Opinion
Eric Pfanner, Editor, 472-1766
Bob Nelson, Editorial Page Editor
Victoria Ayotte, Managing Editor
Jana Pedersen, Associate News Editor
Emily Rosenbaum, Associate News Editor
Diane Brayton, Copy Desk Cluef
Brian Shellito, Art Director
Wish list ”
Commitment needed to improve NU
University of Nebraska President Martin Massengale
described his dream for the institution of the 1990s
Saturday to the NU Board of Regents.
Unfortunately, in the current economic climate, he’ll have a
nightmare of a time fulfilling the wish list.
Massengale listed a number of things he’d like to see in an
i improved, nationally competitive university. The changes he
proposed include:
• Rewarding excellent teaching in new ways;
• Bringing die benefits of research to more students;
• Implementing changes in the basic curriculum;
• Providing better services for students, including registra
rs lion and interaction with faculty members;
• Re-evaluating admissions standards;
• Bringing Nebraska into the top 35 research universities in
the nation.
All are excellent goals. But you don’t get something for
nothing. If the state is to produce an “innovative national leader
in quality education,” as Massengale advocated, someone
needs to pay the price.
I Gov. Ben Nelson doesn’t want to. He proposed a budget
that, unless the Legislature changes it substantially, could force
the university to cut programs and personnel.
In times of economic prosperity, such as the years during
Gov. Kay Orr’s administration when the university received
double-digit funding increases, the words “role” and “mission”
had abstract meanings. When everybody was feeding from the
f trough, it didn’t matter who was first in line.
Under Nelson’s budget, role and mission will determine how
i the university is “streamlined” to meet its budget restrictions.
Some of those changes could be positive. If the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln raises academic standards, relegating
remedial programs to state colleges and other university
branches, it could save the state some money and serve its
4 students better.
As Massengale said, “quality education docs not so much
reach down as it invites others to reach upward, to aspire.”
j But Massengale’s other recommendations clearly will not be
met without continued funding increases. Technology costs
] money. Teaching awards cost money. Good teachers cost
money.
Research also is not accomplished with good intentions
alone. Massengale wants NU to settle in with universities that
are renowned for their research. But those schools also consis
tently are the ones with the largest research funding.
If the university is to make a jump in the national research
standing, it needs to take advantage of any opportunities that
come along.
One such opportunity is the proposed George W. Beadle
Center for Genetics and Biomaterials. UNL already has rc
1 ccivcd federal commitments for $17.7 million of the projected
cost of $23.7 million for the center.
But up to $12 million of the federal money is in matching
funds. If the Legislature doesn’t approve the remaining $6
million to finance the center, the state, in effect, would lose a
lot more than it would have put on the table,
j Inspiration alone only can do so muen in lean, sinewy
economic times. NU’s academic climate can be improved. But
longstanding change in the university’s national status won't
come without commitment from taxpayers and elected offi
cials.
— E.F.P
Editor's Note: Nine paragraphs of
Andrew Meyer's letter to the editor
(DN, Feb 14) entitled “First Amend
ment freedoms precious but not ab
solute" were plagiarized verbatim
from a Jan. 24 Omaha World
Herald editorial.
'IIMWi H'll'll IIIH! I I, II BW 1,1 I'HI HIWPH'IIIW..
To avoid similar incidents in the
future, the Daily Nebraskan no
longer will print letters submitted
by Meyer.
So long, Andrew'. We hardly knew
ya
Airman waits to serve U.S.
Batkin 1983, when I signed on the
dolled line, even I could imagine being
called lo war. I signed ihe line lo
prolccl my country first, to make it to
schtx)l second. I don’t feel I was naive,
just a little unsure of my future. My
recruiter explained to me my wartime
duty as a combat engineer, and I knew
what I was going to be trained for.
During my three years of active
duly, I did a lot of growing up at Fort
Riley, Kan. I grew to realize what was
important in my life—“Family,God,
Country and Freedom.” Living day to
day with my friends, we grew as a
family. We realized what it would
lake to help save lives, as well as take
them. Many of my friends from Fort
Riley arc now in the Persian Gulf war,
and I know that they arc somewhere
near the front readying to help troops
move ahead.
“Bridge the gap,” they called it,
which could mean anything from
blowing up mines to bridging heavy
equipment over dangerous obstacles.
It hurts inside to know that my friends
are there and, until my current unit
with the Nebraska Air Guard goes, I
can’t do my part.
If there is one thing I realized in
three years active duty and my four
years in the Nebraska Air Guard, it is
that the freedom wc stand for is free
dom throughout the world. Why should
we have a monopoly on it.
