Wednesday, january 18, 1978
daily nebraskan
page 5
Being left out in the cold tends to harden anyone
It's a little after 3 a.m.
The last time I bothered to check the
temperature, it was hovering around the
zero-degree mark, with a wind chill factor
of 33 below.
According the thermostat, this room
is a bit warmer.
An hour ago I passed a man who had
wedged himself in between two buildings
to keep warm.
Indications are that he isn't the only
one on the streets this morning. There
are others, less visible for the most part,
but they are there all the same.
On any given morning-about an hour
before dawn-there will be several more
walking the area between 9th and 10th
Streets in downtown Lincoln.
A generation of baggy -pants comedians
called them "winos"-so much so that the
term might as well be a generic one.
The men may well be alcoholics, but it
would be ignorant to accept that as any
type of rule.
They look poor, and older for the most
part.
between the wind chill index and a nor- What occurs to me this morning is that
mal body temperature is 131 degrees, we are surrounded by situations like his.
michael
The only thing I'm willing to assume,
is if they're outside this morning, they're
cold.
You don't have to be a whiz kid to
realize that exposure to the type of wea
ther we've been having has got to be nearly
intolerable if not dangerous. The difference
I've been told that you eventually
develop a tolerance to the cold.
An older man who has spent nearly all
of his adult life on the streets mentioned
this to me last March.
It was easier to believe then. At best, he
said, you learn to ignore the cold; just like
you learn to ignore a multiplicity of hard
ships and indignities.
If what he says is true-that the cold is
just another in a series of physical and
mental conditions to adjust to-things that
can be so overwhelming that you either
develop a tolerance to them or buckle
under to them, then I have to admit an
overall ignorance of his situation.
Somewhere inbedded in all the stereo
types is an incredibly hard lifestyle.
There is poverty of a physical and men
tal type. The seemingly small inequities
and injustices that go unnoticed or ignored
that can be just as bitter as the cold.
Maybe constant exposure to them
has built up a tolerance in us to a point
where seemingly intolerable situations pass
for normal.
Right now it doesn't even seem impor
tant. There is a man caught outside in the
cold tonight.
I can't tell you anything about him. I
don't know what type of childhood he
had-whether he's left lovers and friends
behind, or whether he harbors any hopes
or dreams.
All I can tell you that zero-degree wea
ther is cold. Very cold.
Beer, beanies and Jesus do not a presidency make
Washington -In the print and broadcast
commentaries marking President Carter's
first year in office there were two liberated
hens of the journalism trade. They com
plained that Jimmy and his Georgians are
an unsociable gang and that therefore his
Administration is in trouble.
One such folk arbiter moaned on the
Johnny Carson show that otherwise edu
cated and charming people were so unim
pressed by Carter's Cabinet members that
they couldn't remember their names.
At a recent dinner party here, where
one such hapless member was a guest, the
"in" folk just stared at him.
It was never that way when Henry
Kissinger was in power, the complainant
went pn, and declared that even the
powerless Kissinger is more attractive these
days in social scenes than the bland,
socially shy Carter officials.
NBC's David Brinkley was quoted as
saying "we don't see them (Carter people)
anywhere. I saw Jody (Powell) one night.
He was highly uncommunicative. Every
thing he said sounded like phrases out of a
campaign kit.
"I'm to old for that. The Nixon people
were much more social than the Carter
people in that they'd come if you asked
them. I never asked them, but other people
I know did."
Brinkley apparently wouldn't have a
Nixon person in his house, although that
category includes Kissinger and some other
deUghtful folk from the era.
Brinkley insists the Carter people can't
run the country by being standoffish,
that "they need us more than we need
them."
This article made other suggestions that
the republic was not well because the
Carter people avoid parties, decline invita
tions to lunch with big-shot lawyers, dis
play social frostiness toward congressmen
The 1977-197
presents its Second Semester Films
o A Piece of Pleasure
o Last Grave at Dzimbaza
o Le Retour d'flfrique
o The merchant of Four
Seasons
o Kaseki
o Pirosmani
O The Alan from fTlaininicu
o The Goalie's Anxiety at
the Penalty Kick
Ticket pricest Students - ?5.00
Faculty Staff - 36.00
Patrons - ?8.00
Admission by Series ticket only
Tickets on sale at the Nebraska Union South Desk
Showings Sunday, fflonday, and Tuesday
and don't massage the press.
In short, an administration which pre
fers beer, beanies and Jesus won't make it.
thimmesch
There are reports that "Carter people','
a loose term covering the youngish souls
who worked the campaign and now rule in
the higher echelons of government-do get
out nights, but just don't go where social
arbiters expect them to.
Instead, they frequent singles-type bars
where ketchup is playfully spashed about,
the boogaloo is danced and impressive
numbers of tequila "shooters" are drunk.
Let Carter and his people spend their
social hours as they please.
I am far more interested that they do a
good job of running the country and ten
ding to our relations with the rest of the
world.
But I will even put those small gripes
aside in order to raise questions about what
the president has and hasn't done.
Enough to say that he has not followed
through on earnest declarations and prom
ises, that he has not given the American
people a clear sense of direction, that he
has fouled our foreign relations with many
a slip of the lip, and that he has put too
many mediocre people into his govern
ment. Carter was hired by us as president, and
not as some leader of a latter-day Camelot.
He should be judged for the job he
does-in order to be rehired in 1980-not
for the social graces he and his people
display.
Copyright 1978, Los Angeles Times
Syndicate
TONIGHT
AND EVERY
WEDNESDAY NIGHT!
NO COVE
2-FERS ALL NIGHT
at 7 y 9pm
' at Sheldon Film Theatre,
12th and R Sts. '
25th and "O"