Daily Nebraskan
Monday, January 26, 1987
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Page 4
Nsbraiskan
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
FimancisLl
Use a scalpel,
In his administration's con
tinuing efforts to control
government spending, Pres
ident Reagan's proposed budget
for the 1988 fiscal year includes
substantial cuts in grant and
work-study programs as well as
the elimination of the federal
government's partial interest
payment obligations in Guaran
teed and National Direct stu
dent loans.
It's difficult to objectively
evaluate the proposal because of
the closeness of the subject to so
many students' lives. Nonethe
less, several factors should be
considered by all students.
First, aid to education
especially in the form of loans
is primarily a middle-class aid
program. Instead of extending
the length of their education and
working all the while, many stu
dents simply borrow money. It's
! ot obvious that the programs
favoring the middle class should
be preserved. Especially given a
choice limited to financing poor
students who would not other
wise go to school vs. shortening
middle-class students' length of
schooling, it seems obvious that
the poor should be preferred.
The second point, however,
modifies the first: It is not obvious,
even given the current federal
financial constraints, that the
choice between preferringjpoor
or middle-class students should
have to be made. Cutbacks in
domestic programs continue a
pace while military spending re
ceives a position largely protected
from the budgetary meat cutter
other programs are trimmed by.
One doesn't, need to be opposed
to a strong national defense to
seriously question whether the
marginal increase in milit ary pro
tection from the current weapon
UAAD president critizes
focus of forum coverage
It is unfortunate that so much of the
Daily Nebraskan coverage of the forum
sponsored by the University Associa
tion for Administrative Development
focused on LB157. Several other items
of greater importance to the future of
the university were discussed that day.
Near the end of the forum, however,
questions were raised about the bill.
Sen. Jim McFarland's response led
many of us present to believe that he
was largely unaware of the function of
the support staff of the university.
Guest Opinion
Viann Schroeder, current chair of
the Employee Concerns Committee for
UAAD, graciously spoke to clarify this
for McFarland. The essence of her
remarks was that the faculty is at the
heart of the educational process, that
the support staff also plays a critical
role at the university which is largely
unrecognized by most citizens (a sen-
timent echoed by Chancellor Martin
Massengale), and that consideration
should be given to amending LB157 to
include all university employees. Her
remarks were largely general and were
only incidentally addressed to the bill.
Although McFarland acknowledged her
Jeff Korbelik, Editor, 4 72-1 766
James Rogers, Editorial frige Editor
Lise Olson, Associate News Editor
Mike Reilley, -Night News Editor
Joan Rczac, Copy Desk Chief
- aid cuts
not an ax.
systems really outweighs the
marginal social benefit that re
sults from sending more lower
income students through school.
This thought almost becomes
cynically poignant in light of
revelations about costly weapon
systems that can't perform even
close to the promised speci
fications. Students understand that times
are tough all over students at
NU especially understand this
lesson. Yet in revising the student-loan
and -aid programs the
federal government should be
careful of throwing out the pro
verbial baby with the bath water.
While there are too many stu
dents gratuitously borrowing
funds for non-education-related
expenses, proposed standards risk
denying needy students the money
they require. The administration's
proposals risk taking an ax to
programs where a scalpel would
do a much cleaner job.
Finally, U.S. society must face
the question: Are too many stu
dents going to college for no
good reason? All students who
can benefit from higher educa
tion should be allowed the oppor
tunity to go irrespective of finan
cial ability. Yet with large dropout
rates in the first two years of
post-secondary schooling, too
many students seem to be wast
ing their time and taxpayers'
money in an aborted attempt at a
college education. Efforts to in
sure that students who go toxol
lege are prepared for the expe
rience both intellectually and
personally should be fully
supported. Such efforts can help
but insure that the education
dollar is employed more effi
ciently. And that means more
money for students that can
benefit from the expenditures.
statement, 1 don't believe he said he
would rewrite the bill, as your editorial
stated.
UAAD has a 25-year history on the
campus of working to promote profes
sional development of its members and
to enhance benefits for all faculty and
staff. The effects of inadequate salaries
fesulting from repeated budget cuts
are not limited to the faculty. Many
creative and talented members of the
support staff "are also accepting more
lucrative offers -from other campuses
and from the private sector.
Your cutting remark about the direc
tor of Publications and Campus Postal
Services reveals a serious lack of under
standing about day-to-day operations of
the university. This person is an inte
gral part of campus activity at the
highest level and regularly serves on
committees, along with faculty, to con
tribute to decisions about the future
direction of the university.
The remark also turns out to be iron-
ically inappropriate. She turned down
an attractive job oner trom anotner
university last week. Her colleagues
(both faculty and staff) can only hope
she will turn down future offers.
