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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (March 10, 1995)
Qpindn Friday, March 10, 1995 Page 4 Daily * Nebraskan Editorial Board University of Nebraska-Lincoln Jeff Zeleny.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 Expensive seat Fishy fund-raising needs investigation Before the November election, Jon Christensen told his constituents he was not a real politician. He repeatedly said he was a newcomer to the campaign circuit. Even after winning the tight and often dirty race against Peter Hoagland, he maintained he was working for the people. “We’re excited to be the people’s representative,” Christensen said on election night. Recently, it became known that when the election was over, his fund raising wasn’t. He solicited contributions from Nebraska businesses and gave them to the Republican Party’s House campaign committee. The reported amounts of the contributions varied from $70,000 to $85,000. In the process, Christensen won aseat on the powerful Ways and Means Committee, which is rare — if not unheard of — for a freshman representative. State and national Republican party leaders say Christensen was resourceful in gaining his unique committee seat. Omaha Mayor Hal Daub, a former congressman himself, told the Omaha World-Herald: “I certainly couldn’t imagine that any seat in the Congress would be for sale for a measly $80,000.” What is the price, Mr. Mayor? The Daily Nebraskan thinks Christensen’s post-election fund raising for the GOP smacks of a bribe. We agree with Democratic leaders who have called for an investigation into his committee appointment. Jon Christensen did not work alone. His wife, Meredith, who worked equally hard to raise the funds, wanted him to have his hold on a powerful committee. What a grand family affair. Christensen certainly achieved his goal in distinguishing himself from the other 72 GOP freshmen. By doing so he proved early on in his two-year stint that he can’t—and shouldn’t be — trusted. Dead horse Some keep bringing upgrading issue Some things never die. They just grow olfl in the collective mind of the public as they are brought up again and again. It seems that at the University ofNebraska-Lincoln, one thing that won’t die is the idea to change UNL’s grading system to a letter-grade system that includes both pluses and minuses. The current system only includes pluses. The UNL Academic Senate again was asked to consider a change in the system. Why has it come up yet again? The academic senate at the University of Nebraska at Kearney voted last week to change its grading system to one with both pluses and minuses. The University of Nebraska at Omaha’s senate voted Thursday for it. UNO has been trying to imitate the UNL flagship campus fora long time, wishing for dormitories and, recently, a new engineering college. UNL has nothing to gain by imitating the Omaha campus. Discussion on this issue seems to come up often; apparently, somewhere it is being kept on life support. It’s time to pull the plug. Editorial policy Staff editorials represent the official policy of the_ Spring 1995. Daily Nebraskan. Policy is set by the Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board Editori als do notnecessarilyreflectthe views of the university, its employees, the students or theNU BoandofRegents. Editorial columns represent the opin ion ofthe author. The regents publish the Daily Nebraskan. They establish the UNL Publications Board to su pervise the daily production of the paper. According to policy set by the regents, responsibility for the edito rial content of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of its students. letter policy The Daily Nebraskan welcomes brief letters to the editor from all readers and interested others. Letters will be selected forpublication on the basis ofclarity, originality, timeliness and spaceavailable. The Daily Nebraskan retains the right to edit or rqect all material submitted. Readers also are welcome to submit ma terial as guest opinions. The editor decides whether material should run as a guest opinion. Letters and guest opinions salt to the newspaper become the property of the Daily Nebraskan and cannot be returned. Anonymous submissions will not be pub lished. Letters should included the author’s name, year in school, major and group affiliation, if any. Requests to withhold names will not be granted. Submit material to the Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St., Lincoln, Neb. 68588-0448. LOOK VIHATI T &mm home \ 7S 'Lc WR. UlK^Hy 1 I \ Sethe mm _ANQT»IEfl ONE SOOVl. ^ Send your brief letters to: Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St, Lincoln, Neb. 68588. Or fax to: (402) 472-1761. Utters must be signed and include a phone number for ^verification. * - —«.tw*.'-— ‘Strip Poor In response to the “Strip Pool” ads that keep appearing in the Daily Nebraskan: we’re not radical feminists and we’re not even all women. We do, however, speak for many members of this campus and the student body, from which come student fees to fiind this newspaper. We find these ads very offensive and not in accordance with what is promoted and what is taught here at UNL. We realized that these women willingly places themselves in the video and the ad, but we do not believe that this means the Daily Nebraskan is required to run the ad. We feePthat there is a time and a place for this type of material, but a school-run, state-funded newspa per is not one of them. We don’t mind that our student fees go to help pay for the Daily Nebraskan, as we feel most of the issues are pertinent and newsworthy. How ever, in the future, we hope the advertising staff would consider more carefully the type of material students may be offended by. Aron Utecht junior broadcasting Ajit Ninan senior computer engineering Kiersten Lockie senior education Katherine Jewel freshman chemical engineering The Daily Nebraskan is neither managed nor produced by the Uni versity of Nebraska-Lincoln, and does not receive any state funding. Students pay 88 cents in student fees per semester to read the Daily Ne braskan. — Editor Kerry Eddy/DN Gun policy The Daily Nebraskan made an error in reporting about Wednesday’s ASUN meeting (“ASUN opposes proposed code of conduct change,” March 9). Contrary to what was reported about the Residence Hall Association’s position on the new gun policy, the RHA Senate did NOT override President Casart’s veto of a resolution opposing the new policy. RHA is divided on this issue. My personal feelings on this issue cause me to be disappointed with the action taken by ASUN in opposing the change in policy. Nearly all campaigns for ASUN, including the one that brought the current senate to office, have claimed to support campus safety. Yet when ASUN was given the chance to support a policy designed to improve safety and to clarify how guns can be stored without violating the rule barring them from campus, the ASUN Senators voted to oppose it. Does this mean that perceived convenience for gun-owners is more important than campus safety? To be fair, opponents of the new policy have legitimate concerns about the accessibility of guns for those living on East Campus and about gun-owners who do not like storing their guns with the police. But the simple reality is that the current practice of storing guns in greek houses and with Resident Directors in the halls is impractical. In the halls, RDs should not be expected to be 24-hour on-call gun supervisors. And many believe that the new policy will be more convenient for gun-owners, since it provides automatic 24-hour access and since better storage facilities are planned than are currently available in the halls. Jeremy Vetter RHA vice president School lunches Look out, little kids, I’m coming to take your school lunch right out of your mouths. Right when you are getting ready to take a bite of your food, I am going to snatch it out of your hands to leave you hungry! Just because I’m a Rush ditto-head. For the record, the proposal will not cut spending on the school lunch programs, but rather will decentralize the power of govern ment by taking the money that the federal government generally spends and giving it to the states in federal block grants. Funds will not be cut, but rather increased to the schools. And furthermore, by giving the money to the states and letting the states distribute the funds, our tax money will be used more wisely. So ACORN and all other people saying that us conservative Repub licans are going to steal the food out of the mouths of our young, why don’t you just get the facts straight! Gene Williams sophomore criminal justice
