OPTNTON >• Nebmskan
yy 1 | 1 XV^/X 1 " — Thursday, April 21,1994
Nebraskan
Editorial Board
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Jeremy Fitzpatrick ........ ..Editor. 472-1766
Rainbow Rowell. .. .T.',. ..Opinion Page Editor
Adeana Left in.....Managing Editor
Todd Cooper.4.. . ..Sports Editor
JeffZelenv.:.*....Associate News Editor
Sarah Duey. .Arts & Entertainment Editor
William Lauer.. ..Senior Photographer
-1 |
Who cares?
ASUN wastes time with pointless bills
The new Association of University of Nebraska-Lincoln
senate demonstrated Wednesday night that it is prepared to
follow in the footsteps of past senates.
It ended its meeting with a pointless bil 1, submitted in part by ASUN
President Andrew Loudon, supporting Nebraska native Ted Sorensen
for a job as White House legal counsel.
Whether or not Sorensen deserves the job is not at issue.
With the many issues facing students at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln, surely Loudon could find better ways to spend
his time serving student needs.
Surely he could be authoring bills that actually relate to UNL
rather than trying his hand at advising the White House.
ASUN’s already limited responsibilities do not include hiring
advice for President Clinton.
It is hard enough for ASUN to make a difference here at UNL.
They shouldn’t waste students’ time writing bills that will inevita
bly end up in a White House recyclable paper container.
Why would President Clinton even care what ASUN thinks
about who he should hire as the White House lawyer? Why would
most UNL students care who Clinton hires as the White House
lawyer?
At the same meeting, ASUN officially caved in on the Academic
' Success Center and made a half-hearted attempt to reduce the blow'
of basketball ticket price increases.
ASUN should not make this a habit. The organization already
lacks legitimacy in the minds of most students. Writing silly bills
won’t help matters.
Do something
Slaughter in Gorazde must be stopped
«T his is hell, horror and terror. This is not war anymore.
| This is slaughter, massacre.”
With those words. Dr. Alija Bcgic defined the
conflict in the former Yugoslavia. Bcgic is the director ofthe main
hospital in the town of Gorazde. The Associated Press reported that
a rocket had slammed into the hospital, killing at least 10 people and
wounding 15.
Transmitting his plea by ham radio, Bcgic begged for help.
“Please do something that we stay alive,” he said. “We cannot
stand this anymore.”
A U.N. spokesman said aid workers reported that 44 people had
been killed in Gorazde since midnight Tuesday. That raises the
count to 389 dead and 1,324 wounded since the Serb assault on the
city began three weeks ago.
The Daily Nebraskan has published countless editorials on the
conflict in the former Yugoslavia. But we continue to address the
issue because it still matters. People are still being slaughtered like
livestock in cities like Gorazde. The killing must be stopped.
To understand wiiat life is like in Gorazde, imagine if tanks
circled Lincoln and began constantly shelling the city. Imagine if
troops were firing rockets into Lincoln General Hospital.
The United States docs not spend billions each year on weapons
for nothing. President Clinton should take stronger steps to stop the
genocide in the former Yugoslavia.
What can we do? Give a damn. Care. Write our Congressmen.
Do something — anything.
Staff editorial* represent the official policy of the Spring 1994 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 ofthe 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
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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.
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Spanier
In response to Jeffrey Robb’s ar
ticle (DN, April 20, 1994) about Re
gent Robert Allen’s views about Chan
cellor Graham Spanier, I am afraid
that I agree with Regent Allen.
While Allen no doubt adheres to a
much more conservative agenda than
I (I do not, for example, see the hiring
ofan athletic director as a particularly
successful or significant accomplish
ment at an institution that is intended
solely for the pursuit of knowledge,
and I cannot appreciate the under
tones ofback-forty bigotry that 1 inter
pret, perhaps unfairly, from his com
ments), I still find myself agreeing
with the general criticisms directed at
Spanier.
1 am in complete agreement with
the concept of an open-minded, free
thinking and liberal academic envi
ronment: If an individual cannot pur
sue his or her own particular course of
happiness in that environment, then
where else can he or she?
1 maintain, however, that Spanier
appears to enjoy non-issues or issues
of currently marginal significance
primarily for the purposes of self
aggrandizement.
Open recognition of gay rights and
acknowledging diversity, forcxample,
arc noble and unquestionably neces
sary acts in a modern and civilized
society (granted, one may argue
whether those terms arc applicable to
our own).
