Organ donation grants
salvation to afflicted
tl
MATT PETERSON is a senior
English and news-editorial major
and a Daily Nebraskan columnist.
Have a heart.
It’s a statement my grandfather has been wait
ing to hear for the past five years ... though not in
its most common context. He’s on a waiting list
for a donor heart.
Organ donation isn’t a topic many of us have a
real opinion about; it’s just not a subject that peo
ple afford much thought. After all, when was the
last time the word “organ,” without perhaps a pre
cursory “reproductive,” came up over a cup of cof
fee?
I’ll be the first to admit that I hadn’t given my
own guts much thought prior to writing this col
umn; they have their responsibilities and I have
mine, and when my work is done, 70 or so years
from now, they’re done. Who’s going to want my
heart after 90 years of abuse, anyway? The
unavoidable fact is that it probably won’t take 90
years for the majority of us
- I could step in
y rront ot a
bus or be
crushed by
the Mir
space sta
tion tomor
row. This is
the essence
of the uneasi
ness sur
rounding
organ
donation -
to think
donating one’s organs
is to think about one’s own ♦
mortality. *
If there is one thing
in this life which
we take for 0
granted
more than
anything
else, it is
the inner
workings
of our bodies. . • i
Many of us don’t know what our organs ‘ j j
look like (Valentine’s Day providing the prime l :
example), let alone how they work or what j I
might happen if they didn’t work. The typical f 1
college student, at least this typical college j
student, spends more time corrupting his *1 /
organs (whether it be the liver or the lungs) fi
than he does maintaining them. | 1
The paranoia of constantly*being aware of \ u
one’s own mortality is undoubtedly taxing on \\
a healthy heart; I can’t imagine its effects on a. | ]
heart such as my grandfather’s. Imagine, for a J ]
moment, the psychological torment of having ; J
to reach for a bottle of pills or clutch a defib- . vjj
rillator at the slightest ache or pain in * .
your arm or chest. It is one thing to ifu}
be in tune with your body, but it is . ,* , ■
another thing entirely to be in con- . *
stant fear of it. * ' JM
Heart disease has run rampant
through my mother’s side of the fami
ly, claiming all but two of my grandfa
ther’s brothers and threatening his own lift
times, as well. A heart attack nearly
grandfather out of this world at about
time I was being brought into it. I’m
how the genetics of heart disease work,
be a problem I, too, must consider in
to come. And if such an eventuality came to
would hope that someone would pass a bet
f equipment along to me. Unfortunately
few viable organs available to
ww
Becoming an organ donor can
be as easy as mentioning your
assent to family members, or as
complicated as signing the back
of your drivers license in the
presence of a witness”
cial act of Christ himself. Judaism asserts that if it
is possible to save a life by donating an organ, it is
obligatory to do so. Donating one’s organs accom
plishes a certain degree of immortality in itself.
This conception of immortality might not be par
ticularly participatory in nature, but those atheists
among us will have to take what they can get. And
when the rest of us achieve a more conventional
form of immortality, saving a life must be a nice
thing to have on the resume.
Misconceptions
abound concern
ing the prac
—i,ce °f
uigaii
£-~ dona
tion.
Donor bodies *
are never muti- f
lated during
the extrac
tion
process; ;;
organ
removal is
performed as
delicately as any
surgical procedure,
and the procedure is
never charged to the
donor’s family. Many
^ people fear that if a doctor
> is aware of their status as an
* * organ donor, that doctcu; will not
attempt to save their lives “at all
* costs. The truth is that the organ
removal team is not even notified until all
* life-saving efforts have been exhausted.
Becoming an organ donor can be as easy as
5 mentioning your assent to family members, or as
complicated as signing the back of your driver’s
9 Imense in the presence of a witness. When was
- ' the las* time saving a life was as easy as
carrying around a piece of paper with a
* couple of signatures on it?
Nobody wants to think about death - there
are, after all, more important things to
think about at this point in life. If you pre
*. ^er n9* to think about your own relatively
reliable mortality, consider instead the
* mortality of someone in need.
* ....' - Please, have a heart.
Billionaire benefactors
could prevent poverty
Bill Gates’fortune would feed millions
LANE HICKENBOTTOM
is a senior news-editori
al major and a Daily
Nebraskan photograph
er and columnist.
Call me a socialist or even a
raging communist, but I think
serious change is needed to fix
the disgusting distribution of
wealth in the United States.
