Editorial I Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board University of Nebraska-Lincoln Amy I'dwards, Editor, 472-1766 Bob Nelson, Editorial rage Editor Ryan Sleeves, Managing Editor Hric Pfanner, Associate News Editor I.isa Donovan, Associate News Editor Brandon Loomis, Wire Editor Jana Pedersen, Night News Editor Quibbles ‘n’ Bits Save bikers, bucks, Dead Week policy Earth Day celebrations at Pioneers Park drew thou sands of people last week, dogging the two-lane highway between Lincoln and the park. Many people, attempting to celebrate Earth Day by not polluting the earth, decided to ride their bikes to the cele bration. This was not easy. The highway to Pioneers Park -- a favorite ride of recreational bikers — has no shoulder. Bikers usually are less than 5 feet from even the most courteous automobile drivers. The margin for error diminishes greatly with oncoming traffic or with half crazed weekend waniors partying with loose steering columns. Insurance is a mtist. Considering distance and destination, Pioneers Park is one of the best rides in Lincoln for the average biker. To celebrate both Earth Day and National Physical Fitness and Sports Month, a bike path to the park should be built immediately if not sooner. A healthy lifestyle includes not being run over. Please. Save the bikers. • As of Tuesday, only 10 Dead Week policy com plaints had been filed by students to the ASUN office. In past years, the offices of the Association of Students of the University of Nebraska and the ombudsman have received as many as 40 complaints. At this rate, there will be only 25 complaints by the end of the week. This is 15 fewer than in past years. The Daily Nebraskan urges students to educate them selves on Dead Week policy and to fight the acts of oppression against them. With an educated and active student body, we still can reach our goal of 40 complaints. Think globally, act colloquially. • The U.S. Postal Service has bought a $4 billion mail ! sorting system that can read ZIP codes but can't tell a 1 cent stamp from a 25-cent stamp. Postal authorities admit the chance of getting a letter sent for 1 cent is pretty good. There are just too many letters for too few people to check. The Daily Nebraskan in no way supports mail fraud. We would like only to remind financially strapped stu dents that Mother's Day is nearing and that a penny for your thoughts is all a parent needs. - B<»b Nelson for the Daily Nebraskan ROTC ban won’t end prejudice Rodney Bell’s letter (DN, April 30) has prompted me to express my views on the situation of gays/lcsbi ans and the ROTC program on the University of Ncbraska-Lincoln campus. I also disagree with having gays/ lesbians barred from ROTC programs on campuses across the country. However, I feel that it is the United States’ military institutions that should have the deciding factor as to allow ing gays/lesbians in the armed forces. This would give a uniform set of rules for each and every campus across the country to follow. College ROTC programs arc not allowed to make up all their own rules; they do have set guidelines to follow, just like any other major club or organization. I also feel that the gay ROTC cadet from another campus shouldn’t have to pay back his scholarship on the basis of his admitting his homosexu ality to bis commander. Fortunately, this situation has not presented itself on the UNL campus. Unfortunately, due to the AIDS scare of the 1980s and 1990s and the underlying conser vative attitude of the United States in regard to sexual preference, gays/ lesbians arc taking a risk admitting they are gays/lesbians. What Mr. Bell needs to realize is that the ROTC program is not the only program, club or institution in the United States that has homophobia. The “coming out of the closet” decision is one each gay/ lesbian has to weigh for his/herscli and decide what course of action to take. It is sad that in this day and age, homosexuality still has to remain hidden from society, but I do not feel that banning the ROTC program from the UNL campus will change the atti tude of millions. The ROTC programs here at UNL have proven to be ex tremely beneficial to the many stu dents involved. ROTC provides schol arsh ips for needy students and excep tional students alike. It also provides leadership training, discipline and a sense of patriotism to the United States. Any altitudes on sexuality that a cadet may have is an attitude he or she had before joining ROTC. Yes, the rule to ban gays/lcsbians from ROTC is a very discriminatory one, but banning ROTC won’t change it. Why change the rules when the organization is no longer a functioning one? Amy Pappas junior general studies |/MW GABcR, l AM SEMTECINC, you TO V go M°*e Hooks *f SERV1CE I - _ .. ~P P AT?