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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 10, 1984)
1 i o o 1 kS) l.'riul nuwe m mi Gov. Dob Kerrey appeared 'on the CBS Morning News this week to explain why he la opposed to a state-run lottery in Nebraska as a way to earn govern ment revenue. He said some smart things: "First of all, you dont always make money. It can lose money." Yes, lotteries can be a risky venture. Kerrey also said, in so many words, that he didn't want to stretch himself too thin, try his luck too much. "You can only do so many thing3 and do them well," according to the Lincoln Star. Such as end the Commonwealth Savings Co. disaster quickly and fairly. Stiil, Kerrey's basic hesitant feelings toward a Nebraska lottery are right, but for another reason than the lottery losing money or the government losing face. The reason is a moral one: What kind of people try their luck at lotteries? People who have nothing to lose, that's who. People who really have no extra money to spare, but who keep hoping that if they get the lucky number they'll never have to worry about anything Fast-paced again. Think about it. Have you ever heard of a run-of-the-mill middle-class house wife winning a lottery? Doesn't it seem the lucky winners are usually people who replace light bulbs and live on the edge of poverty? Nothing wrong with that, but in the long run lotteries don't make people productive. Gov. Richard Thompson of Pennsyl vania said his state's lottery has helped raise $500 million for human services programs. But does it solve anything, or does the circle keep repeating itself, except for the person or people who happen to buy the right ticket? The initial investment in researching and setting up a Nebraska lottery should be spent on better thing3. If the government of Nebraska needs revenue so badly that it is thinking about invest ing in a lottery, then it should think about investing in human services pro grams in the first place the kind that help people become better, productive citizens who depend on themselves, not games of chance. technology changes emotional ties My young friend does not need me to teach her how to tie shoelaces. Be tween her first and third birthday, laces have become nearly extinct on shoes her size. They were done in by Velcro. The role that I had honed over years of teaching left over right, under and pull has also become extinct, done in by Velcro. lEIlsn Goodman This girl won't experience the frus tration or the accomplishment of learn ing this task. Nor will I experience the frustration or accomplishment of teach ing it. But no matter. Life is easier with Velcro. My young friend does not need me to teach her to tell time either. Children do not tell time anymore. They are told it by the watches on their wrist. The big hands and little hands that I had decoded with my child, nieces, cousins, and the children of friends are being replaced inexorably with digits. It is easier with digits. I don't rail against these artifacts of progress. I am a fan of Velcro, and absolutely neutral on the subject of digital numbers. But the non-needs of my three-year-old friend have given me some odd thoughts about old ties and Old times. I feel suddenly like a loyal and competent employee whose work has been cyberneticized. I am skilled with skills that are unreeded. I know there is something essen tially modern in my dilemma of de functness. Clocks and shoelaces are -not major losses to me or to this little girl, but they are small examples of what happens routinely in our culture. Technology changes so quickly, we hard ly have a chance to teach our children what we know before it becomes ir relevant. Once, crafts were handed down from one generation to another until fami lies were named after them Millers, Smiths, Taylors. Now skills have a shelf life shorter than our own. The state of the art is transient. So we have trans formed the oldest kind of emotional relationship: the elder as guide, parent as teacher. We are no longer as sure that a younger generation can be pre pared for the world by an elder gener ation. . In a dozen, hundred ways, "improve ments" disrupt the lines of inheritance. In high-tech societies it is no longer the elders who hold the secrets, no longer the young who are to be initiated. Knowledge Is more egalitarian. Indeed, in the Silicone Valleys of our culture, it is the young who decode mysteries. I don't want to overstate my case of ties and times. Perhaps I cannot teach ill i i 1 j w r s&!r""S r- ( 4 A -; i If 71 71 ... v ZJ VV (A &lV 1P--". fit )fN" ' a 3-year-old shoe-tying, but I haw a 16:year-old daughter with an auto mobile learner's permit. We practice hill starts as I once did with my par ents, and still on a shift car. Most of us have taught someone younger how to throw a ball, bake cookie's, hammer a nail or thread a needle. Still it seems to me that disconti nuity is a real tradition among us. Hie tradition of grandparents who are ex perts in the intricacies of carriage driving just when cars appear. The tradition of elders who have mastered elegant script when typewriters are invented. Friends who are experts in multiplication tables when calculators become common. We can all remember the catalog of 19th-century homemak ing skills passed down from parent to child, and now reduced to a single les son in comparison shopping. Over time, how many of the func tions of families were whittled, to a core. Families lost much of their eco nomic glue, the fierce tribal security need for staying together. Families function now, for stronger and weaker, mostly as the emotional and caretak ing center of our lives. Similarly, less technical teaching goes on in familial ways. We no longer really expect one generation to pass on its daily technical curriculum to the next. The informal teaching that goes on in our lives today is about subjects out side technology, and outside time.- We show our children, grandchild ren, young friends how to smell a ripe cantaloupe, pick up a frog, watch for poison ivy, and understand each other. We learn to make generational ties or should I say generational Velcro by sharing ourselves rather than our crafts. The one skill that is not obsolete is understanding of nature, especially human'nature. Most of the experts on human behavior are amateurs. So I won't teach my small friend how to tie shoes or tell time this year. But maybe, by hanging out together, now and again, I'll pass on to her what I learned from my elders: some small things about connections that are time less. 1S34, ioston Glob Umtpzptr Ccmpsny Washington Post Writers Group I &U6JJ WNIC WAS A DUMB t cHoicefwW CAMPAIGN f n it A BUTIWAMTEP SOMbONt STRONG FROM TR6 CART6R V IV II' i . ss 1 I wnm if WiOMBWI is e i m i If M A f I 1 .1 J I I J) 'n M "9 m m LJ m - t j ti Daily vt EDITOR GENERAL MANAGER PRODUCTION MANAGER ADVERTISING MANAGER ASSISTANT ADVERTISING MANAGER CIRCULATION MANAGER ' NEWS EDITOR ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR WIRE EDITOR COPY EDITORS Lzvri Kcpp!, 472-1763 Dsr.if I Zhztt'A Tom Eyrn KSiy rinssn Stsv ftyer Jim Fu3sSI Jann My(fe!ar Christopher Burbach Teri Sperry Dlanna Sleigh The Daily Nebraskan (USPS 144-080) is published by the UNL Publications Board Monday through Friday in the fall and spring semesters and Tuesdays and Fridays in the summer sessions, except during vacations. Readers are encouraged to submit story idsas and comments to the Daily Nebraskan by phoning 472-2588 between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The public also has access to the Publications Board. For information, call Nick Foley, 476-4331 or Angela Nietfeld, 475-4931. PostmasterfSend address changes to tha Daily Nebra skan, 34 Nebraska Uniorv 1400 R St.. Lincoln. Neb. 68588-0448. ALL MATERIAL COPYRSGHT 1 S34 DAILY NSCHASKAN Page 4 Doily Nebraskan Friday. August 10. 1984