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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 2, 2000)
ZM/vNebraskan Since 1901 Editor Sarah Baker Opinion Page Editor Samuel McKewon Managing Editor Bradley Davis Survey says Weekend activity choices j limited to drinking A few of us Stayed late at the Daily Nebraskan on Thursday night for the R Street/NU Directions/Lincoln Police Department shindig. As a small group of us reluctantly sipped Pepsis and gnawed on one - yes, only one - hot wing, a few things hit us. And we guarantee, these things hit us a lot harder than the hangover we’d have suffered Friday if we would have been gallivanting down O Street Most of the crowd surrounding the police offi cers and hot wings was made of well-dressed media Most of the rest of the people surround ing us didn’t look as though they were headed for O Street. Most looked like they’d left their dorm or Greek house for a late night snack. Most looked 18-years-old. And most probably came to the same conclu sion - that yet again, an idea with merit was car ried off poorly and probably won’t happen again because of it We know what it’s like to be students, students who drink alcohol and students who, at one time or another, have drank too much alcohol We know all of this because we go to school at the University of Nebraska-lincoln, where there is nothing else to do but arink and drink and eventually get drunk. We want that $700,000 our money - to be put to real use, not just face value use. Anyone on u street on Thursday night probably wouldn’t detour any where unless they got to eat a lot of free hot wings - a vat of them - and got to drink a liter of free Pepsi. Hearing some live music (which, granted, was supposed to have been a part of the event) would be nice. A place to sit would have been even nicer. Park the vat of wings, the tunes, the benches and the smiling, very friendly police officers a block off of O Street, within the sight of the drinkers, and bingo - success. Maybe even some fun. We think that a group like NU Directions - a group that got $700,000 to spend at its leisure to give us something to do besides drink- can try a little bit harder. We want more stuff on campus. At night. With music, good food and our friends - maybe in our newly renovated Union Plaza, which usually stands deserted. There are examples aplenty. Look at the University of Kansas in Lawrence. Look at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Look at the University of Missouri in Columbia. Hell, look at the hot dog vendor perched on the comer of 14^ and O streets every weekend - a vendor that attracts gobs of students with the scent of unhealthy food that isn’t even free. We want that $700,000- our money- to be put to real use, not just face value use. We know the numbers of binge drinkers are down. But to keep them down, we need to give them something else to do. Not all of us want to get drunk. But none of us want to stay home on weekend nights - or any night, for that matter. We like free food, music, hanging out and enjoying ourselves on the uni versity’s tab. We know what we want. NU Directions, the administration, the University Program Council, the ASUN presi dent, Lincoln’s Police Department and even Lincoln’s inconclusive music task force, don’t. And until they figure out we’re practically drinking ourselves to death waiting for them to ask us what, exactly, we want, nothing will change. Nothing at all. Editorial Board Sarah Baker, Bradley Davis, Josh Funk, Matthew Hansen, Samuel McKewon, Dane Stickney, Kimberly Sweet Letters Policy The Daiy Nebraskan welcomes briefs, letters to the editor and guest columns, but does not guar antee their pubication. The Daily Nebraskan ■ chains the right to edit or reject any material submitted. Submitted material becomes property of the Daily Nebraskan and cannot be returned. Anonymous submissions wi not be published. Those who submit letters must identify themselves by name, year in school, major anchor group affiliation, if any. Submit material to: Daily Nebraskan, 20 Nebraska Union, 1400 R St Lincoln, kKE 68588-0448. E maifc lettersOunlinfo.unl.edu. Editorial Policy Unsigned editorials are the opinions of the Fall 2000 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; a cartoon is solely the opinion of its artist The Board of Regents acts as publisher of the Daily Nebraskan; poli cy is set by the Daly Nebraskan Edttorial Board. The UNL Publications Board, established by the regents, supervises the production of the paper. According to policy set by the regents, responsi baty for the edtarW content of the newspaper lies solely in the hands of its employees. tA/ilU UPc’s CURRENT oes£ss)oti wm-J seootio-RpoB fttmK SATUtfZW NI64JT uv£ CAtf tjf HA\£ |H5P/i^p 1b R^w __ leAV ~R> Rg> VA^ANCI^ AT CWL? /^Sean pown^ ir. wuee-m MtV4 V»ca 60ANC6U/* R*. A6*icum& AHP NATURAL ^SOURCES; \JCnuztN6~ Mis &&&$*/£ KMM£%£ Of H£tfgS Aijb 0THLR U^fUL £KopS ^501^ c ”Rc£ ScHMl&R (5 OUR N£W OjAUceu^K copies OF iMPofCfiHT&UMALS AND PAPERS. r mAm Mutsat iviu- save as our nbm jean andvirbcpr ofcoopetZATive 'eXfcNS)c*},e£<AJ6£ HoN^7tyyWWlW&l&fiS WMO TMf ££AkJ /*£> VlfeCTVR op cooP£RAW£ &cretem Kttfvez.y— ^^ /ttAMW', m m<£D ro Announce our New cmaucblur Jb0 PlStoPo,'T0U6*l GUY IN