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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (March 25, 1999)
EDITOR Erin Gibson OPINION EDITOR Cliff Hicks EDITORIAL BOARD Nancy Christensen Brad Davis Sam McKewon Jeff Randall Bret Schulte Our VIEW Share the wealth NU athletic department should repay students The University of Arizona athletic department did a profound thing a couple months ago. It thought beyond the athletic box. See, the Arizona campus is building a student union, too. And, unlike students at UNL, who had to partially pay for the union, our counterparts at Arizona did not have to do the same. / Why not? Well the athletic department decided to donate $500,000 to the union as part of a “non-academic allocation” to pay for the students. What a novel idea. Thinking of the folks who support the ath letic teams instead of just thinking about themselves. It is original, and actually, the right thing to do. The athletic department at Arizona won over a bunch of people with that move. It’s charitable, sure, but what a nice image it puts on the department. Maybe this is buy ing friendship, but that doesn’t mean its not effective. Imagine if this type of thing happened at Nebraska. Our athletic department, based on the success of the football team and many other Husker squads, does well. Very well. And spreading the wealth around in terms of big, fat donations might be a wise political move. In its 1997-98 annual report, the athlet ic department reported that it received $934,000 from pickle card sales in Nebraska. They received $237,500 from brick sales inside Memorial Stadium. There were numerous other donations from various clubs, such as the Cattle Club. Now consider some of the projects the athletic department spent that money on or will spend their money on: Memorial Stadium waterproofing, $1.8 million (what are they waterproofing?); carpet replacement in the Hewitt Center, $25,000; a remodeling of the football coaches’ lock er rooms, $75,000. The list goes on and on. Hey, how about throwing some money our way, Bill Byrne? How about paying for the union or some other big project in the future? We’ve got no problem putting your name on a plaque and dedicating a part of the study area to you. The athletic department has a greedy image around campus. Not that it really matters; students will still continue to attend athletic events regardless of how they’re treated. But it would be nice to rec ognize those who support the program with a little sharing o’ the green. Nebraska should follow up on the opportunity that Arizona took and make good on it. Pay for something big. Don’t insult our intelligence and tell us you don’t have the money. Trust us, we’d rather have a more complete union than HuskerVision screens in the Devaney Center. 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 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 of the paper. According to policy set by the regents, responsibility for 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 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, 1400 R St. Lincoln, NE. 68588-0448. E-mail: letters@unlinfo.unl.edu. Brookins’ VIEW To protect and annoy A personal police escort has its downsides CLIFF HICKS is a senior news-editorial and English major and the Daily Nebraskan opinion editor. Sure, call me paranoid if you want, but I know they’re watching me. Who? The cops, the fuzz, the police department, man, that oppres sive force at work. They’re after me. Following me 24/something. See, you think I’m paranoid already, don’t you? Just hear me out. I wasn’t always this bad -1 was, when I was younger, a normal, fully functioning member of society. Now, here I am, a time bomb of nerves any time I set foot into my car. Those of you who were here about a year ago may recall the column I wrote about my exploits in the infa mous S.T.O.P. class I had to take, which is designed to teach how bad speeding (and reckless driving) is. In my column, I had my fun - poked and jabbed at the police and exaggerated a couple of things. (Some student actually believed me when I joked that you had to take a blood/urine test to get into the class. We’re really weeding out the low end of the bunch here at the U., aren’t we?) But all was said in fun and games, and though the law came down to talk to me about it (because, like I said, someone actually took it seriously), I figured all was forgotten and forgiv en. Boy, was THAT a mistake on my part. There are a lot of police in Lincoln, and I’m sure many of them are doing a fine job. I’ve met many of them while I’ve been here, and they’re generally good folk. But let me tell you a little story that ought to give you at least a couple of laughs. When I got the ticket that led to me being in the S.T.O.P. class, I was at a different apartment complex, and there were two speed traps (oops, i-.. - - " “speed stlectives” - sorry, officers) basically right in front of it. I know this, of course, because I got hit in one and my roommate got hit in the other. And we lived just five minutes from campus by car. Then, last year, we moved. We had, naturally, both grown rather ner vous about the two speed traps (er, selectives - look, a halibut is a halibut by any other name, no matter how fishy it is, so let’s call this thing what it is - a speed trap) so we figured once we’d move, they’d be gone and we could relax our driving tendencies just a little. Nope. We moved, and the traps moved with us. Now, instead of two traps, there are five regularly trapped spots on the way home, although we do now live about 15 minutes from campus, so I suppose the traps went up propor tionately. And they have pulled me over for the most obscure things you can pos sibly think of: My front license plate is in my front window (as it fell off and I haven’t had a chance to put it back on yet), I had a back tail light out, the M-16 pointed out of one of my rear windows extended more than six inches from the edge of the vehi cle, I made a turn into the wrong lane (Did you remember that you’re sup posed to turn into the lane closest to you, and you can’t change lanes for at least 300 feet?), the armor plating on my car was too thick, a radar dish extends too far from the top of it and, my favorite, (can you believe this?) an “improperly mounted” flame thrower on my hood. Oh, please. Like they’re easy to attach. You put one on quickly in a fire fight and we’ll see how straight it points. They pull me over for anything because they’re everywhere around me. It’s like having my own police escort wherever I go, which has its upsides and downsides. The down sides are that all my friends and I get paranoid about our driving. The upside is that we never wait long if something breaks down. My roommate, Chris, hasn’t been spared from this torture either. I’m starting to think they’re picking on him simply because he lives at the same place I do. While I can under stand the speeding ticket, I’m almost positive there’s no law against imitat ing a UPS driver (he has the full brown outfit and everything), at least not when you’re not hying to deliver packages. The fact that he installed those weird red lights on the front of his car doesn’t help, because any time he gets stopped, I swear the officer starts talk ing to the car before they start talking to him. (“KITT? You know how fast you were going?”) Beyond all this, though, I think the police don’t particularly like his bumper stickers. While the “I Love Explosives” bumper sticker was somewhat of an antagonistic start as was the “Tattooed White Trash,” the “LPD Swallows Live Sparrows on Weekends” was just going all together too far. I’m afraid of what comes next. An alternate explanation of the acronym LPD probably. Or an NWA quote. Chris is getting as paranoid as I am. It’s almost as though the two of us have become singled out The other night apparently there was a party in the vague vicinity of our apartment building. I know this, mainly because there was a knock on the door, and when I opened if there were three police onicers, a SWA1 team, two police dogs and the chief himself! “We heard there was a disturbance about nine blocks from here and your neighbors say the walls are so thick that they can never hear anything, but we still figured you might be respon sible for the ruckus. Mind if we come in?” (It’s worth noting the SWAT team looked disappointed that they had brought the battering ram for naught.) “Well, I dunno,” I replied. “We can go get a warrant from the judge we’ve got locked up in our trunk, if you want.” So after they came in, searched the place, put some wire taps around and made me dance an Irish jig (I’m not even Irish!), they left. Oh, and they shot me in the leg for the hell of it So, yeah, I’m a touch paranoid about the police and I never drive faster than 30 miles an hour any where. Ever. Remember that if you see me dri ving somewhere. And remember the frame thrower works. Author’s Note: Andfor whoever didn’t get it last time, yeah, virtually none of this happened either. ... ....1 y Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 "R" St., Lincoln, • fax to (402) 472-1761, or e-mail <letters@unlinfb.unl.edu. tiers must be signed and include a phone number for verification