Forbes magazine recently pub
lished its annual list of the United
States’ 400 richest people.
Topping the list, to no surprise, is
software tycoon Bill Gates, chair
man of |4;icfbsb:ftjQorp. Since last
year’s fist, he has reportedly dou
bled his net worth anil is now esti
mated to be worth $39.8 biflion.
Fbflowuig hi®
Warren Buffet, $21 billion; Paul
Allen. $17 billion: Lawrence
Ellison* $9.2 billion; and Gordon
Moore* at tile bottom of the top
five at $8.8 billion.
Wow, Gates’ $39.8 billion is
fun to say. It’s an even bigger riot
to look at this gargantuan number
when you take it out of Associated
Press writing style. Let us exam
ine it: $39,800,000,000. Most cal
culators can’t even handle a num
ber with this many zeros.
So what can you do with $39.8
billion? Well, if you are Gates
then you use it to turn that number
into $80 billion for next year’s
Forbes list. But then what? Up to
$160 billion the following year?
Then $320 billion?
Now I have this crazy
metaphor on the theory of money.
Let’s pretend that the world econ
omy is really a small group of
guys huddled around a poker
table, smoking cigars and gam
bling a little pocket cash. Bill
comes to the table with $39.8 bil
lion; four of my closest friends
and I each come with our for
tunes, $10,000 each (wishful
thinking). That brings the total
amount of wealth to the poker
table to $39,800,050,000 (39.8B +
50K). There is no way Bill coidd
oe oeat witnout an act rrom
Congress. Quicker than life, my
friends and I would have no
money left. The only way around
it is if we were to break either the
rules or Bill’s neck. But the two
points to this scenario are:
■ 1) There is no way for Bill to
lose his money to my friends and
me when he has so much to work
with, even if I brought 1,000 of
my closest friends to the poker
table in a combined effort.
21 There is a soecific amount
tt
Don’t tell me
capitalism is great.
I can’t buy that
theory with what
most of the labor
force makes.”
there something that can be done
about this? I’ve seen numbers that
say America’s wealthiest 1 percent
have an equal share of the wealth
that the bottom 93 percent of
Americans do. I admit I can’t find
the source of this statistic, but
let’s just see what effect Bill’s bil
lions would have on a large popu
lation of have-nots that I can find
a source for.
According to the U.S. Bureau
of the Census, there are more than
268 million U.S. citizens today,
and roughly 14.4 million of them
arc cuiisiuereu very poor jinose
whose total income was less than
one-half of their poverty thresh
old). If Gates wanted, he could
give every single man, woman
and child living in that category a
personal check for almost $3,000.
A $15,000 boost would do more
than wonders for a poor family of
five.
And this is from Gates’ wealth
alone! The wealth of only the 10
richest Americans adds up to a
whopping $131.3 billion! If some
body were convince these men
that they should all give their «
money to the poor, 14.4 million
people could receive checks for
over $9000 each, granting a fami
ly of five $45,000 to spend on
adequate food; housing and health
care. u -
Let’s be realistic, why should a
single man have the buying power
to purchase a South American
country when his neighbor can’t
even put food on his family’s
table? Don’t tell me capitalism is
great. I can’t buy that theory with
what most of the labor force
makes. It’s pretty plain and simple
to see that if everybody on the
Forbes 400 list were to sponta
neously combust and leave their
money to charity, this country
would be void of poverty.
But since they are not going to
vanish into thin air, let’s deal with
the grossly wealthy in a more
realistic way. Tax the hell out of
them. I don’t see any reason why
somebody should be able to make
more than $100 million after
taxes. Within reason, and with
$100 million a year, a person
could do anything he or she want
ed. Sure, it isn’t enough to buy
everything, but who needs every
thing when some people have
close to nothing?
Many would argue that people
like Bill Gates deserve the money
because of their impact on soci
ety. Sure, everybody who has used
a computer has also used his soft
ware, but so what? Since Gates
“earned” his first billion, have the
rates of crime, hunger, poverty,
drug use, violence, unemploy
ment, teenage sex, obesity, cheat
ing on exams or guys forgetting
their wedding anniversaries gone
down? No, not really. In fact, the
world really isn’t that much better
of a place at all because of Bill
Gates. Sure, we have cool com
puters with Microsoft Windows
95, but.once again, so what? If I
had neither, I would pick food on
my plate over a snazzy software
package any day.
• \