\ \£ J? y Execution far from cost effective Death penalty does not deter criminals from breaking laws I am not graduating so I will spare you the sentimental retrospec tive. It is hard to be sentimental over two years of partying followed by three years of Ramcn noodles in rundown apartments struggling to re build my GPA. I have had a television those five years. It is a little black-and-white portable job with a stylish clothes hanger antenna and a screen so small Godzilla looks like he is fighting a fly instead Mothra, that huge, radioac tive bug menace. Good thing, though. Because my screen is so small I don’t watch much television. A report this week said Americans spend seven years of their lives in front of the lube. Television is a bor ing. mindless activity taking as much energy as sleep, as they would have it; a new opiate for the masses. This story fit nicely with new re ports linking Agent Orange to several diseases. Studies, studies, studies. Big studies always arc good at pinpointing, defining and establish ing the obvious. It took years to produce studies linking cancer to smoking cigarettes. The addicted disbelieved smoking is unsafe. Others who thought a little bit about what it means to suck warm air filled with burning plants into our moist lungs for hours a day figured it was a safe bet smoking is sclf-dc suuctivc. It should have been an obvious cause and effect relationship - like chewing on glass and expect ing your tongue to bleed. Still, the scientific side of me knows we must observe and record the ef fects of smoking, Agent Orange and television in order to combat their ill effects. Know the enemy. Make megabucks in research grants. The government has yet to help the victims of Vietnam defoliant spray ing. 1 he attitude at the Pentagon must be that in time the problem will go away. Of course it will. The veterans and others affected by Agent Orange eventually will die out and the cal lous, money devourers at the Pcnta Henry Battistoni gon won’t have to foot their medical bill. We shelved dioxin knowing it causes too great a health risk. But the military cannot admit it destroyed its own people with chemicals. The military is virtually a law unto itself. But then, we also produce chemi cals for export that we have banned in our own country. A kind of “poison others as they would poison you if they had the means and profit mo tive” attitude exists. All this death and statistics comes together in the case of capital punish ment. I used to be a supporter of the death penally. It did not bother me that the state was frying, shooting, hanging, poisoning or gassing mur derers. I fell that some people arc too dangerous to live. That their trans gressions against society must be repaid in kind. That it would be cheaper to snuff them out than house them in prison for life. There arc many reasons given to end the death penalty. Racial and economic bias is one. Eighty-six per cent of the more than 100 executions in the past 1? years involved con victed murderers whose victims were white. While murder is commuted by people from all social and economic strata, the poor lack funds to ade quately defend themselves. More than 75 percent of those on death row could not afford to hire an attorney for their trial. The main defense of the death penalty is that it deters further mur ders. But 1986 FBI crime statistics show that states without the death penalty had fewer murders than those with it. There are other, moral considera tions against the death penalty such as the execution of retarded people, the mentally ill and children. There have been six retarded people exe cuted since 1984. Limited contact with defendants and possible con flic is between prosecution-appointed psychiatrists and the defendant s inter ests leave the possibility that misdi agnosis will occur and that the men tally incompetent will he' executed. More than 30 death-row inmates j| commuted crimes before they were ■ Some oppose execution on any fl grounds for religious reasons. B Perhaps I am jaded by callousness fl like that of the military’s, but the fl biggest consideration to me, and I fl suspect at least privately in many ■ legislatures, is money. fl The New York Public Defenders fl Office and the Kansas Legislature jH have done studies to find the cost® effectiveness of killing criminals. ItB yvould seem that clothing, feeding® and guarding someone lor 20 to bog years couldn’t be less expensive than® rerouting a few jillion volts Irom tneBJ local subdivision. But what the fig-® arcs show is taxpayers pay ing aroun flj $25,(XX) per year to house an inmate™ vs. several million per execution. V Execution is not cost effective, B does not deter crime and is biased, k Does society’s desire for reveng ■ support its conunuation? ij| Battistuni IS a senior Knglish major and D*U) B Nebraskan columnist. !| ktler— 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 ol clarity,original ity, timeliness and space available. 7 he Daily Nebraskan retains the right to edit all material submitted. Readers also are welcome to sub mil material as guest opinions. Whether material should run as a let ter or guest opinion, or not to run, is lelt to the editor’s discretion. Letters and guest opinions sent to the newspaper become the property ol the Daily Nebraskan and cannot be fs turned. Letters should be typewrit ten. 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