EDITOR
Josh Funk
OPINION
EDITOR
Mark Baldridge
EDITORIAL
BOARD
Lindsay Young
Jessica Fargen
Samuel McKewon
Cliff Hicks
Our
VIEW
Hands
off
Cell phone law not
right accident solution
Right idea. Wrong approach.
Talking on your cellular phone while dri
ving through Brooklyn, Ohio, could land you
a $3 fine. Not a lot for a first offense.
Subsequent offenses can go as high as
$100.
Maybe it’s just another small-town solu
tion and has no ramifications outside of that
small town.
But maybe it’s bigger than that.
The law, believed to be one of the first in
the nation, prohibits using a cell phone while
driving unless both hands are on the steering
wheel.
^ .. o , „
exceptions are maue iui emergency cans,
using a phone in a parked car or using a
speakerphone.
Maybe it’s your right to jabber on the
phone while you drive - after all, you can
switch radio stations or check out your mug
in the rearview mirror, and it won’t cost you a
dinie.' . a
U n 1 e ss
you get in a The law, believed
wreck
And dri- to be one of the
vers talldng ^ ^
phones are nation, prohibits
more likely to
get in a using your cell
wreck * ^
A 1997 phone while
study m the driving unless
New England °
Journal of both hands are
Medicine .
found that on the steering
Ski, : whee!
driving quadrupled the risk of an accident
and was almost as dangerous as being drunk
behind the wheel.
And according to the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration, cell phones
were a contributing factor in 57 fatal crashes
in 1997.
Senous numbers.
It’s a serious problem.
We like the idea of keeping the roads safe.
But there’s a better way to do it.
Trying to solve the problem by making it
a crime won’t work. It may only make people
resent law enforcement for infringing on
what they may see as a private right.
So steer away from enforcement and pun
ishment and head toward the private sector.
Look to the car manufacturers. Give them
tax breaks, whatever it will take, to get them
to install hands-free cell phone technologies
in new cars.
Market the hands-free cell phones like
they are Ricky Martin and the Backstreet
Boys. Make people love them.
It’s a technology issue, not an issue for the
police.
Editorial Policy
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the Fall 1999 Daily Nebraskan. They do
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A column is solely the opinion of its author.
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I
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Obermeyer’s
a VIEW
"ANOTHER SELLOUT AT MEMORIAL STADIUM...*'
Bugs in His System
Graham Johnson never ceases to
amaze me. After reading his Friday
opinion article, I must ask where he
gets this stuff!
Does he have any evidence to
back up his inane, epithet-dependent
drivel?
Even the part about McDonald’s
in France is misrepresentative: the
“protests” (I call them defacement
and vandalism) are directed against
Americanization, not just globaliza
tion.
Furthermore, has Mr. Johnson
proof that pesticides approved by the
same FDA that won’t approve thou
sands of potentially life-saving drugs
are hazardous?
Is he just an ideologue, or is there
actually a poison threat in biotechnol
ogy?
He mentions associative econom
* ics. Obviously, he is no economist if
he believes food ridden with bugs at
low quantities is better than safe,
larger, juicier, higher-quality (and
quantity) food.
Bryan Gordon
visiting student
German,
economics and math
DN
LETTERS
pus, neither should the alumni or
other adults.
Jana Bartels
senior
business education
Driving It Home
In reference to Lane Phillips’ let
ter on Thursday:
I think you are missing the point
of students’ complaints about the
parking problem here at UNL.
The point being made is that we
students have paid around^ 100 of our
hard-earned mondy in order for the
university to provide us with a place
to park our “poison-gas” producing
cars.
For many of us, that money is
going to waste.
All that my parking permit has
given me these past few weeks is a
sign in my car to show to the people of
Lincoln that I am a student at the uni
versity.
Joel T. Peck
senior
criminal justice
Another Straw Man
Dear Mr. Rost,
dog with a fork, would it be moral?
No?
Then obviously, there is some
judge of morality higher than God.
Or maybe this question, like your
question about being told to kill your
mother (letters, Wednesday) is the
product of a sophistry that doesn’t
deserve to be taken seriously.
Mark Buhrdorf
senior ■
classics
Turkey in the Straw
“Would it be moral under the con
dition God told you to kill your moth
er?” (letters, Wednesday)
Read Genesis, chapter 22.
Ask yourself the question: Was it
moral under the condition that God
told Abraham to sacrifice his son?
I think you’ll find the answer to be
yes.
If God told someone to “kill his
mother,” the “thinking Christian”
would be justified to do so and the
action would be considered moral.
Matt Boettger
senior
computer science
wet Bar, Dry Campus
I just read in the Friday DN
thatUNL President Smith and j
UNL Chancellor Moeser will §
be appearing in newspa- <4r
per ads across the coun- 5 *
try to promote the
awareness of binge
drinking on campuses. N
That is great,
but Friday morn
ing my husband read
me part of an article in
the Lincoln Journal Star
about the pregame party
at the Wick Alumni -s
.xW
Center (on campus) ^
that had a cash bar.
I think if alcohol is *
permitted at one function,
it should be available
at all functions. Isn’t ;" :.
that fair? §§11
Personally, I don’t have
a problem with UNL being
a dry.campus, but if the stu- ’fT*
dents can’t drink on cam
It God told you to sodomize your
( XA/r l+o csto: Baity Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Ijnion, 1400 "R" St.,
^ ” V I * ® , Or fax to (402) 472-1761, qr e-mail <letters@unlinfo.un1
25q ^ ters must be signed and include a phone number for verificati
