EDITOR
Erin Gibson
OPINION
EDITOR
Cliff Hicks
EDITORIAL
BOARD
Nancy Christensen
Brad Davis
Sam McKewon
Jeff Randall
Bret Schulte
Our
VIEW
A lesson
to learn
Game taught fans
the art of losing
We’ve been through this before.
Before the 1998 season even started,
many of us even predicted it.
With a new coach, a new quarterback, a
new starting halfback and a whole lot of
new faces on defense, the Cornhuskers
weren’t supposed to be an unstoppable jug
gernaut.
They weren t supposed to sweep
through the Big 12 like they did so often in
past years.
They weren’t supposed to be in the
national championship hunt.
And on Saturday afternoon in College
Station, Texas, they proved it.
The Nebraska Comhuskers of 1998 are
not the Nebraska Comhuskers of 1997 ...
or 1994 ... or 1995.
For most people, that would be an obvi
ous fact. There aren’t any Tommie Fraziers,
Scott Frosts, Grant Wistroms or Jason
Peters around here anymore. Obvious,
right?
But in Nebraska, where the autumn
months usually mean tailgate parties and
sacrificial Division 1-A lambs, it took a
nationally televised game to prove it.
It took a game in which the Huskers -
down by three touchdowns with one quarter
remaining - were forced to play catch-up
with an offense that was not up tp the task.
The Aggies were not tfie sacrifibial
lambs that many Husker fans would’ve
liked to think they were.
lexas a&m has only lost one game this
year- and it was against Florida State. Texas
A&M is an 18th-ranked team that is on the
rise (even more so after Saturday). And, let’s
just admit it, on Saturday afternoon Texas
A&M was better than Nebraska.
Was it embarrassing?
Well, it shouldn’t have been.
In the Comhusker state, where football
fans are supposedly as savvy as any, we
haven’t quite mastered the skill of losing.
We can watch our team win game after
game and congratulate them for the fact that
they don’t run up the score.
But when they lose by one touchdown,
we cry and scream and lament our lack of
talent, our inexperience and our bad play
calling.
A few weeks ago, when ESPN paid
Lincoln a visit and witnessed the Huskers’
trouncing of an overblown Washington
team, the “College GameDay” crew said
Nebraska’s fans were among the best in the
country.
But they saw us on a day we were used to
having. Winning we can handle.
Maybe we should see the course of
events Saturday afternoon in College
Station, Texas, as more than a lesson for the
Comhuskers. We should see it as one for all
of us, too.
Editorial Fallen
Unsigned editorials are the opinions of
the Spring 1998 Daily Nebraskan. They
do not necessarily reflect the views of the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, its
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A column is solely the opinion of its author.
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Mook’s
VIEW
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’msmvtop
FIMEUST-SEW?
Equal showing
Forum sets standard for future decision-making
••
Its like voters of all ages and backgrounds
standing up and shouting to our leaders in
Washington, ‘Hey, don’t forget about us! ”
TODD ANDERSON is a
senior French, Spanish and
International Affairs major
and a Daily Nebraskan
senior staff writer.
This weekend more than 100
Nebraskans - including a significant
sample of students - added an extra
work day to their week for no extra
wages or bonuses.
Alongside participants from four
other states, they met to discuss reform
of die nation’s Social Security system,
which is facing possible insolvency and
fracture.The idea of putting a broad
sample of citizens in one room with the
goal of identifying solutions for tomor
row’s problems is not revolutionary
considering a newly found interest in
public forums at the regional and
national level.
Nevertheless, it does represent a
culturally significant step toward die
end of ensuring fair representation and
cooperative decision-making.
Nebraska’s participants in
Americans Discuss Social Security
represented nearly all segments of
Nebraska society with approximate sta
tistical accuracy in several areas such
as gender and age.
Thirty-eight percent of Nebraska’s
participants this weekend were under
age 35, and many of those were stu
dents.
They merit a hearty commendation
for breaking a divisional trend of apa
thy and general ignorance.
Imagine 500 people from five
states forming a group to discuss insti
tutional reform.
It’s like voters of all ages and back
grounds standing up and shouting to
our leaders in Washington, “Hey, don’t
forget about us.”
Brainstorming on Social Security
reform is not only historically signifi
cant and culturally symbolic, it’s
indicative of a whole new approach to
decision-making and fair representa
tion.
It is important that the United
States, in side step with the world, has
changed dramatically in the last 50
years.
In addition to seeing an end to the
era of tense, but certain, bilateral con
flict, the demographic structure of our
global society has seen confusing and
unpredictable changes.
International institutions have
found new courage to redefine basic
human rights and decide who is
accountable for upholding them.
Meanwhile, certain questions
remain to be answered at the national
level, and the Social Security program
- a contract between government and
the citizens of the society it protects - is
undoubtedly one of them.
For Americans who have counted
on the most successful social program
in the history of this country, there is nc
doubt our society, through government
institutions, bears die moral responsi
bility for ensuring the welfare of its
people.
In the case of Social Security,
orphans, retirees and spouses can be
confident of living out their lives in
dignity.
The question, therefore, is how to
adapt a 60-year-old system to broad
changes in a manner that reflects the
fundamental values of our society and
culture.
Those were the questions that 100
Nebraskans pondered and attempted to
answer Saturday.
Those are toe questions for which
we have a long way to go before find
ing clear-cut answers.
This weekend’s discussion forum
set toe standard for how future meet
ings should be conducted - only with
toe participation of bureaucrats and
policy-makers, as well as professionals
and toe working class.
While educating toe public and
seeking out forums for all voices to be
heard, groups like Americans Discuss
Social Security have shown it can be
done.
While a final model for such repre
sentation is still in toe experimental
stage, it’s a new form of democratic
input to fit a new world of continual
and rapid metamorphosis.
Yet, just as true democratic repre
sentation can only exist hand in hand
with strong civic conscience, public
willingness to support this new model
is toe key to its success.
And with the strong showing made
by younger segments of Nebraska soci- > j
ety, we seem to be on toe right track.
