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WEATHER INDEX
Friday, partly doudy, high in the low- to mid-40s. News Digest.2
west wind 10-20 miles per hour Friday night, Editorial.4
partly cloudy low 15-20. Saturday, partly sunny, Sports . . 7
high in the low- to mid -40s. Arts & Entertainment.9
Classifieds.10
February 9, 1990__ University of Nebraska-Lincoln Vol. 89 No. 9 ~/
‘First term produced results’
Bush endorses Orr’s re-election bid
By Emily Rosenbaum
Senior Reporter
President George Bush endorsed Nebraska
Gov. Kay Orr in her re-election bid
before a crowd of about 500 Republi
can supporters Thursday morning at the Peony
Park Ballroom in Omaha.
“I’m here because Kay has made tough
choices and right decisions,’’ Bush said. “And
because her first term has produced not empty
rhetoric but results.”
The $500-a-platc breakfast was a fund-raiser
for Orr’s campaign and was attended by the
president and Barbara Bush, Orr, Lt. Gov.
William Nichol, Republican National Com
mittee chairman Lee Atwater, former U.S.
Rep. Hal Daub, former Nebraska Gov. Charlie
Thone, Nebraska Attorney General Robert Spire
and Omaha Mayor P.J. Morgan.
“This election will decide whether Nebraska
enjoys continued prosperity, and whether you
continue to have the leadership it takes to win
the war on crime and drugs,” Bush said. “Those
arc the questions. Well, I have the answer:
‘Four more for Gov. Orr.’”
Bush said Urr s success shows in the state s
statistics — more than 23,000 new jobs, S2.4
billion in new investments since 1987, a nearly
tripled net farm income and an unemployment
rate cut in half.
“... Kay needs a second term to finish the
job she’s so effectively begun,” he said. “Yet
the need is not Nebraska’s alone. I need her,
too, to support the work of our administra
tion.”
Bush also pointed out the “triumphs” of his
administration in 1989 — the lowest unemploy
ment rate in 16 years, inflation at less than 5
percent and the longest peacetime economic
boom in U.S. history.
Bush said the “triumphs” of Nebraska and
America are “something to build upon.”
See BUSH on 5
m |
n » it . v- , A! Schaben'Daity Nebraskan
Special K ay .. .
President Bush holds up a box of Special ‘K’ cereal in honor of Gov. Kay Orr. The cereal was part of the $500-a-plate
breakfast fund-raiser for Orr’s re-election bid. Bush was in Omaha on Thursday morning to endorse Orr at Peony
Park.
Bill illuminates hopes
for greenhouse repair
By James P. Webb
Staff Reporter
I -
A bill introduced by state Sen.
George Coordsen of Hebron
has brightened College of
Agriculture officials’ hopes for
complete renovation of 20- to 30
year-old greenhouses on East
Campus.
Bob Sherman, head of the Uni
versity of Ncbraska-Lincoln agron
omy department, said, “Those are
good facilities (but) right now
they’re almost unusable because
of (a lack of) light intensity.’’
LB995 would appropriate
$900,000 from the State Building
Fund to complete the $1.9 million
officials say is necessary to reno
vate the 24 greenhouses.
In 1989, UNL Physical Plant
engineers estimated the project to
cost $1.75 million, Sherman said,
but only $1 million, enough to
renovate 50 to 60 percent of the
greenhouses, was allocated last year.
College of Agriculture officials
decided to wait until this year to
begin renovation Sherman said, in
hopes of completing the entire
project at once.
A change in building codes since
1989 has increased the cost of the
project to $1.9 million.
Sherman said $106,500 is needed
to replace roof supports in each
greenhouse to comply with the 30
pound-per-square-toot snow-load
requirements of the new building
codes.
Sherman ,said the bulk of the
$1.9 million would be used to re
place the 15- to 20-year-old fiber
glass protective glazing, air-cool
ing pads and obsolete fan motors,
to install computer-controlled
ventilation systems, and to comply
with new federal standards for
biotechnology research.
Those standards require that
biotechnology research areas be
separated from each other.
Sherman said a combination of
glass and fiberglass will be used to
economize the construction of the
glazing, the protective coating on
the greenhouses.
The new glazing will provide
better insulation and light quality
than the existing, worn-out fiber
glass glazing and have a life span
of about 20 years, he said.
Because of the poor light trans
fer of the existing glazing, Sher
man said, artificial lighting is being
used to attain enough light for re
search..