“Bridge the gap” will always be a
part of me and so will my friends in
the Persian Gulf. When my time comes,
I will serve with honor and pride and
remember the freedom back home.
Phil Cox
senior
construction management
MlKWML /
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JANA PEDERSEN |
Consider the wolf’s point of view I
44 he True Story of the Three
Little Pigs” takes a chil
dren’s faiiy tale we’re all
familiar with and tells it from a differ
ent, unique point of view — the wolfs.
“Everybody knows the story of the
Three Little Pigs,” the wolf says,
through author Jon Scieszka. “Or at
least they think they do_(N)obody
has ever heard my side of the story.”
The wolf claims that the real story
behind the porkers’ deaths was ig
nored by the press, which turned the
three little pigs into martyrs. Really,
says the wolf, all he wanted was to
borrow a cup of sugar from the three
brothers pig. But journalists didn’t
think that detail was exciting enough,
“So they jazzed up the story.”
The rest, the wolf says, is history.
Reading about the wolf makes me
wonder how history will treat Iraqi
President Saddam Hussein. He, too,
claims the media is ignoring his side
of the story, making him out to be the
Big Bad Wolf of the Arab world.
The media reported that Iraq in
vaded Kuwait, raping and pillaging
its people and countryside.
But wail, Saddam says. There was
more to it than that. Really, Iraq had
historical claims to the area. Really,
the British and French were the bad
guys for drawing Middle East borders
in the 1920s that failed to give Iraq a
port on the Persian Gulf.
The wolf, loo, defends himself by
spelling out the background of the
swines’ demise.
“I was making a birthday cake for
my dear old granny. 1 had a terrible
sneezing cold. I ran out of sugar,” he
says.
Really, the pigs’ deaths had more
to do with fits of sneezing than with
naked aggression. While asking to
borrow a cup of sugar at the doors of
the homes made of straw and sticks,
the wolf had to sneeze, thereby de
stroying the houses and their little
pink owners. It really wasn’t as bad as
the press made it seem.
And Saddam said Kuwait itself
was to blame for the invasion. Kuwait
If* probably.a
good idga for us to
get a taste of what
may or may not be
Saddam's propa
ganda. if only to re
mind us there are
more than iust
cheeseburgers on
Iraq's side of this
war.
overproduced oil and hurl the econo
mies of other Arab countries. Iraq
warned Kuwait to stop overproduc
tion, but Kuwait ignored the warn
ings. The U.S. ambassador to Iraq
even said the United States would
stand aside if Iraq launched an inva
sion.
And, the wolf asks, “Who in his
right mind would build a house of
straw?” Or of sticks, for that matter?
Besides, the pigs didn’t even answer
the door when he knocked.
Both of the bad guys’ arguments
sound logical. But once the public
reads between the lines, their reason
ing seems a little puffed up.
The wolf, for example, reasons
away his taste for cute animals like j
bunnies and sheep and pigs with, “If 1
cheeseburgers were cute, folks would
probably think you were Big and Bad,
too.” His birthday cake batter has
bunny ears poking out of it. He ate the
pigs, he says, because “It seemed like
a shame to leave a perfectly good
ham dinner lying there.”
Saddam dresses up workers in
jackets that read, in English, “Baby
Milk Factory,” and claims allied bombs
are doing more damage to Iraq than
Iraq did to Kuwait. He pats frightened
little boys on the head and prays in
front of television cameras. He pro
poses impossible peace plans.
And that’s too bad. It makes the
iiiMUiy ui uiv u Isis iuu»viiwr.
It makes it easy for us to call Saddam
a madman and to justify the allied
invasion by calling it a “liberation.”
It makes it easy for us to twist the
way we think of Iraq — in the wolf’s
words, “To think of it as a big cheese
burger just lying there.” After all,
cheeseburgers have no feelings.
Regardless of whether the allied
attack on Iraq was justified, the im
portant lesson to learn from the wolf’s
story is to consider the conflict from
the other side’s point of view.
Saddam may be the Big Bad Wolf
from Americans’ perspective, but Iraqis
probably don’t think so. Probably they
think we’re a little bit wolfish. And
probably the press has a lot to do with
the misconceptions we have about
each other.
So the next time Cable News Net
work broadcasts still more reports on
Iraqi civilian casualties, maybe
Americans shouldn’t flip the remote
control channel changer.
It’s probably a good idea for us to
get a taste of what may or may not be
Saddam’s propaganda, if only to
remind us there are more than just ■
cheeseburgers on Iraq’s side of this
war.
Pedersen is a junior advertising major, a
Daily Nebraskan associate r ews editor and a
columnist.
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