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,
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Nebraskan retains the right to edit or reject all material
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quests to withhold names will not be granted. Submit
material to: Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union,
1400 R St. Lincoln, Neb. 68588-0448.
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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
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