monday, October 3, 1977
page 4
daily nebraskan
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Students and parents who pay tuition some
times can feel like a Big Mac in the hands of a
starved man-their money is getting gobbled up
twice as fast as they would like.
First, the college takes a chunk from the all-beei
pocket for tuition. Then the government licks up
the special cents and nibbles at the wallet-tuce
with taxes.
'A bill introduced last week in Congress by
Sens. Patrick Moynihan of New York and Bob
Packwood of Oregon, seeks to reduce the munch
ing and ease the burden on tuition-payers.
The bill would allow a 50 percent, up to $500,
tax credit or refund on tuition paid to private
elementary and secondary sthools, public and
private colleges and accredited vocational, techni
cal trade and business schools.
Both Nebraska senators, Carl Curtis and Ed
Zorinsky, joined in sponsoring the bill in the
Senate.
Without the bill, many middle-class families
are caught between a rock and a hard place; they
are too wealthy to qualify for financial aid
but too poor to send a child through college with
out it.
In the past, Congress seems to have recognized :
the problem without solving it. Basic and Supple
mental Educational Opportunity Grants,
approved about five years ago,, are steps to help
ease the problem. But the steps sometimes have
fallen short.
Many families still are caught in the bind of
sending Junior out to work because the double
bite of tuition and taxes is too much.
Plus, there is a principle involved, according to
the bill's sponsors. The double bite sometimes
limits a student's choice of colleges to the cheap
est available.
Students not only are dissuaded from attend
ing higher-pnced private schools in favor of pub
lic universities. Some also must skip public uni
versities to attend the nearby or smaller schools
which may not offer what they want.
It makes sense for the government to promote
higher education with such a tax credit-rather
than discourage it with taxes paid on tuition.
As we have noted before, education pays divid
ends beyond the original inve stment.
It is encouraging to see Nebraska's senators
support the bill. Now if the rest of the Congress
joins their support, maybe we can shake a few
sesame seeds from our pockets.
DearBaba Wawa: million-dollar misery is upsetting
Dear Barbara Walters:
I am sitting here in Washington reading about your
46th birthday party in New York. First, let me say,
"Happy birthday and many more PMt sounded like a
blast.
But-1 have to say it-as I read through the stories, they
struck me as being more like publicity about a movie star
of the '30s than like coverage of a working newswoman of
the 70s. This disturbs me.
georgie anne geyer
the geyer file
Do you remember when Jackie Kennedy was coming
out of her widow's mourning in the mid-'60s? Every other
statement was an angry, "Don't bother me, I want to be
alone." And every other statement was "Come look me
over." ,
What I'm trying to compare, I guess, Ms. Walters, is
two strange, contradictory patterns of behavior in you
both: doing everything possible, to draw people to you
and then complaining bitterly of their "unwanted"
attention.
Tired of misery
, Oh, what the devil, I might as well say it: I'm tired of
hearing, reading, being told constantly about how mis
erable you are in your new position. I'm not one of those
people who thinks a million dollars a year has to make
you happy-but neither am I one who can figure out why
it has to make you terribly wretched!
Consider one of the many recent stories about you:
Richar Grenier, in Cosmopolitan magazine, quoted you
as calling the past year "the worst year in (your) life."
All you ever wanted was to be an ordinary person: all
you wanted to be was married to some schnook next
door, like everybody else; all you wanted was, well,
not to be what you are.
Then, at your birthday party, you lit into an innocent
young woman reporter, Joyce Wadler, and said, "I hear
you're a reporter and you're asking very bitchy
questions."
Of course,. Barbara, a reporter asking "bitchy
questions" is certainly unforgivable. Just ask the Shah of
Iran.
Concern for women
Maybe I sound bitchy now, but I write not out of
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jealousy but out of concern for the broader area of
women's rights and roles. I have almost everything I want.
I don't want your job, God knows, especially not if it
makes you wretched.
I also want to say that I think you are a brilliant inter
viewer (nobody else could have skewered the Shah like
that) whose strong suit, unfortunately is not straight
news. -' V . .
