Opinion
Keep it at 16
Driver's license debate low on fuel
Sen. Doug Kristensen of Minden is attempting to steer
some new requirements for driver’s licenses through the
Legislature.
LB336 would prohibit 16-year-olds from obtaining driver’s
licences until they complete a driver’s education course or turn
17. The bill won first-round approval on Tuesday.
Such a bill would mean that students lucky enough to attend
a high school that picks up the tab for driver’s cd classes would
be able to drive off with their licences without a problem.
Other students, however, would be forced to pay the $75 to
$125 cost of such a course.
Perhaps teenagers with some extra cash wouldn’t mind, but
many students would be stuck in park.
The small town of Chambers in northern Nebraska offers a
driver’s ed course. Students bom in that lovely village have
little to worry about. Thirty-five miles away in the similarly
sized town of Stuart live the unlucky students who don’t have
access to such a course. It is pretty hard to drive over to
Chambers for driver’s ed if you can’t drive.
Kristenscn said that he didn’t think driver’s ed course access
is a problem. Most school districts offer a program, he said,
along with many community colleges.
“Most” and “many” still leave out “some.” And that’s as
suming the “most” and “many” have “enough” money to lake
the course, which usually is expensive at high schools that do
offer it.
Anyone who could pass a driver’s test can gel a “C” or
better in any driver’s ed course. Arguments making state
driver’s license tests tougher arc more coherent than arguments _
for bills like LB336.
Teenage drivers arc a problem on the highways and byways
of Nebraska. They arc unexperienced, and some arc at times
brash or reckless. But driving kids without money or who live
in certain areas off the road is nothing less than discrimination.
—AJ.P
-LETTER 7° EDITOR
Time to move on .. .
Photograph shouldn’t be focus
From the amount of letters con
cerning the Baldwin photo that has
been printed in the opinion section in
the past few days, 1 think the Daily
Nebraskan is experiencing the dra
matic effect of photojournalism for
the first time in my 2 1/2 years here.
This is an experience welcomed by
me. “A picture is worth a thousand
words,” goes the old saying. The re
sponse to Monday’s photo proves that
point beyond a shadow of a doubt.
There really is little question of
printing a photo like that. Why? It
tells the story more effectively than
any article could. Perhaps it was
“sensational.” Most gripping news
stories are. That picture was a grabber
better than any headline. How many
people even remember what the head
line was?
Without this kind of “scnsational
istic” photographic documentation of
the news we wouldn’t have known
what was going on in Vietnam (re
member the girl running naked from
the soldiers?), or in the LAPD (re
member the Rodney King beating?),
or in NASA (remember the Chal
lenger explosion?). Pictures have a
way of showing what happened that
mere words cannot. They show the
truth. It is a lot harder to bias a photo
graph than an article.
There aren’t many things that
happen in Lincoln that the Daily
Nebraskan gets a chance to portray so
visually and dramatically. That pic
ture shows more effectively one tragic
consequence of the extreme pressures
we pul on our football players. It
shows a hero reduced to a man. It
shows what happened. It shows the
truth. If that picture hadn’t have been
run, few people would still be talking
about the incident. Some would not
have even known it happened.
In conclusion, I would like to point
out that it is now time to stop talking
about the picture and start talking
about the story behind the picture.
We need to look at why it happened,
what are its consequences, and how it
will affect those involved, not why
the picture should or should not have
been run. The important thing is not
to let the impact of the picture over
shadow the event. We could bicker
about the picture for months. I’ve
seen other issues trivialized by inces
sant point-counterpoint letters to the
editor. Let’s not have it happen with
this one.
Daniel P. Baye
junior
broadcasting
-- EDITORIAL POLICY-=
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:=r-v
% \y / \ CWENP.WW
A - ]/ NOT SIER^
y - J>/_ J^l EFFNCIEMT.
PAUL SOUNDERS
Bigger, by and large, is better
Where does a 400-pound gorilla
sleep? Anywhere he wants to.
OK, so it sounds like the k ind of
joke Dad would tell at a fam
ily reunion, but it points to a
pretty important issue (at least it’s
important to a 5-foot-6 runt like
myself), which is, Really Big Guys
(RBG’s for short) can pretty much do
anything they want.
Next lime you’re trudging from
Readings in Hyposmotic Interactions
(Biochemistry 879) to the Coffee House
for a cup of lail, notice what happens
when someone steps in front of you
and you’ll sec what I mean.
If someone about your size rounds
a comer ahead of you, you step to the
right to walk around him/her, at the
exact same time hc/she steps in ex
actly the same direction for exactly
the same reason. Each of you is oper
ating under the same politeness prin
ciple: Get out of the way.
