How dry I am
Abolishing alcohol on campus won’t stop abuse
DANIEL MUNKSGAARD
is a sophomore English
and philosophy major
and a Daily Nebraskan
columnist.
Our university’s sense of ethics
could be putting us all in danger.
Recent moves to enforce poli
cies involving drinking in the
dorms are yet another attempt to
enforce the highly moral, doesn’t
it-look-nice-on-paper dry campus
policy of the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln. And despite the
fact that many students laughed at
the new regulations, they are start
ing to have something of an effect.
Instead of getting plastered
safely in their dorm rooms, students
are now venturing even more to the
many off-campus parties to do so.
And this is a good thing?
Student abuse of alcohol is a
problem. At UNL, 43 percent of
students abuse alcohol. Catch that
word: abuse. This is not a healthy
thing, this is not a good thing. This
is something we all agree on.
But we’re not getting anywhere
by forcing it off campus. Certainly,
we may cut down on certain stu
dents’ overall alcohol intake, but it
actually makes the abuse problem
worse. The “drink while you’ve got
it” mentality often will kick in, and
students will end up getting a great
deal more snookered during these
occasional binge sessions.
This has two results:
For one, students who drink in
this fashion are much more likely to
abuse alcohol. We have a problem
in our society of differentiating
between use and abuse. While a dry
campus policy can bring down stu
dent use of alcohol, it can actually
increase the number of students
who abuse alcohol. A good example
is a country like France, where
alcohol is consumed in much
greater amounts than in the United
States, but is actually abused less.
And two, now that we’ve got a
bunch of bombed students off cam
pus, how are we supposed to get
them back? Especially if, say, the
police bust the party and tell every
one to go home? Lincoln is an
incredibly car-dependent town, and
UNL is no different. A “close-to
campus” apartment is often well
more than a mile away, and even
students who live on campus usual
ly have a car. So these off-campus
parties can often be way off cam
pus, which means we’ve got a large
number of intoxicated students dri
ving back.
It doesn’t matter if the majority
of students don’t drive while drunk.
Even if, as Linda Major pointed out
in her editorial on Monday, 75 per
cent of students don’t drive under
the influence, that still leaves 25
percent who do. That’s too large of a
risk to the safety of other drivers. A
risk that our dry campus policy is
only perpetuating.
This is not to say that the univer
sity has to create a wet campus to
solve the problem. Such a solution
probably wouldn’t be too popular
politically, arid would be a fairly
risky experiment. But if we’re going
to have a dry campus, we have to be
willing to accept the problems that
it creates, and be willing to do
something to solve them.
One excellent idea I heard was
to create a nighttime shuttle service
that covered the closer off-campus
apartments. It wouldn’t even have
to operate every night; just game
nights and other popular party
times. It’s by no means a complete
solution, and it might be rather
costly, but it would be a step in the
right direction.
We cannot try to regulate drink
ing behavior among students with
out looking at the effects that such
regulation causes. By saying, “At
least it doesn’t happen on UNL
property,” the administration is
skirting the issue and trying to wash
its hands.
We need to remember that there
is nothing inherently bad about
alcohol, In fact, moderate alcohol
consumption (here defined as a
drink or two a day), particularly in
the case of red wine, can actually
offer certain health benefits.
In moderate amounts, it can help
us relax. In moderate amounts, it’s
perfectly natural.
Abuse is the problem.
Drunken driving is the problem.
And we’re only making it worse.
«
By saying, ‘At least it
doesn’t happen on UNL property,’
the administration is skirting
the issue and trying
to wash its hands
Business as usual
A day in the life of Steve Willey
STEVE WILLEY is a
senior news-editorial
major and a Daily
Nebraskan columnist.
Initially, I wanted to use my col
umn this week to expose numerous
fund-raising misdeeds by President
Clinton and Vice President Gore.
For more than a month, I had
pored over thousands of pages of
written documents and viewed count
less hours of videotapes preparing for
this story. And as a result of my inves
tigation, I had uncovered some
shocking and amazing facts - facts
that would have grabbed the White
House by the throat and choked it to
the floor.
I probably could have sold my
story to every newspaper in the
world. It was die type of story that
would have made Bob Woodward
(one of the journalists who broke
Watergate) exclaim, “I’ve accom
plished nothing in my career in jour
nalism! Steve’s story has robbed me
of my glory! By the way, Deep Throat
was really my pet basset hound! ”
I even had a source who was will
ing to admit that President Clinton -
desperate for foreign campaign con
tributions - committed “lewd” acts
with first cat Socks. A White House
aid was going to go on record saying
Clinton performed these acts in front
of Chinese dignitaries who wanted to
see “just what their money could
buy.”
And how much did they pay
Clinton? Well, I’m sad to say that our
president bucked for much less than
you might think, namely $13 and a
half-eaten Butterfinger candy bar.
Yep, it would have been a great
column, but you won’t see it this
week. Since I failed to submit a col
umn last week, I feel it is more impor
tant that I address my absence.
Therefore the Clinton story is, for the
time being, on hold. This topic is far
more pressing.
For you see, in the three years that
I have written for the DN, I have
never failed to submit a column - that
is, until last Friday. I wish I could tell
you I was involved in some humorous
event that kept me from writing my
column last week.