What I am worried about, since I ' care both about
journalism as a profession and women in all professions, is
the anti-heroine image you are putting across. It's all be
come a kind of in-house soap opera instead of a serious
example of what women can do.
You see, there are millions of women out there doing
jobs far harder than yours-and unspeakably more
tiresome. There are women raising families alone, women
abandoned, women working two exhausting jobs.
Playing with dreams
And there are thousands of really solid dedicated
women in journalism doing exceptional work, not earning
a million dollars a year and not feeling so damned sorry
for themselves, either. In a way, I think you're playing
with their dreams.
In the 40s in Argentina, when Evita Peron used to visit
the poor of Buenos Aires, she would wear her most
glamorous clothes and her most elegant furs, and one day,
someone asked her if she didn't feel this was insulting to
the poor. ,
Ah no, she replied airily, this way I represent them be
cause I am what they want to be.
A little of that is present in your career. But it doesn't
work so well today. Neither, I think, does the always
depressed, always self-pitying example. Indeed, that is
something most women are trying to get away from.
In closing, I want to say that 1 think you're basically
a very good and generous person. 1 guess all I really want
to add is-why in the hell don't you start enjoying life?
Sincerely Yours,
Georgie Anne Geyer
Copyright 1977, Lot Angeles Times Syndicate.
Fred Frisbee, man for all decades, looks to 'SQs
No one has been more "U," "in," real 460s person. It wasn't easy. 60's persons. undtamhKK, fn,t(Mu u.u , . , ..' . , ... .
andor "with it" over the years than my
tnend, rred frrisbee. lie is a true man for
all decades. And now he can hardly wait
for 1980.
I first met Fred in 1957. He was a real
50s person. Short-haired and narrow-tied,
he believed firmly in God, President
Eisenhower and finding a secure niche
within the system in this, the best of all
possible worlds.
arthur hoppe
innocent bystander
"Those were the days," Fred now says
nostalgically. "Being a real 50s person was
as easy as falling off a log "
Then tame I960. Fred was faced with
theproblcm of transforming himself into a
real '60s person. It wasn't easy.
Could fix
At first, real 60s persons figured that,
while this actually was not the best of all
possible worlds, this, the best of all poss
ible systems, could fix what was wrong. So
Fred joined the Peace Corps and taught the
natives of Mbonga how to dig latrines.
After a couple of years he felt he wan't
getting anywhere. So, along with the other
real 60s persons, he discovered this was
the worst of all possible systems in this,
the worst of all possible worlds.
To overthrow the system, he grew a
beard, learned to shout four-letter words,
blew up mail boxes, jmashed the win
dows of mom-and-pop grocery stores and
lay down on freeways to prevent c
ters from getting home in the evenings.
System survived
Somehow the system survived. The real
60s persons, understandably
had no choice but to tune in, turn on and
drop out- each discovering that he or she
was the best of all possible human beings,
man, in this, the best of all possible com
muncs. Fred says that was the hardest real
person he ever was. His hair was always in
his eyes, he contracted chronic conjunc
tivitis. Marijuana gave him a splitting head
ache and the food was terrible. He was
1970d frm hepatiti$ by the advcnt f-
As a real 70's person, Fred quickly
realised he wasn't the best of all possible
human beings 2t all. In fact, he wai a
mess.
He had his hair cut so that it reached
precisely to the bottom of his ear lobes,
purchased a wide necktie and a ruka
shell necklace to wear on week ends
gladly renounced pot for white wine, and
got a job so that he could afford to over
throw himself through TM, est, Rolfing,
bio-feedback and pre-primal-scream ther
apy. Hardly wait
Unfortunately, after more than seven
years of this, he doesn't think he's getting
anywhere. That's why he can hardly wait
for 1930.
I asked if he felt a real 80s person
would be out to save the world or save
himself. "If we real "per f tave proven
anything," he said glu , it's that we
can't do a heck of a lot about either. Hut
we'll go en trying to make our own little
woilds better places in which to live."
And how w ill a real 0's person do that?
4Tm going to go home,' said Fred, "kick
the dog, yell at the kids and nag my wife."
Copyright 1977 Chronicle Publishing Co.
