Gulf, regents, developers upset readers
JN U regents sing
verses of praise
to greedy scheme
While on East Campus last week,
I happened to wander into Varner
Hall to get a closer look at this vast
monument to NU administration. After
turning down two or three hallways, I
became quite lost and somewhat
concerned until at the end of one
poorly lit section I saw a bright slice
of light coming out from beneath a
closed door. Wanting a closer look, I
knelt down and peered into the key
hole. Who should I see but our re
gents enjoying a final meeting before
the end of the semester. At one point,
with champagne glasses in hand, they
took up a particularly boisterous song
which I thought might be of interest
to your readers. (Please feel free to
sing along with stout bravura to the
tune of “God Save the Queen”):
Lusting for pow'r are we
Fighting eternally
Greed save the scheme
We dumped ole Ron as chief
For some quite unknown beef
Yet we reign o’er our meek fief
Greed save the scheme
Oodles and scads of dough
Wc wasted on our show
Wc called a search
And then with Tommie O
We propped up our own beau
Let no one from below
Our choice besmirch
(solo verse for Robert Allen)
Serving my power base
On him I’ll bring disgrace
Whate’er befall
Hector, phone tap, and snipe
Complain, protest and gripe
I will yet force this tripe
On one and all
It matters not to most
Who serves in this dour post
He’ll too go soon
But following Henry K.
Wc fight on anyway
The glories of war today
Near to make us swoon
(Last verse, everybody sing, except
Robert Allen.)
And now honor we’ll feign
So that quite long we’ll reign
Yea, grand we’ll seem
Short-memoried voters ne’er
Nor jaded students care
This our sly hearts we’ll never bare
Greed save the scheme
Jeff Mills
graduate student
chemistry
Marches, protests
not good solutions
to Mideast crisis
Your front-page story (DN, Dec.
10.) about the protest march prompted
me to write to you about our terribly
serious business in the Persian Gulf.
It is, in fact, so serious that easy
“solutions” such as marches and dis
cussions among people who share
similar views will not work. We have
opponents in the Mideasl now who
can render the entire area a smoking
wasteland. Already, Saddam Hussein
has destroyed Kuwait and many of its
inhabitants. Before his Kuwait ad
venture, he systematically extermi
nated Kurdish tribesmen, using poi
son gas. Similar tactics were used
against Iran. I recall no vehement
protest, public or private, in the United
States related to the use of gas as a
weapon of war on both sides ol this
conflict. Economic sanctions will not
work effectively alone, and evidence
is mounting that they are failing now.
Negotiations arc unlikely to produce
a long-term solution unless several
problems (Arab unity, the Palestinian
problems, Israel’s security, stability
of petroleum supply and economic
planning) are addressed simultane
ously. Clearly, these problems de
mand more thought and effort than a
simple “keep us out of war at any
price” philosophy can provide. It will
also require more than a “simple”
military solution. It will require long
periods (years or decades) of pains
taking cooperative work, patience
during setbacks, and ability to toler
ate indifferences to solve the Mide
ast’s problems. This quest may en
gage the energies of the next two
generations as completely as the Cold
War has done for the past two genera
tions.
Richard Voeltz
associate professor
University Libraries
Lincoln developers
ignoring existing
downtown vitality
The revitalization of downtown
Lincoln has been an issue for several
years. Problems of the past have cre
ated a lack of vitality within the
downtown area. However, there are
still some activities within the down
town area that give at least some
vitality to the downtown center. This
includes the Haymarket historic dis
trict, the financial/govcrnmental cor
ridor along 13th Street, and a college/
youth corridor existing along P and Q
streets from 12th Street, then turning
south along 14th Street to N Street.
Although not like a major link be
tween the campus and downtown,
similar to those at other major cam
puses across the nation, this corridor
attempts to provide services and en
tertainment to college and youth
groups. Kinko’s, Nebraska Bookstore,
movie theaters, the Zoo Bar, Duffy’s,
O’Rourke’s, the Coffee House, Twist
ers and various restaurants are within
this corridor providing these services
and entertainment. Both the Haymarket
historic district and the financial/
governmental corridor are protected
by their establishment in the down
town area, Haymarket by a zoning
ordinance, and the financial/govem
mcntal corridor with its importance
to the economic structure of the city.
But what about the collegc/youlh
corridor? Remembering from my
freshman year, four years ago, this
corridor was located on blocks along
10th and 11th streets — south of
campus. Those blocks were flattened
for parking for the Lied Center for
Performing Arts. Students then looked
to the east where the present corridor
now exists. Recently, this corridor
has been disrupted by the construc
tion of the University Square parking
garage, a dead use of space. The city
is now considering eliminating an
other block of this corridor for a park
ing garage serving a proposed con
vention center. This block is the north
half of the block south of O Street
between 14th Street and Centennial
Mall. That area includes Twisters,
the Stale Theatre, and the Chartroose
Caboose. All three of these businesses,
especially Twisters, arc important to
the vitality of this collcgc/youth cor
ridor.
from these recent occurrences, one
can conclude that the city docs not
sec this activity being important to
the downtown area. 1 would say that it
is important, not only for the students
who arc sitting in their lonely dorm
rooms wondering what to do. but also
for the community as a whole. To
revitalize a downtown, you design
new activity building upon activity
that already exists there. This is im
portant, because if you eliminate areas
of activity thatarc successful forothcr
activities that are seen to have a big
?;cr potential, and that new activity
ails, then you have created a down
town more dead than it was before.
