Opinion
Pump politics
Maryland law to ease foreign oil need
One small state is taking big steps to reduce its demand
for foreign oil.
Teeny-tiny Maryland recently enacted a law that
places an extra tax on low-gas-mileagc cars and offers tax
credit on cars that get good gas mileage.
The law requires owners of cars getting less than 27 miles
per gallon to pay an additional $100 in titling tax. Can; that
stretch more than 34 miles out of each gallon earn their owners
a $50 tax break.
Maryland is believed to be the first state to take such action.
By penalizing cars that use more gasoline, supporters of the
gas-guzzler tax said the law not only would reduce American
dependence on foreign oil, but also would clean the environ
ment.
Another section of the law raises the state’s gasoline tax by a
nickel a gallon to finance transportation projects. The tax could
raise as much as $20 million a year for mass transportation.
Seeing a state take active steps toward reducing oil con
sumption is encouraging, but the Maryland plan does have
some sucKy points.
Owners of large, gas-guzzling cars say they should not have
to give them up. More fuel-efficient cars arc not as safe, they
say, because they generally are smaller.
The plan also could wind up hurting poorer citizens of
Maryland who cannot afford higher gasoline prices and
smaller, newer cars. These people may have no choice but to
drive an old gas-guzzler.
Raising the cost of gasoline would pinch the poor more than
the wealthy, but it also would encourage the use of mass
transit, which benefits society as a whole.
And the $100 tax only applies when the car is sold, which
encourages people buying cars, both new and used, to look for
ones with good gas mileage. The tax does not affect people
who already own gas-guzzlers.
This change in demand could force the hand of manufactur
ers who have been reluctant to increase their gas-mileage
standards. If demand for fuel-efficient cars increases, car
makers would have no choice but to respond to that demand.
While it may be just one small step toward reducing U.S.
dependence on foreign oil, the Maryland plan at least is a step
in the right direction.
Rationale on athletics peculiar
On a number of occasions. I’ve
read letters in the Daily Nebraskan
questioning financial outlays con
nected with the Athletic Department
only to find an editorial footnote at
the end of the letter assuring readers
that the Athletic Department finances
these expenditures through ticket sales,
etc., and they do not impact the pro
gram budgets of the university at large.
It was with some interest that I
noted in a summation of regent action
taken last weekend and reported in
Monday’s Daily Nebraskan that a bid
in excess of $800,000 had been ap
proved for turf replacement at Me
morial Stadium and another approach
ing $125,000 had been approved for
roof work at the Dcvancy Center.
These approvals followed another that
raised the University Program and
Facilities Fees almost $10 for UNL
students. Hmmmmmm.
A weekend article in the Lincoln
Journal-Star summarized the lamen
table state of deferred maintenance in
other university facilities and one
continually finds such things as as
bestos removal from academic build
ings or greenhouse renovation being
delayed or pushed farther and farther
down various lists of priorities.
While I’m obviously far from clued
in insofar as budget mysteries are
concerned, I do find it curious that a
football team can be flown to Japan or
that a retiring athletic director will be
kept on a consultancy fee exceeding
$90,000 annually. I’m also aware that
the Athletic Department laments its
$1.8 million deficit but seems to be
subject to no administrative, regent
or legislative checks. Ticket prices
(along with the aforementioned fees)
are going up and student attendance
is going down.
Would that action on the improve
ment of academic facilities, (yet
another) peer group and other items
of business seemingly more central to
UNL’s role and mission be taken with
the same dispatch!
James Hejduk
associate professor
music
-LETTER POLICY
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-EDITORIAL POLICY
Staff editorials represent the offi
cial policy of the Spring 1992 Daily
Nebraskan. Policy is set by the Daily
Nebraskan Editorial Board. Its mem
bers are: Jana Pedersen, editor; Alan
Phelps, opinion page editor; Kara
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4 . . ' **-- ' - _
LISA PYTLIK
Convocation misdirects praise
Call me Judas. For I have be
trayed my peers.
Call me Peter. For I have
denied the truth.
Call me Thomas. For I will doubt
hope for the future until I see it fully
realized.
Last week, I betrayed a significant
part of the UNL population by par
ticipating in UNL’s all-university
Honors Convocation. I hadn’t planned
to take part in it. In fact, I felt an
ambiguous ambivalence about the
whole idea of being honored. But
after visiting my parents the Calm
Sunday before convocation and find
ing that they wanted to go, I agreed to
go as well.
So I dutifully contacted the appro
priate UNL officials and arranged to
take part in their elaborate scheme for
convocation. In exchange, they prom
ised to pay me in honors and recogni
tion.
