Opinion
UNL employees
deserve equality
Gay domestic partners should
get same benefits as their
straight counterparts
By ruling that gay domestic partners should be allowed the
same benefits as married partners, the justices of the Vermont
Supreme Court had to look deep inside themselves to do what
was right.
The same issue of domestic partner benefits was brought
to an NU committee three years ago by the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln faculty senate, which strongly supported
gay benefits.
But the universitywide Fringe Benefits Committee didn’t
look deep within itself at all.
Instead, it looked to the Legislature.
IfUNL wants
to be a first
tier university,
it can’t sit
dormant and
watch its
peers pass it
by
Because me Legislature aian t
back gay marriage, then neither could
NU, said Agnes Adams, chairwoman
of the committee.
The board members didn’t share
the UNL faculty senate’s convictions,
so they tabled the proposal until the
state approves gay marriages.
Some benefit board members
have tried to bring it up, but the sub
ject was quickly changed.
No state in the union supports gay
marriages, but that didn’t stop the
Vermont Supreme Court from sup
porting aomesuc partner oenerus.
It set its own precedent because it felt it was time to be fair
to the gay community.
UNL faculty’s demand is not out of line. Currently, three
of UNL’s 11 peer institutions, the University of Iowa, Iowa
- State University and the University of Minnesota, offer
domestic partner benefits to gay employees.
They didn’t need their state’s blessing, so why should
UNL?
It’s time for NU to be progressive and think for itself.
The benefits board needs to discuss the request and give it
serious consideration.
Any gay professor seeking respect and benefits will not
choose UNL. He or she will instead choose Iowa, Iowa State
or Minnesota, and that is something for students to be worried
about.
If UNL wants to be a first-tier university, it can’t sit dor
mant and watch its peers pass it by.
But if the benefits board keeps hindering UNL by not
making a decision, it at least owes students a valid explanation.
As other universities have proven, the Legislature doesn’t
control this issue, the university system does.
Editorial Board
Josh Funk (editor) • J.J. Harder • Cliff Hicks • Samuel
McKewon • Dane Stickney • Kimberly Sweet • Lindsay
Young
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three.
Obermeyer’s
VIEW
A
coincidence?
Charging forward
Changes in technological world just the beginning
It’s been a big couple of weeks in
the technological world, full of sur
prises and shakeups. Now, I know
many of you are thinking, “Hey Cliff,
what’s all this mumbo-jumbo mean to
me? How am I gonna notice?’-’
Let me help you out and break
everything down for you, a few weeks
worth of technology news decoded
and decrypted. It’s big news, and you
can’t afford to miss out on news that’s
going to change your life.
America Online takes over and
merges with Time Warner. Yeah, I
know - it came out of deep left field
for me, too. It is, however, a logical
step in the ongoing Internet War. The
reasons AOL made such a bold move
are two-fold.
The first and main reason is that
the Internet War is changing battle
fields. The days of modems dialing
up to some other computer on the
other end of a phone line are nearing
extinction. In the future, say five to
10 years, the broadband revolution’s
going to change everything.
Broadband means a faster way to
connect to the Internet, like the uni
versity’s connections in your own
home. Some of us are already on the
broadband iiberhighway - I got an
Asynchronous Digital Subscriber
Line over the break, and I dust you
modem users.
What does all this have to do with
AOL-Time Warner Inc.? As I’m sure
you all know, Cablevision was taken
over by Time Warner, which makes
Time Warner one of the laigest cable
companies in the nation. One of the
broadband options is, surprise, sur
prise, through cable modems. AOL
knows its days as a dialup provider
are limited, and they’re thinking
about the future.
Good for AOL.
The second reason is that the role
of an Internet Service Provider is
changing. ISPs are going to be com
” Get ready for the chaos years,
though, folks. The next five years are
going to be bumpy ones.”
pletely different in five years. If, for
example, cable does win the broad
band war, everything in your home
will run out of that fiber optic cable -
television, Internet and telephone.
Long-distance bills may become
a thing of the past. Can you imagine
that? Calling Australia for free and
talking as long as you want? I hope
phone companies are shaking,
because that possibility is just around
the comer.
The same is true if ADSL*wins
out. When you look to the future, you
will see one box controlling every
thing.
So how will an ISP like AOL
thrive in the future? Exclusive con
tent. This is where the rest of Time
Warner comes in. Think of it like this
- AOL now controls Warner Music
and thus, R.E.M. AOL now controls
Warner Bros. Studios, and thus, Bugs
Bunny. Tell me this isn’t power.
Ten years from now, how will
everything look? Pretty damn differ
ent.
The Internet will have effectively
taken over all other forms of commu
nication, melding them together in
one giant amalgamation. You’ll.pay
one fee for “Input” into your house or
apartment.
And you won’t just have one
option either, because either AOL
Time Warner Inc. will have competi
tors in the home input market, or it
stands a chance of getting broken up
like Microsoft might.
You have to play fair and not over
step your boundaries. It’s one thing to
have a monopoly; it’s another to
abuse it.
Madman Gates has stepped
down as Chief Executive Officer and
has become Chief Software Architect
instead. What does this mean to you
and me? That nothing’s really
changed - Gates is still chairman of
the company, and you know the new
CEO, Steve Ballmer, will follow Big
Boy Bill’s every command to the let
ter.
Gates says he wants to focus on
the future of technology, and, to the
surprise of absolutely no one, he says
that it means more Windows/Internet
integration. All of this comes on the
heels of the slip from the government
about wanting to break up Microsoft.
The actual decision in all of that
won’t be made until March, but the
prognosis does not look good for
Microsoft.
All signs point to the company
being in trouble.
Mind you, “being in trouble” to
Microsoft means it simply won’t'
make as many billions as it did last
year. The AOL-Time Warner merger
is in fact a kind of response to
Microsoft’s heavy investment in
AT&T last year. Maybe Microsoft
will try to absorb Disney in response
to the AOL-Time Warner merger.
Steve Jobs is now the official per
manent CEO of Apple, and I say
good for him. I’m not a big Apple fan,
but I still respect the company, and it
is getting better. At the beginning of
the Mac movement, the machines had
more bugs than “Indiana Jones and
the Temple of Doom,” but now Apple
is starting to get its act in gear.
Apple is trying to get software
developers to release Mac versions of
software at the same time it releases
its PC versions. Some of the big
entertainment developers - id
Software, Blizzard, Epic Games -
have started to get behind the move
ment and maybe, in the future, Mac
may become a full-fledged alterna
tive instead of competitor slowly
building steam.
Since Jobs’ return, Mac has
gained followers and made signifi
cant technological steps forward.
Despite their glitzy looks, the iMac
and the G3s and G4s have sizable
power under the hoods. Still, as I
stressed before, it all comes down to
software.
I always want competition to fos
ter, though. It’s good for technology.
Get ready for the chaos years,
though, folks. The next five years are
gonna be bumpy ones.
it m r « * m *
| uijd mens is a senior news-eauomai ana unguso major ana u uauy nevrasKan voiammsi.