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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 20, 1993)
j fegebraska nips P Quarterback Tommie • Monday Frazier andfreshman I-back Lawrence 7W45 Phillips help the Husker Tbday, sunny and offense overcome four SST^5S»i. turnovers. Judge wants assurance before Baldwin can move By Jeff Zeleny Senior Editor Lancaster County District Judge Paul Merritt will decide this week if former UNL football player Scott Baldwin can leave the Lincoln Regional Center and return to his home in New Jersey. At a hearing Friday, Merritt said he would not release Baldwin until he had been assured Baldwin would take his medication properly. Baldwin was found not guilty by reason of insanity in the January 1992 beating of Gina Simanek of Lincoln. He was paralyzed from the chest down when he was shot during a September 1992 scuflle with Omaha police. At the time of the second incident, Baldwin was an outpatient of an Omaha mental health center. He had not been taking his medication. Merritt heard closing arguments from Lancaster County Attorney Gary Lacey and Chief Deputy Public De fender Scott Helvie. The judge said his decision would reflect Baldwin’s past actions. “... If Mr. Baldwin had lived up to the original plan for his medications he might not be here today,” Merritt said. “I have to do my best to make sure Mr. Baldwin takes medication.” Lacey said the Baldwin case had been “one traumatic situation after another.” “I at this point have to advocate for the public, he said. Helvie said Baldwin was ready to continue treatment in New Jersey. Baldwin will sign necessary docu ments for his release, Helvie said, and will return to Nebraska voluntarily for court appearances at his own ex pense. University of Nebraska-Lincoln officials who came into contact with Baldwin wrote letters to the court about his positive traits and his ability to deal with problems, Helvie said. Lacey said the letters were not enough to grant Baldwin a release. “I caution the court,” Lacey said. “We have any number of people who introduced evidence when he was in his original condition. “They’re looking out not for safety of the public, but for Scott Baldwin in a medical fashion.” Lacey said Baldwin must remain hospitalized or placed in a highly structured environment with medical staff. No facilities are available in Lincoln, Lacey said, but Omaha might have an appropriate facility. “I want somebody to take the lith ium tablet, put it in his mouth and watch him swallow it every day for at least six months,” Lacey said. Generalization X Jeff Larson, senior English major, takes a break during his part-time job at Jed Oil gas station in Northeast Lincoln. Dressed in Doc Martens boots, overalls, anarchy t-shirt, flannel shirt and holding a Sub Pop hat, Larson said, MOur generation doesn’t have a label. I don’t think we should let ourselves be labeled — everybody should just be an Individual.** Much talked about twentysomethings defy all definition By Dionne Searcey sinior Rtporttr___ Editor*! Note: The following is the first in i series of stories about Generation X, • which are meant to explain the generation and provide a glimpse into the lives of some of its members. You, more than likely, are part of Gen eration X. You’re 18 to 30 years old, or there abouts. You grew up with mini-malls and the Muppets. You remember the Tylenol scare and the Challenger explosion. You were there when alternative became mainstream and the Brady Bunch became cool again. You get your laughs from Saturday Night Live or the Far Side. You get your clothes from the Gap or Goodwill. You get your nutrition from KraAdinners or sample day at the local grocery store. You’ve been labeled the MTV Genera tion, the Pepsi Generation and now, Gener ation X. Everyone, it seems, is talking about your generation. Your styles, trends and tendencies have led the media and authors like Douglas Coupland, who wrote “Generation X,” to label you as the group that can't be defined. You are, simply, X. You’re directionless, ambitionless and relatively cashless, or so they say. The media have divided your generation into subgroups — the greeks, the gays, the grunges, to name a few. Some have even passed you all off as slackers. Be you slacker or yuppie, hippie chick or sorority girl, your generation is impossible to accurately define, Rob Benford, a UNL associate professor of sociology, said. “It’s amorphous," Benford said. “It’s not a clearly scientifically defined concept." Descriptions of generations are “part fact, part fiction, part myth,” he said. For example, Benford said, the '60s gen eration was labeled as a politically active group of long-haired students who wore tie dyed clothes. “The vast majority of people who were young adults in the ’60s were not hippies, were not politically active,” he said. “A lot of what’s taken as distinctive of the ’60s is representati ve of a small number of people." The media help propagate these stereo types, Benford said, thus creating genera tions. “That which is noticed by the media is that which is extraordinary,” he said. “The media don’t run stories on ordinary events, ordinary people." When TV, radio and newspapers run stories on abnormal events, Benford said, the extraordinary seems to become ordi nary. Photos by Ai Schabon/DN “Once those myths and generalizations have been socially constructed,” he said, “we then act upon them as though they are real.” People tend to associate generations with events such as large protests and rallies broadcast by media, Benfotd said. “No one generation is that unified in its political orientation, in its cultural behav iors,” he said. “There’s a lot of diversity in any one generation.” The generation members themselves have no choice of the label that gets placed on them, he said. “It’s not like the generation gets to vote on it,” Benford said. Members of the ’50s generation didn’t ask to be labeled as a goldfish-swallowing. See X on 2 3 statements to be entered in Bjorklund trial By Jeff Zeleny Senior Editor Only three statements Roger Bjorklund made to police will be entered into evidence in his first-degree murder trial scheduled to begin in October, Lancaster County prosecutors said Friday during a hearing. Deputy County Attorney John Colbom told District Judge Donald Endacott that the prose cution would use statements and evidence that pertained only to the Candice Harms’ murder case. Bjorklund and Scott Barney were arrested Dec. 2 in connection with a string of Lincoln robberies. Barney later told authorities of their involvement in the Harms’ case. During 10 days of pretrial evidence-sup pression hearings earlier in the month, Bjorklund's attorneys argued that statements he made to police and wiretapped telephone conversations should be excluded from the trial. Court reports listed this account of the Fri day morning hearing: Statements made Dec. 6,1992, May 25 and June 5 will be entered as evidence, Colbom said. The prosecution also will offer physical evidence gained in the search of Bjorklund’s house, 610 S. 52nd St. A letter Bjorklund sent to Harms’ parents last December also will be used as evidence, Colbom said. See BJORKLUND on 2 Question of gays in family housing hasn’t hit UNL By Alan Phelps Senior Reporter Widespread university policies barring gay couples from living in family housing units have caused a stir on some campuses, but UNL officials say the controversy has not reached Nebraska. Glen Schumann, family housing director at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said cou ples who wanted to live together in one of UNL’s 70 family housing units must be legally married. Nebraska does not allow samc-sex marriages. Schumann said he could not remember any one complaining about the policy. “I cannot recall anybody contesting that since I started in 1979,” he said. “Maybe some people inquired about our housing regulations and then didn’t pursue it.” Recent attempts to change a similar policy garnered Ohio State University national atten tion. Bill Hall, residence hall director at Ohio ' State, said his department recommended chang ing the university’s practice of requiring state marriage certificates because it seemed dis criminatory. “I didn’t believe our housing policies were consistent with the non-discrimination policies of the university,” he said. After inquiries from several students during the last few years, plans to open the accommo See HOUSING on 2