Opinion Thursday, March 18, 1883 Neljraskan Editorial Board University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chris Hopfensperger.Editor, 472-1766 Jeremy Fitzpatrick.Opinion Page Editor Alan Phelps.Managing Editor Brian Shellito...Cartoonist Susie Arth.Senior Reporter Kim Spurlock.Diversions Editor Sam Kepfield.Columnist Red tape Bureaucracy blocks new fine arts college Only one thing stands in the way of the formation of the College of Fine and Performing Arts at UNL: the univer sity bureaucracy. This time, however, the enemy of education is not the administration or even the regents. It is the Coordinating Commission for Postsecondary Education. The new college would be created by combining the different art departments within the College of Arts and Sciences. It would add no new programs, employees or salaries. In fact, the money used by the college would come from departments and schools that already exist at the university. But the plan has been slowed because the commission misunderstood how the college would be set up. Members of the commission somehow got it into their heads that the new college was going to cost the university around $140,000. Maybe if the university had a few million dollars to throw around, it would be considering such an expensive project. But it isn’t, and the plan is virtually free. That means there was no legitimate reason for the commission to stand in the way of the college — even for another month until the members could understand what was going on. Last fall, Regents Chairman John Payne complained that the commission added “a layer of bureaucracy’’ between the regents and the Legislature. That came after the commission submitted a list of priorities for capital construction that ran counter to another list made by the regents, and several people complained about the workload created by the commission’s demands for detailed information about the university’s operations. The commission argues that it is trying to do its job of direct ing the state colleges and the University of Nebraska. But it is actually doing nothing more than trying to micro-manage the university. In this case, Spanier knows how the university would best be run. He has been working with a 23-member committee that has been examining the plan to create the college for some time. Those ideas have already met with approval at the university and gone through the NU Board of Regents. That is more than enough bureaucracy for one university. Stick around U.N. should share Somalian involvement Just two weeks after U.S. forces began a pullout from the Somalian city of Kismayu, 500 soldiers are headed back. The troops headed back to the Southern port Wednesday to try to mend a scattered truce that has jeopardized nationwide peace talks. The U.S. military was preparing to leave Somalia. Most areas of control in the country have been given to other nations’ forces in preparation for the turning of all operations over to the United Nations in May. But now U.S. forces are headed back into Kismayu to try to keep the delicate peace that has emerged there. The U.S. commit ment is being enlarged, not reduced. The military predicted that the new commitment would not delay the withdrawal of U.S. forces. S ^ I „ We hope they are right. The United States should not become bogged down in the complex and explosive political situation in Somalia. We should not abandon the people of that troubled country. But it would not be abandoning them to share responsibility for operations there with other members of the United Nations. SufT editorials represent the official policy of the Spring 1993 Daily Nebraskan. Policy is set by the Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board. Editorials do not necessarily reflect the views of the university, its employees, the students orthe NU Board of Regents. Editorial columns represent the opinion of the author. The regents publish the Daily Nebraskan. They establish the UNL Publications Board to supervise the daily production of the paper. According to policy set by the regenu, responsibility for the editorial content of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of its students. The Daily Nebraskan welcomes brief letters to the editor from all readers and interested others. Letters will be selected for publication on the basis of clarity, originality, timeliness and space available. The Daily Nebraskan retains the right to editor reject all material submitted. Readers also are welcome to submit material as guest opinions. The editor decides whether material should run as a guest opinion. Letters and guest opinions sent to the newspaper become the property of the Daily Nebraskan and cannot be returned. Anonymous submissions will not be published. Letters should included the author’s name, year in school, m^jor and group affiliation, if any. Requests to withhold names will not be granted. Submit material to the Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St., Lincoln, Neb. 68588-0448. Police deserve respect for job Police have power. It is up to us to decide at what point we will respect their power. When a police officer wants to stop or even detain you, then you better stop and meekly obey. My last “serious” brush with the law was a little more than a month ago. It was late, and I had just finished delivering a pizza to a house near 28th and Q streets. Walking back — or for the