tuesday, february 5, 1980
page 4
daily nebraskan
(oK)DDDa0D(ojiKi:
U
eiety imeedls to recogBize disease
It's a simple matter when someone
has a disease. He or she goes to a pro
fessional who diagnoses the symp
toms and prescribes proper treat
ment. In the case of alcoholism, how
ever, neither the alcoholic nor
society wants to admit there really is
a problem.
Society's failure to recognize
alcoholism as a disease is summed up
best in a recent statement by Lincoln
City Councilwoman Donna
Frohardt.
"Her philosophy is. that "alcoholics
should pay for their own treatment.
If they give up their booze, they'll
have plenty of money to pay for
treatment."
It is that kind of sad misinter
pretation of a very real problem that
has added to the alcoholic's dilemma
in society.
Alcoholism touches more than
just the 80,000 Nebraska alcoholics
and their families. In fact, it is esti
mated that Nebraskans pay more
than $350 million annually in
alcohol-related work losses and
health and welfare payments.
Take into consideration that 51
percent of the state probation case
load involves driving-while-intoxicated
convictions, and it's
obvious that alcohol is more than a
problem -ifs a very real disease.
But a legislative bill introduced by
Omaha Sen. Ray Powers addresses
alcohol as a disease and has gained
support despite opposition from the
powerful insurance industry.
Powers LB646 would require all
group insurance policies in Nebraska
to include provisions for alcoholic
treatment.
Nebraska insurance companies
have decided to thumb their noses at
the 80,000 alcoholics in this state
and have thrown up weak arguments
against mandated insurance coverage.
Let's hope lawmakers can see
through that lobbying effect to a real
approach to the alcohol problem.
Group insurance coverage for
alcoholism was successful in Cali
fornia and insurance rates increased
only 3.5 cents per individual per
month. Minnesota, Ohio and New
Jersey have enacted similar bills
without any apparent increase in premiums.
By treating alcoholism correctly
from the beginning and eliminating
alcohol-related hospital visits and
emergency care, insurance companies
might even save from what they are
now paying out.
Mandated alcoholism coverage
would save Nebraskans money be
cause the treatment of alcohol-related
symptoms already is costing
millions while the cause -alcoholism
is being ignored.
Convincing an alcoholic he or she
has a problem , is one of the most
important steps toward treatment.
Getting society to admit alcoholism
is a disease requiring attention is the
best way of dealing with .the
situation.
Harry Allen Strunk
TUT
1
Baker shows true form
in GOP nomination race
AUGUSTA, Maine-There were about
320 diners at the Maine Republican Party's
$20-a-head dinner in the Augusta Civic
Center, and about 6,000 empty seats in the
stands surrounding them.
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Mfit&K, lmm AN INDIAN GW2R, WWWMffl fcS ItWtiL
G ttCnc editor
Wednesday, Jan. 30, went to the Lady
Husker vs. the Lady Mavs basketball game.
After an overtime game (UNL 62, UNO
65) Diane Delvigna was given an award for
something but I couldn't hear what, be
cause the men's team came out on the
floor and the band, started to play. The
band was warming up during the women's
game but I guess they can only play tunes
for the men.
Why give an award if you don't want
people to hear what it is? Wasn't breaking
the all-time scoring record something to be
proud of? After such a show of respect, I
couldn't have watched the men's game. I
have never seen people act so rudely,
Sherri Haeffner
Freshman
More letters on page 5
The setting the half-filled floor, the
yawning stands-was discomfiting
enough. The invocation was a little strange,
a presumably humorous prayer to "free us
from our Georgian bondage." The program
had been rearranged io accommodate the
schedule of the visiting speaker, so Sen.
Howard H. Baker Jr., was called on to
deliver the address while the party faith
fully sat staring, a bit hungrily, at the salad
bowls, the plastic containers of dressing,
and the pie that would, in time, be their
dessert.
All of those unsettling elements must
have gotten to Howard Baker, for he
suddenly heard himself saying: 44I am 5
feet, 7 inches tall, have green hair and
brown eyes, and ... you'll just have to
take me as I am." . .
