Cannon introduced the whole af
fair without ever mentioning.Young
Americans for Freedom or hinting at
the monstrous propaganda the Rus
sian w as about to spew on the cagcr
eyed Hastings College students w ho
came to hear what Mother Russia was
really like.
The Russian spoke English like
John Houseman, eloquently skirting
the core of the speec h for more than 10
minutes. He explained the Soviet
Union and how the Politburo worked
as he saw it. But after 10 minutes, the
rhetoric began to show' symptoms
similar to the first stages of rabies.
Cannon’s eyes, wedged in baby fat,
darted around the room, making sure
the students’ faces were off-guard
enough that the Russian could
pounce.
There was even a moment of eye
contact between Cannon and the
Russian before the communist profli
gate embarked on a scenario so bi
zarre and heinous that even those
students who might have had right
wing leanings seemed shocked. Like
a character out of “Dr. Strangelovc,
the red, white and blue Soviet said his
Mother Russia was at its weakest. He
told the students the Soviet arsenal
was depleted and obsolete and the
Soviets have lied at every negotiating
table, not to hide their strength, but to
exaggerate it.
If the United States struck with lull
force today, the Russian said, it could
easily annihilate the Russians with
-——| T:
minimal damage to major U.S. cities.
It was horrifying that a Russian
would stand up before a bunch ol
duped college students advocating
the utter destruction of his own home
land and personally willing to sacri
fice a few U.S. cities to see this deed
accomplished. That Cannon was
grinning like a vulture at Dachau over
this suggestion was subhuman. That
the audience was so numbed by the
trappings of the event that they didn’t
respond by laughing the two hyenas
out of the room was beyond human
comnrehension.
A lew professors began ihe ques
tion-and-answcr session when they
saw that most of the students w ere too
stunned to speak and Cannon was
leaning forward, wailing.
After the professors, who'd done
their Nation magazine reading for the
week, tried to knock the Russian oil
his star-spangled high horse, a few
students started in. One student be
came almost as rabid as the Soviet,
accusing Cannon of masquerading a
fascist sing-along as an informational
travelogue of the Soviet system. He
asked the Russian again and again
w hat sick pleasure he got out of call
ing for the annihilation of his own
land. The Russian said there were
higher goals than patriotic national
ism.
Like world capitalism, the student
presumed.
Here Cannon kicked in. Nearly
shoving the Russian outof the way, he
barked that this student was proof that
our society had decayed. He asked if
maybe that student wouldn’t feel
more comfortable eating borscht
under the shadow of the hammer and
sickle than attending an expensive
small college in the heartland of
America.
The professors, good liberals all of
them, resented this and began their
“Now, hold on there a minute . .
routine. Cannon was ready. The Rus
sian was out of the way and the dais
was his. He went on a tirade that
turned his puffy checks the coior of
Winesap apples, and then he grabbed
the Russian and got the hell out of
Hastings.
This week, Cannon tried to pass off
a Contra fund-raising binge as a
wholesome political S25-a-plate sup
per in the basement of Gov. Kay Orr's
mansion. As a speaker, Cannon’s
brownshirt Young Americans got
Adolpho Calero, whose escapades
with the Contras became famous
during the Irangatc hearings. Part tw o
of Cannon’s fascist world lour begins
in Lincoln this Friday with Calero, a
gray-haired Na/i bent on seeing Nica
ragua safely back under a U.S
backed dictatorship where he can
make a buck or two and wear his
rhinestone fine nin with imnunitv
Orr claimed she'd never heard ol
Calcro until a wise-guy reporter
asked her why she was having a
Contra fund-raiser in her basement
without telling anyone. She then
decided the event might be a little too
controversial for the governor s
mansion, and Cannon moved the fete
to the Clayton House. It would be nice
to think this was the first decent thing
Orr had done since she took office, but
unfortunately it was ignorance that
paved the way to the decision.
Calero and Cannon will begin
Friday’s show with a speech at the
McDonald Theater on the Nebraska
Wesleyan campus at 10a.m., and then
Cannon will begin touting him
around until the fund-raiser. Let’s go
out and greet them.
I.ieurance is a senior Knglish major ami
Daily Nebraskan arts and entertainment edi
tor.
No need to make up your mind
when Reagan can do it for you
Ijust haven’t been paying at
tention anymore. I’m bored
and frustrated because people
refuse to realize that until God him
self speaks out — given, of course,
that you arc not an atheist — there
will always be two arguable sides to
abortion.
But people continue to insist on
their view point without listening and
accepting another’s point of view.
Maybe some people enjoy venting
their anger. 1 am not into beating a
dead horse into bloody pulp.
Yet, here I am, sucked in by the
issue against my will, but at least this
time it’s a little bit different.
Back in August, 1 remember read
ing something about President Re
agan proposing to stop abortion
counseling in federally funded clin
ics.
I blew off the idea because it
seemed obvious the regulations
would be unconstitutional and dan
gerous to women.
“Congress would never let that
happen,” I said to myself.
But here it is February, and a USA
Today headline screams, “Doctors
call abortion advice ban ‘immoral.’”
I caught my cheeks turning red
again, like they used to when I was a
newly awakened freshman, ready to
argue again.
“How the hell could this happen?
Was Congress on a field trip? This
couldn’t slip by without somebody
noticing,” I said.
I should have known the regula
tions would slip through the system,
without the consent of the American
public for something much more
important and life-threatening, like
the federal budget.
The regulations were all part of
this year’s budget proposal. 1 knew
that.
What I didn’t know is that Reagan
thought it his sole obligation to cut
the number of abortions. So he
tricked Congress by threatening to
veto the budget if it tried to amend it
and stop the regulations from going
through.
So Congress had to give in. And
now 4.3 million women will be de
nied their right to know all their op
tions about their pregnancies.
Imagine a woman sitting in her
federally lunded doctor’s office,
wearing a look of terror.
The doctor says, “I’m sorry to say,
Mrs. Brown, that you arc pregnant,
but the zygote is caught in your Fal
lopian tubes. If you have the child,
you will die.”
Mrs. Brown bursts into tears and
says,“Bui Doctor, I don't wanttodie.
Isn’t there something you can do?”
“I'm sorry, Mrs. Brown,”he says,
“That’s a secret. I’m not allowed to
tell you what to do in your condition.
It’s against the law.”
Most people who oppose abortion
would tell you that any decent doctor
would never do that to a pregnant
woman. Yet, when the new rules arc
enacted in two months, the doctor
won’t be able to say much. The rule
defies one of the most important
ethical rules in medicine: a patient’s
right to informed consent.
The American Medical Associa
tion, the American College of Obste
tricians and Gynecologists, and the
American Academy of Pediatrics arc
all against the rules, but nobody at the
federal level seems to care much.
The Planned Parenthood Federa
tion of America and other family
planning institutions have filed law
suits against the new regulations, and
I hope they will win.
But if they don’t, the only thing
women can hope for is that the issue
get tied up in court until a new ad
ministration comes along and re
verses Reagan’s ridiculous rules.
I guess it just doesn't matter what
anyone says about abortion anymore.
The decisions are being made for
you. •
Rood is a junior news-editorial niaj"r
and a Dally Nebraskan news reporter.