Fay Moulton
president
UAAD
Materialistic New Agers, MacLaine bask
T n an interview published this month lions that incredibly intelligent people
1 ; a iti,i chir. iv,,m siwe are aniona us to Eive us
n an interview published this month
in American Health magazine, Shir
lev MacLaine explains that even
ley MacLaine explains that even
the founding fathers of our nation were
"spiritually" inspired.
"Thai s why thev put the Great
pyramid of Giza on the dollar bill with
he third eye above it. That's why they
)ut 'In God We Trust' on the back -
the
nut
because they had to spiritualize mate-
rialism," MacLaine told interviewer
Terry Clifford.
And what purer motivation for Amer-
r ....
icas isew Age movement man guiu;
Guilt about being yuppies, about the
move from radically minded hippie to
consummate breadwinner, guilt because
the battle over social consciousness
and the lifestyles of Ihe rich and fam
ous is virtually unwinnable.
The New Age is about toys and about
guilt-free living. It is consummer Zen.
It is the moneyed path to enlighten
ment. It is spare time and disconnec
tion. It is reconciliation through posi
tive indifference.
For those unfamiliar with the New
Age, perhaps I should explain. And
don't ask someone personally involved
in the movement because they have a
barrage of metaphysical catch-phrases
of the Christian theologies. The New
Agers seek to escape to escape
those theologies that made them feel
guilty, that inspired in them those two
great stones in the pathway to riches,
pity and compassion.
They will say,"I am God, you are
God." I guess this is a step up from the
early 70s pop-psychology motto, "I'm
OK, You're OK." What can the 1990s
hold?
Last week, millions yawned through
MacLaine's televised peregrination to
enlightenment. In the self-indulgent
"Out on a Limb," MacLaine sang,
danced and psychobabbled her way
through five hours of TV time, rehash
ing the Sun International Picture's
storehouse of Erich von Danikenisms
like the Nazca HnesUrrPeru, the mys
teries of MacclurPicchu and specula-
AIDS virus hits sexual mainstream;
heterosexual apathy among reasons
Last week marked the 14th anni
versary of the Roe vs. Wade deci
sion on abortion, and many, as
usual, aired vociferous objections about
the issue. But today we have a problem
that's much worse. It is paramount in
importance to teenage pregnancy, apar
theid, nuclear arms, Nicaragua and
famine.
I can understand why many object to
abortion, but I cannot understand why
some are completely apathetic about
saving people who are already leading
healthy, productive lives themselves.
I'm talking about AIDS, the fatal
disease many refuse to discuss or even
acknowledge because the very mention
of it conjures up images of the word
"gay." AIDS and the word "gay" used to
be a sort of grisly doppelganger that
invited ridicule and nonchalance whe
never the two were mentioned. Five
years ago, AIDS was a "gay disease."
That's all rapidly changing. Hetero
sexual complacency has now helped to
spread the AIDS virus to the straight
world, where it was once a rare stranger.
In Austin, a college town in Texas, the
state with the third highest concentra
tion of heterosexual AIDS cases, two
enterprising students have started a
"condom delivery" service that's giving
late-night Domino's pizza deliveries a
run for convenience.
In magazines like Cosmopolitan and
Esquire, condom companies have started
running clever safe-sex ads to promote
their products. In one ad, an attractive
woman with a solicitous look on her
face poses under this slogan: "I enjoy
sex, but I'm not willing to die for it."
But according to numerous polls and
surveys, few people are listening. In the
current issue of Atlantic magazine,
journalist Katie Leishman writes that
even in San Francisco only 6 percent of
the gay population said they used con
enlightenment. We sec MacLaine meet
alien beings, have out-of-body expe-
ripnres in which she floats to the moon
on a kite string of quicksilver, meditate
in mineral baths, "be" the flame of a
candle, stand on a beach with her arms
outstretched screeching, "I am God,"
... l I.
and oaiance a career anu an auuuw uu
affair with a British diplomat.
You got your reincarnation, your
NDEs (near-death experiences, for the
uuuuuaicu;, juw uicu aua.jo.o,
mind reading, your deja vu, your
ghosts and your mediums. All in five
condescending hours. My God, I kept
thinkinc. thev took off shows like
"Mammal" and the "A-Team" for this,
Charles
Lieurance
You're probably thinking, well, as
long as these New Agers don't start
proselytizing and bugging me in air
ports for money, what's' the harm? The
rich must have their playthings, right?
Why not let them indulge $150 an hour
on aura-balancing workshops, zo bucks
a shot on healing crystals and Wind-
ham Hill tapes? Let 'em shell out $700
for sessions with self-proclaimed chan-
nelers who can put them in touch with
Atlantian wisemen and ancient mys
tics. They'll have their fun and then
doze off into self-congratulation land
along the French Riviera.