When Howard Baker reaches the point
that he declares himself The Boy with
Green Hair, you can be sure that something
weird has happened. But that is the way it
is as the Senate Republican leader carries
on his erratic " pursuit of the GOP presi
dential nomination.
Of all the campaigns in this year, none
has so squandered the talents of its
principal as that of the senior senator from
Tennessee. The Howard Baker that Wash
ington knows is a capable legislator, a skill
ful leader of his party, a man with a grasp
of issues and a talent for articulating them
and a man of considerable charm, be
sides. The man on the stump in this presi
dential campaign is a double who invites
ridicule. -;.i . ;
Occasionally, Baker shows his true
form. His characterization of President
Carter's State of the Union speech as "a
full-scale attack on the Carterism of the
last three years" is a neat partisan shot and
drew applause here and in JIew Hampshire.
But, from the beginning, Baker's campaign
has been characterized by organizational
ineptitude and missed opportunities. Those
problems continue.
Baker had been sent off to the dismal
event in Maine on a night when he had a
longstanding commitment to address a
dinner of Maryland Republicans. Maryland
is natural Baker country -a neighboring
state with a long tradition of supporting
Baker's brand of moderate Republicanism.
By canceling the date in Maryland,
Baker earned a widely publicized attack
from the state's GOP chairman and cloud
ed his prospects of gaining his support. The
visit to Maine did nothing but revive
memories of Baker's unexpected humilia
tion at George Bush's hands in the Maine
convention last fall. Since then, Bush has
consolidated his support here, and Baker
did nothing to recoup by his performance
the other night.
Continued on page 5
World crises increase nervousness, pessimism
In a thousand late-show movies, there is a scene when
the ship is going to sink, the plane's engines are conking
out or 1 ,000 Indians are on a ridge looking down at the
wagon train. '
The tall, good-looking hero strides into the middle of
the nervous crowd and says, "No need to panic!"
Unfortunately, we have no leading man. There's no
one whose word will calm us, no one who can reassure the
population that the future might turn out all right.
One reason for this is that crises are politically useful.
President Carter's popularity has skyrocketed since the
Ayatollah Khomeini decided he was Pancho Villa and
Carter became our guard against the forces of insanity
and anarchy. .
Congressmen find it easier to be profound by making
preachments about the defense of the nation than the
defense -of public privilege for private corporations.
The military benefits, appearing necessary and not an
expensive necessary evil. The highly technological toys
that are the prizes in the intra-service bureaucratic
skirmishing are questioned less, the price tags glossed over
more, and the Rube Goldberg schemes sound nearly
reasonable.
A state of nervousness about what happens beyond our
borders also makes our world view less complex, less
confusing.
Our relations with other nations also become simplified.
The fact that "some banana dictator is a son of a bitch"
becomes once again less important than the fact that he
is our son of a bitch. Our doubts about the long-term
effects of using power are swept away in the imperative
to use power.
All of this is unfortunate to the ongoing search for the
best for the most. Recently the government has been
trying to make some kind of restitution for past mistakes,
most notably by cutting off military aid to the U.S.
planted military regime in Chile.
A growing movement to treat smaller nations with
some kind of respect is also slowly slipping away. Hie
mindset necessary for seeing a population of human
beings rather than a strategic location or so many warm
bodies to throw into the balance of terror is becoming
disreputable, perhaps never to return.
Part of this is an aspect of the general pessimism
blowing in the wind. The idea that there are limits
implicitly states that those limits will mean the end of
civilization as we know it.
It is becoming fashionable to predict that Western
technological civilization is a passing phenomena, which
will perhaps fall apart in our lifetimes.
And part of it is a general forgetfulness about the way
crises work. Most crises end with a whimper, not a bang,
quietly petering out when the zanies responsible get bored
with what they're doing and move on.
If someone doesn't pull the trigger, if the governor
doesn't send in the state police or the president doesn't
send in the Marines, drab little men hold quiet conversa
tions and both sides pull back.
Gauntlets thrown in the heat of verbal battle are left
lying and everyone walks away mumbling about the
moral victories' they e just won.
And a pile of pointless words beats a pile of bodies
any day.