- PT FHifnrial Nelnaskan
^ JLi X X JL X Cm 1. Friday, December 2,1988
__________
I Nebraskan
■ University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Curt Wagner, Editor, 472 1766
Mike Rcillcy, Editorial Page Editor
Diana Johnson, Managing Editor
Lee Rood, Associate News Editor
Hob Nelson, Wire Page Editor
Andy Pollock, Columnist
Micki Haller, Entertainment Editor
What others think
Michigan to discuss course on racism
The University of Michigan curriculum committee
is going to discuss a much-needed mandatory
course on racism. Proposed by Concerned Faculty
and Faculty Against Institutional Racism in conjunction
with students from the United Coalition Against Racism,
the course would provide an analysis of race and racism
as well as cultural achievements of people of color.
Racism is a significant phenomena in society and at the
university, and the course would increase student under
standing of this issue. The course is essential to any
I liberal arts education.
To its credit, the curriculum committee already had rec
ommended that the proposal be instituted as an optional
course. However, unless it approves the course as a
requirement for all undergraduates, the class will be
nothing but another ineffective token gesture.
The course must be mandatory.
If the course is optional, it is unlikely that students who
most need to be educated about racism will choose to take
students should not have the luxury or choosing
whether or not to be educated about racism or other
cultures. The university does not give students the choice
about whether or not to learn a foreign language or to
achieve a certain level of writing skill. To enforce these
requirements and to make the course on racism optional
would reflect the skewed priorities under which the
university administration operates.
In order to combat racism at Michigan, structural
changes need to be made. The university has consistently
made excuses for low minority enrollment and the dismal
percentages of minority faculty. In the proposed manda
tory class, the faculty and administration have an opportu
nity to make a meaningful change. UCAR has been
demanding that such a course be created since the spring
of 1987.
There are no acceptable excuses.
— I’he Michigan Daily
University of Michigan
ODimojo,
READER t
York defends Barufkin’s caring nature
Lately there has been a lot of dis
cussion and controversy about Peter
Barufkin’s petition to recall certain
Association of Students of the Uni
versity of Nebraska members, and his
efforts to establish a student watch
dog organization over the senate.
Although his attempts were unsuc
cessful, I would like to personally
applaud Barufkin’s interest in his
^ student government. He, unlike most
students, saw things happening that
he didn’t like and acted upon them. I
know for a fact that Barufkin has not
only attended many AS UN meetings,
but has also gone into the office on
several occasions and requested
meeting agendas and copies of legis
lation. In other words, he cares.
Furthermore, his actions, having
stirred controversy, have actually
caused a lot of students to sit up and
take an interest in w hat AS UN is
doing. Anyone who can create inter
est from apathy has my support and
respect.
I have no problem being held ac
countable for my senate actions. A
letter by Second Vice President Kim
Beavers (Daily Nebraskan, Nov. 30)
said to students who were upset about
AS UN actions: “Where have you
been the last five months?” To that, I
respond: Who cares? I’m just glad
you’re around now.
Libby York
senior
broadcasting
AS UN senator
Sennett is right: World can’t change
I am writing in response to James
Sennett's column (DN, Nov. 30).
Thanks for trying to understand,
Scnnelt.
My generation has been labeled
cynical, materialistic, apathetic. It’s
nice to have someone think about why
the posl-”boom” generation may be
this way.
We follow a generation that made
an attempt to promote social con
science. They exposed The Establish
ment and saw it in a modern way. We
have learned form the 1960s. We
have earned labels, bul we arc not
solely responsible.
We have been taught by the previ
ous generation that we don’t have a
morally sound system and we can’t
change it. We arc dealing with our
atmosphere as the baby boomers did,
and I'm glad that Sennett is thinking
about why my generation is different
than his.
Eric A. Lemke
junior
English
M3fe'T^OK|
f ZjiYf'r
Have^\
Another }
cookie 1
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Finding out about fighter planes
Columnist reflects on November's triumph of secretive science
I had one of those mornings
on Thursday. The first day of
December is always trau
matic because I need six more weeks
to write all those papers, not three.
This time it was especially painful
because while contemplating the
academic suicide that I have probably
already committed, 1 couldn’t find
anything to cat for breakfast.
There was lots of food in the house,
but none designed for consumption
before 11 a.m. With some arguable
fortune, l stumbled across a box of my
healih-lreak roommate's breakfast
cereal.
My roommate claimed that it was
from a genetically engineered variant
of a tropical plant. “A miracle of
modern science,” he called it. It
looked and lasted like something that
had been swept up off the ll(x>r of a
saw mill.
As il was apparently designed to
pass through my body without leav
ing a trace, I decided to save it a step.
I flushed iland made lunch.
While stirring mixed and identifi
able vegetables into my ramcn noodle
broth, 1 began to long for November.
That was a month to celebrate the
triumph of science.