But he said, ‘ ‘We’re at the point
where we can’t pul any more light
ing in because of the amount of
amperage wired into the system.”
Bob Weber, president of Agri
culture Builders,'testified in favor
of LB995 Wednesday during a
legislative hearing, saying that
because of the aging of the green
houses, they soon will be unfit for
research.
Sherman said the greenhouses
are used by the departments of
entomology, plant pathology, hor
ticulture and agronomy.
He said 14 of the 24 green
houses are used by the agronomy
department for research in com,
sorghum, wheat and soybean breed
ing.
Kevenge of justice c
Law panel argues death penalty
By Victoria Ayotte
Senior Reporter
Three public prosecutors Thurs
day said the death penalty is
valid punishment for first
degree murder, but three public de
fenders argued that it reduces the public
to the level of those convicted.
The six lawyers participated in a
panel discussion on the death penalty
at the UNL College of Law sponsored
by the Nebraska Civil Liberties Un
ion student group.
Samuel Cooper of the Douglas
County Attorney’s Office said he thinks
the death sentence is an effective
deterrent to murderers and the argu
ment that it is not is invalid.
“I don’t think there is any way you
can statistically support that argu
ment on either side,” Cooper said.
If death penalty opponents say that
it is not a deterrent, their viewpoint
carried to the extreme would mean
that no penalty is a deterrent, he said.
But Thomas Riley of the Douglas
County Defender’s Office said the
death penalty does not deter murder
ers btiause “most individuals who
intend on committing crimes don’t
intend on getting caught.’’
There is no proof to support Coo
per’s argument that the death sen
tence is a deterrent, either, Riley said,
and homicide rates in states with the
death penalty have not decreased since
it was imposed.
Alan Peterson of Cline, Williams,
Wright, Johnson and Oldfather said
the public wants revenge more than
deterrence.
Peterson said those hearing of a
death sentence feel like Clint Eastwood.
“What we’re satisfying is that little
bit of ‘make my day’ in people’s
hearts,” he said.
Mike Gooch of the Lancaster
County Public Defender’s Office said,
“It is uncivilized to treat human beings
as something less than human beings
because of their behavior.
“We need not join that person in
murder. We should never lower our
selves to the level of being a mur
derer.”
Cooper, however, said that death
by electric chair is not cruel punish
ment. The crimes committed, he said,
are what is cruel.
Both sides agreed that cost should
•not be a factor in determining the
validity of the death penalty.
Cooper said Kansas legislators
See DEATH PENALTY on 6
Brazilian warns of Amazon exploitation
By Cindy Wostrel
Staff Reporter
A Brazilian photojoumalist told
about 150 people at Henzlik
Hall on Thursday night that
the best thing for the United Stales to
do is “never to loan money to Bra
zil.”
Joao Ripper, through interpreter
Marcos Lenza, said that any cent given
to the Brazilian government would
not promote progress but only sup
port the continued misery of the Bra
zilian Indians and exploited workers,
and the deforestation of the Amazon
rain forest.
Ripper asked the audience to give
his message about the exploitation of
the Amazon to others, and to form
groups to help the Indians and the
rubber tappers,” laborers who tap
rubber trees to earn a subsistent liv
ing. Riots have erupted in attempts
to change the system, Ripper said.
But the symbolic violence of dis
eases, such as leprosy, measles, her
pes and gonorrhea, also affects the
poor, who cannot afford the cost
medical treatment, he said.
Ripper said the average annual
income in Brazilian slums was about
$45 when he left Brazil one month
ago, but because of 55 percent infla
tion in the last month, he was unsure
if that figure still holds.
A small elite owns a large portion
of Brazilian lands and controls the
country, Ripper said.
One percent of the population owns
80 percent of the land, he said. On the
other hand, he said, the poorest one
third of the population owns only 5
percent of the land.
\
Foreign companies own 10 per
cent of the land, Ripper said, twice as
much as the poorest one-third of
Brazilians.
Five hundred thousand people could
live on the 5 percent of the land that
only 20 people own, Ripper said.
The Amazon rain forest, 57 per
cent of Brazil’s land, is the scene of
“slavery” for the country’s workers,
he said.
Large landowners in the Amazon
forest recruit workers from other states,
Ripper said, sometimes paying the
workers’ parents to get children to
work.
The workers, he said, often be
come indebted to the landowners for
the food and clothing they supply.
Sometimes the landowners recruit
See BRAZIL on 5