Steve
WILLEY
Dear Steve •••
Responses to a semester’s worth of letters, e-mail
Throughout the semester, I have
been privileged to receive letters and
e-mail from people seeking my
opinion about various subjects.
Ordinarily, I would respond
privately to these questions, but
because some of them are currently
relevant, I thought the rest of UNL
might be interested in the answers.
Let me say, however, I am by no
means a qualified individual to
provide “rational” advice and
opinions. One need only to look at
my valedictorian speech to realize
that fact. (St. Mary’s Catholic
Church, 1992)
ME: “Parents, faculty and
graduates: As evening descends on
these, our formidable years, so
begins the dawn of a new era for
you, the Cathedral graduates of
1992. Many of you, as you know,
will be shipped to Vietnam, and
many of you will not return. But I
believe it was Mark Twain who
muttered the timeless phrase, ‘Ask
not what you can do for a turnip, but
what a turnip can do for you.’”
(At this point, Father O’Kelly
told me I had a phone call in the
rectory. Upon arriving there, I was
gagged and beaten by a group of .
nuns and was forced to spend two
weeks in the catacombs below the
church.)
So while reading these questions,
please accept that these responses,
while heartfelt, should be taken with
a barrel of salt.
Steve, I have always enjoyed your
columns but often wondered why you
never take a stance on serious
issues. Is it because you ’re fat?
Anyway, with all the recent talk
about same-sex marriages in
Nebraska, I was curious about what
you think. — Danny Grotzo
Dear Danny: You’re right. I
purposely avoid confrontational
subjects because, in today’s society,
you never know whom you might
piss off. Getting attacked by homo
sexuals or Christian Coalitioners is
not something that appeals to me.
Besides, both look equally terrible
on a resume. '
But just this once, I suppose I can
make an exception. Personally, I’m a
little uncomfortable with homosexu
ality, but I defend homosexuals’
right to marry. This is America,
damn it, and life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness is guaranteed.
As far as I’m concerned, if your
happiness means marrying a gerbil,
I’m all for it.
(By the way, a male human
marrying a female gerbil would be
OK by die Christian Coalition’s
definition of marriage, because the
“holy union between man and
woman” doesn’t specify marriage
between any particular species.)
Recently I found a small
marble-sized lump on my testicle. I.
called my accountant, but he said
the only thing he could do was file
its taxes. Any suggestions?
— Dave Winterbulb.
Dear Dave: 1 think I’ve had this
problem before. After visiting a
doctor, I was told that the puny lump
was my testicle. I wouldn’t worry
about it if I were you. After all, I
turned out OK.
Mr. Willey, I am a freshman
currently enrolled in Chemistry 109.
1 have heard rumors that you failed
this course three times. Is this true?
I can’t believe anyone could be so
stupid! 1 haven’t received anything
lower than a 98 in the class. —
Sarah Bomhauser.
Dear Sarah: Some students
simply aren’t capable of doing well
in chemistry, though they may excel
at other areas of life — such as
dismem^fering over-confident
chemistfy students. While it’s true
that I did indeed fail chemistry three
times, I should point out that I have
very valid excuses.
The first semester, I was, like
many freshmen, undergoing an
identity crisis; I believed I was a
midget from Guam named
“Woozel.” The second semester, I
had contracted nose herpes — a
condition usually only found on
Himalayan sheep. The third semes
ter, my alarm never went off and I
was only able to make the final
exam.
Steve, What do you think about
the DNs decision to print former
ASUN President Eric Marintzers
DW1 charge? Also, do you think
Matt Haney/DN
your being so fat had anything to do
with his ticket? —Anonymous
Dear UNL Regent: Firstly,
regardless of whether the decision to
print the charge was right or wrong,
let’s get one thing straight:
Marintzer is no Menendez. Yes, he
did make a mistake, but like he said,
we all do.
Shoot, you should look at my
police record. I’ve got over 15
arrests in four states. I’d make
Marintzer look like the love child of
Mother Teresa and the Dali Lama.
What can I say. I’ve made
mistakes. This by no means justifies
my arrests. I’m not trying to justify
them. In no way is justification what
I’m after. It’s not justified. It
wouldn’t be just.
But give the guy a break; he’s
human and I don’t think any less of
him for what happened. You,
however, should be pelted with Milk
Duds for insinuating my fatness had
something to do with his arrest.
So there you have just a few
random letters I’ve received during
the semester. And while I’m truly
flattered that people think of me
when they have questions, I’m
equally appalled that they would
really be interested in my answers.
But keep ‘em coning if you want,
though I think from now on I’ll
refrain from responding in public.