November 1988 will be long re
membered by aerospace and high
technology buffs. The Soviets
launched their long anticipated space
shuttle. The unmanned (light of the
Snowstorm was apparently a re
sounding success. Meanwhile, the
Pentagon unveiled not one, but two
secret stealth aircraft.
The most interesting of these three
marvels — the stealth fighter — has
been overshadowed in the press, not
by accident, but by careful manipula
tion practiced by the Reagan admini
stration.
A few days before the dramatic
roll-out of the B-2, the Air Force
released a blurred photograph of the
F-117A Stealth Fighter and told us
that the plane was declared opera
tional several years ago. It also men
tioned that we have an existing squad
ron of 52 stealth fighters, with sever
more on order.
The F-117A made its first Hight ir
1983 after being developed undci
light security. Until Nov. 11, the
government did not even acknowl
edge that the project existed, ever
after a few of the planes crashed —
killing at least one pilot. No one car
tell you how much the plane cost
People know all right, but if they told
you, they would be forced lo kill you
Quite a lot of rumor circulated
about the plane. It was incorrectly
assumed to be designated the F-19. A
toy company even marketed a plastic
model airplane that was supposedly
the Stealth Fighter. Judging from the
unclear photograph released by the
Air Force, the F-I17A does indeed
resemble the plastic model.
There is a reason why the B-2
bomber was rolled out in front ol
2,(XX) people and some television
cameras while only a ha/y photo
graph of the F-l I7A lighter was re
leased.
I-—-1
The F-117A is not a jet fighter, as
hilled. It is a spy plane.
The first c lue came in the surprise
designation of the erall as the F-117 A.
It was not called the F-117A simply to
spite the editor of “Aviation Week
and Space Technology,” which had
used F-19 as the plane’s predicted
designation.
The stealth plane was rumored to
be a jet-fighter plane, and F-19 is a
number in the sequence of Air Force
fighter plane designations that had
been skipped when the F-20 was
named. The F-20 was a plane devel
oped without government funds and
designed to be sold in the export arms
market. There were no takers and the
project was abandoned.
The F-II7A was not given a
lighter designation because it is not a
fighter.
Once before, the Air Force devel
oped a plane in secret that was de
scribed as an “interceptor” whose
primary mission would be to shoot
down Soviet bombers. The SR-71 is
now known to be the world’s fastest,
highest-flying plane. Exactly how
last and how high is still classified
information, even 23 years alter the
public was told it existed. The best
guess is three times the speed ol sound
and very, very high.
The SR-71 is a spy plane used to
penetrate a hostile country’s air de
fenses and take pictures w ithout get
ting shot down. The only man who
claims to have flown the armed inter
ccptcr version of the Blackbird also
says he was part of a secret Air Force
project to chase down and shoot down
It is interesting to note that the F
117A is built at the same plant that
made the U-2 (the now-well-known
glider used as a spy plane in the 19M)s
and ’60s) and the SR-71. The Lock
heed “Skunk Works” factory has a
reputation for keeping secrets.
Is it possible that the F-117A is
capable of penetrating Soviet air de
fenses without being delected? A
brief look at the ability of the other
stealth technology planes will give us
some idea of the plane’s ability.
According to the Nov. 13 Mn
foGraph,” the B-52, the I ^Os-de
signed bomber which has been the
mainstay of U.S. strategic nuclear air
arms, has a Radar Cross Section ol
1(H) square meters. It uses no stealth
techniques.
The B-1, shaped to shun radar, has
an RCS of 10 square meters and the B
IB, which uses classified stealth tech
niques that might include radar dif
fusing paint, has an RCS of one square
meter. The B-2 reportedly has an RCS
of one square millimeter.
“InfoGraph” says a “modern mili
taiy radar” might detect the B-1B at a
distance of 230 miles. There would be
only seconds of warning before the
plane flew past the radar. The same
radar might not even detect the B-2.
Some recent accounts of the F
117A described the plane as two or
three times the si/c of the F-l5. This
still makes it considerably smaller
than the B-1B or the B-2.
If we assume, as the Air Force
claims, that the F-117A is made with
slightly older technology than the B
2, then it probably plugs neatly into
the above table of Radar Cross Sec
tions at about one square centimeter.
This is probably sufficient to guaran
tee near invisibility to even the most
advanced Soviet military radar,
which is not as advanced as our own
radar, so we arc told.
According to the Wall Street Jour
nal, a spokesman for Nellis Air Force
base, where the F-l 17A is currently
based, said that the “specific mission
of the F-l 17A still is classified.”
Fighter planes have very clear
missions that arc difficult to conceal:
Engage enemy planes and shoot them
down, penetrate enemy defenses and
destroy key targets. Spy planes have
specific missions that arc still classi
fied.
Given enough funding, there soon
might be a fighter version of the F
117 A. However, the 52 stealth planes
in Nevada arc probably no more ready
to engage an enemy bomber fleet than
the aging SR-71. They might be ready
to count them before they lake off.
Longsinc b a senior economics and Inter
national affairs major and ba Daily Nebras
kan editorial columnbt.