CHAtte, TAKtN&TWS mUGRSfTf up 60npu£ winezm^. NealObenrteyer/DN What arises over a cup of tea We meet at Barnes and Noble. This is my territory, not his. We first met at a party two weeks ago. And together, over many gin and tonics, we solved all of the world’s prob lems in one night, but later at Perkins, over coffee, we decid ea mat no one was listening. iddmiii So after a few emails and McEWGFl some phone calls (after I’ve already skipped out on a cou ple of previous rendezvous), I decide to give it anoth er shot This is die summer I have given up on dating. Of course 1 haven’t told him that, but I would if he just came right out and asked me, which of course he has n’t yet, for whatever reason. I am assuming it is because we have only just met and he is still feeling me out (I said out, not up. None of that has taken place yet we are intellectuals so give us both some credit) He sits forward on the edge of the big pillowy chair as if it is an uncomfortable folding wood chair and he is uncertain of its stability. I feel devoured by his intense gaze and immediately it begins to make me nervous, bothers me. His questions are so standard and cliche that I almost ask, “So are you interviewing for the future good little wife?” And I immediately feel shame for this thought because he is just a lonely guy looking for his soul mate. Unfortunately, I have already dreamed up my soul mate only he is somewhere in Greece or off the shores of Madagascar sailing across the high seas and probably will never be seen or noticed by foe likes of a foul-mouthed, nasty-thinking, raucous girl like me, yet I continue hopelessly pining away. Until my real Odysseus comes along. I find myself looking at this young, sweet guy and feeling disgust. I want to say to him, “Why can’t you lean back and sprawl out like a sleepy lion foe way my ex used to and share this gooey chocolate chip cookie I offer you now? Why can’t we sit content in silence, reading nothing in particular but profoundness noted and shared in secret moments where you lean over and say, ‘Check out this cool passage,’ and our minds content, our hearts restful, we share soft words that taste like rich warm kisses?” Instead, I dutifully answer this guy’s questions and hear myself say something about dancing. This takes me back but doesn't seem to faze him Instead his face perks up. “You like to dance?” “I guess so?” I am almost asking myself. There is a gleam starting to come through the blue forest of his eyes and ne aoesn t miss a Deal. “Good. We’ll go dancing.” "Uh. Okay?” I hear myself say. Then it is decided, although now I am won dering what sort of danc ing we will be doing. I want to ask him if he meant ball room, swing, club or coun try. He seems to know the answer to this already and I get the impression that I missed something in our exchange. Then I blurt out, “I love horses.” Now the glimmer is on full shine. He has just start ed to ride he says. I tell him someday that I want to N> have a horse. I almost tell him that instead of an engagement ring, that when I get married I just want my beloved to give me a horse and that would be better than the ring. But I don’t want him to take his /•'• ideas any further than they ° have already gone, so I let that one go. He says, “Where do you want to have this horse?” "In the country, of course." “You can’t possibly mean here in this state? Not here in Nebraska?" Ah, here it comes, my reason why I won’t be able to go out with him ever again. He has given me an out and I take it like Anna Koumikova would take a free match point from Steffi Graf if Anna were ever to be good enough to get to play against Steffi, and this I know will never happen again, so I grab it and run with it “Because it’s so barren?...” I finish his sentence for him almost gleefully. I am now thinking maybe there’s a chance that I can still make it home to catch Letterman. He takes the bait, “Yes, I mean, there are no trees, and it’s so desolate.” He is almost pleading with me to say, “To hell with Nebraska.” I glance at my watch. “Time’s up,” I want to say. Instead, this being a strange night to begin with and me having just been dumped, I move in for the kill. Which I’m betting that later I will regret, later as in months later when I am dateless with no prospects on the horizon and I am left to dance around my apartment to Johnny Lee Hooker, desperate and alone. It will have been my own doing. There will be absolutely no excuse, and my friends will enjoy telling me this. “Well, actually I think it’s really beautiful here. I may be able to live in Nebraska my entire life, I espe cially love western Nebraska, I believe that is the most beautiful part of the state.” I see the change in his eyes, yes, it is unmistakable. I've now answered wrong on question No. 8.1 will be thrown out of the running for future wife. Horrors! We are both silent. I offer him part of my cookie as a peace offering. He waves me on. “No, no, I don’t eat sweets.” I look at his still full cup of tea. He has left the bag in it and it has turned almost black, certainly too strong to drink by now, I think, and cold, too. He does not know how he likes bis tea, I think. I would have offered to help him prepare it, even offered to do it myself, just get up and take his full cup and season it with cream and sugar to drinking perfection. He looks now Idee a sad boy sitting in a chair look ing around for solace. And I would get up and just give him a hug, softly ruffle his hair, a gentle kiss behind the ear. Even knowing this won't work out. Just to comfort him. I would tell him his blue eyes are striking and with his expensive cars, great clothes sense, keen sense of humor and many flashes of kindness that the lovely Mrs. will turn up shortly. But the best I can do is smile and say it's getting late. The next time I see him at a friends’ party we are both on the patio. He looks at me as a scolded puppy and I acknowledge to myself that I led him on a bit to an extent I take a step back into the cold dark shade and soak up the blame for the both of u£. 