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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 10, 1994)
I lPTWTfW Nebraskan 1 II I I \ JY Monday, January 10,1994 Nebraskan Editorial Board University of Nebraska-Lincoln Jeremy Fitzpatrick....Editor, 472-1766 Rainbow Rowell. .Opinion Page Editor Adeana Leftin. .'..... Managing Editor Todd Cooper. . Sports Editor JeffZeleny.Associate News Editor Sarah Dpey.Arts t£ Entertainment Editor Staci McKee.Photo Chief Last payment NU needs to end constant EPA violations The University of Nebraska faces $600,000 in penalties for alleged Environmental Protection Agency violations. Although NU disputes these allegations, it should accept this fee and work for better future relations with the agency. If the NU Board of Regents decides against settling with the EPA, the EPA has said it could seek more than $5 million in penalties. When it makes its decision this week, the board should heed the advice of university attorneys and accept the $600,000 settle ment. Fighting the EPA will bring months of hearings — a waste of time and money. NU cannot afford to risk a $5 million fee. By settling now, the university system can put these problems to rest and work to avoid future violations. Perhaps this can be the last chapter in NU’s ongoing EPA troubles. Current allegations concern the University of Nebraska Medi cal Center and the University of Ncbraska-Lincoln. UNL has a history of EPA violations. It has been cited or fined every year since 19K8. Although it may be difficult for a university to comply with environmental regulations designed for industries, UNL’s repeat ed failure is unacceptable. This sloppincss drains NU of much-needed resources and tarnishes our reputation. It should pay the fines and not let it happen again. Murky waters Clinton should tell all about Whitewater Full disclosure. That is the only way President Clinton can end the scandal that is stalling his presidency. Speculation over a failed Arkansas land deal the Clintons were involved in is grow ing uglier each day, and the president can only stop it by telling the American public everything he knows. The scandal involves Whitewater Corp., a partnership of the Clintons and Little Rock, Ark., friends James and Susan McDougal. In 1978, the Clintons and the McDougals bought a 230-acre parcel of land in the Ozarks for development of vacation homes. The project never took off and Whitewater Corp. lost $118,000 after all the land was sold. The Clintons released a report in March 1992 about their involvement in Whitewater which said they had invested $69,000 in the deal and lost all of it. But questions about Whitewater have been raised in recent months the Clintons haven’t answered. The Clintons’ tax returns, for example, do not show them claiming losses from Whitewater. And federal investigators have said McDougal may have diverted funds into Whitewater from Madison Guaranty, an Arkansas savings and loan that McDougal owned. The S&L’s failure in 1989 cost taxpayers $47 million dollars. The Clintons’ personal records on Whitewater would help put these questions to rest. Those records were removed from the office of White House Deputy Counsel Vince Foster two days after he committed suicide July 20. Foster handled Whitewater matters for the Clintons as their personal lawyer in Little Rock. Under a negotiated subpoena, the White House last week began turning over the Clintons’ personal records from Whitewater to the Justice Department. If the President wants to retain the public confidence, Clinton also should make these records public so the issue can be resolved in the open. Staff editorials represent the official policy of the Fall 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 or the 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 regents, 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 edit or 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 ofthe Daily Nebraskan and cannot be returned Anonymous submissions will not be published. Letters should included the author’s name, year in school, major and group affiliation, ifany. Requests to withhold names will not be granted Submit material to the Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St., Lincoln, Neb 68588-0448 (ti\ \ audwed?) J m THE SUPREME COURT NEVER®! INTO TNE EO/SCOUT "AT!l AFOI T uOl1. i —a UPS man in world of his own lmost as intriguing as the lax machine, he circulates through society. With his near military stature, he shuffles in and out of a normal business day. As covert and stealthy as a Cl A officer, he never turns a head. He is the UPS man. Picture if you wilfadimension not of sight or sound, but of mind ... you are now entering, the parcel post /one. We sec him every day delivering packages, robotically thrusting that little pad and pen in our faces. Then, as if beamed up to the Starship Enter prise, he’s gone on to another mis sion. This proverbial Santa Claus moves at a different speed than the rest of humanity. He sprints to the desk, in haling rapidly. His foots taps ner vously as if keeping beat to some phantom drummer. He hands the pen over to his victim with superhuman strength, glancing around for obstruc tions. The UPS man goes home, pops Jane Fonda in the VCR, grabs a bottle of Evian and a rice cake and runs stairs for most of the evening. Then, with an obligatory smile, he mumbles “thank you” and is already out the door. Taking two steps at a time, he flics up the stairs and makes a beeline to his next destination. Unnoticed and unrewarded, the United Parcel Service man makesour world a little easier, although he’s not really in our world. He docs not notice the scattered peons around him. He dodges them like useless pieces of furniture. People appear as two-di mensional objects to this purveyor of the parcel post. This man is in a different dimen sion. If mundane humanity is moving in a dimension set at 45 RPM (Nirvana speed), the UPS man is moving at 75 RPM (the Chipmunks on acid speed). Checkout clerks average 60 RPM. Congress clocks in at about 15 RPM. A domestic North American couch potato moves at about 1 RPM (12 RPM on Super Bowl Sunday). It’s not lack of communication or personality conflicts separating these people, it’s dimensional differences. In each dimension, bodily functions are set at a different speed. With members of one dimension moving so much faster than those in a slower dimension, it’s difficult for the two to attract each other’s attention. The UPS man could not sprawl out in a La-Z-Boy recliner, grab a beer and a bag of pork rinds, and channel surf through Monday night football. The UPS man goes home, pops Jane Fonda in the VCR, grabs a bottle of Evian and a rice cake and runs stairs for most of the evening. If he were to veg out on the sofa with an economy si/e bag of M&Ms, he would, as dimensional theories dictate, explode. average Joe is Earth, Congress is Mars with no evidence of intelligent life, ( and the couch potato is Jupiter. They all move at their own speed but are safe within the same galaxy. Communication becomes a prob lem, though. Try talking to the UPS man and an automated response will escape from his lips. “Here is you package, have a nice day ... click ... here is your package, have a nice day ... click.” From the couch potato you will receive a series of pseudo-Beavis grunts accompanied by an earth-shat tering belch. Breeding these two would produce an overly hyper couch potato with an irrcsistablc desire to run back and forth from the TV to the couch to change channels, with a preference for the home shopping networks. Congressional gridlock isn’t a matter of indecisiveness. America’s ruling body just functions at a lower speed than the rest of humanity. With Senate leader Vice President A1 Gore running at minus 3 RPM, how can America expect things to move fast er? It’s difficult to be responsive to a groupofpcople functioningat a much higher RPM. So far, it seems as if an interdimcnsional society is self-de structive in nature. Everybody mov ing at a different speed in a different dimension appears harmful, but look at it this way. In space, we have hundreds of stars, planets, comets and a few golf balls rotating and moving at different speeds indifferent gravitational zones. For the past bazillion or so years, we’ve managed to avoid any type of major interstellar collision. Say the UPS man is Mercury, the So, the dangers ot an interdiincnsional society arc minimal. It actually lends diversity to our plan et. If everyone were operating at the same speed in the same dimension, we’d all be the proud owners of a brown station wagon adorned with green fuzzy dice on the dash and a cozy two-story house with aluminum siding and a white picket fence. Never fear, society will remain intact as long as we respect the dimen sional boundaries and don’t try to tempt the UPS man with a bag of pork rinds and a beer. Lavlgae It a fTtihnu aewi-edltorial major and a Daily Nebraikaa lealor report er aad columnitt. I he Daily Nebraskan wants to hear from you. If you want to voice your opinion about an article that appears in the newspaper, let us know. Just write a brief letter to the editor and sign it (don’t forget your student ID number) and mail it to the Daily Nebraskan. 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 ‘R’ Street. Lincoln, NE 68588-0448, or stop by the office in the basement of the Nebraska Union and visit with us. We’re all ears.