My first task, the officials informed
me, was to make a Mandatory Thurs
day journey to the bookstore and pick
up the required attire for the event: a
cap and gown. At the bookstore I
received the first of my honorary
rewards: a waiver of the gown rental
fee and a free cap and tassel to keep.
I was also told that if I was planning to
graduate in May, I could keep the
gown unui tncn.
“Why would I gel to use a gown
free while others have to pay?” I
wondered briefly — but only briefly.
1 found that I felt less uneasy about
the whole honor and privilege ordeal
when I simply did not think about it.
Eventually, however, I had to think
about it The convocation took place
on the afternoon of the 10th, ruining a
perfectly Good Friday.
I went, as I had been instructed, to
ioin my parents and colleagues for a
Last Snack before the convocation.
As I stood there breaking cookies and
drinking fruit beverages with them, I
again felt an uneasy gnawing at my
conscience.
“I’m doing it for my family,” I
rationalized. But the uneasiness did
not go away. It remained with me
right up until I performed my con
tracted task.
My duty was to approach a certain
man and single him out from the rest
of the people with whom he stood and
greet him with a handshake. It hardly
seemed like an evil thing to do, and it
certainly was not illegal.
So I did it. 1 extended my hand in
greeting. He did not resist but ex
tended his own arm, clothed in a
Ll ' ’t betrayed the
man whoso hand l
shook, but L did
betray countless UNL
Students bx accepting
an unjustreward and
aiding in the oropa
eation of false values.
purple robe, and gripped my hand
firmly. At the same time, he placed
my reward in my other hand.
It was a certificate of honor en
closed in a folder the color of blood.
It was at that moment that I under
stood the source of the ambivalence I
had been feeling and saw myself for
what 1 really was: a traitor.
1 hadn’t betrayed the man whose
hand 1 shook, but I did betray count
less UNL students by accepting an
unjust reward and aiding in the propa
gation of false values.
The purpose of the honor I re
ceived seemed to be to recognize and
reward hard wok and excellent schol
arship. In reality, however, they were
rewarding me for genetics, luck and
obsessive-corn pulsivcness.
“Was it easy for you?” an official
had asked me as we waited for the
proceedings to begin. Like a modern
day Peter, I denied that it was.
“No,” 1 said. “No. Not really.”
But school WAS much easier for
me than for many people. I happen to
be fortunate enough not to have any
genetic or accidental disabilities. Some
of my neighbors, however, cannot
grasp a pencil to take notes in class,
see to read their assignments or talk to
ask the professor questions as they
arise.
If a school wants to honor and
recognize hard work, it should honor
these people. They must work at least
three times as hard as I do to accom
plish equal goals.
I also was bom with a socicty
approved skin color and brain struc
ture. Because I am white, I am not
distracted from my studies veiy often
by either overt or covert prejudiced
attacks from others, and I am sure my
grades reflect this.
I also have been fortunate enough
to have a brain that can understand
things such as mathematics fairly
easily. It is interesting that I have
received far more honors for this little
genetic novelty of my brain than for
all the work I’ve put into my major
fields of interest — art and psychol
ogy.
If a school wants to recognize
excellent scholarship, it should be
honoring people like the mothers who
have learned the value of their chil
dren and decide to accept lower grades
in order to create more time for them.
These mothers are much belter schol
ars than people who neglect every
thing around themselves except for
the schoolwork with which they are
obsessed.
Basing an honors convocation on
grades may seem practical, but it
neglects the majority of UNL’s finest
students and purports twisted values.
It falsely creates the illusion that grade
points are more important than etnics
or healthy balance in life.
Like the biblical disciple Thomas,
1 doubt that injustices such as these
will be remedied in the near future. I
do not expect to see an honors convo
cation that recognizes the merits or
ethical achievements of people with
seemingly mediocre grades any more
than I expect to see people honored at
the rec center for developing and
maintaining a healthy layer of fat
that, as is usually the case, does not
equal society’s idea of the ideal.
If everyone were to stop and take a
look at and name what they were
really valuing by their actions, per
haps drastic changes would occur in
society. For example, maybe people
would start donating as much money
to help die homeless and hungry as
they donate to their local diet or exer
cise club.
But it will take longer than three
days, years, decades or even centu
ries perhaps for our society to resur
rect itself from the destruction caused
by such illusory values. Until then,
we need to search for the actions that
ignorantly promote injustice, call them
by their true names and change them.
PyUik is a senior art and psychology
major and a Daily Nebraskan stall artist and
columnist.