Tuesday, April 1, 1986
Page 4
Daily Nebraskan
clitoris
Nebraskan
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1 IS
n
Laws of science say 'no'
Evidence continues to mount
against President Reagan's
Stragetic Defense Initiative,
widely known as "Star Wars."
Both the scientific and political,
community dispute the adminis
tration's claims about the plan's
technical feasibility and costli
ness. A recently reported poll of
physicists demonstrates that
most of these scientists don't
think the plan can be technolog
ically feasible anytime in the
foreseeable future. This contra
dicts the optimistic forecast of
an early 1990s development pre
dicted by Lt. Gen. James A.
Abrahamson.
A Senate study confirms the
scientists' perspective. It also
reports a number of other diffi
culties with the plan.
The Senate study points out
that the difficulties in SDI
development have greatly in
creased since the first feasibility
studies were released several
years ago.
First, most of the progress
made in SDI technology hasn't
been in the area of advancing the
deployment date. Rather, the
research to date has served only
to prove that scientists don't
know much more than they orig
inally thought they didn't know.
They know that the gulf between
where we are and where we
would need to be in order to
deploy the system is much wider
than originally suspected.
Second, the study points out
that original assessments of the
program assumed no Soviet
measures to counter the SDI's
strategic threat. That is, the first
optimistic indications of SDI
effectiveness assumed that the
Soviet missile systems would re
main like they were at that time.
Welcome, coach
NU basketball future is promising
Nebraska's new basketball
coach Danny Nee has an
impressive track record.
He turned an ailing Ohio Uni
versity team into conference
champions in just three years
and received two consecutive
NCAA tournament bids in his six
years at Ohio.
Let's hope Nee can do the
same for Nebraska. Nee replaced
Moe Iba, who resigned March 14
after Nebraska's 67-59 loss to
Western Kentucky in its first
ever NCAA tournament bid.
Nee is definitely qualified for
the coachingjob. He had a 107-67
record at Ohio. Nee was a member
of Al McGuire's first recruiting
class at Marquette University in
1964-65. A native of Brooklyn,
N.Y., Nee was a high school
teammate of Lew Alcindor, now
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, at Power
Memorial High School.
Nee also was an assistant to
Notre Dame, basketball coach
Richard "Digger" Phelps for four
Vi.ki Kutsha, Editor, 472-1766
Thum liabrukiowicz, Managing Editor
Ad Hudler, Editorial Page Editor
James Honors, Editorial Page Editor
Chris Welsrh, Copy Desk Chief
mm
The study states that this
assumption is clearly wrong. The
Soviets would not sit still while
SDI deployment threatens to
neutralize their strategic capa
bility. Instead, the study reports
that the Soviets could make
their missiles 10 times more dif
ficult to neutralize with the SDI
system than the defense depart
ment originally assumed.
Billions upon billions of dol
lars fruitlessly sunk in a still
born SDI program can hardly be
afforded by the nation.
There are those who argue
that the United States cannot
afford to merely sit by and let the
Soviets develop a SDI-like sys
tem of their own. But the laws of
science are not politically biased.
Technological feasibility is not
altered when the scientist steps
from the West to the East. If the
Soviets want to waste billions of
ruples chasing a ghost, let them.
Additionally, the only feasible
use of any such SDI system elim
inates the reason for its exist
ence. The Washington Post re
cently reported one scientist
working on the project as saying
that the only effective means of
countering all the problems with
SDI would be to have "joint U.S.
Soviet battle stations." That is
what Reagan proposed in his
debate with challenger Walter
Mondale during the last presi
dential campaign.
Yet if Reagan thinks that the
United States and Soviets can
jointly develop and administer
such a powerful anti-nuclear sys
tem, a better idea seems to be to
save all the money, sit down with
similar seriousness and prevent
the need for SDI through joint
nuclear disarmament. Either way,
it's time to give up SDI as a
necessary or feasible means of
averting the nuclear threat.
years before he accepted the
Ohio University coachingjob.
Nee's teams are known for
their fast-paced offense and pres
sure defense. The combination
makes basketball exciting and
could once again fill the Bob
Devaney Sports Center with loyal
Big Red fans.
Another of Nee's strong points
is his recruiting ability. He al
ready started recruiting, but he
is at a great disadvantage be
cause basketball national-letter-of-intent
signing day is April 9.
Despite the time dilemma,
Nee could be fairly successful
because of his solid recruiting
contacts in major urban areas,
such as New York, Los Angeles,
Chicago and Philadelphia.
UNL Athletic Director Bob
Devaney, UNL Chancellor Martin
Massengale and any others who
helped select UNL's new bas
ketball coach should be com
mended for their choice.
Welcome to Nebraska and best
of luck, Danny Nee.
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WealtSwelderlv re
Money should be
There are, in life, small moments of
recognition that produce a click,
a glottal stop of consciousness.
Finally, once and for all, you know
something is out of whack.
Maybe it happens when you read the
statistics again and, at last, it sinks in.
Today a child in America is six times
more likely to be poor than an elderly
person.
Maybe it happens when you notice a
line on Form 1040. Everyone older than
65, no matter what income level, is
entitled to a second personal exemp
tion. For me, it happened as I read a tale
of the joys of aging written by Sheilah
Graham. The Hollywood gossip colum
nist wrote about a house in Palm Beach
and pleasure trips abroad. Almost in
cidentally, she added: "This is a small
matter, but it gives me satisfaction to
pay half-fare on buses and trains and
only $2 at the movies." Click.
