EDITOR Josh Funk OPINION EDITOR Mark Baldridge EDITORIAL BOARD Lindsay Young Jessica Fargen Samuel McKewon Cliff Hicks Our VIEW Politically naive Children shouldn’t he used to decide issue Take a look at a dollar bill. You’ve done it before. Now do it again. See the little “In God We Trust” insignia on there? That’s federal money. And it has a religious phrase on it. That’s definitely not a separation of church and state. Do we care? Not really. But very soon, six court cases will be coming before the U.S. Supreme ^ >_ Court regarding •• the separation of The President church and state And none of oj the United them have to do cv * + 1 with the dollar States takes biU-, _ T an oath on the The New York Times Bible. Why are reported in its ^ Sunday issue there no cases that of the six before the cases to be J brought to the COUrtS court in the next few weeks, five Contesting revolve around this:? school-related iniS’ issues. One deals with school-led prayer before football games. Another deals with whether or not private religious schools can share computer equipment with public schools. These cases reveal a larger truth of the church and state issue: the issue at hand isn’t the separation of church and state. Actually, it’s the separation of church and school. And that isn’t necessarily a good thing. We take no official stand on these cases, but rather raise the question of whether or not our nation has chosen to focus on the right group of people in shaping the land scape of our politics, especially when we don’t seem to care about separation of church and state once we become adults. Certainly, school children, even those of high school age, have no real grasp of this concept or the abstract ramifications of such a separation. They don’t even teach all the amendments of the Constitution until civics class, which comes in high school. Is it right to fight the use of relatively unsophisticated school children as a politi cal football? The President of the United States takes an oath on the Bible. Why are there no cases before the courts contesting this? The adult world is where these matters should be set tled - not a child’s world, where the only people who care are adults. How many children understand the notion of sharing equipment with private school children? How many care? In the real world, sharing has nothing to do with religious designation. We should not treat our children as a testing ground for these issues. Editorial Policy Unsigned editorials are the opinions of the Fall 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, 20 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St. Lincoln, NE. 68588-0448. E-mail: letters@unlinfo.unl.edu. Obermeyer’s VIEW AT THE BUSTO> DELTA TAll DELTA FRATERwt) PARTY... /So W'RZ GOlNE-fo HAVEtoX ( CONflSOATg -THESE 60 TO 70 ) \ cases of Efff. ^^y /I UNPERSTAND /so WHAT ARE VJ£ ( GOiNG^To BE \ CHAR(rED_V')ITH': //~7//ho ClTAT IONS v / ToT>Ay... guT W£ ARE \7 (^oiMCi- To HAVE T^ / I coM Pi 5oaT£ THESE /— / A 60 To 7o CASES of/ / \T BEER ***7H MKS TO THE Mahi Of PEltA TAu DELTA FOR PAVING-SUCH AN EASY TARCrET, MY JoS MUCH EASIER. KEEP UP WE GOOD Ifi/ORkt HoPB you mVEUJTS of NEW fK\£WSS?NEALQW)l>N Where Credit is Due In regards to the “Speed 101” arti cle published in Monday’s DN ... This response is in no way meant to bash the UNL Motorsports team. Instead, it is to direct everybody’s attention to a very worthwhile engi neering project that has received no credit from the university. This engineering project is better known as the Ethanol Vehicle Challenge (EVC). The EVC is a 14-school competi tion that was started back in the fall of 1997. The UNL EVC team consists of 20 to 30 engineering students as opposed to three on the Motorsports team and unlike them, we are not completely sponsored by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Outside of a small donation from the Mechanical Engineering Department, the UNL EVC team needed to find corporate and private sponsors willing to donate money or products in order to compete in this competition. The competition, which is held each May (this coming May being the last year of the three-year competi tion), stages UNL and 13 other col leges and universities from across the U.S. and Canada against one another. The goal of the competition is to take a stock General Motors vehicle DN LETTERS (in 1998 it was a Chevrolet Malibu and in 1999 a full-size Chevrolet Silverado pickup) and make it run on 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline (E85). Ethanol is a fuel of the future and is very quickly becoming the front runner to replace gasoline. Ethanol is produced from some thing that we have a lot of in this state, and that is com. In a six-month time frame, the student engineering teams must con vert the vehicle to dedicated E85 use while maintaining good driveability, decreased engine emissions, improved fuel economy, enhanced cold-start characteristics and improved engine performance. However, all of these conversions must be done in a production-feasible manner. At the 1999 competition, the UNL EVC team was awarded the “Best Overall Ethanol Conversion” and “Most Innovative Component” awards along with a second place fin ish in vehicle appearance. Maybe some of you have seen either the rainbow colored Chevy Malibu or the color changing Chevrolet Silverado driving around campus and have wondered, “Wow, those are pretty cool vehicles! I won der what they represent?” Well, hopefully now you have an idea. They represent the hard work of more than 20 engineering students. Keep in mind that this project might be classified as an “engineering” pro ject, but it is open to everyone. If you are interested or want to learn more about it, check our Web site at www.engr.unl.edu/~ethanol/or pick up a copy of the November issue of Car & Driver magazine, and you will see an article about the UNL EVC Team’s Chevy Silverado. In addition, the Silverado has been displayed in New York, Michigan, Illinois, Indiana and at nearly every major fair and show in the state of Nebraska. This was not because the university told us to, it was because the student team was proud of what they did and wanted to reflect a positive image of the engi neering program here at UNL - and that students can make a difference. You see, the EVC Team is like the UNL Motorsports team in many ways in the sense that we too can change engine oil, perform routine mainte nance and apply what we have learned in the classroom, but we do it without the support of the university. As I stated before, this is an attempt to give credit where credit is overdue (for some three years now) and to show that this group of engi neers is out to earn more than a pay check or a grade in the classroom. Clark Otte team leader UNL Ethanol Vehicle Challenge Team PS. Write Hack Send letters to: Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, 1400 "R" St,, Lincoln, NE 68588, or fax to (402) 472-1761, or e-mail