Editorial
I Nebraskan
University of Nebraska-Uncoln
Curl Wagner, Editor, 472-1766
Amy Edwards, Editorial Page Editor
Jane Hirt, Managing Editor
Lee Rood, Associate News Editor
Diana Johnson, Wire Page Editor
Chuck Green, Copy Desk Chief
Lisa Donovan, Columnist
Quibbles and bits
Hotline helps sly students speak safely
• Tattlers at the University of Florida-Gainesville now
have the chance to practice their an without worrying
about getting caught
The Student Honor Court recently installed a ratting
hotline that students can call 24 hours a day. The students
can leave anonymous tips about cheaters in classes on an
answering machine in the court’s office.
According to the Independent Florida Alligator, a few
noble students with wandering eyes used the hotline
before the answering machine was installed. Chris
Sproles, chairman of the Honor Information Committee,
said he expects the calls to pick up with the answering
machine installed and with the increased hours.
The university s student government approved more
than $500 to pay for the machine, a new phone line and
advertising of the hotline.
Gee, what a worthwhile investment. Cheating will be
stomped from the Gainesville campus, and the sly sleuths
who share such silent secrets can get away without any
problems.
• The University Health Committee at Kent State re
cently made a bold effort to help prevent the spread of
sexually transmitted diseases on campus.
The committee did what officials at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln have been afraid to do - install con
dom machines in the restrooms of several residence halls.
About 400 condoms have been bought since the first
machines were installed a few weeks ago, the Daily Kent
Stater leported.
Jay Cranston, University Health Center director, said
the sales were “fine” because condom buyers were being
% exposed to educational material on sexually transmitted
diseases posted on the machines.
Educational and life-saving. Those positive aspects
should be enough to get the machines in UNL residence
halls, too.
•• Curt Wagner
for Ike Daily Nebraskan
I
KZUM has the most variety
in nis leuer oi Apm 3 regarding
alternative music on KRNU, Tim
Washburn writes, “No one should
have a right to sound off when they
are ignorant to the facts.” Washburn
clearly knows about the facts relating
to KRNU, but he apparently doesn’t
know much about other radio sta
tions.
First, he says KRNU relies on
records donated by local music
stores, and is “not in a position to ask
for hundreds of alternative music
albums from stores to change for
mat.” That’s simply not the way
radio stations operate today. Record
companies, not record stores, service
radio stations with promotional cop
ies of albums, often weeks in advance
of the “street dates” that records are
available in stores.
It would only take some phone
calls to record labels, both major and
independent, to have a deluge of vi
nyl and compact discs coming to
Avery Hall. Music artists survive on
radio air play, so the companies are
more than happy to ship their latest
artist’s release.
Secondly, Washburn states that
“KRNU has the most variety of any
station in Lincoln.” As evidence of
this he cites the alternative music
heard certain nights of the week, a
sports talk show, news and sports
broadcasting on NU home games.
Anyone familiar with KZUM
public radio here in Lincoln would
scoff at that statement. KZUM offers
folk, alternative rock, women’s mu
sic, Mexican music, African music,
urban contemporary, Malaysian
music, world music, new age, con
temporary jazz, reggae, comedy,
radio theatre, public affairs, political
commentary (left and right), news
from around the globe, interviews
with national and local artists and
call-in shows.
KZUM is also the only source in
the area for traditional jazz, as well as
being the area’s only source of the
blues, and this in the city with the Zoo
Bar, the longest continually operat
ing blues bar in the country.
KZUM even has a show called
“Exploring Unexplained Phenom
ena’ ’ which talks about thing such as
UFOs and Bigfoot. KZUM was the
only Lincoln station to air the Iran
Contra trial last summer, and has now
added the award winning Pacific
News, weeknights at 6:30. KZUM
broadcasts in 1500 watts stereo, and
reaches all of Lancaster County, and
then some. KZUM was voted second
best local radio station (after KFMQ)
in the annual Sunday Journal-Star
readers’ poll. And it does it all as a
non-commercial station.
I am surprised that a broadcasting
major like Washburn was unaware of
all this.
Thomas Irvin
junior
geography
KZUM Volunteer
U.S. energy policy is atrocious
Oil spill, Three Mile Island are warnings of coming problems
March 28 marked the 10th an
niversary of the worst nu
clear accident in American
history at the Three Mile Island
power plant in Pennsylvania.
