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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 13, 1974)
"Mr" 'W 1 Editorials: outta sight, outta mind? For more than three months I've criticized, cajoled and congratulated on page four, The impact? It seems negligible. I wonder how many people have read the editorials. Of those few, I wonder how many have reacted. . I don't think my plight is much different from that of former Daily Nebraskan editors. UNL students have carried their blase, who-cares attitude for several years now. More than once I've wondered what college students here consider important. It obviously isn't the quality of education they are receiving. At best, it's mediocre. Yet how many have complained? Or even have thought about it? Most NU students aren't visibly concerned about the larger world either. The planet might De neaamg toward widespread famine, economic collapse, nuclear warfare and more. , Although individuals often feel powerless in the face of these disasters, ignoring them is not the answer. Problems must be discussed if we are to hope. for their disappearance. Sometimes I wonder if the lack of concern comes from a lack of awareness. Few college students even read a daily newspaper. Part of an editor's job is to be an opinion leader, but what if no one has an opinion to lead? Enough. Harangues on apathy never prod people. I can't hope to do better in mine. jane uwens j Inconsiderate Americans gobbling up world's food Every day American dinner tables offer up a cornucopia of delights. Steaming vegetables mix odors over dishes of meat and potatoes. Sugary desserts offer themselves as rewards to those who clean their plates. Between meals we stuff ourselves with an assortment of munchies, crunchies and brunchies that carry us through to the next mealtime assault. Once a year we celebrate this overabundance of food with a feast of overindulgence. Friends and relatives are pitted against mountains of calories in a battle that usually ends with empty plates, stuffed tummies and choruses of "I ate too much." We call it Thanksgiving. The starving have another name for it. Waste. Why are Americans so inconsiderate? Why do we drive metal monsters that gobble gas when other nations are satisfied to use economy cars? Why do we b use natural resources like God or the Constitution gave us exclusive rights to earth's wealth? And why do we stuff ourselves when the world is hungry? For one thing, we've been conditioned to it. Flashing (RQAwSigns over slop shops imprint .the, word, "EAT" Tiivtelibly on our minds. The ring -'of ; cash registers :sparks a Pavlovian responseshoppers scurry for anything marked new, improved or fortified, regardless of its nutritional value. staff opinion We're taught that the skinny man is sick, the vegetarian odd. Arid it's no coincidence that America was the first nation to invent vending machinesa development that allows us to catacomb even our walls with food. . ' : ' This preoccupation with gluttony starts early. A healthy baby is a happy baby. So Mother shoveled spoonfuls of food down our mouths And we kept that spoon flying roundtrips between plate and mouth the rest of our lives. Ironically, it was also Mother who first made us aware that somewhere beyond our dinner table there are people with birdcage bodies, protruding stomachs and eyes as empty as their dinner plates. "Clean your plate, dear," she said. "Don't you know there are starving children in India who would give, anything to have what you've got?" So we cleaned our plates and won our desserts and somehow those children in India were supposed to be a little less hungry because of it. The reasoning is faulty but typical. Nevertheless, Mother was close to a solution -or at least a starting point. We've got to stop the waste. Go to a cafeteria some day and watch what people throw away. Half-empty glasses of milk nestle against plates of poorly-picked chicken and the dessert someone thought they could (or should) eat but didn't. Watch that food go into a trash can when it could just as well go into an empty stomach halfway around the world or here in our own country. And we've got to stop eating junk. Compare the turn-of-the century grocery store with today's, suprmarkets. The staples of our diet have been joined by a myriad of products that promise the world and deliver indigestion along with little nutritional value. The ingredients in those products could just as easily go into something more useful. And watching football games and soap operas without munchies is not as hard as we think. The time has come to rethink our thinking, recondition our conditioning. On a sinking ship, the man who keeps the only life raft to himself can expect sooner or later to have to fight for it. If he shares it or shows the others how to make their own, he'll survive. If not, he'll drown. Earth, already layercaked with people and limited in arable land, may be such a ship, the time has come to cut our waste, to share our food and technology with our less fortunate neighbors before they come to get it. Wes Albers Recipe foryuletide cheer My lately-raised consciousness has provoked a new recipe for Christmas cheer. Start with the traditional Santa Claus and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and stir vigorously to raise fresh spirits to the top. What you get are Russian folk tales and pin-up calendars that put the shoe on the other fcot. amy struthers fooo sioe Despite the influence of a Jewish baby so many years ago, Santa Claus seems to be the big star of the pre-Christmas rush. As I watched one irbmUfcelUdAifyftiass lolly fa1J m&cods bbunoing'alMie'gifl on his khee,?a favorite person of mine reminded me that the whole world doesn't depend on men for the delivery of their goodies. He told me the story of Babushka, . Eastern Europe's answer to Saint Nick. The picturesque peasants say that when Babushka, an old grand mother, heard of the birth of Jesus, she filled a big basket with toys and started walking to Bethlehem. She found out the Holy Land wasn't exactly within walking distance of Siberia. But she kept on walking and started handing out her toys to little children she met along the way. She's been walking ever since. That bit of folklore aside, I started through the stores, looking for those perfect gifts that never materialize. But I did find some interesting results of the women's movement on mer chandising. The bookstores proved to be the most fertile round. Among the calendars, three caught my eye. The first is "The Liberated Woman's Appointment Calendar", which also is being sold at the Women's Resource Center. A collection of black and white photos and notes on the advance of Women's Suffrage, it sells for about $3. A more colorful calendar is a collection of art work by women artists, people one rarely hears about. The works span several centuries and are a good reminder that women have been . paintingjand Sculpting- for i longer than just the past twenty years. The one I bought was "The Ladies' , oHoVwe Companion Calendar?-! 'An , tarppaHlng exploitation' of' men as sei objects, the calendar features twelve sepia-tone photos of men floating in intertubes, running down country roads with their dogs and my favorite standing by an old propeller airplane, dlad only in goggles and a long scarf. 'Tis the season to be jolly. As I hurried from store to store, I cast a sidelong glance at the glittering windows of Frederick's of Hollywood. Old Fred has some curious ideas about what's classy. Yet I couldn't deny the selling appeal of harem outfits and feather underwear. And as I climbed into the car and sped off into the night, I thought to myself, "God bless us one and all. And please let the earth swallow up the University before my finals." MY -vv YH K - V It N M '5 Si) 83 3 ; I, AWT 7 i m .-'iMm 1 r.'W '.i'"' I F1 .1, lll ' , h'ill lit Lfi,i : 1 . i I 1 . ii I 111 ' III . J U ' ;5' r'i I'i.l .tiff Mi I' 1 . 1 - s i! J 'hi I U i! 11 3 BIS f. I 1 II I X 'i H T 'i Ii I'll I I w ; Ii it JIM! ,1 I ' . : I IT . m . v n 111 , ySTTt jii?. J t if'v 7 U ' 1 : ft' m 15.5.1$. mn ih mm 4(4 hmi WJMUt f I .'I If 1 1 i Hi. s mi m ., .to "Strange things about more bombs. ..it squeezes us closer together" page 4 daily nebraskan friday, december 13, 1974