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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 30, 1998)
EDITOR Erin Gibson OPINION EDITOR Cliff Hicks EDITORIAL BOARD Nancy Christensen Brad Davis Sam McKewon Jeff Randall Bret Schulte Our VIEW Blood-alcohol discontent Tactics needed to avoid drunken driving disasters Enough 16- to 20-year-olds died in alco hol-related car crashes in 1994 to replace every engineering college undergraduate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The approximately 2,222 deaths would wipe out nearly half of the arts and sciences undergraduates and one-quarter of the student section at Memorial Stadium. It would wipe out die architecture college students more than four times. Last year, these statistics ripped into the flesh of our campus when student Laura Cockson was killed by a drunken driver. Many students pledged to stop drinking and driving, while many others pledged to become activists for the cause. But drunken driving remains common in Lincoln, and a lot of it starts downtown - just right around the comer from the university." The figures on local drunken driving arrests prove another death could happen here soon. As of Nov. 1, Lincoln police had arrested about 1,130 offenders this year for driving while intoxicated - a figure about 20 percent hiaher than last vear It’s good to know drunken drivers in Lincoln have a good chance of being caught. But for every one arrested, many more were on the road. Ana national statistics snow nrst-time DWI offenders who are arrested have an aver age blood-alcohol concentration of. 19. People are legally drunk with .10, and drinkers’ dri ving ability is considerably impaired at .05 - just two drinks for a 160-pound male. The fact that first-time offenders have an average blood-alcohol content of almost dou ble the legal level tells us that people are dri ving while obviously intoxicated, and that police with limited resources catch mostly the worst drunken drivers. It’s not the fault of the police. It’s the fault of every Lincoln student and resident who does not wholeheartedly believe drunken dri ving is akin to driving with the intent to harm or kill. It’s the fault of everyone who has watched friends drive away from a bar or party with four or more beers under their belts. It’s the fault of every person or group - and that includes us - who has asked, “Are you OK to drive?” then has believed drunken friends when they answered, “Yeah, I’m fine. I quit drinking a couple of hours ago.” This holiday season, Lincoln police have more training to detect impaired drivers than they did last year. They’re doing their part to save our lives. We must meet them halfway. Promise yourself you will help prevent drunken driving this holiday season. Give friends and family your phone number in case they need an emergency ride home. Be a des ignated driver. Write the number for a Lincoln taxi service in your wallet. And, for more than 2,000 Lauras’ sakes, don’t drink and drive away. i—ilium Unsigned editorials are the opinions of the FaH 1998 Daily Nebraskan. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, its employees, its student body or the University of Nebraska Board of Regents. A column is solely the opinion of its author. The Board of Regents serves as publisher of the Daily Nebraskan; policy is set by the Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board. The UNL Publications Board, established by the regents, supervises the production the regents, responsibility forthe editorial content of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of its student employees. IMWHfci The Daily Nebraskan welcomes brief letters to the editor and guest columns, but does not guarantee their publication. The Daily Nebraskan retains the right to edit or reject any material submitted. Submitted material becomes property of the Daily Nebraskan and cannot be returned. Anonymous submissions will not be published. Those who submit letters must identify themselves by name, year in school, major and/or group affiliation, if any. Submit material to: Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400R St. Lincoln, NE. 68588-0448. E-mail: letters@unlinfo.unl.edu. « Mook’s VIEW DN LETTERS Hostility not unjust What? You mean there was a reli gious component in our early American history? How dare you be so politically incorrect (“The first thanks: Insight given into roots of holiday,” Tuesday)! Wait until the academics get hold of what you reproduced. They’ll expunge this offending document immediately before it contaminates our public school children. As for the unhappy relationships with the Indians, the Puritans, of course, could not rest secure then, as now, on the white man’s total domi nance and control; then they could hardly be magnanimous without risk ing death. Perhaps they had an excuse to feel apprehensive, even hostile. The obvious struggle with their faith in God during those utterly demoral izing times is a fascinating study in itself- a theme in early American his tory that is nowadays, by law and spiritual unease, consigned to obliv ion. In either case, in terms of reli gion or security, those folks lived in a very different time, with very differ ent perspectives. By contrast, we, whose greatest dread is having to sign up for an 8 a.m. class and whose racial and eth nic relationships are comfortably the oretical anyway, may have trouble appreciating this difference. Jon Mark Ruthven associate professor systematic theology Regent University . School of Divinity Virginia Beach, Va. ... for a reason, anyway The reproduction of the first Thanksgiving proclamation on your editorial page (“The first thanks,” Tuesday) was, like all good propaganda, shorn of any historical contc Perhaps you’ll permit me provide it The proc written toward the King Philip tionate terms war in American hist< It kill-ed more people as a percent age of the total population than any- con flict before or since. It was an extraor dinarily brutal conflict which, had the Indians remained united ana focused, would likely have meant the end of the American colonies. A modern-day equivalent would be a war that claimed 5 million American lives. Vietnam, by contrast, killed fewer than 60,000. The proclamation’s authors had recently seen a large portion of the European population of western and southeastern Massachusetts - men, women and children - butchered. Those were their friends, their rela tives, sometimes their children. (Of course, they retaliated with similar brutalities.) Recalling those circum stances might go some way to illumi nating the ‘anti-American Indian’ sentiment of the proclamation, and maybe lead your readers to a some what more sophisticated view of his tory than the infantile ‘white man bad, Indian good’ sentiment that seems to be the essence of multicul turalism. Happy Thanksgiving, and above all else, be thankful we’re at peace. Gerry Harbison UNL professor chemistry Hotel prison? Maybe another sce nario should be con sidered in the punish ment of murderers. A prison should be built with four bare walls and iron bars for a door. No heat or any of the “luxuries” of life. Every day, twice a day, a bowl of gruel and a glass of water for the meals. No cable TV, no library access, no weight rooms, no phones or college-by-mail courses. We should make prison just that - a prison as well as a punish ment. I agree with Tasha Kuxhausen (“Life or Death: Death penalty the best punishment for violent murder ers in the United States,” Nov. 20) that murderers (should) lose all rights once they’re convicted. And to go along with Cooper (“Capital punishment must be abol ished to save taxpayers’ money, con science,” Nov. 20), to save money, this bare-bones prison system should be built. I’m not sure on the actual amount, but it costs something like $70,000 a year to house an inmate. This sounds like an obscenely large amount. Whether the death penalty is wrong or not, murderers have no rights, and they should receive a pun ishment, not a stay at a resort. Brian Owens UNL alumnus Lincoln