It's not that I begrudge Ms. Graham
her "satisfaction" nor do I know the
bottom line of her bank account. But
somehow I do not think she is the per
son we had in mind when we thought of
bus subsidies "and senior-citizen dis
counts, or when we established social
programs and tax policy.
Something has gone out of whack.
We have looked at the elderly too long
as a single class. By and large, they are
no longer the "ill-clad, ill-housed, ill
nourished" population that Franklin
Delano Roosevelt described. The coun
try has done a remarkable job of chang
ing the portrait and so have the elderly
themselves. Today, the rate of poverty
among those older than 65 is lower
Letters
Separation of church and state preserves free society
I found James Rogers' column. fDailv truth in terms nf thp ssrrifipp nf .Tpsne what C,tA Viotoc onA thoro ic nlwnvs
I found James Rogers' column, f Dailv
Nebraskan, March 19), to be most
interesting. I would agree with him
that religion constitutes an effective
embodiment of a particular value sys
tem. Furthermore, it is an important
aspect of the cultural cohesion and
continuity of those who share it.
How Rogers gets from this point to
challenging the wisdom of the separa
tion of church and state is, however,
beyond me. He in fact succeeds only in
demonstrating its necessity.
While Rogers' vocabulary is a refresh
ing change from the semi-literate money,
grubbing drivel of TV evangelists, his
conceptual development does not ex
tend far beyond theirs. He states that
Christian societies are successful be
cause God blesses his people, appar
ently at the expense of those he does
not claim as "his."
Rogers, in fact, seems to have detail
ed information regarding the nature
and opinions of the almighty. He main
tains that only Christianity encompass
es all truth and offers a rundown of that
..j s sir
granted for need instead of age
than among the rest of Americans.
We've made these changes at a cost
that we find easier to calculate than to
remedy. This year, the working popula
tion will pay $200 billion in Social
Security taxes. Those benefits have
increased 46 percent in real terms
since 1970, while the real wages of
those who pay them have declined by 7
percent. More than half of the money
from all the social programs go to the
1 1 percent of Americans who are elderly.
Ellen
Goodman
Samuel Preston of the University of
Pennsylvania explains: "The transfers
from the working-age population to the
elderly are also transfers away from
children, since the working ages bear
far more responsibility for child-rearing
than do the elderly."
This isn't a time for elder-bashing
nor do I have the stomach for genera
tional warfare. We can't replace the
stereotype of the impoverished old
with a new stereotype of the entitled
old. But it is important to update poli
cies to match the new reality. As Pres
ton says, "If the main purpose of social
programs is to help people who are
poor have more resources, it doesn't
make sense to use age as an indicator
of poverty."
There is already some pressure to
right the imbalance within and between
address and phone
truth in terms of the sacrifice of Jesus
for our sins, his resurrection three days
later and, I assume, the promise of
immortality to anybody who buys the
story.
I couldn't care less what kind of
hocus-pocus Rogers cares to indulge in,
but I find the above construction most
amusing coming from a man who rejects
humanism because it "fails to pass the
test of intellectual credibility."
In any event, Rogers knows what God
likes and, by sheer coincidence, God
likes Rogers and those who share his
theology. How many times have we heard
this muddle-headed nonsense before?
How many times must we see its mani
festations before we learn the lesson?
From the programs of extermination
referred to in man's earliest writings to
the grisly events on a farmstead near
Rulo, history is replete with examples
of what can happen when man pre
tends to know the mind of God. That
very act of faith, as comforting as it
might be, is frought with danger. For if
you know what God loves, you know
ap Eoeoief its
generations using the tax structure.
We now tax half the Social Security of
elderly couples with incomes over
$32,000 and put that money back into
the Social Security Trust Fund.
As for Medicare, some reformers
recommend raising money from the 40
percent of elderly who pay income
taxes and using it to lower Medicare
premiums for low-income people. Other
politicians, from Pat Moynihan to Pres
ident Reagan, want to raise the per
sonal tax exemption for all but the
highest income brackets to $2,000 as
an aid to families with children.
Only 38 percent of the voters in the
country live with children. It is an arti
cle of faith among politicians that the
elderly will think of themselves first.
But I am not so sure or so cynical. In
that same article, Sheilah Graham
wrote, "As an older person, I don't have
to worry about the future. I am in the
future." But then she talked of giving
something to her grandson.
This is the other model that older
Americans respect: the family. In the
family, when it works right, we do not
send our children to summer camp
while our parents are without food. Nor
do we send our parents to Florida while
our children need clothes for school.
We make adjustments; we balance the
checkbook according to need. It is
time to re-balance that checkbook now
not by a standard of age alone, but
using the calculator called fairness.
1986, The Boston Globe Newspaper
CompanyWashington
Post Writers Group
Goodman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning
columnist for the Boston Globe.
Brief letters are preferred, and longer letters may be edited. Writer's
number are needed for verification.
what God hates, and there is always the
temptation (or is it a duty?) to be the
earthly agent of your deity.
Rogers' agreement with the under
statement that value systems based on
religion warrant "scrutiny" to deter
mine how they can be utilized while
minimizing the risk of violence and
oppression clearly illustrated by their
history is of little comfort. If Rogers is
like most theists, he has inspected his
theology and determined that it would
be a good way to run the world.
Contrary to what Rogers thinks, I do
not believe that atheists advocate the
clear separation of church and state
because of any "cultural advantage" it
entails. Rather, atheists (and, I might
add, growing numbers of enlightened
theists) support the separation of
church and state because it avoids the
tangible and frightening possibilities
that history demonstrates to be attend
ed upon the investment of a deity with
the powers of the state.
Steve Haack
graduate student
