Inner-party bickering costs Democrats votes
Sometime tonight the last vote for
the 1984 Democratic presidential
nominee will be cast in the California
and New Jersey primaries.
Soon afterward, on July 16, the
Democratic National Convention will
meet in San Francisco to make the
final choice of whom will grapple Pres
ident Reagan for the presidency. The
primary race has been unsettling for
the Democrats. At times, the competi
tion between candidates seems tohave
cheapened their public images and
that of the party.
After a televised debate Sunday night
between the Democratic candidates, it
seems they are more concerned with
discrediting each other rather than
discrediting the Reagan administra-
tion. Given, they are running "against"
each other for the nomination. But, as
Democrats, they have many similar
opinions. These do not need debate,
except on the fine points which they
ignored. What they need to debate are
Reagan's and the Republican party's
policies, which they did only a little.
But overall, the debate was domi
nated with triviality. Mondale picked
on Hart. Hart, his feelings hurt, picked
on Mondale. The Rev. Jesse Jackson
made jokes and witty remarks about
his rivals and himself.
Jackson amusingly told Hart: "If you
stand in the middle of the road you get
hit from both sides." He said of Reagan:
"I'd rather have Roosevelt in a wheel
chair than Reagan on a horse."
For the nomination, Mondale needs
less than 284 of the 468 delegates left
in Tuesday's primaries. Voter s will cast
ballots not only in New Jersey and Cali
fornia, but also in West Virginia, South
Dakota and New Mpvim. ed Mondale had received between
It would seem that Mondale has the $500,000 and $1 million from political
nomination wrapped up, but Gary Hart action committees, which Mondale said
could complicate thing3 for him. True " he would repay. He has not. If Mondale
to his campaign's bickering form, Hart & nominated, an. FEC investigation
has filed a complaint with the Federal resulting from Hart's complaint could
Election Commission. The complaint
alleges possible violation of election
laws.
During Tuesday's debate, Hart claim-
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further mar the Democratic party
name and cause registered Democrats
to vote otherwise in November.
Already, many Democrats have tired
of the nonproductive bickering and
name-calling between the candidates.
In David Broder's Omaha World-Herald
column Sunday, a Newark, N J., woman
expressed thii attitude: "If the Demo
crats would only stop bickering and
dumping garbaga on each other, they
might have a chance. I'm a Democrat,
but 111 vote for Ronald Reagan."
The Democrats are losing votes be
fore they even have a candidate. The
Democrats need to get their act to
gether. Now that the primaries are nearing
an end, perhaps the candidates and
delegates can ease up on the inner
party squabbling. They need to con
centrate on forming policies and choos
ing a candidate that can represent a
cohesive Democratic stance, one that
can challenge a smug but undercom
petent Reagan who will not be easy to
beat in November.
Julie Jordan
T
emple o
i Doom : Vi
oience
beyond e
I well remember my first adventure with Indy.
Indiana Jones, that is. I am, I feel, on a first-name
basis with him, we have been through so much
together.
Our first adventure was three summers ago and I
had a 7-year-old on my lap. I was ready to steady
and comfort him during the assault of what I had
been warned were jolting scenes in "Raiders of the
Lost Ark," such as the early scene where gobs of
IA7511
Will
tarantulas fall on Inds back. That scene, even
though anticipated, was a turn-the-bones-to-jeliy
shocker, for Father. The 7-year-old sighed content
edly and said in the measured cadence of that sea
son's sophistication: "Ex-cel-lent!"
Parents are pleased to believe, against all evi
dence, that their children's souls are sensitive flow
ers orchids, not marigolds and that, therefore,
care must be taken lest the little creatures be tra
umatized by exposure to this or that cultural
excess. Actually, they are more durable perhaps
"impervious" is a better word than we think. But
there are limits to what they should experience, and
"Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" oversteps
those limits.
I have now had my second adventure with Indy,
the archaeologist with the bull whip and the thirst
for excitement. "Raiders" is stimulating enough,
thank you, with pits of vipers, villains diced by air
plane propellers, faces melting and corpses perfor
ated by arrows, like San Sebastian. But "The Tem
ple of Doom" sets a standard for violent action at
which subsequent movies will shoot, in vain, I hope.