amusement of my boss, running back — to my car, I noticed I did not have much change left. So when I got back to my car, I reached under the floor mat to round up some stray coins to prepare myself for the ongoing mission of customer service. I guess I was vulnerable to what was about to happen because it was night, my car was parked on an ill-lit street, and I was taking too much time to find my coins. Also, my car door was open, and I had a foot on the pavement. I had the eerie feeling of a car pulling up. Then I heard footsteps creeping up from behind me. Mutter ing to myself that I was now in a bind, I straightened up and prepared to de fend myself. At least I had already delivered the damned pizza. Someone jerked the car door out further, and a flashlight showed its beam on my face. It was a Lincoln policeman, not a desperate robber preying on a poor sap of a delivery man. Still, I had no need for a policeman. I was doing fine on my own. But then again, I am a citizen, and at that moment a dubious one in the flashlight beam ofapoliceman. I didn’t have the luxury of deciding the time and place of meeting with an other wise friendly neighborhood police officer. Seeing my official pizza man’s uniform and hearing my ingratiating, plaintive attempt at explaining myself, the policeman must have been somewhat relieved. Itseemed the policeman had pulled up and stepped quickly out of his car, suspicious dial I was some kind of car thief. Seeing my official pizza man’s uniform and hearing my ingratiating, plaintive attempt at explaining my self, the policeman must have been somewhat relieved. Still, he couldn’t be too careful. His job is to serve and protect and to see if suspicious activities are, in fact, illegal. From his now close-up vantage point, he saw that I had keys in my hand and that it didn’t look like I was hot-wiring the car. He said dryly, “Humor me, will you, and start the car with those keys.’’ Shocked, yet grateful at the oppor tunity to vindicate myself, I started the car quickly, and off I went. I was thankful that I wasn’t apprehended for stealing—or at least perceived as stealing — my own car. My co-worker, Kevin, observed that had I been an actual bona fide car thief, I could have worked the wires in maybe five seconds. Instead, I was looking for my loose change, therefore, I was “digging” in the cop’s lingo, for a minute or so. Kind of ironic that I had been caught “stealing,” because that is what I wasn’t doing. If I had been stealing, 1 would probably have been devious and skilled enough to have evaded detection. Looking back on the incident, I concede tin: policeman doesn’t have an easy task. He was just doing his job and checking out hi s suspicions, which surely were illuminated by the hard light of his experience. As citizens, we must realize that we have vested police with the power to carry and use a gun, a baton and a flashlight to shine in our faces. It is the police that have the power and we who have no choice but to respect it. We should respect it sooner rather than later for our own sake. If we all compliantly accept this fact, no one else will have to end up like Rodney King, who rebelled against the power and was then over whelmed by it— first in the street and now in the courtroom. When a policeman wants to detain you, question you, pull you over, or what have you, then simply and hum bly follow the power directive and obey. Police have power on the streets and more credibility — its own kind of power — in the courts. We shouldn’t have to get beat up to accept this fact. Burger Is a Junior philosophy major and a Daily NebraAan columnist ‘Rights’ According to the Second Amend ment, “The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” In the article “Waco proves gun control needed” (DN, March 16,1993), Jer emy Fitzpatrick seems to believe that anyone can go down to his or her local gun store and purchase automatic weapons and explosives. This is an extreme case. Millions of Americans own guns and use them in law-abiding ways. Fitzpatrick seems to believe that everyone should be examined before being able to pur chase a gun. Is he serious? This would be very time-consuming and some would always slip through the cracks. Finally, which guns go and which stay? Every gun I own has its purpose, but all of them are capable of taking a life. Do shotguns goY Only semi-au tomatic guns? Handguns? Rifles? Every time a tragedy like this happens people like Fitzpatrick scream for gun control. Can we allow them to take away our rights as Americans? Dan Meagher freshman pre-veterinary Culture I was pleased to see the article focusing on issues faced by interna tional students in the March 17 issue of the DN. There is, however, one minor point — with major implications — in the article which 1 would like to address. Oilmans states that,“the more Ameri canized international students’ native countries are, the less problem they seem to have with this cycle of sepa ration.” I don’t feel it is appropriate to use the term “Americanized'’ in de scribing other cultures. This is a very ethnocentric point of view, implying that a culture has changed to be'‘more like us.” Although many countries have adopted some of the superficial trappings of American culture, their cultures — those systems of values, beliefs, traditions, world views, rela tionships, etc., that define them —* remain unchanged. Gordon Homann International Affairs