According to a recent article about growing a rat heart (LJS, Jan. 14), Tim Henry (cardiologist and researcher with the Minneapolis Heart Institute) is quoted as saying, “The problem with science is that you need to take big steps. Some things we think are not possible, and someone has to think outside the box and prove that they are.”

Try substituting any number of words for “science” in this statement — politics, the war in Iraq, poverty, the State Fair/University of Nebraska-Lincoln debate. Someone could make a case for any of these. “The problem with the stalemate between the Nebraska State Fair and the University of Nebraska is that you need to take big steps. Some things we think are not possible, and someone has to think outside the box and prove that they are.”

The most sensible solution presented in the media to this problem was voiced by Henry Brandt, former State Fair manager, on the opinion page. His solution promoted collaboration.

To add another opinion, the State Fair will not be the State Fair anyplace else. The research park could be built anywhere in Lincoln, but UNL wants it at State Fair Park. The easy solution is to move the State Fair to another location.  A smart and unique solution would be for some of the excellent academic minds at UNL and some skilled State Fair proponents to collaborate and prove that a common site could work.

The end solution would not be a weakened State Fair in a different location or a state institution insisting on its own way. The end solution would be an architectural, landscaping, community planning, agricultural coup that the city of Lincoln and the state of Nebraska could promote as, not only possible, but remarkable.

Don’t just discard the State Fair. Think outside the box to save its location and to make the research park/State Fair an innovative answer.

Sandy Amos, Tecumseh

No sympathy for the killers

The Journal Star series on the 1957 Starkweather rampage was well done and interesting. But up until the concluding piece last Monday, you had to wonder, what’s the point?

It’s not going to make Starkweather feel bad. Or his supporters, if he had any. The families of the victims might get a little fresh sympathy, which may not even offset having to relive their misery. The page of personal memories was intriguing and maybe awakened our it-can-happen-here gene. The tragedy of those young and old lives cut short is no more significant than the daily loss of our young in the Middle East. And it’s half a century less poignant.  

The Jan. 21 pages made the whole story worthwhile in my mind, with the coverage of the terrible, lasting damage to Starkweather’s own loved ones. Somehow, these killers think their gruesome deeds will bring fame to themselves, make their enemies grieve and their loved ones rejoice. It isn’t so. 

If we can’t get some concept of the value of innocent life through the juvenile or demented mind of the prospective killer, maybe we can make it clear that they’ll never get the “fame” they seek. They’ll never attract rational admirers, and their own loved ones and admirers will not live happily ever after in the glow of the publicity.

Compassion? Tons of it for the families of the victims, for the indirect victims in the community, for the families of the perpetrators in most cases and for the tormented prospective copycat who might be helped. But not a shred of public compassion for the cold-blooded murderer.

Tom deShazo, Lincoln

State senators know the pay

Sen. Amanda McGill as a state senator makes $12,000 a year, working 90 days one year and 60 days the next.

One year she makes $133.33 a day. The next she makes $200 a day. Plus $39 per day for expenses. Salary and expenses total $15,510 one year and $14,340 the next, with 275 days or 305 days off the rest of the year.

I worked 42 years for my retirement.

You knew what the pay was when you ran for the job.

Bob Hitz, Lincoln

Who’s done more damage?

A multiple-choice question:

Who among the following have more adversely affected the welfare of the people in our country and the world?

(a) Twelve million people, most of whom are from across our southern border. They are providing the very critical labor-intensive and mostly minimum-wage work force for our farming, meatpacking, roofing and hotel and household cleaning industries.

(b) The Cheney-Bush team, the imperial rulers of our country for the past seven years. They used lies, deception and scare tactics to get many of us to support their Iraq war misadventure.

Their ongoing war already has taken the lives of nearly 4,000 of our soldiers and hundreds of thousand of Iraqi civilians. Add to this the sufferings of thousands of our physically and mentally wounded soldiers and millions of Iraqis made refugees by their war. The $10-billion-dollar-a-month cost of this war (which is about three times the annual budget of the state of Nebraska) plus big tax cuts for the super rich have resulted in sky-high budget deficits and current economic meltdown facing our country.

On his recent democracy-spreading trip to the Middle East, President Bush seemed to be having a great time with the king of Saudi Arabia. I wonder if the Saudi king offered Bush his expertise on how to restrict human rights and civil liberties in the United States.

We must remember that the Cheney-Bush team gave us the Iraq disaster as their response to the Sept. 11, 2001, tragedy perpetrated by the terrorists primarily from Saudi Arabia and none from Iraq.

Sitaram Jaswal, Lincoln