The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current, February 18, 1999, Page 4, Image 4
EDITOR Erin Gibson OPINION EDITOR Cliff Hicks EDITORIAL BOARD Nancy Christensen Brad Davis Sam McKewon Jeff Randall Bret Schulte Our VIEW Silent statement With a budget cut, UPC is forced to make choices Faced with a budget cut, choices must be made. The Committee for Fees Allocation sent a clear message to some student fee users Tuesday: Do more with less. Though CFA pledged earlier this semester to hold the line on spending, it voted Tuesday to increase student fees $14, raising fees from $240 to $254 each semester. Part of the increase was because of a state mandated 4 percent salary increase pending in the Legislature. Each year, a group of students forms the CFA, and pours over the budgets of fund-using organizations. The group is sometimes forced to make difficult budget cuts. Most fee-using organizations, including Campus Recreation and the Daily Nebraskan, provide stellar services for what they receive. Some fee users, however, could follow the way of big-business, and “downsize” to trim costs. Both the University Program Council and * *_ Student Involvement •• were denied parts of I don’t want their budget increase requests. UPC to so . UPC s budget ° increase request was away. I want £,ut i° p®rcent Tuesday, which one them to CFA member said would force the pro shape up.” gramming group to r r evaluate which shows Jeff Woodward and musica* acts are CFA member most, lmPor,ant an<1 _ popular. CFA didn’t deny the increase to be malicious, but instead it realized that UPC need ed to, well, get its acts together. “I don’t want UPC to go away,” CFA member Jeff Woodford said. “I want them to shape up.” Often, UPC members say the organization doesn’t have enough money to lure big-name acts to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. It’s indisputable that Lincoln doesn’t quite have the reputation in the entertainment world of Lawrence, Kan., or Ames, Iowa, but the pro gramming council certainly can draw more than a washed-up rap group once a year. With its pared-down budget, the Daily Nebraskan agrees with CFA, and charges UPC to bring students more for less. While it’s important to bring musical acts, comedy shows and plays that aren’t of Top-40 popularity, it’s also possible for UPC to cut down on smaller shows and put more money toward a few bigger ones. Few students attend small concerts in The Crib, and frankly, a concert during the mid-after noon can be annoying to students hungry for a quiet place to study. UPC’s events aren’t a total bust, with appear ances by old-school rap group Run DMC, Simpsons animation director David Silverman and MTV’s Loveline topping the list of student favorites. The organization should build on these suc cesses and put more money toward program - ming of its caliber - programming that people actually attend and enjoy. Editorial Policy Unsigned editorials are the opinions of the Spring 1999 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 pubisher of the Daily Nebraskan; policy is set by the Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board. Tne UNL Publications Board, established by the regents, supervises the production of the paper. According to policy set by the regents, responsibility tor the editorial content of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of its student employees. Letter Policy 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 of 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, 1400 R St. Lincoln, NE. 68588-0448. E-mail: letters@unlmfo.iml.edu. Lupo’s VIEW .jtf." j . • -. -; '•-•■"yyJ, ij* •*.;“;-4 ••' •" ; i i 8i <d £ s I •W il I DN LETTERS So you say ••• Throw out the political parties, “convicted” or “acquitted,” and let’s get down to the heart of die matter. The problem is the decision-making of William Jefferson Clinton. It makes absolutely no difference whether what he actually did is our business or not. He made many deci sions out of totally selfish motives (which he has admitted to) and that reflects on him as a person. We DO have a right to know about the charac ter and integrity of a man who can affect the entire world with one state ment How can any justification be found in saying it was all right for Clinton to lie because the question shouldn’t have been asked? That’s like saying it’s OK to kill somebody because you don’t think they should own a gun! There is no correlation between the two whatsoever. Also, is it any solace that Clinton is morally in the bottom third of the people in this country? According to die polls cited in “Our View” (2/15), two out of three people in the U.S. think it’s allowable to cheat on your spouse as long as you don’t lie about it* If Clinton is truly sorry for what he did, then it was good of him to apologize. However, that doesn’t change the fact that he is not above the law. In America, there is supposed to be “justice for all,” even the presi dent. Jayson Bishop sophomore computer engineering JeffHemje sophomore electrical engineering Suspicious facts? I am writing in response to Mr. Peterson’s column “Suicidal tenden cies” (Feb. 12). In it, he states that in the Netherlands “babies bom with Down’s syndrome and spina bifida are now routinely euthanized ” This statement is false and defaming to the people of the Netherlands. In my country, babies are never euthanized, regardless of their condition at birth. Under Dutch law, such an act would be considered murder, and those guilty of it would be punished accordingly. I feel deeply offended by Mr. Peterson’s portrayal of my country as a place where newborns are “routine ly’’ killed according to the whims of parents or doctors. Considering Mr. Peterson is a news-editorial major, he should be careful to verify the source of infor mation before allowing his columns to be published. Sander Arendsen department of biochemistry Contesting assertions I want to compliment Matt Peterson on his column on euthana sia. I agree with part of his conclu sion that death should not be ruled out as a final option for those in severe physical pain. However, I am disturbed by what Peterson writes about the euthanasia policy in my country, the Netherlands. The allegation that babies born with Down’s syndrome and spina bifida are routinely euthanized in the Netherlands is false. Peterson’s infor mation is coming from unreliable anti-euthanasia Web sites such as http:/fwww. worldmag. com/world/iss ue/05-23-98/cover_1. asp. The accusation that comatose patients have sometimes been put to death in our country without individ ual or familial consent is, at least, One-sided. Euthanasia is illegal in the Netherlands. However, doctors are not prosecuted for it if the patient is in hopeless and intolerable pain, if the patient has voluntary and well-con sidered given permission and if at least two doctors agree on the proce dure. : My country has adopted this poli cy to prevent situations like the shoot ing of his terminally ill wife by the 74-year-old Nebraskan Bob Olrich. In the Netherlands, people can say goodbye for eternity to their ter minally ill and suffering loved ones in a more human way. Richard Luykea finance graduate student exchange student in finance from the Netherlands Editors note: The information for the column “Suicidal tendencies ” has been called “suspect ” by more than one letter writer, so the locations from which the columnist took his information are presented here: http://www. ohiolife. org/euth/neth hist.htm and http://x\,ww.chninterna tional.com/chninfo3. htm.