Arnold Mandell, a professor of psy
chiatry at the University of California,
San Diego, states in a sidebar to the
MacLaine story that perhaps some of
the transcendental states of con
sciousness that New Agers claim to
experience result from a failure of the
brain-quieting hormone serotonin. Man-
doms. And it has been estimated that
even fewer heterosexuals in this coun
try take safe sex seriously.
Two weeks ago, a provocative NBC
news special called "Men, Women, Sex
and AIDS" was aired. The program
focused on the threat of AIDS in the
heterosexual world and how the gov
ernment and society are dealing with
it.
The show started with a rather dis
turbing statement from U.S. Surgeon
General C. Everett Koop: "There are
now as many heterosexuals carrying
the AIDS virus as homosexuals five
years ago."
Scott
Harrah
This statement was, of course, merely
an estimate because few people have
taken the HTLV-III test (for AIDS
antibodies in the blood) and many car
riers of the virus never develop symp
toms, although they can still pass it on
to sex partners. In the early part of this
decade, the Center for Disease Control
in Atlanta stated that three main
groups were considered "high risk" in
regard to AIDS; homosexual and bisex
ual men, users of intravenous drugs,
and residents of Haiti.
Today, anyone, heterosexual or homo
sexual, who engages in intimate sexual
contact and exchanges body fluids like
semen or blood with many partners is
'considered high-risk. The reason? AIDS
has finally hit the mainstream because
of apathy and the number of women
who have-had sex with bisexual men
in self-indulgence
dell posits that the hormone;s action
can be inhibited by meditation, fist-
ing and marathon running, uppies
can reaa mis as spare time, dieting
and jogging." Mandell calls this state,
"God in the brain." Apparently a healthy
checkbook is the path to God in the
brain, judging by the cost of New Age
amenities and a recent poll placing
most of those subscribing to a New Age
lifestyle in an income bracket above
$50,000 a year.
There are practical objections, how
ever, to this lifestyle. Twice in the last
week proponents of the New Age pointed
out that they do not object to murder
and feel no pity or remorse over death.
They claim the distribution of food and
wealth is as it should be and crime has
its place in the order of things. Both
MacLaine, in the course of "Out on a
Limb," and J.C. Knight, a self-proclaimed
channeler who made her trance-state
personality Ramtha into a multi-million-dollar
business, said on the news
program "2020" that criminals, in
cluding murderers, should not be pun
ished and that those who are poor and
starving are meant to be that way.
These are not comforting statements
coming from the isolated rich, who
have become so disconnected from
everyday life through security systems,
trance-states, out-of-body experiences
and sophistic gobbledygook that they
nave chosen to iorget tne benents
afforded a society, if not by morals, at
least by compassionate social con-
trading.
I seriously doubt that if MacLaine
wore the shoes of the victims, she
would be so nonchalant about murder,
hunger, poverty and other forms of
physical degradation.
"Though I speak with the
tongues of men and angels and
have not charity, my voice is but
sounding brass. " (I Corinthians
13:1).
Lieurance is a senior English, philo
sophy and art major and Daily Nebras
kan senior reporter.
and intravenous-drug users.
The show's first focus was on the
straight singles scene. One of the first
places they showed was a ski resort in
Colorado, a representative of a hetero
sexual "meat market." Resort areas ate
considered to be AIDS breeding grounds
because people from all over the world
flock to them on vacations to find plea
sure. They are now considered to be
tantamount to the now closed gay
bathhouses that used to dot the gay
urban centers in New York and San
Francisco. And the same apathy and
ignorance that finally claimed thou
sands of lives in the homosexual nether
world of easy sex in bathhouses runs
rampant in Colorado, Fort Lauderdale,
' Las Vegas and other vacation meccas,
the show claimed.
The show's reporter went to the ski
lodges in Colorado and Utah and asked
people about their attitudes on AIDS
and free sex.
"Why should I worry?" said one col
lege student. "These girls I sleep with
all come from the little town where I go
to school."
The reporter then asked a female
college student if she would ask a
potential partner about his sexual
history.
"Are you nuts?" the woman replied.
"That's the most embarrassing thing
I've ever heard of. If some guy asked me
how often I slept around and if I had
AIDS, I'd kick him out of bed before he
knew it."
The fact is, the show said, whenever
one engages in sexual activity, one is
having sex with everyone the partner
has ever slept with. This is because the
AIDS virus is often dormant for five to
14 years before symptoms develop.
Also, you just don't know who someone
See HARRAH on 5