Last week, a few people demon
strated, a few TV cameras rolled, but
all in all it was a pretty uneventful
nrilcstone, especially compared to
the mushroom cloud of controversy
that hung over the original incident a
decade ago.
But then again, we had other
things to think about. The birthday of
one energy fiasco was overshadowed
by the current unfolding of another.
Just four days before the anniver
sary of the Three Mile Island inci
dent, the drunk captain of an oil
tanker left an unqualified third mate
in charge to run the boat agrofind
outside “Port Valdez, Alaska. The
wrecked tanker dumped 11 million
gallons of crude oil into Prince Wil
liam Sound — one of the most envi
ronmentally sensitive sea animal
habitats in the world.
These two incidents have more in
common than temporal proximity. In
the crucial first days following both
incidents, private industry and gov
ernment officials displayed an ex
traordinary ignorance of proper pro
cedure.
Further investigation has revealed
that in both cases there wasn’t any
thing that could agreeably be called
“proper procedure.” Area residents
in both locations have been given the
run-around, with no straight answers
as the special of the day. In the case of
Three Mile Island, it has taken longer
to clean up the mess than the lessons
learned. This is because it has been
remembered by the public as a whole.
Sadly, I predict that the Alaskan
oil spill will suffer a similar fate.
Already the spill has been re
placed in the headlines by Gorbachev
in Havana and Seton Hall in Seattle.
Long before the water fowl and sea
otters have stopped choking to death
on unrefined petroleum, we will have
moved on to new concerns, having
spent our allocation of pity on this
crisis.
The indication is that the worst
case scenario will not play itself out
in the Port of Valdez. Prevailing
winds have blown the oil away from
some of the most sensitive wildlife
and fishing areas. This is both good
news and bad news.
It is good news because the envi
ronmental impact, though severe and
devastating, will not be as bad as it
could have been.
It is bad news because everyone
from Exxon’s chief executive officer
to Paul Harvey will use this dodged
bullet as still more “evidence” that
this country’s haphazard, shoot
from-thc-hip energy policies are on
target.
Listen to what proponents of nu
clear power say about the Three Mile
Island incident. When opponents try
to tell them how bad things were and
how bad the incident could have
been, all we hear is, “What do you
mean? No one was killed. Life in the
area is pretty much business as usual.
S ure it was scary for a while, but good
old Yankee ingenuity prevailed, and
we have everything under control.”
Somehow we are supposed to feel
grateful for the accident we had. It is
supposed to be reassuring to us that
the Three Mile Island accident did
not kill half the Eastern seaboard or
poison the area’s agriculture for the
next 500,000 years.
American energy policy is, where
existent, atrocious. We continue i
slavish dependence on non-renew
able resources, mined and trans
ported in environmentally threaten
ing ways. We insist on playing with
atomic fission, oblivious to the inevi- i
table prospects of major disaster. We i
do it all in the name of capitalistic
progress and the ideal of unlimited,
unrestrained consumption.
I have long been opposed to the
use of nuclear power for any reason.
Call me a ‘fraidy cat, but I have
always been intimidated by things
that could annihilate a civilization.
I looked on Three Mile Island and
the more frightening Soviet counter
part at Chernobyl as warning shots,
fired across our metaphysical bows
by a benevolent deity concerned
about a suicide path we have set for
ourselves.
Ironically, those blindly devoted
to this apocalyptic avenue have
turned the demonic incidents into
reasons for rejoicing. It is as if these
were the worst we could expect,
rather than simply previews of com
ing atrocities. They point to a genera
tion of nuclear Dower without devas
tation and expect that to com tort us.
I suppose that, if my daughter
plays with matches several times
without burning the house down, I
should continue to let her play, confi
dent that the future will always re
semble the past.
The stakes we gamble in the en
ergy game are too high for the penny
ante strategies we have employed. If
we mess up at oil production and
transportation, we destroy ecosys
tems. If we make a mistake in nuclear
power production, we could destroy
human lives by the thousands and
millions. I know of little in the way of
consumer lust worth that kind of
price.
They tell us we have no choice. I
say the god-like intelligence that
learned to split the atom could also
discover energy sources that do not
ihreaten an entire planet.
One weeps to think what could
have been accomplished in solar
energy research using the money that
has already been spent to clean up the
luclear nightmare at Three Mile is
land.
Scnnetl to s graduate student In philosophy
ind a Dolly Nebraskan editorial columnist.
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