1 Michael Semrad, Jr./DN States'rights surrounded by hypocrisy No opinions so fatally mislead us, as those that are not wholly wrong; as no watches so effec tually deceive the that are some times right -CC. Colton In politics, some fads rise up and then fade away, never to be heard from again; others lie low in periods of unpop ularity, only to pop back up every few decades when die time seems right. A powerful and growing movement in this country has reunited under the banner of “States' Rights.” The states’ rights ideology has been popular in the South since pre-civil war days, but now it’s increasingly becoming part of the standard lexicon of Republican and Conservative activists. Prominent Republican politicians and jurists, building on the traditional belief that the federal government is a bloated bureaucracy, have turned to the notion of states’ rights and sovereignty as support for their conservative vision of America. As the GOP platform states: “our commitment (is) to restore the force of the 10th Amendment, the best protec tion the American people have against federal intrusion and bullying ... Washington must respect that one size does not fit all states...” Several Justices of the Supreme Court have embraced the ideology and have used it to strike down certain federal laws, such as those that allow persons uiscrimmaieu against on me oasis 01 age or disability to sue state agencies. Almost all of us can agree that feder alism (the division of power between states and the federal government) has some merit. The Constitution was designed to disperse power in order to prevent tyranny and we can all see the virtue in having 50 separate “laborato ries” to experiment with what laws bring about a just and fair society. However, the rhetoric of states' rights is actually employed for more sinister purposes. As legal scholar James Wilson said, “When one studies the history of federal ism in the United States, states’ rights advocates usually favored federalism to protect something else. “Initially, the slave owners relied on federalism because they knew the feder al government was the greatest threat to their peculiar institution. Later, racists relied upon states' rights to protect the continued subordination of African Americans through segregation and vio lence.” What do current states’ rights advo cates hope to achieve? They use the con cept to attack environmental laws, work-, place-safety regulations and even some civil rights laws. It is clear that they are not committed to the concept to protect against “tyranny” but merely an instru mental tool to achieve desired goals. States’ rights activists abandon the concept whenever the federal govern ment imposes a conservative ideology on states. Examples are abundant. In 1996, voters in California approved Proposition 21^/an initiative that allows marijuana to 6e approved for medicinal use. Although seven other states have passed similar laws, last month (at the request of the Justice Department) the Supreme Court issued an emergency rul ing preventing an Oakland medicinal marijuana club from opening. The federal government has “fiercely attacked” medical marijuana laws, even threatening to incarcerate physicians who prescribe the drug. Where is the vig orous defense of state “sovereignty" now? Conservative states' rights activists are nowhere to be found. Similarly, Oregon's law allowing physician-assisted suicide would be “essentially nullified” by a pending Congressional bill that would enactf criminal penalties for doctors prescrib ing lethal doses of pain medication. Although Maine residents will vote on a similar assisted-suicide initiative in November and the Alaska Supreme Court is considering a right-to-die case, conservatives are pushing for the federal law. If states’ rights activists sincerely believed in the virtue of limited federal government and an opportunity for states to experiment, they would speak out So far they have been silent If the federal government is too large, it is the people’s fault The same persons who elect state officers elect federal rep resentatives, and (in these cynical times) you rarely encounter anyone pleased with their local or state governments. In the abstract, the idea of states' rights as a limitation on federal power seems wise. In modern political dis course, however, “states’ rights” is simply a code word: conservatives invoke it with vigor when they dislike a particular fed eral policy and ignore it without shame otherwise. v *.