You repeat the whole futile exer
cise a few times, until one of you
final ly figures out that the way to beat
the sticky scenario is just to stand
still. You squeeze past each other,
maybe muttering something clever
like “thanks for the dance.”
Or suppose some smallish person,
a forgotten UNL bureaucrat on his/
her quick way somewhere tremen
dously important, like maybe Dunkin
Donuts, dodges out in front of you.
The law of pragmatism dictates that
someone that small in such a purpose
ful hurry will shoot to your left with a
curt ‘“scusemc.”
But you know what happens if
some Visigoth with one eye in the
middle of his forehead gets in your
way. No way is Bluto going to step
aside for a 90-pound fluff of milque
toast like you. He’ll stcamroll you
and not regret it.
He’ll even look up your address
just so he can come over and punch
you in your silly face for even pre
suming to gel in his way when he’s
obviously in such a big hurry to Chil
dren’s Literature for Neanderthals
(English 213Q).
I can hear the members of the
Politically Correct Thought Patrol now
as they read this column. The Na
tional Association of Really Large
Guys With Big Hearts will team up
with The American Union of Vege
tarian Ausiralopithccincs to publicly
Ours is definitely a
“bigger is better”
ml qL culture. —
bieeer guns, tipper
missiles* bigger por
terhouse steaks.
denounce me and my size-biased ar
ticle.
“Whodocs this Soudcrspipsqucak
think he is?” they’d say. “Just be
cause we’re big doesn't mean we’re
stupid or violent. We have problems,
too. Just you try to find size 24 1/2
shoes.”
Don’t gel me wrong. Some of my
best friends arc RBG’s, and I like
being short (any shirt will fit after
enough washings), but at times I envy
the advantage really gargantuan people
have in life.
Like standing in a long line, for
instance. Someone my size must fall
back on guile to worm through the
crowd, like clutching the chest and
panting, “Excuse me, tuberculosis
victim . . . (Cough) . . . Nasty strep
throat and lice, coming through.”
But Hercules can just flex his
pectorals and shove his way into the
throng, and if he’s really polite he’ll
grunt, “Move it or lose it,” as he
bursts his way forward, knuckles trail
ing along the ground.
The size itself, then, doesn’t an
noy us average-size mortals. It’s the
whole “I’m big and you’re not”
mentality. The kind of edge that RBG’s
have in pulling Del Monte Diced
Pineapple off the lop shelf at Hinky
Dinky, in and of itself, isn’t a particu
larly bothersome issue. The fact that
some of them will use your vertebrate
column for a stcpladder is.
A person can blame society for the
inflated prowess of RBG’s. Ours is
definitely a “bigger is better” sort of
culture — bigger guns, bigger mis
siles, bigger porterhouse steaks. This
is something that is probably trace
able back to European pioneer ori
gins.
When the first Dutch settler hopped
off the boat in New Amsterdam, having
spent his whole life until this point in
a country the size of a shopping mall
parking lot, he was duly impressed
with the enormity of the “wild” land.
“That,” he said, “is BIG.”
Or Lewis and Clark, in their his
toric expedition, stepped off the ca
noe to gaze across a prairie black with
bison. Going back home to the crowded
East must’ve been a real disappoint
ment for these guys. “You call that a
cow?” they said, “let me tell you
about COWS. Out west, they’ve got
these bison things . .. now those are
COWS.”
Or take prairie settlers, trapped in
a country with more sky than ground,
where you can sec a zillion miles and
there’s not a tree or farm in sight (if
you’ve ever driven 1-80 west past
Grand Island, you know what 1 mean).
These poor sods would write to the
folks back in Pittsburgh, “I’m going
nuts, Ma. Out here it’s just so .. big.
Nowadays, this rugged pioneer spirit
has become almost a religion of size
worship. We arc obsessed with really
big cars, really big dogs, really big
houses. Really Big Guys. Look at the
money some schools (you know which
ones) pump into a sport whose pn
mary goal seems to be finding the
largest RBG’s you can, lining them
up, then throwing them at each other
for four quarters.
Others will blame natural sc«**
lion, the law of the jungle. The ability
to pound the snot out of one’s oppo*‘
nents was, and in some occasions stii
rs, infinitely more useful lhan l,J
ability to play really good ,
humanity’s early days, the .
could fend off sabertooth tigers an
fell woolly mammoths, and they always
got the girls, just like in ac
warzenegger movies. f
Bigger really is belter in a lot
evolutionary situations, like 0csC •
rain forests and college campu .’
and don’t you forget it, puny 1
girly man.
Souders is a Junior English rwd',r *nd *
Daily Nebraskan columnist.
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readers and interested others.
Letters and guest opinions sent to
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braskan, 34 Nebraska Union,,
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