Unwanted junk mail clutters box, raises false hopes
By Julie Sobczyk
Staff Reporter
Jenny Meyer may have already
won $10 million, but she’s not hold
ing her breath.
Meyer, a freshman in general stud
ies at UNL, said she, like many other
students, received at least three or
four pieces of junk mail every week.
She wishes it would stop.
“I would choose not to get it at all,
if I could,” she said. “Then I wouldn’t
have to think about it at all.”
Meyer said her junk mail con
sisted mostly of advertisements, cou
pons and fliers.
“As a student, I am new to the area
and I get advertisements from places
that want me to come check them
out,” Meyer said.
But she said she didn’t like find
ing junk mail in her box.
“One thing I don’t like about junk
mail is when you look in your mail
box and see you have mail and you get
all excited, but then it’s just junk,”
she said.
Meyer said she wondered how such
companies knew her name and ad
dress.
Companies purchase mailing lists
with names of prospective customers.
Acton mailing service is one of many
companies in Lincoln that sells mail
ing lists to other companies.
Justin Norblade, list supervisor at
Acton, said his company distributed
lists of names to others trying to sell
products.
“Someone can call in and request
a list and tell us what they are trying
to market,” Norblade said.
For example, if a company were
interested in selling a golf product,
Acton would supply them with a list
of people who had bought golf equip
ment recently, he said.
One way consumers’ names make
those lists is from their magazine
subscriptions, he said. This type of
mailing list is called a response list,
because the people on it had responded
to receiving products.
The second type of lists are com
piled lists. The names on those lists
are compiled from city directories
and other records, he said.
Acton rents out its lists to compa
nies, Norblade said. The price of the
list depends on whether it is a re
sponse list or a compiled list.
“One thing I don't like about junk mail is when
you look in your mailbox and see you have mail
: and you get all excited, but then it's just junk."
m
JENNY MEYER
UNL freshman
If people want to stop receiving
junk mail, Norblade suggested they
call magazine companies and have
them delete their names from response
lists.
Although junk mail is common
among University of Nebraska-Lin
coln students, the university does not
sell mailing lists.
Earl Hawkey, director of registra
tion and records at UNL, said that
because student directories are free,
mailing list companies can get them
easily for student information,
Hawkey said.
“Companies can get a copy and
can take that and.sell it to other
companies,” he said.
Author shares strength after confronting breast cancer
By Tanna Kinnaman
Staff Reporter
A diagnosis of breast cancer and
two mastectomies have served as cata
lysts in giving Lois Tschetter
Hjelmstad the courage to share her
experiences with others and “put her
soul on paper.”
Reading excerpts from her book
“Fine Black Lines,” Hjelmstad told
an audience at the Nebraska Union
Thursday night about the changes in
her life since she was diagnosed with
breast cancer in April 1990.
“I know that at my age there is not
a lot of innocence left in life, but after
my diagnosis of breast cancer I walked
out of the Garden of Eden for good,”
Hjelmstad said. “I had to confront my
own mortality.”
Hjelmstad, a 64-year-old piano
teacher, had no history of breast can
cer in her family,nor did she have any
other identified risk factors. She had
four children before the age of 28 and
nursed three of them, lived a moder
ate lifestyle and had regular
mammograms.
In fact, 75 percent of women who
have breast cancer do not have any
identified risk factors, Hjelmstad said.
The most valuable change in her
life has been her new ability and
willingness to take risks, Hjelmstad
said.
Hjelmstad allowed Colorado
Women’s News to print a front cover
picture of her, unclothed, soon after
her first mastectomy.
“Life is a major risk and we have to
choose our risks or we risk dying
without having lived,” Hjelmstad said.
She said she allowed her picture to
be used for two reasons: to raise the
awareness of breast cancer and to
show that femininity, serenity and joy
don’t depend on body parts.
Hjelmstad said she wanted to moti
vate women to have mammograms
and do self-exams. But men also need
to encourage their loved ones to do
self-exams, she said.
“Mammograms are good 80 per
cent of the time,” Hjelmstad said.
“But if you’re the 20 percent, you are
the gatekeeper of your own health.”
People need to get past the fear and
denial of breast cancer, she said.
Hjelmstad has learned to priori
tize and simplify her life, she said,
and she has worked through her an
ger at her body for betraying her and
has learned to treasure each new day.
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