Monday, April 14, 1986 Daily Nebraskan
Society becoming conformist
Two items in the April 9 Daily Nebraskan
sparked my thoughts into writing this let
ter. The first item was Jim Rogers' column that
started off with a discussion of malaise. I must
admit that I didn't even read much past the
beginning of the article. The discussion of
malaise was enough.
Malaise is a feeling that has come over me
with increasing frequency in the last several
months. The cause, I feel, is the wave of conser
vatism that has come to pass since President
Reagan took office. I have trouble figuring out
how the radical hippie generation of the 1960s
has grown up to produce this conservative
society.
Guest Opinion
My personal observation of this society
which I have considered possibly to be just the
result of an early mid-life crisis is that an
aimless zest for exploring life is missing. The
seriousness with which people appear to be
approaching their daily activities seems astound
ing. The piousness that is used to defend this
style is nauseating.
Pot smoking is once again considered a devil's
activity, even in the past tense. The word
"drugs" is practically as hush-hush as is the
word "sex" in church. Pro-choice people are
murderers. Criticizing the government is un
American. If we aren't careful, the United States
will have a "sea of red" knocking at its southern
bordei. And most insidious of all, Congress has
held a hearing to disuss the content of rock 'n'
roll lyrics. Roll over Thomas Jefferson!
As a youngster in the '60s, I grew up watching
the Vietnam body counts and hearing hippies
advocate the rejection of "the system." This sys
tem, it was told, was producing robotic people all
of the same nature. The establishment dictated
the one, right set of morals, and the one, right
way to be.
The '60s were supposed to change all that. A
new society was to be born that let people be
what they wanted to be. It was to be a society
that rejoiced in the diversity of people. Mutual
respect of differences was to replace antagonism
and discrimination. But what happened? Did the
bulk of the hippie generation shun the system,
and after standing toe-to-toe with the desperate
reality of life revert back to the security of June
Cleaver? This reversion is what DN columnist
James Sennett has advocated.
It appears that time has gone backward. Peo
ple again are preaching a "single way to be."
Military spending is up to be sure that this single
way makes it. Born-again nuclear testing is our
insurance policy.
I remember reading an article somewhere a
long time ago that said the Midwest tends to
produce creative people because it has no strong
identity like the South, New England or South
ern California. The lack of identity, in a sense, let
people become whatever they felt like because
there were no guidelines.
I challenge the people who read this to find
their own guidelines and to fight proudly for the
right to test the ones given to them.
The second time that spurred this letter was
the picture of Frank Zappa wearing a tie.
Joe Haley
graduate student
economics
Letters
Greeks contribute for more than one reason
In response to John J. Lowry's letter (Daily
Nebraskan, April 9) on the philanthropy projects
of Greeks at UNL, I wish to make the following
comments.
First, I would like to acknowledge the admir
able contributions that U.S. fraternities and sor
orities make to various local and national chari
ties, but we must examine further the other
purposes for the energy Greeks spend on philan
thropy. Lowry should reassess his definition of phi
lanthropy. To me, and I believe most others,
philanthropy is the free giving of time, effort or
money for a humanitarian cause with no other
goal than to help the particular cause.
Lowry openly admits by writing his letter cri
ticizing the amount of DN coverage UNL Greeks
Contraception is 'waste of money'
receive for their "good deeds" that one of the
major goals is to get publicity and recognition for
a particular house or for the Greek system as a
whole. I think most will agree that true philan
thropists give out of kindness, not selfishness.
Last, I ask the members of the Greek system
to re-evaluate the reasons they are involved in
philanthropy projects. Most will openly admit it
is because they care or are civic-minded, but are
you not also under pressure from your individual
national fraternities or sororities, councils and
house officers to perform charitable acts to gain
recognition and prestige?
Scott Reighter
sophomore
political science
"The health center's birth control pills are
about 80 percent cheaper than those at the
average community pharmacy."
That was the opening line of a front page
article in the April 13 DN. This is "kind of a
courtesy thing," according to the article. Also,
"by providing the pill at an affordable price, big
companies may be keeping some students in
school."
Why not take this "affordable" money and use
it to help with the cost of schooling instead of
wasting it on the pill or any other form of birth
control?
Can't students live without sex until they are
married? Even after marriage, you can live very
happily without artificial contraception.
Basically, what is being said between a couple
who uses a form of birth control is, "I love you,
except for your fertility."
Don't we have enough control over our own
bodies? If we don't, we are lowering ourselves to
the level of an animal, like a dog.
It also was stated that "the student also feels
secure with the pill's 99 percent effectiveness
rate." What about the 1 percent?
There is only one form that is 100 percent
effective, and that is abstention.
Why did the student have to "hide her birth
control pills from her mother and be careful
about who she tells"? Her conscience must be
telling her it isn't right, or else she wouldn't have
to do this.
It's too bad that the negative publicity about
the side effects of the pill is wearing off. It's still
wrong to use something that isn't pro-life, and
the side effects still exist.
I fail to see how the pill or any other artificial
contraception lets humans "be fruitful and mul
tiply." Mark Maresh
junior
ag economics
Lack of industrial policy hurts
COHEN from Page 4
the oil industry. In a scale based upon need,
it is not even the independents or their inves
tors and certainly not the major producers
or distributors. Instead, it is the people who
are out of work, the many thousands of them
in the industry and all the rest who rely on the
industry in one way or another. They hardly
get mentioned. In fact, you would think that
the Texas unemployment rate of 8.4 percent
is comprised of nothing but capped wells. In
a national TV appearance, White acted as if to
mention people would be an insult to Texas'
spirit.
Nonsense. Once again, the Reagan admin
istration's refusal to have even a semblance
of an industrial policy is ruining the lives of
thousands, maybe millions, of people. Workers
who had lost their jobs in the mills of the
North not so long ago were told to stop crying,
enlist in the army of the Protestant Ethic and
march to the Sun Belt. That's where there
were jobs aplenty, a cornucopia of entrepre
neurial opportunity. Now some of the same
people who went South to work, are out of
work. Time to hit the road again.
These are the invisible people of the cur
rent oil crisis or boom depending, of
course, on how you look at it. They almost
never get mentioned and the plea for either
higher prices or an import fee is almost never
made in their name. Conservative dogma has
so permeated the American fabric that it is
considered just plain dreamy to say that peo
ple are being hurt and lives ruined.
I can't tell you what the proper course for
the government should be whether is
should intervene or allow the market to work
its (black?) magic. I do know that out in oil
country, which is unusually also cattle and
farming country, a depression has settled
over the land. The economic tripod of a region
has been kicked out from under it and
George Bush and Mark White notwithstand
ing it is not national security that is suffer
ing, but the people who live there. No one has
put a cap on their pain.
1S8S, Washington Post Writers Group
Cohen writes an editorial column for the Wash
ington Post.
r
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Paul VonderlageDaily Nebraskan
It's a bird, it s a plane . . .
. . . it's Christi Dewhirst, a sophomore in Teachers College, preparing to
land in the arms of her partner Todd Wheeler, right, a sophomore agricul
ture major. The action took place Saturday in the Yell Squad tryouts at
the Bob Devaney Sports Center.
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