The city council and the planning
commission should consider this ac
tivity and other activities that pres
ently exist there before taking a risk
and destroying them for this conven
tion center. I think that it Js important
that the student body at UNL tell
these city leaders how important this
area is to them before they destroy it.
If it doesn’t stop, what’s next? Tear
ing down the Zoo Bar, the longest
running blues bar in the country, for a
parking garage?
Terry Brinkman
graduate student
community and regional planning
Regent’s whining
about Massengale
damages university
As an alumna of the University of
Nebraska, I am appalled by the never
ending vitriolic babble spewed forth
by Regent Robert Allen of Hastings.
It is beyond any understanding how
Allen thinks his constant whining to
the press about his dissatisfaction with
the selection of Martin Massengale as
president-elect, his shady taped con
versations and his personal attacks on
other regents could possibly benefit
the University of Nebraska.
By his actions, Allen is promoting
and propagating an already damag
ing view of the NU Board of Regents
as a divisive and divided body seem
ingly incapable of operating in a
professional manner. Not only is this
unfair to the other members of the
board, but Allen is deliberately in
flicting irreversible harm to the na
tional reputation of the University of
Nebraska.
Allen should do the voters of his
district and the rest of the slate a favor
and resign his position as regent. Then
those who Lruly care about the quality
of the University of Nebraska could
get on with the business of governing
the institution and leave the petty
tantrums behind.
M.J. McCann
Lincoln
Reader questions
whether lessons
have been learned
Alas, the year known as 1990 is
fast becoming a memory. What hap
pened? How, who, what for, why not,
so what, why wasn’t it better than the
previous years? 1990 was viewed as
the harbinger of the optimism and
renewed national spirit that precedes
a new decade, a new century, indeed
a new millennium. It stands as a lit
mus test of what could evolve and
what could be destroyed through the
neglect of our immediate history. We
survived the ’80s — not without scars,
mind you — and that is something to
be savored, surely. You would think
we might have taken our cue from the
rest of the known world as we face the
future, yet it appears that on the
humanitarian front we just took a
large step back.
Did we learn anything from the
previous decade?
The 1980s bore some of the most
obscene and vulgar forms of human
ity (and inhumanity) known to the
human race. Every decade offers up
its own personality in a buzzword or
two, and the accepted phrase in jour
nalism today appears to be the Dec
ade of Greed. Misleading, perhaps,
for greed had good company through
out those years.
I, and many others who attend this
institution, did the bulk of my grow
ing up during the ’80s. Our history,
then, parallels that of the entire world,
and I am not sure if ‘proud’ is the
operative word.
We saw the evolution of the teen
age dealer in lethal narcotics, and the
subsequent everyday slaying of those
millions of youths who were innocent
and confused enough to become in
volved in the drug trade; the crippling
social disease that came out of no
where and claimed the lives of more
than 100,000homosexual and hetero
sexual Americans, and the govern
ment’s shockingly inept reaction to
the outbreak of AIDS, coupled with
our own brutal indifference and di
vine judgment on all who died from
the neglect. Homelessness reached
an all-time high, our defense budget
assisted in the eroding increase of the
national deficit, the middle class nearly
vanished, Donald Trump was actu
ally looked up to, and we have a man
in the vice presidency who attempts
to speak Latin to our Latin American
neighbors. Mind-boggling.
The revelation of the pop duo Milli
Vanilli’s fraud should not come as a
tremendous surprise; t«»e boys just
mirrored the accented mood of the
nation around them. Something
immediate, sugary, pleasing, corrupt
ing ... and completely hollow at the
core.
A miracle happened amid all the
muck. Near the end of this 10-year
coma, a tiny little crack was knocked
into the face of a mighty wall, and the
crevice grew with rushing force until
Eastern Europeans stood on the very
real brink of regaining personal free
doms.
At the end of the 1980s, I faced the
coming decade with more eagerness
and freshness than I had ever felt
before. Then we watched the envi
ronmental issue become a passing
fad, social problems burning ever
higher, and our president decided to
send American soldiers to restore peace
and order to a foreign land that’s been
incapable of realizing such things for
the last 20,000 years.
1990 was the year of second best,
sometimes second worst. We only
have nine years until a definite new
age comes upon us, and we might see
in the coming years whether the
American Empire is on an irrevers
ible trek downward.
It’s not hard to be a good human
being, and in doing so, effectively
become a good Yankee. I’m trying
my best, and persuading those around
me to open their eyes as much as they
can so the walls they have between
themselves can crumble just as eas
ily. There will be about 10 billion
humans in the next 50 years breathing
each other’s air, and I hope we have
enough to go around. Or better still, I
hope we can share it voluntarily.
Happy New Year to one and all.
Peace,
P. Joseph Winner
freshman
Arts and Sciences
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LItRAL my BLADDER »
|l in
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Comhusker Hotel Ballroom
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