Page 4 ■ Daily Nbbras
EDITOR
Josh Funk
OPINION
EDITOR
Mark Baldridge
EDITORIAL
BOARD
Lindsay Young
Jessica Fargen
Samuel McKewon
Cliff Hicks
Kimberly Sweet
kan ^Wednesday, October 27,1999
Our r '?
VIEW
Finger
pointing
Governor-appointed
regents would be unwise
Once every six years, Nebraskans go to
the polls to decide who will sit on the Board
of Regents - the committee that oversees
how the University of Nebraska functions
and is financed.
If Nebraska Gov. Mike Johanns had his
way, the check of a box would be supple
mented by the pointing of a finger... his fin
ger.
Speaking at a Lincoln Chamber of
Commerce luncheon last week, Johanns
nonchalantly announced his desire to
appoint some of the members of the univer
sity’s governing board.
Turning the university’s only democrati
cally representative body into an extended
arm of die governor is a bad idea.
The NU system, which includes the
state’s land grant university, exists to serve
the people qfthe state through education and
research.
U Supporting it
Turning the with their own tax
dollars, Nebraskans
university s look to nu to pro
t vide a well-round
Oniy ed education to all
democraticallywho attend and t(J
y support extended
representative learning and
, j . research across the
body into an state.
extended arm RegTehnetsBe°xtsr,ds to
of the represent the peo
ple and ultimately
gOVemor is a hold the university
i j •/ accountable to its
bad idea. mission
If isn’t meant to
be the tool through which the governor gains
influence over university affairs.
If the governor were allowed to appoint
regents, the university would be vulnerable
to whatever partisan agenda he or she
brought into the office.
Johanns may have a point when he says
the board lacks racial diversity and represen
tation from western Nebraska.
But Nancy O’Brien, chairwoman of the
board, made a point when she mentioned the
lack of racial diversity among state senators
and pointed out that the governor isn’t
appointing them.
As for geographic diversity, perhaps dis
trict lines that determine how many regents
are allocated through the state should be
redrawn.
The state Legislature must approve the
proposal to change the way regents are
selected. It would then have to be approved
by a vote of the people.
Johanns isn’t the first governor to sug
gest the proposal. Perhaps there is a solution
- to give the governor representation without
total control: appoint non-voting members.
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A column is solely the opinion of its author.
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j Obermeyer’s
VIEW
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Birthday greetings
Conversation with mother brings up questions of life and death
I was finally worn out enough to
sleep. In quick order I had shucked
off my pants and was in bed.
Just as I was picking up that mur
mured conversation that marks the
boundary of dreamland (... have you
any mangoes ... the raid is hairy ...) I
remembered it was my mother’s birth
day.
Normally, I would have clean for
gotten (dyslexia has its advantages),
but I had unfortunately committed it
to memory by means of one of those
harmless mnemonic devices you can’t
ever get out of your head: She was
bom on the 25th of October, the
Christmas of Halloween.
Awake again, I lay there for some
minutes looking at my penguin. He
looked back scornfully, the clock in
his belly reminding me that I still had
plenty of time to slither back into blue
jeans and crawl out to the pay phone
by the Dip and Strip to wish my
mother a god-damned happy birthday.
“It means so much to her,” he
seemed to be saying, but he spealcs
Korean so I couldn’t quite make it
out.
Eventually I went.
But for some reason I preferred
the phones by the neighborhood gas
and grub. I don’t know why.
As phones go, these are the phoni
est: always sticky, you hate to put the
handset too close to your head, so you
stand there yelling across the inches
and the miles at your elderly mother
who is still awake because she’s basi
cally a recluse and stays up all night
watching movies like “Pulp Fiction,”
which she thinks is funny.
She’s also hard of hearing, so
there you are, screaming in the park
ing lot, like the out-of-work fellows
(men of leisure) who are usually
there, plugging quarters and scream
ing at their girlfriends.
My mother was happy to hear
from me.
She said she’s getting hearing
aids.
(“That’s what you get from shar
ing earplugs!” I shouted. She didn’t
get it.)
I begged her to forgo the usual
litany of family woes (I come from a
large, screwy family), and she seemed
pretty cheerful otherwise, a nice
change.
She’s been sick, you see. A minor
stroke. This on top of being old and
having suffered from chronic fatigue
at least as long as I’ve been alive
(don’t look at me, I didn’t do it).
And so it’s no real surprise if she’s
depressed.
I’ve spoken with her about this. I
think she’s grateful to have someone
to discuss it with.
So many people these days don’t
want to hear negative things about old
age. We’ve pretty much shoved our
elderly into social toilets if you really
want to know, like stinky turds we’d
rather flush.
My mother has said, sometimes,
she doesn’t want to live anymore.
Can’t say I really blame her for
feeling that way, but of course there
are still people who need her support
(all those screwy, grown-up kids, for
instance).
She has obligations, and she’s
sticking around to fulfill them.
But there may come a time when
no one could expect her to continue.
Another stroke could do it. And then
she should be prepared.
She says she doesn’t ever want to
be a burden.
I say, no one can possibly blame
you for lingering, if that’s what you
want to do. But what if you don’t
want to?
wnen my mother began talking
about her depression, some weeks
ago, I was glad for the opportunity to
bring up what I consider a vital point
in the life of anyone facing sickness,
old age and a stinky, deranged death.
“I didn’t want to say, after your
stroke, ‘So, have you bought your rat
poison yet? ’” I told her. (We share a
streak of gallows humor.)
“But you have the right and the
obligation to prepare yourself for the
possibility that death may not steal
sweetly into your sleep one rainy
morning.
“It may push you down the stairs,
instead.”
So we agreed that this year, break
ing a long-standing tradition, I would
buy her a present for her birthday: a
copy of “Final Exit.”
This notorious book (by Derek
66
“There’s the door,”
as the Stoics used to
say. “Don’t let it hit
you in the ass on the
way out.
Humphry, founder of the Hemlock
Society) is a how-to manual for pain
less suicide.
Evidently Humphry believes, as I
do, that everyone has the right, at
least, to die.
It shocks me that religious people
don’t always see it this way, especially
considering that the creator seems to
agree with me and Humphry, having
made death obligatory. He could
hardly complain that we comply too
readily.
My mother is a religious person,
and she also agrees with me and God
and Humphry.
She has expressed admiration
many times for those who’ve taken
arms against an intolerable and termi
nal condition, whether by refusing
treatment or simply saving up the
medications doled out to them in their
hospital beds until they had enough to
check out - permanent-like.
l am not encouraging my mother
(or anyone’s mother) to off herself
before her time. But the time is hers,
and she can choose it.
I made it clear that I, personally,
would find her suicide pathetic if it
was chosen for trivial reasons, which
might be addressed by more appropri
ate means.
I also suggested that empowering
herself with the knowledge and
means to end her life might make her
remaining time more bearable.
“There’s the door,” as the Stoics
used to say. “Don’t let it hit you in the
ass on the way out.”
It can be comforting to know
there’s a way out.
Anyway, as I stood there, in the
parking lot, shouting at my mother
that she has the right to die, I noticed
a $ 10 bill lying, abandoned on the
asphalt.
As I had just drunk up my last
dollar in cheap beer, this was a wel
come sight, and I ditched Mom just
long enough to snag it
She never knew I was gone.
Mark Baldridge is a senior English major and opinion editor for the Daily Nebraskan.