page 4
daily nebraskan
fridav. february 27, 1981
o
Government has obligation to meet social needs
President Ronald Reagan's declared war on
government spending is frightening because he is
recommending a battle plan featuring survival of
the fittest tactics.
No progressive, responsible government that
truly wants to operate in the best interests of the
citizens for which it is formed should encourage
this all-out competition. Such a system only illu
strates an obvious ignorance or disregard for in
herent differences and circumstances faced by in
dividual members in a society.
It was the realization not all people naturally
are accorded the same opportunities in life that
spawned the formation of the social programs and
services now being threatened.
A tidal wave of news reports and commentaries
came after Reagan's proposals to make wide
spread cuts in government programs were an
nounced. Many critics have said they fear these changes
would benefit the affluent at the expense of the
poor. Sadly, those dismal forecasts appear to be
logical and alarming predictions.
But the problems go deeper than even that low
point. The president obviously believes, as he
expressed to Congress, a government does not
exist to promote social change. He must believe a
exists only to govern: to pass laws
government
It V T
to the editor
Literature stolen
The area in the union for student organizations and
others to leave free literature is well appreciated by those
who are interested in what some of the organizations may
be all about. As a student organization, FCKANKAR
values the opportunity to provide literature to those who
may be interested in a spiritual path which offers the in
dividual freedom to choose what path or teachings they
wish to follow. Unfortunately, there arc those who would
deny a person that right. In the past months or so, the
literature we have placed in the union for people who are
interested has been removed (stolen). We know it was
stolen, as that much literature does not disappear over
night when people are picking up pamphlets and books
one at a time, which we would hope would happen. In
stead, ail the literature put out is gone the next day. This
has happened before, in fact, quite often over the last
two years. I do not know if it is the same person or per
sons responsible over this time span. I do know that, as far
as I can tell, the other literature such as the Christian
literature has not been stolen. I know that this applies to
a minority, and it is to this minority that this letter is
addressed. Those of us following the teachings of FCKAN
KAR would never think of removing any other group's
material. We ask that others please give us the same con
sideration. We do, after all, live in a democracy, not a
theocracy. I hope this will resolve the matter.
Larry Mozer
Senior, Philosophy
Check out UNO
To the students of UNL: If you want a rec center,
then vote for it. If you don't know what you're missing,
then go see UNO's.
Keith Briggs
Senior, Chemical Fngineering
nebraskan
UPSP 144-080
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and not to attempt to offer services whereby peo
ple who face disadvantages can be helped to help
themselves.
In defense of the mass reductions being propos
ed, supporters of Reagan's plan to rescue the
economy point to abuses of social programs as a
reason to significantly reduce or eliminate these
services.
But it's not fair to assume all people who are
unemployed don't want to work; that those who
can't afford to pursue a college education don't
want to work hard enough for thai opportunity;
or that people who can't afford to put food on
their table are looking only for a handout.
Undoubtedly, abuses of these programs do
occur. But it would make more sense to devote
energy toward preventing those abuses, rather
than advocating whopping cuts.
The new president is making a grave mistake in
viewing people as human units to be pitted
against each other in a contest to get ahead. He
further proposes to compound the problem by
not realizing a government has an obligation to
serve citizens by establishing and maintaining
equalizing components in the system like social
programs and services.
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VIETNAM !
For Bill Haley, 1955 was the end
Most of us are lucky enough to be allowed to live our
lives on an incline, trying to make each day better than
the one before.
A few of us,
in time.
though, are destined to be forever frozen
It was the spring of 1969. I was in Florida, at a motel
called the Newport in Miami Beach. Dinner was finished,
and I had a drink in the motel's bar it was called the
Rhum Room- and then decided to take a walk by the
ocean.
As I passod by one of the motel's public rooms. I heard
a strangely familiar sound. It was music, but it was too
loud to be a record. And yet what else could it be but a
record? And yet what else could it be but a record? It was
Bill Haley and the Comets singing
Clock," so it had to be a record.
"Rock Around the
I looked into the room. There were several hundred
card chairs set up. all facing the trout. Only a couple of
dozen people were in the room, though. Some elderly
guests of the motel, and a handful of children chasing
each other up and down the aisles.
At the front of the room, singing, were Bill Haley and
the Comets.
It was a bizarre sight. "Rock Around the Clock" had
been a hit in 1955, and Bill Haley had become famous all
over the world, but by 1969 he was way out of fashion.
But there he was, sweating and smiling and singing that
same song in a motel meeting room, while some of the
people in the audience read the newspaper and others
yawned.
I asked someone what was going on. I was told that
Haley and the Comets were booked into the Newport's
lounge that week. Part of the contract said that, on one
evening, the band had to perform free in this meeting
room. The idea was that the Newport's guests were
provided with a different activity every vening after
dinner. The social director would meet them in this
room; one night it might be a magician, one night it might
be dance lessons, one night it might be a bridge tourna
ment. Tonight it was Bill Haley and the Comets.
I stood in the doorway and watched. As Haley held
his guitar and sang "Rock Around the Clock," he had a
ferocious grin on his face. The grin did not waver all
through the song. 1 though about all of the thousands of
nights he must have sung those words, and about how
tired of them he must of been by now. Most of us can
achieve something when we are young, then try to move
on to something belter.
But what of a Bill Haley? He had the misfortune of
having the first hit rock and roll song, and no matter what
he tried to do the rest of his life, he was expected to sing
that song everywhere he went. It didn't matter what had
happened in his own life in the years after 1955; it didn't
matter that to the people in this meeting room tonight,
his voice was just an echo out of the past, a half forgotten
snippet from the soundtrack of their lives. If Haley was
going to presume to be here 14 years later, then he'd
better sing that song.
I found myself staring at that smile on his face, the grin
that would not go away. It was clearly the device he had
settled on. the mask that would make neutral all the
questions about what was really going through his mind as
he sang for the grandparents and children. The grin was so
fierce that his face seemed about to crack.
Bill Haley died the other day. The stories in the papers
said that he was 55. and that death had been of natural
causes. Haley and his wife had been living in a retirement
community in the Rio Grande Valley area of Texas, the
stories said.
It was no wonder that he had stopped performing;
every man has dreams, but what's the use when no one
wants you to be anything other than the boy you were in
1955? A smile, the song and a spit curl; that's all that was
ever required of Bill Haley, for he was involved in that
strange commerce that is centered on reminding us of our
memories.
It's funny; they say that a hit like "Rock Around the
Clock" makes you immortal, but it's real effect is almost
precisely the opposite. Bill Haley's obituaries appeared in
1981 , but a part of him died in 1955; died and was bur
ied, even while he tried to live on.
And now I think of that evening in Miami Beach. The
old men and women talked to one another, and the child
ren yelled and played on the floor, and there, at the front
of a motel meeting room, Bill Haley closed his eyes and
smiled in the night.