A football game is about nine minutes of action
and a couple of hours of standing around and sort
ing things out. This movie is about nine minutes of
relative calm, and 109 minutes of violent action
punctuated by intervals of mere repulsiveness.
I saw it with an exacting critic, a 12-year-old who
was impatient for the snakes to slither on stage, the
snake motif being strong in this genre. He was soon
satisfied because the eating of live little snakes is
part of a meal that includes beetles, eyeball soup
and chilled monkey's brains served from staring
skulls. That meal was comic relief from giant roaches
and other creepy crawly things, and from children
flogging sadists who are led by a live-wire who with
his bare hands plucks the hearts from the chests of
victims.
The frolicsome movie proceeds without undue
expenditure of nuance, which is fine, but suddenly it
becomes ugly. There is salacious cruelty in the tor
ture scene where a fellow is roasted alive. But then,
that is sort of the way it is apt to be with your basic
torture scene.
The flogging, roasting, and heart-plucking are not
suitable for children. The movie concedes as much
by warning that some scenes may be too "intense"
for young children. The adjective "intense" is the sort
of mushy word that committees settle on when they
are groping for a way to circle (he truth without
barging into it.
The truth is that this movie as fare for children, is
unsuitable, and as a cultural symptom is depressing.
It is not just another example of the inexorable
tendency toward excess, like half-time shows at
Super Bowls. It is an example of the upward ratchet
effect of shocking extremism in popular entertain
ment. This march toward the shocking is producing
a generation that would yawn through the parting
of the Red Sea. We who, when children, considered
Hop along Cassidy and Randolph Scott the last
wor& in excitement now know better, but we doubt
that our children are more fortunate.
The two persons responsible for "Temple of Doom,"
Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, are commercial
geniuses. The noun is right but it Is severely limited
and devalued by the adjective, which also is right.
Their obsession with juvenile obsessions (repulsive
creatures and foods) may be evidence of their
arrested development, which is their problem. But
the sensory blitzkrieg they have produced to coin
money is apt to stunt the imaginations of children,
and that is our problem. This movie is perfectly
made for perfectly passive children for children
raised or electronic images rather than on reading,
which requires imaginative involvement.
Movies can engage the imagination but doing so
requires art. And whatever else art involves, it
involves proportionality and subtlety the ability
to approach the edge of excess without falling in.
This movie leaps in exuberantly, and that is why
there may not be a third Indy epic. What is left to
happen to him? If the future takes such revenge for
today's excess, well, ex-cel-lent.
1 34, VVsshSstgton Pes! WdS&rs Group
t ti Daily n
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i Letters
Column lacks facts
I read Liz Burden's column (Daily
Nebraskan, June 1) with great amuse
ment. It appears, then, that one more
ignorant psuedo-liberal is about to
pain us with her uneducated opinions
for the rest of the summer. Yeech!
Burden says that the big bad Reagan
administration is gleefully passing out
the fried chicken and placing shackles
on the legs of America's black youth in
a deliberate attempt to introduce eco
nomic slavery and to keep as many
people from attending college as they
possibly can. Talk about bullkrinkle!
Burden makes assumptions and
swaps opinion for facts in ways that
are incorrect and improper. As a Demo
crat, I do not agree with many things
Reagan has proposed. But I do not
exaggerate the facts and I do not lie to
service or justify my needs or my ego.
Burden's examples of "discrimination"
and the scenarios she presents to de
fend her argument could happen. But
they could happen if, and only if, the
worst possible aspects of the program
were realized.
The program, however, has too many
good possibilities for Burden's exam
ples to ever occur in the degree she
proposes. Burden should get off her
soapbox and examine all the aspects
of the plan instead of getting all her
information from the CBS Evening
News and Newsweek magazine. The
world would be far better off if we
could dispose of the rigid ideological
straitjackets people like Burden live in.
Sterling Miller
Lincoln
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Page 4
DaHy Nebraskan
Tuesday, Juno 5, 1984