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
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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—
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