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Daily Nebraskan
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4 AIN'T IT
by pdMinig oont problems
Nearly a dozen years ago, 1,200 in
mates at the Attica State Correctional Fa
cility in New York rebelled. They held 38
guards hostage in an attempt to improve
living conditions. What ensued was a
bloody, full-scale riot that ended the four
day confrontation.
On Sept. 13. ll)71, after negotiating
with inmates to reach a peaceful settle
ment. New York Commissioner of Correc
tions Russell Oswald gave the order for the
attack on the prison. Fifteen minutes later.
2l) inmates and 10 hostages lay dead from
gunshot wounds inflicted by 1,500 state
troopers and police. Then Gov. Nelson
Rockefeller defended the lawmen's actions.
I aily yesterday morning, just 1 1 days
after taking office. New York Gov. Mario
Cuomo announced the end of the 53-hour
siege at the Ossinging Correctional Facility.
The state prison, known as Sing Sing until
lsO, holds 1.250 inmates. Of "the 570 in
mates in Cell Block B, 560 took part in the
uprising that began Saturday evening. The
prisoners held 17 guards hostage through
out the revolt.
The prisoners' demands seemed simple
enough-mainly regular mail and package
delivery and better medical and recreation
al facilities.
Fortunately, the prisoners were satisfied
with receiving television publicity about
their demands. Soon after local news shows
aired the demands, the remaining hostages
were released unharmed.
Thomas Coughlin, New York Correc
tions Commissioner, noted that the in
mates' demands would be granted, with the
exception of an amnesty guarantee.
The special police unit trained to deal
with prison uprisings must have learned
from the events of Attica. While the num
ber of hostages and inmates involved at Os
singing was nearly half that at Attica, no
one was seriously injured.
But the inherent problem hasn't chang
ed. Cell Block B was only reopened,
Coughlin said, because of the tremendous
influx of prisoners. Robert McKay, head of
the Attica investigation, agreed that over
crowding is the culprit. In 1972, New York
state prisons held 12,000 inmates; today
there are more than 28,000, leaving little
opportunity for education, recreation, hos
pital care and vocational training.
"They are mostly involved in idleness,"
McKay said, especially at Ossinging,
where most prisoners are awaiting transfers
to other institutions.
This lack of vocational training merely
perpetuates the problems facing these men
who are no better equipped to make an
honest living upon release than when they
entered prison.
At Ossinging, the inmates and officials
avoided violence in their settlement. But
it was the threat of violence that lurked in
the back of the minds of those who
couldn't help but remember the Attica
tragedy.
If publicity can avert violence, as it did
at Ossinging, it is a valuable asset. Next
time - if there is a next time -let's pay at
tention to the issues before they culminate
in another Attica.
Society a victim of wimpdom
As we sign the check, we should all re
member why we are paying extra for tui
tion this semester. We should all take the
big breath required of big thoughts and re
alize that we are all victims of incipient
wimpdon. Everywhere you look, you will
find wimps in public office, those very of
fices which have ultimate responsibility for
the public welfare.
Instead of showing responsibility while
in office, these wimps are avoiding it,
bending their principles until they break.
Dave Milo
Mumgaard
They become spineless nothing-heads, in
terested only in covering their hind ends
when it gets a little hot. As a society we
are afflicted with them and we've got to do
something about it.
Unfortunately, Ronald Reagan is not a
wimp. Wimps sacrifice principles in order
to further self-interest. President Reagan is
not a wimp, though he has abandoned re
sponsibility for the millions he threatens
with nuclear carelessness or the millions he
abandons when he cuts Medicare, food
stamps, or threatens to cut Social Security.
Even though he responds not to what is
best for the greatest amount of people, but
to his cohorts whispering Ayn Rand's vir
tue of selfishness in his ear, he is not a
wimp. He holds his principles firmly to
his breast, refuses to compromise them,
and in the process has produced a nation
reeling from unemployment and loss of hu
man dignity. All, he's not a wimp.
Wimps are predominately found among
the legislatures of our states, in the gover
nors' mansions, in public university admin
istration buildings, in student government.
These appear to be the people most con
cerned with preserving their station in life
and responding to outside pressures,
whether it is as a regent responding to his
pocketbook or as a student leader respond
ing to some odd idea that to do nothing is
probably best for all.
Governors are often wimps; they are as
subservient to political ambition as vice
chancellors are to university presidents.
