Opinion
Friday, February 3,1995 Page 4
' . . j •' - ' ’ ' 1 . -T . .. , ' -
Daily
Nebraskan
Editorial Board
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
JeffZeleny...Editor, 472-1766
Jeff Robb..Managing Editor
Matt Woody..Opinion Page Editor
DeDra Janssen...Associate News Editor
Rainbow Rowell..Arts & Entertainment Editor
James Mehsling.Cartoonist
Chris Hain.Senior Reporter
Costly cap
Cuts not a solution to special ed costs
Nebraska spent $122 million this year on special education.
That’s almost twice as much as taxpayers paid in 1988.
This rise in spending has Gov. Ben Nelson worried. In an effort
to cut spending, he has recommended a spending cap at this year s
amount. . .
Cutting spending, reducing the burden on taxpayers, tightening
the budget—this all sounds good and rational.
But special education costs are not rising because spending is
out of control. Costs are rising because more students are being
enrolled in special education.
Some educators say this increase is because more children are
bom to parents with drug or alcohol addictions and more children
are being raised in unhealthy homes. ...
A cap on education will cut spending, but at what cost. It will
become more and more difficult for schools to take care of chil
dren with special education needs. Those children will receive less
attention and less access to needed resources.
It is a problem that more children need special education, but it
is not a spending problem, and it will not be solved by spending
less money helping those children.
Spending should not be attacked. Problems such as drug addic
tion and abuse should be attacked. If we ignore those problems
and cap Special education spending, we will have an increasing
number of children splitting a stagnant pool of resources. The qual
ity of their education will decrease with their increasing numbers.
Gov. Nelson is trying to help taxpayers. But the parents of those
children are also taxpayers. And their children deserve a quality
public education.
Quotes of the week
“It’s a tiny arm of the government, it*s not even a
major arm, and they want to amputate that?”
— JoAnn Schmidman, director of Omaha Magic Theater, about
the proposed cuts to the Natiotial Endowment for the Arts.
“My mind thinks I can do more than my body is
letting me do. It is kind of frustrating. I want to be out
there.”
— Emily Thompson, injured Nebraska women's basketball player.
“Now that the O.J. Simpson jury has been officially
sequestered, we can tell the story.”
— Marilyn Rothe, Fox spokeswoman, about the network's movie
about Simpson's life.
“There is no way in God’s green earth you can get a
trillion-dollar cut without cutting social programs.”
— Charles Lamphear, professor of economics and director of the
Bureau of Business Research at UNL, about the proposed bal
anced budget amendment.
Editorial policy
Staff editorials represent the official
policy of the Spring 1995. Daily
Nebraskan. Policy is set by the Daily
Nebraskan Editorial Board. Editori
aisdonotnecessarilyreflectthe views
of the university, its employees, the
students or the NU BoandofRegents.
Editorial columns represent the opin
ion of the author. The regents publish
the Daily Nebraskan. They establish
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pervise the daily production of the
paper. According topolicy set by the
regents, responsibility for the edito
rial content of the newspaper lies
solely in the hands of its students.
Latter policy
The Doily Nebraskan welcomes brief letters to the
editor from all readers and interested others! Letters
will be selected for publication on the basis ofclarity,
originality, timeliness and space available. The Daily
Nebraskan retains therighttoedit or reject all material
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terial as guest opinions. The editor decides whether
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Requests to withhold names will not be granted.
Submit material to the Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska
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1
‘Degrading’ ad
I am writing in regard to the ad
for the “Strip Pool” video that
appeared in the Daily Nebraskan
(Feb. 1 and 2). This is an ad that
belongs in Playboy or some other
smut magazine. It does not belong
in a college newspaper. This ad is
degrading to the women on this
campus.
I am outraged that part of my
student fees go toward funding this
newspaper. It’s bad enough that you
have columnists like Jamie Karl,
who do nothing but spout off Rush
Limbaugh rhetoric. Now you are
running ads for pornography!
I hope that in the future you will
be more selective about the ads you
run.
Lori Savery
junior
women’s studies
and English
Which will die?
“Yeah, dem cullered folks got
souls, but I do too and I’ll be
damned if somebody gonna tell me
which one’s more important,” a
slaveowner of the early 1800s
argued.
“Yes, ze Jew may have a zoul,
but I do as veil und mine iz more
important,” a Nazi in the early
1900s argued.
“Yes, I believe a fetus has a soul.
And I do, too.... And no one ... is
going to tell me which soul matters
most,” a Cindy Lange-Kubick of
the late 1900s argued.
Unfortunately, most individuals
of pro-death inclination will find
Lange-Kubick’s column a poignant,
essay of the choices facing the
modem feminist mother. However,
this foolish argument identifies
Lange-Kubick’s association of a
soul to the fetus as a different
association than Lange-Kubick’s
soul to Lange-Kubick. Poppycock.
Lange-Kubick has stumbled
James Mehsling/DN
across an important truth, that the
fetus has a soul. Since it would be
arbitrary and inconsistent for us to
argue that this soul is different from
the soul of one outside the womb,
we are morally obliged to care for
our children from the moment of
conception.
Otherwise, we’re making the
same choice for death as
slaveowners did, as Hitler did, as
Stalin did, as Pol Pot did, and the
list goes on and on and on.
How can we morally choose
who, among the innocent, will die?
Shane Tucker
senior
biology
Chris Funk
In the article “Right to Life calls
for boycott” (Feb. 1), Chris Funk,
executive director of Planned
Parenthood of Lincoln, is quoted as
saying, “I think we should require
all priests to take History 101. They
should be reminded this is not a
theocracy, and this country has its
roots in the separation of church
and state.”
Funk needs some refresher
courses of her own. First of all, this
country has its roots in freedom
from the religious bigotry that
forced the Pilgrims and the Puritans
to leave their home. They believed
that their faith should not jeopar
dize their rights as citizens to
freedom of religion and freedom of
speech.
The priests in question were
exercising those rights as citizens
to advocate a position, which they
are free to do, whether that position
is that Elvis is alive, or that a fetus
can have a distinct gender and
blood type from its mother and still
be just a part of her body to do with
as she will, or that abortion is
wrong.
This is democracy in action, not
theocracy, and regardless of what
Funk may think, religious convic
tion does not strip a person of one’}
citizenship in this country, at least
not yet.
If Funk finds the actions of the
priests so objectionable because of
their religious beliefs, then can we
assume she feels that the Christians
who opposed slavery in the 1800s,
because they saw it as being wrong
in the eyes of God, should have
remained silent, lest they unconsti
tutionally impose their religion and
morality upon the slaveowners?
Shall we assume that she feels
that the Rev. Martin Luther King
Jr. should have stayed away from
social commentary on issues such
as discrimination and segregation
while in the pulpit?
Only a fool would seriously
suggest these things, and Funk is
no fool. It seems rather obvious that
what Funk wants is for people of
faith who have the unmitigated gall
to disagree with her to be silenced,
lest she should actually have to
defend her position in honest
debate.
Brad Pardee
Love Library Staff