Nonetheless, they arc accomplished
with relative ease under the guise of
“political correctness” and within the
relatively safe (and self-reinforcing)
confines of academic administration.
Moreover—most important of all
— I argue that these and like issues
arc rendered nearly moot when the
integrity of the institution at large is at
stake, as it is so clearly at UNL. There
is currently a grave crisis at all levels
of academia, not only at UNL, but
nationwide. Universities lack direc
tion, vision, faculty positions, enroll
ment, educational effectiveness and
funding in various proportions.
Feeble, self-centered, misguided
and often conspicuously overpaid ad
ministrators, combined with the cor
porate-entrepreneurial mind-set and
theprogressive“dumbification”ofour
society and alt* its institutions may
lead to the eventual extinction of the
Amer ic an in tellcct (or wh at now passes
for it).
I have returned (temporarily) to
this university after an absence of
several years. I see pleasing cosmetic
changes, but I also sense that little has
been done to stem the flood tide of
mediocrity that sweeps the system
clean of improvements. The quali ty of
education continues to decrease, as
does faculty morale.
Fees and tuition (as well as football
tickets) command a higher price than
ever, while outslate yokels and slack
jawed urbanites alike, otherwise ig
norant of the university, clamor yet
louder for the deification of Tom
Osborne.
It is the same comedy of errors that
it was when 1 lefi (to attend belter stale
universities) in 1988, and probably
worse.
Why does it seem impossible for
the university administration to cficcl
significant and meaningful changes?
Probably because it is just too difficult
to do so while simultaneously self
aggrandizing and deftly grandstand
ing in hopes of garnering a higher
paying position at (dare I say again) a
better institution.
Perhaps I should not single out
Spanier for abuse — indeed he is no
less effective than his predecessor.
However, I strongly disagree with
what I sec as the insidious conceal
ment of the real issues. Perhaps uni
versities in general would be better ofT
hiring administrators from the swell
ing ranks of bitter, but conscientious,
underemployed Ph. D.s the system has
turned out.
1, for one, would work for half the
salary.
R.M. Jocckcl
instructor
geology
^ *
Melissa Dunne/DN
Vegetarian
There arc many reasons why a
vegetarian diet is preferable to a meat
centered one. Besides being healthier
and much more economical, vegetari
anism is also better for the environ
ment.
Raising cattle and other livestock
to be slaughtered and consumed is a
very energy-intensive, ineflicieirt,
costly and polluting process. Forests
arc continuously being razed for con
version to grazing and croplands in
order to feed farm animals — devas
tating wild habitats here in the United
Slates and destroying rainforest eco
systems abroad.
Much of the topsoil erosion, which
is now occurring at an increasingly
rapid pace, is directly related to live
stock production, primarily from over
grazing.
A1 most hal f of the water used in the
United Slates each year goes to grow
feed and provide drinking water for
cattle and other livestock. It can take
up to2,500 gallons of water in order to
produce just a single pound of meat.
(Whereas only 25 gallons of water is
needed to produce one pound of wheat.)
The meat industry is by far the
single biggest polluter, producing
much more harmful organic water
pollution than all the other industries
in the United Stales combined. Or
ganic waste from livestock and the
pesticides and fertilizers used to grow
the feed for livestock are the No. 1
non-point sources of water pollution
in the United States.
At a time when nearly a billion
people suffer from chronic hunger
and malnutrition, 70 percent of the
U.S. grain harvest—and one-third of
all the grain grown in the world — is
fed to cattle and other livestock.
Ifmanyofthcsc crops were instead
grown for human consumption rather
than for livestock, there would be
enough grain to give every man,
woman and child at least one more
meal a day.
Food choices have a far-reaching
effect, rippling out to touch many
areas of life. Eating low on the food
chain — a vegetarian diet — brings
greater health benefits, is a much more
economical and efficient way to feed
people and also helps to protect the
environment.
A varied diet of vegetables, fruits,
grains, beans and other legumes, nuts
and seeds provides ample amounts of
all the necessary nutrients a body
needs, according to the American
Dietetic Association.
Vegetarianism is a nutritionally
sound alternative to the over-produc
tion of beef and all the problems and
harm that it causes.
It is lime fora fundamental shift in
our agricultural practices and food
policies-— toward a more enlightened
understanding of what we eat and
how this affects us and the world we
live in.
Jim Anderson
Nebraska Vegetarian Society