I wish, for example, that I could
say that I spent last week standing in
front of the State Capitol protesting
my inability to get a date by random
ly slapping strangers on the back of
die neck. But I can’t.
Truth is, I was just busy.
That’s it.
I was just plain ol’ busy.
Homework, school projects and work
had consumed too much of my time.
And for that, I would like to apologize
heartily.
But I am truly thankful for one
thing: I know I’ve got a sympathetic
audience in you folks. College stu
dents are probably the only ones who
truly understand what it means to be
really busy. I’ve got so many things
going on in my me tnat i nave to pen
cil “take a dump” into my daily plan
ner. Those of us who work a full-time
job while taking 16 hours of classes at
UNL have no misgivings about how
hard the “real world” will be.
Personally, I can’t wait to be done
with school. The real world will be a
cakewalk compared to what I’m
doing now. But don’t just take my
word about how busy my life has
been. Allow me to walk you through
one of my better days last week. After
reading this, I have no doubts that
everyone will completely understand
why I missed my column. Here, for
your understanding, is a day in the
life of Steve Willey:
3:30 a.m. Unable to sleep
because of a racing mind, I get out of
bed and make myself a mayonnaise
sandwich.
4:30 a.m. After consuming seven
mayo sandwiches and the better part
of a jar of honey, I arrive at Super
Saver - in only my underwear - to
purchase more mayonnaise.
5:00 a.m. Finally able to forget
the next day’s demands, I crawl back
into bed.
5:15 a.m. Cell phone rings. My
boss - who lives in Omaha - is unable
to find his slippers. Since it’s cold
outside, he offers to pay me to drive
up and get his paper, which is resting
in the driveway, for him.
5:30 a.m. Sorely needing money
to pay a backlog of court fines, I head
to Omaha.
6:30 a.m.Two minutes away from
my boss’s home, I get a call from him,
and he informs me that he was wear
ing his slippers the whole time, and I
can go back to bed.
6:37 a.m. Stop at run-down gas
station outside of Omaha and write
boss’s phone number and the phrase,
“For a good time call... ” on men’s
room wall.
7:37 a.m. Arrive back in Lincoln,
shower, study and leave for class.
8:30 a.m. Arrive at communica
tions class.
8:31 am. Notice that none of my
classmates look familiar.
8:32 am. Find out that I am sit
ting in a 300-level French class.
Professor cusses at me in French, and
says how appalled she is that this late
in the semester I’m unaware of where
my communications class meets.
9:30 a.m. Skip philosophy class
because, after a brief look in my plan
ner, I see that 1 am scheduled to “take
a dump” that hour.
10:30 a.m. Arrive at work, begin
selling appliances.
2:00 p.m. Still selling. Some
strange man keeps calling back want
ing to know if I would be interested in
buying a sofa that, if left outside dur
ing the winter months, could also
double as a chest freezer.
3:00 p.m. Installing a dishwasher
at a new home. While putting in the
dishwasher, I fail to realize the elec
tricity is still, as we say in the appli
ance industry, “on,” which means it is
capable of giving me a permanent
afro that resembles Don King’s.
3:07 p.m. As luck would have it,
several hundred thousand volts of
electric current pulse through my
body.
3:15 p.m. As I am still convulsing
on the kitchen floor, alarmed home
owners attempt to saturate the flames
that have sprouted in my hair by
throwing water on the power supply.
6:00 p.m. After finally getting the
dishwasher put in, I arrive at a rental
prop
erty to deliver a
refrigerator. In my haste to finish, so
that I might attend my night class, I
slip and lose my footing. My tumble
causes me to unintentionally release
my grasp on a 700-pound refrigera
tor, which falls down three flights of
steps and lands uncomfortably on an
elderly woman and her poodle. I
sneak down to the gruesome scene
and place a cunningly-forged invoice
from a competing appliance store
inside the door of the refrigerator.
8:00 p.m. Overwhelmed for the
day, I arrive late to my night class and
sneak to the back.
8:45 p.m. Notice my econ profes
sor is speatong rrencn.
- 8:50 p.m. Professor notices me,
says she can’t believe I’d have the
audacity to come back to the same
room and throws an overhead projec
tor in my general direction, only it
doesn’t quite get to me because I’m
way in the back and the overhead hits
squarely on the shins of a non-tradi
tional student.
8:55 p.m. Leave class.
9:00 p.m. After a quick mayon
naise sandwich at home, I tackle the
mounds of paperwork I have from
work and school.
11:57 p.m. Cellular phone rings.
Boss says he’s got too much to do in
Amy Martin/DN
Omaha tomorrow.
He wants me to meet him at the ware
house in order to pick up the appli
ances and haul them back to Lincoln
for deliveries next day.
12:58 a.m. Leave for Omaha.
Stop briefly at gas station to write
some words down on the men’s room
wall.
So there you have just a typical
day in the life of Steve. 1 hope it helps
you understand where I’m coming
from and why I missed my column
last week. I just tried to do the best
with what I had and, unfortunately,
my column had to suffer.
It s sort ot like the two end pieces
on a loaf of bread: Nobody wants
them, but sometimes you still got to
use ’em to make a sandwich so that
you might eat and forget to do your
column on time. (Whatever that
means.)
Or maybe I just need to keep more
bread in the cupboard. That way, I can
concentrate on those Pulitzer Prize
winning columns -such as our presi
dent making out with a feline, for
example.
