EDITOR
Paula Lavigne
OPINION
EDITOR
Joshua Gillin
EDITORIAL
BOARD
Brad Davis
Erin Gibson
Shannon Heffelfinger
Chad Lorenz
Jeff Randall
Our
VIEW
New rules
miss mark
Sen. Chambers
still can delay bills
Senators in the Nebraska Legislature
are nervously checking their wrist
watches as precious minutes tick away
in the shortened 60-day session.
Friday, they thought they found a
way to conserve time over the entire
session by getting one man to shut up.
But it probably won’t be that easy.
It seems to be no secret in the
Legislature that the rules changes
passed 29-6 last week were designed to
keep Sen. Ernie Chambers from using
filibuster and stall tactics to fight bills
he didn’t support.
instead, senators can go through a
different process to debate a bill, (but
two-thirds of the Legislature has to
agree to use that process). A trio of sen
ators then will meet - the speaker of the
Legislature, the senator who introduced
the bill and the chairman of the com
mittee where the bill originated. Other
concerned senators may join.
That small group has to agree on
how to strucfure debate, which involves
deciding on the number of amend
ments, putting the amendments in order
on the agenda and determining debate
time limits. After debate has been struc
tured, the three (or more) will present
tljeplari. to,the. rest of the Legislature..
This is where it gets really compli
cated.
Other senators may then argue about
the group’s proposed debate plan. That
means they will be debating about how
to debate the bill. Remember, the goal
was to save time.
If this process is enacted only a few
times, it might work. But that’s not like
ly
This week, Chambers plans to pull
all his bills off the agenda. If he doesn’t
have to worry about his own bills, he
would have more time to devote to
debating other bills. Or debating how to
debate them.
“I’m going to clear the battlefield,”
he said.
The man the Legislature was trying
to shut up now has the device to make
his voice louder. It seems like a lot of
trouble to go through to try to get one
man to behave, even if the measure does
work.
It seems the democratic system has a
different way to silence those who truly
interfere with legislative process. It’s
called the election.
And constituents in Chambers’ dis
trict seem to be pretty satisfied with
what he’s doing, considering they put
him in office for the 28th year.
Let the man speak. He speaks for his
people.
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Haney’s
VIEW
DN
LETTERS
When in Rome...
Lori Robison’s column on her gen
eral dislike of the Nebraska football
program (No Big Red, Jan. 19) was
very enlightening. I am a Husker fan,
and I would have to agree that some
Husker fans are quite obsessed, but
learn to deal with it. Would you rather
go to a school that has mediocre ath
letic programs and that nobody cares
about? I went to school in Iowa for a
year and I had to listen to Iowa
1 Hawkeye fans spout off about a foot
ball program that seems to fall short
every year. I did not like to listen to it,
but I lived with it.
Nebraska football has been a
source of pride for our state since the
Bob Devaney era, and I do not see it
changing any time soon. Allow your
self a little extra time to find your
parking space downtown, and you’ll
make it through these crazy football
seasons.
l he Nebraska football team does
bring in a lot of money for the school,
and you should be glad it does. The
whole university benefits from the
revenue the football program brings
in. I think the university is concerned
with giving the students a quality edu
cation, not pumping out ftiture NFL
players or trying to make as much
money off student tickets as it possibly
can. Not all schools have free student
tickets for athletics. I have a friend
who goes to Iowa State, and he actual
ly pays money to see the pathetic
Cyclones play football.
And why would you be upset that
your daughter is becoming a Husker
football fan? You said you are a
Baltimore Orioles fan. Would you'
have wanted your parents to tell you
that you couldn’t be? Your family will
probably not fall apart if your daugh
ter is a Nebraska football fan.
Bottom line, Nebraskans love the
Huskers, and that probably will not
change, so put some headphones on
during football Saturdays and try to
block it all out.
Stephen J. Havelka
senior
political science
I
... get over it...
Ms. Robison,
I have two words in response to
your column in Monday’s Daily
Nebraskan: Then move.
By the way, kudos to your daugh
ter for taking pride and an interest in a
hard-working, successful athletic
organization. Just because we get
excited about having a good football
team does not mean we all turn into
blithering idiots when the season
begins. I think your daughter is safe.
Holly Ude
freshman
elementary education
... but while you’re here...
I would like to thank Lori Robison
for acknowledging the presence of
people who aren’t into Husker-mania
in her Jan. 19 article.
I’ve lived in other towns across
Nebraska, and Lincoln seems to be the
most football-oriented place of all. I’m
not against Husker-mania, I just don’t
care. Spending hours crammed into
Memorial Stadium or in front of the tele
vision watching football doesn’t appeal
to me. The problem I have is when peo
ple look at me as if I’m from another
planet because I’m not interested.
One day I was at work and this
man asked me what I thought about a
recent Husker game.
I said, “Oh, I don’t pay any atten
tion to football.”
He looked at me as if I had thrown
up on him, then he walked out with a
look of disbelief. I think people should
stop with the idea of: Nebraskan=die
hard football fan, or that it’s abnormal
if you don’t care about Tom Osborne
or the latest news on the players.
There’s nothing wrong at all with
dedicated, active football fans but
there’s nothing wrong either with peo
ple who don’t get into it
Damon Wilson
sophomore
fine arts
... do as the Romans do.
I enjoyed (Shawn Meysenburg’s)
editorial (Language lessons, Jan. 19).
1 agree wholeheartedly that a well
rounded education should include
mastery of at least some foreign lan
guage. The quandary, however, is,
“What language should I learn?” In
high school, I took three years of
German, but quite fraaklyiravsn’t
used it since. I might rememberafew
lines.
We, as Americans, often look to
other cultures and bemoan, “Their
children all study two languages, why
can’t ours?” But for nonspeakers of
English the answer is easy: They learn
English in school because it is the
international language of business. It’s
much more a necessity for them to
learn English than it is for us to learn
some other language.
I lived for a time m Thailand, long
enough to learn enough of the lan
guage to be able to carry on a reason
able conversation. I didn’t need it for
business because ail of the people
from all of the different countries I did
business with spoke English. Why did
I learn their language? When in
Rome.... Actually, it was kind of fun,
but difficult because of the tonal qual
ity of the language, not unlike
Chinese. The other thing was that the
Thai people really enjoyed seeing a
foreigner make the effort to learn their
language, however poorly spoken, and
would make an extra effort to fry to
communicate with you. Bargaining in
their language in the street markets
also had the effect of reducing prices.
So the bottom line is, do you learn
a language in high school that you
may never use in your life, or do you
learn a language later in life when
there may be an actual usefulness to
it?
I say yes to both.
Tim Bruggeman
UNL alumnus