It’ll save us all a lot of embarrass
ment.
Willey is a senior news-editorial
major and a Daily Nebraskan
columnist.
Guest
VIEW
' -V * V V '; .
In the area
Unique perspective from Malone neighborhood
Once again a near north Lincoln
neighborhood has made the news —
as the site of several violent inci
dents involving post high school
youth with time on their hands and
few constructive options for putting
it to use.
I have urged community involve
ment upon these youths and exten
sion of a guiding influence by
church and community organiza
tions. But constructive action cannot
exist in a vacuum.
The inner city offers few jobs
beyond clerical work in the govern
ment bureaucracy and ticket takers
and waiters in the entertainment
district. Nor do these positions
“work up to” anything significantly
more skilled or higher paying in
their respective industries.
Actually Lincoln, as a whole, is
skilled-jobs poor. A skilled job
created anywhere in the city,
including the core, is a valuable
asset to every citizen.
But economic development based
on drilled work is systematically
excluded from the inner city. At the
same time the inner city is dispro
portionately “packed” with people
excluded elsewhere. While the crime
rate of Malone is actually low by
comparison with other neighbor
hoods, both nationally and in
Lincoln, we serve as a case in point:
■ When two city blocks of mostly
vacant land adjacent to UNL in
Malone was assembled for private
development of a “City Campus
Research Park” it was taken by
government for a heavily subsidized
“low-to-moderate” government
housing project.
■ When the privately owned and
operated Malone Community Center
began showing a healthy financial
return from its child care operation,
the government responded by
dumping a glut of these services on
the market in the downtown and
UNL areas without regard to its
financial impact on a private center.
Not understanding the complexi
ties of retail, much less technologi
cal development and distribution,
the government wiped out almost all
retail in downtown Lincoln before
giving up on its suburban style
shopping mall concept.
■ When HUD and the local
Urban Development Department
began financing and long-term
Subsidy of the new entertainment
district concept of downtown
redevelopment, the transient
services portion of the existing City
Mission were forced out of the area.
The logical and responsible thing
to have done at this point would
have been to relocate them in
another carefully buffered non-retail,
«
The inner city offers few jobs beyond
clerical work in the government
bureaucracy and ticket takers and
waiters in the entertainment district.”
industrial zoned area. Instead
surrounding neighborhoods batted
transient services around until
finally forcing them into the
residential and campus area between
Malone and UNL.
■ When the board of the Lincoln
Housing Authority realized that it
needed more “scattered site hous
ing” to avoid censure from the
national level, it reversed the usual
understanding of that concept.
Despite the tight market and high
cost of acquiring single family
homes in die high-density zoned
areas around UNL it instructed the
former Housing Authority director
to acquire a minimum of SO more
single-family homes in Malone.
■ When private operators of
government-funded shelters of
wards of the state seek sites for
further expansion, they locate in
Malone despite the fact that land
here costs from two to three times
what it would in a cornfield on the
edge of town. This again gets back
to suburban political influence in the
licensing process.
■ When the local archdiocese
sought four-plex zoning permits for
low-cost housing on land that it
owned along Superior Street the
populace there was up in arms.
When asked by a reporter where this
might more reasonably be located,
one of the protesters cited the comer
of 23rd and Y streets where the
Housing Authority has already
overcrowded the area with subsi
dized housing.
■ Kids and their adult handlers
are using drugs as a fallback and
substitute for development of a
career or trade. Simply throwing
them in jail, while this serves the
immediate purpose of putting a dent
and only a doit in the drug traffick
ing, does not address the individu
als' lifelong problems arising out of
not having developed a career trade
or respected position in an ongoing
basis.
The proposition that upscale
businesses and housing cannot be
laid out appropriately for security
and economic viability in the inner
city is not in fact true. Rather the
case is that people in the suburbs
push and some inner city residents
pull for an increased level of
government subsidy that will
stabilize the expanding jobs’ poor
status quo.
But these subsidy demands on
taxpayers’ wallets grow exponen
tially over time. Furthermore,
dollars already extracted from their
wallets and sunk in UNL, the
County-City Building and so on, are
being put at risk by this studied
abuse of the core. Finally, it was and
still is the core that finances the
extension of city services into the
ever-receding suburbs.
Not until today’s suburbanites
reach retirement will they have
begun to pay off the full cost of
extension of these services. At that
point, as recent experience has
shown, we begin to ask “why are my
property taxes so high, and when is
enough, enough — of surprises
pushed in on me by the people
beyond?”
Mike Morosin is president of
the Malone Neighborhood Associa
tion and a UNL Teacher's College
graduate in sociology.