Governors and vice-chancellors will both
sell out their principles if it means a pro
motion. To bring the concept of wimpdon home
to Nebraskans, we need only to look at our
tuition surcharge. Fundamentally, we are
paying a surcharge because Congress aban
doned all its sanity when it passed substan
tial income tax cuts, cut vital social spend
ing and approved incredible increases in
defense spending. The Congresspeople
looked around, saw primarily their big
campaign contributors (only the wealthy,
of course, are big campaign contributors;
they are invariably wimps because the ac
cumulation of wealth takes a tremendous
accumulation of self-interest) pressing
hard for all that gleeful selfgain,and pro
ceeded to toss their principles and responsi
bilities to the winds.
In turn, the economy has become a
wretched thing. Here in Nebraska, the
"state of the economy" has forced our
political leaders to make hard decisions
whether to raise taxes or cut vital spend
ing. Charley Thone, who was truly a wimp,
became an eternal optimist, refusing to
raise taxes since he foresaw the economy
recovering. Optimism is a good thing, but
when it comes from the mouth of an ob
vious wimp, it is only misleading roof
ram. The Unicameral ducked and dodged
and cut the budget accordingly, revealing
its true colors as a convention of wimps
by abandoning the realizable promises
they had made to their constituents when
they were elected.
Since the University constitutes the
by abandoning the realizable promises
they had made to their constituents when
they were elected.
Since the University constitutes the
largest segment of the state budget, we
were hit proportionally hardest. Our ad
ministration and regents, wanting to pre
serve good relations with the governor and
the Legislature, fought past budget cuts
only half-heartedly. Last fall, however,
when further cuts were proposed, they fi
nally put up an admirable fight.
Continued on Page 5
Clipped contrasts keep truth
of poverty, pomp, neglect alive
The daily newspapers arrive, dropping
another load of contrasts at my doorstep.
On one page we are told that Reagan
may cut a billion dollars from the food
and nutrition programs. Further in the
paper, in the food section, we are told
that "Houston alone ate two tons of
pate in December."
What are we to do with these two
pieces of information? The newspaper
has neatly separated them into compart
ments. Should we do the same thing,
keep these items apart so the facts won't
rub against each other, igniting our emo
tions? I clip these entries and add them to
my collection. I already have two items
! i
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1 -
Ellen
Goodman
from the New York Times Magazine of
Jan. 2: a description of a woman in a
housing project in Brooklyn who cooks
chicken backs and noodles for her family's
one daily meal (page 22) and a full-color
recipe for oysters with leek butter (page
27).
I also have a Washington Post from the
week before. In one story, the formerly
middle class in Detroit are lining up for
handouts. In another, the chic people in
Washington explain that they only pick
at elegant buffets: "You've seen one
shrimp, you've seen them all."
There are others, of course. In New
York, a movie producer, Dino De Lau
rentiis, has opened a giant gourmet store
which he named DDL Foodshow, as if
food were for show. The salami there
can cost S6.99 a pound and veal goes
as high as S8.75 a quarter pound. I am
told that the aisles at this store are almost
as full as the stairway at the Yorkville
Common Pantry soup kitchen a couple
of miles away.
What does one say about these culi
nary displays of the gap between haves
and have-nots? What do you say about
the ads for weight reduction and tales
of people shoplifting milk?
With a scissors in my mind, 1 feel like
a curator of cliches. But these are not our
cliches. They are the cliches of Theodore
Dreiser, of Charles Dickens. They are the
cliches, for heaven's sakes, of Pravda.
I won't label my exhibit with morals.
I am not suggesting thft the people of
Houston give up their passion for pate.
I won't admonish the people at embassy
parties to think of the poor starving child
ren in Detroit and clean their plates. Nor
shall I tell the Foodshow to become a
soup kitchen.
Americans learn to live in a culture of
haves and have-nots. We coexist with some
inequality and teach our children the
survival techniques of dulled sensibilities.
We walk around certain people, drive
around "bad" neighborhoods, and com
fort ourselves with the notion that our
government is helping, and besides, Ameri
ca is better than . . .
But there is a point, a moment - and
I think this is one - when we wonder
whether we've become too good at not
noticing. We see again all the contrasts,
all the gaps, as if we were visitors in Cal
cutta. Maybe it's happening again because the
numbers of poor have increased to some
critical mass. Maybe it's because the con
trasts are so stark: Last year the stock
market rose 171 points and unemploy
ment rose 2.5 million. There is little
subtlety in that statistic for my collec
tion. For the first time in most of our
lives, the first time since the New Deal,
we have a government that is not muting
inequalities but sharpening them. How
dulled a sensibility could be immune to
the news that the government has been
considering more cuts in food stamps and
school lunch and child nutrition?
Suddenly America is not better than . . .
Every day now, European journalists call
Nancy Amidei of the Food Research and
Action Center (FRAC) asking whether
it can be true that unemployed steel
workers in Pennsylvania are eating left
over onions donated by farmers.
Continued on Page 5
Ni Daily
soraskan
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