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.
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Obermeyer’s
VIEW
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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
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