EDITOR
Josh Funk
OPINION
EDITOR
Mark Baldridge
EDITORIAL
BOARD
Lindsay Young
Jessica Fargen
Samuel McKewon
Cliff Hicks
Editorial Policy
Unsigned editorials are the opinions of
the Fall 1999 Dally 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.
Acolumn 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.
Our
VIEW
Obligations
of access
Cable company should
offer more services
The city has taken the short end of
the stick from its resident cable monop
oly.
As we move toward the day when
cable companies supply some share of
our Internet access, the agreement
between the city and Time Warner needs
expanding and enlarging.
There is only one cable supplier in
the area, which exists under obligations
to the city government to supply facili
ties for public access, among other
things.
However, cable companies in similar
cities, under similar contract, offer
more, and very specific, services to the
cities they serve, according to “The
Cable Television Franchise Needs
Ascertainment Study for the City of
Lincoln, Nebraska” released in July by
the independent River Oaks
Communications Corporation.
In it are the recommendations of the
group, which the DN endorses, particu
larly the following:
“Upgraded equipment for the State
of-the-Art Mobile Studio - Dedicated to
the City within 30 days after the signing
of the franchise.
“An up-front payment of $700,000 to
upgrade equipment and provide digital
equipment at City Channel 5.
“Fully equipped digital production
studio to be used by the City, LPS and
private schools (K-12).
“Free Internet service for students at
LPS and private (K-12) schools.”
These and other obligations to the
city represent an increase by millions of
dollars in the cable provider’s responsi
bilities, and careful attention should be
paid to ensure that all new demands are
met in a timely manner.
One thing in particular the report
mentions that can be seen as a failure of
our cable provider to live up to even its
current contractual obligations, or to
have fulfilled them only in the letter of
the law, is public access.
As it stands, public access program
ming is available on channel 80, but not
to all subscribers.
Depending on the age and make of
your television set, public access may
appear on other channels or not at all.
This is unacceptable and should be
addressed in any future franchise agree
ment between the city and Time Warner.
It makes little sense to have cable
companies competing in Lincoln for
your business. Therefore, whoever is
allowed to control cable access in the
future has dues that must be paid in
terms of free services to schools,
libraries, government offices and the
community at large.
loner Policy
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■
Obermeyer’s
VIEW
yE WANT SruD£M7ST^^
ORTEI} ANP £MP0W£to/J
j^T STuppN/r fiSiSriofJ
Let it pour
Profits from university should come right back to it
Deep pockets indeed:
Student expenditures alone sup
ported 6,000 off-campus jobs.
That’s a lot of pizza, guys.
And it’s ongoing work. The uni
versity itself supports 26,000 jobs
off campus, resulting in a total of
nearly $960 million in earnings.
Sometimes, to the NU Board of
Regents and even to state senators, it
may seem like the university is some
kind of money-devouring machine,
as chaotic and unreal as I suspect it
may really be.
They may wish, at times, that
they could somehow surgically sepa
rate the football team - which has
obvious value to the state - from the
sickly, para
^ sitic
twin of academia.
But it turns out the U more than
carries its weight in terms of those
same regents’ and senators’ most
earthly value, the almighty buck.
And the study cited does not
even begin to touch on the value
added to the state by an educated cit
izenry, as taxpayers, innovators or
future leaders.
Nor does it cover the value of
research that goes on at the universi
ty or the incoming population of out
of-state students who settle in
Nebraska.
In fact, this is sort of a bare
bones, conservative estimate of the
financial impact of the university,
and in no way can it paint the full
picture.
I see it happening all around me.
I’ve bought my books, and I go to
classes, but somehow it lacks
authenticity. I remain unconvinced.
What are we playing at? Why are
we pretending?
Compared with the work of feed
ing your face, keeping a roof over
your head, doing what pleases you
or even just thinking about
what pleases you, this
business of schedules
and assignments
seems like a point
Nevertheless, the picture it paints
is green.
It would seem the annual har
',act of new students is the
state’s No. 1 cash crop, the
best way to throw
money away.
Maybe I don’t
believe it’s real. Maybe it’s
#not real.
But the university is as
real as good business, as
real as dividends on Wall
less ritual, an ^
arbitrary fren
zy.
Yet they
tell me this
chaos is
worth
dollars
and
cents to the state.
Billions of dollars and,
I don’t know, a lot of
Street.
As real as, in this
crazy world of inverted
values, it gets.
And the state should
prick up its sow’s ears and
wpen its silk purse.
Money for the university
should be plentiful and easy. It
should flow in like a steady
stream, since it seems inevitably
to gush out in torrents.
• No longer the impractical resi
dents Of fanciful ivory towers, the
classics professors, the students of
romance languages, even the hang
ers-on of higher learning enjoy the
status of a Trump or a Gates, creators
of wealth.
cents.
In fact, the state
spent $342 million on
the university system in
1997-98 and boosted the econo
my by $3.5 billion.
That’s “billion” with a “b”,
friends, and it represents a return
on investment of slightly over 1000
percent - this according to a study
released Aug. 25 by the Bureau of
Business Research at UNL.
That’s a pretty hefty payoff and
one the state would be hard-pressed
to beat in any conventional invest
ment opportunity.
How is it done, this division of so
many loaves and so many fishes into
casseroles for the multi
tudes?
The university is the best thing
that ever happened to this state, and
it won’t do to let anyone, ever, for
get it.
So let’s see those allocations;
let’s see those programs funded,
those buildings refurbished, those
technological underpinnings, er,
underpinned.
If money is enough to make this
play-acting real, well, the smallest
shadow of a doubt should never
cross my mind.
Where does all
that money come
from?
From you, in
part, from your
pockets and your
parents’ pockets.
&
Mark Baldridge is a senior English major and the opinion editor of the Daily Nebraskan.
