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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (March 11, 1996)
Monday, March 11,1996 Page 4 Daily * Nebraskan Editorial Board University of Nebraska-Lincoln J. Christopher Hain..Editor, 472-1766 Doug Kouma .Managing Editor Doug Peters.*.Opinion Page Editor Sarah Scalet.Associate News Editor Matt Waite..Associate News Editor Michelle Garner...Wire Editor Jennifer Mapes.Columnist Jason Gildow/DN Sex education It’s timeforfrank talk with young people Never mind TV stations and Hollywood, magazines and the Internet, cartoons and comedians. We live in a society that’s a little squeamish when it comes to frank talk about, well, you know... Sex. Jokes and innuendo aside, there doesn’t seem to be much real talk about sex. Last Friday, Joycelyn Elders reminded us of this. Remember Joycelyn Elders? The former U.S. surgeon general? The one who made that infamous comment about masturbation be ing taught in public schools? The one who was then asked to re sign? Elders told about 900 people at Nebraska Wesleyan University on Friday afternoon that the average American child watches 15,000 hours of television from kindergarten to 12th grade,and receives only 14 hours of sex education. Fourteen hours. Of course, that 15,000 hours of television certainly included some sort of sex education. But a majority of it probably wasn’t the kind of education young people need to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted preg nancies or rape. These arc all difficult problems, especially when sexual contact with someone who is HIV-positive can mean life or death. We need to bring these issues out in the open — and not be em barrassed. We need to combat a lack of information, and misinfor mation, with words. r “We tell them what to do in a car in the front seat through driver’s education,” Elders said Friday. “It’s time to tell them what to do in the back seat.” She’s right. We need more sex education in the schools — unbiased, factual education, to help combat raging hormones with some hard facts. Let’s not have to hear another generation of adults asking radio shows and magazines if they can get pregnant by kissing while wearing a swimsuit, or if they can prevent pregnancies by having sex while standing up. If we weren’t afraid of talking about so many things, there wouldn’t be nearly as many things to be afraid of. Editorial policy Staff editorials represent the official policy of the Spring 19% Daily Ne braskan. Policy is set by the Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board. Editorials do not necessarily reflect the views of the university, its employees, the stu dents or the NU Board of Regents. Editorial columns represent the opin ion of the author. The regents publish the Daily Nebraskan. They establish the UNL Publications Board to super vise the daily production of the paper. According to policy set by the regents, responsibility for die editorial content of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of its students. 1 Letter policy The Daily Nebraskan welcomes brief letters to the editor fhxn 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 mate rial 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 of the Daily Nebraskan and cannot be re turned. Anonymous submissions will not be pub lished. Letters should include the author’s name, year in school, major and group affiliation, if any. Re quests to withhold names will not be granted. Submit material to: Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St. Lincoln, Neb. 68588-0448. (— ' \ r—-tt» 1 OOOU-ATHINK MIC.T0RH \H THE \ \ STEPPED ' l nml in \t. ; (m -1 Point Steve Willey’s article “Fighting mad — Parking Services fines don’t fit the crimes” (March 6) needs a rebuttal. First of all, if UNL were to allow any or all students to park wherever they wanted, without paying for parking permits or being assigned lots in which to park, we would have an uncontrollable parking disaster on our hands. If Mr. Willey has a better solution to maintaining parking order on campus, we will be more than happy to listen to his ideas. As an administrator, 1 have no problem with Mr. Willey’s right to issue his opinion on the size of [larking fines. The real pain inflicted by his commentary, however, is not to the UNL Administration, but to his fellow students. His comment that “meter maids are the lowest form of vermin” is uncalled for. These “meter maids” are his fellow students. (By the way, the correct title of these student workers is “Student Enforcement Cadet,” and they include both men and women). They are hard-working students x doing their job the best they can while at the same time earning money to help pay for their educa tion. I am very proud of the work they are doing for our university. By labeling these students as “belonging to a species genetically close to a worm,” Mr. Willey has, in my mind, displayed poor taste and judgment. His fellow students deserve better than that. Paul Carlson associate vice chancellor for business and finance Counterpoint I am writing in response to Mr. Willey’s article about the parking services. First of all, I would love to thank you for writing about this mr --- i Y ■* — * i Jason Gildow/DN issue. I have been waiting all year lor someone from the DN to bring uplhis issue. Now that you have, I would like to share two stories about parking services. 1. My girlfriend came down to visit me the weekend of the Pacific football game. As you know, parking services closes down many of the lots around the campus, so they can make a little bit more money. I did not, however, see a sign marking the lot behind Abel/Sandoz as closed. But someone recommended that I call parking services just to make sure, so I did. The lady there told me not to worry, that the lot was not closed, so we parked the car in a meter slot. The next day, we go out to her car to be greeted by a nice $25 parking ticket. 1 appealed the ticket, but to no avail. The odd thing is, I noticed that the following week, signs were posted outside of the lot. 2. A friend of mine was visiting me and put money in the meter. She kept exact time of when she put the money in. With five minutes left, she went down to feed the meter. As she walked out the door, she saw parking services driving away. I Because she still had time on her meter, she had nothing to worry about. But to her surprise, she walked up to the car to see a ticket for a meter violation. She looked to the meter to see two minutes still on it. These meter maids figured she would not make it to her caFiin and went ahead and ticketed her. These two examples show how out of control the parking services has gotten. Joe Glogowski freshman __ _ _ business Elderly can contribute Kudos to Kelly Johnson for her sensitively worded piece on aging. Let me point out, though, that as we leave our most productive years behind, we are more content if we do have a valued societal role. Older people need not be viewed solely as liabilities. My ancestral homeland, Ireland, faced such a positively skewed demographic curve long ago. Of course, a good deal of this was because of high emigration. The anthropologist, Arensberg, who studied Irish country life in the 1930s, attributed the peculiarly long life expectancy to the fact that the elderly were not only respected, but allowed to work as long as they were able and were integrated into extended families. Long life is not enough. The elderly must be part of society — contributing members. Anything else is just a matter of waiting to die. We, who are not yet old, must recognize that to live or work interacting only with the young is artificial and undesirable. We must not shun social contact out of self conscious ness. Robert J. Tobin graduate student geology Send your brief letters to: tfl the* Daily Nebraskan, 34 ... / ^/ / / /Nebraska Union, 1400 R St., -—i Lincoln, Neb. 68588, or Fax to (402) 472-1761, or email cletters @ unlinfo.unl.edu.> L—1,- Letters must be signed and lVTC 1~\ include a phone number for 1M C Ul doivilll verification.
