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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 6, 1987)
Page 4 Friday, February 6, 1987 Daily Nebraskan rial Nebraskan University ol Nebraska-Lincoln Issnies meed results Debate falls on deaf ears The student-regent vote, the recreational center, the al cohol policy, night busing and library funding. At the Daily Nebraskan we call these issues, "ASUN issues that never die," or "UNL issues that the adminis tration tends to ignore." Three student parties, AIM, NUdeal and UNITE, have an nounced their candidacies for the ASUN elections on March 11. If you look closely at their respective platforms, the items look strangely familiar to those presented last year by ASUN par ties and to those presented the year before that. ASUN and these parties are not to be criticized for their per sistence. These issues are im portant to the UNL community and should be addressed. The problem is that students are making the only effort. Their voi ces are falling on deaf ears and have been for several years. Maybe the administration is listening, but where are the results? Student-regent vote: ASUN has attempted to become more active on the Board of Regents and feels a vote can be an influ ence. The regents seem to feel otherwise. ASUN is attempting Ethics questioned Politician pay-raise halt may be joke The bad reputation of politi cians as sleazes is some times deserved. This week's vote by the House of Representa tives on a resolution to stop its own pay increase is a prime example. The vote did not stop the pay increase from taking effect. Only if a resolution opposing the pay increase is passed by the Senate and the House within ;30 days of the president's action is the proposal halted. While the Senate voted against the pay increase within the requisite amount of time, the House's vot e came on the 31st day after the president's action was taken. Representatives want to have Tents keep camping Table 'billboards' express ideas Recently, the Union Board refused to limit the access of all student groups to "table tents" in union dining areas. Their action should be applauded. Table tents are those small cardboard billboards that hide the salt and pepper shakers on union dining tables. They're used for announcing events and giving messages related to groups' activities. After some table tents con taining a religious message were Editorial Policy Unsigned editorials represent ofilc'ial policy of the spring 1987 Daily Nebraskan. Policy is set by the Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board. Jeff Korbelik, Editor, 472-1766 James Rogers, Editorial Page Editor Lise Olson, Asswiate News Editor Mike Reilley, Night News Editor Joan Rozac, Copy Desk Chief ) garner the vote again this jar. Recreation center: ASUN has always supported a new recreation center. But only now, with the assistance of the NU Foundation and the athletic department, is the goal finally being reached. What if the foot ball team didn't need an indoor practice field? Where would that leave the recreation center? Alcohol policy: Will this ever get anywhere? UNL has a dry campus, a psuedo-dry campus. If you look hard enough, you can find beer and liquor in just about any residence hall, fraternity or sorority. Currently, the alcohol policy is being reviewed (drown ing)' in an ASUN subcommittee and probably will remain there when the new ASUN executives take office. Night busing and library fund ing are just two more things that have been kicked around by ASUN and the administration with few results. ASUN complains of student apathy. But unless the gap is bridged between students and the administration, things will not change. Students are getting tired of hearing the same issues and not seeing any results. their cake and eat it too. They want the salary increase, but they want to be able to go back to their home districts and say that they weren't the ones re sponsible; after all, they voted against the pay increase. Hah, hah. It's not that congressmen don't deserve a pay increase com plaints about wages being too low given the "two-household" status of most congressmen are justified. But they should be wil ling to justify that to their con stituencies if they really believe in their moral desert and not depend on empty, hypocritical votes to ensure their own elec toral security. set out, some objections were raised that the proclamation made some members of the uni versity community feel ill-at-ease. A proposal was made to limit their use only to listing the time of events. A commitment to the free flow of ideas is especially important in a university setting. That some ideas made some people uncom fortable is hardly a reason to limit free exchanges. Kudos to the board for rejecting such an ill-advised proposal. Editorials do not necessarily re- fleet the views of the university, its employees, the students or the NU Board of Regents. Ttofc was The Ws is a decade When political and cultural climates become stagnant and apathetic, the public either creates a new perspective or casts its sensibilities back to yesteryear. In the '80s, we have somehow become the paradigm of a lost generation. No, I'm not talking about the breed of globe trotting bohemians Gertrude Stein labeled back in her halcyon days. I'm also not referring to the Beat Genera tion, caught up in revolutionary sub version. The youth of 1987 would love to be a part of those countercultures, but that's where the problem lies. The last few years of a decade often define the character of the era. If any thing, the '80s will most likely be remembered as the age of nostalgia, a time when the youth yearned to be part of their elders' pasts. MTV has started showing old Beatles cartoons every weekend, and a new version of the Monkees has been formed to placate all the teenagers and college students who wish that it was 1967 again. In the process, we have somehow created a decade where retroactivity reigns over the political and cultural kingdom. In the most fashionable nightclubs in Europe, the kids currently go wild over "retro nights" when the DJs spin old Smokey Robinson and Supremes tunes. And in Japan the '50s are in vogue. Numerous news programs have done features on the Japanese youth and their penchant for mock "sock hops," poodle skirts and the James Dean look. I used to laugh at all the UNL Greeks who go to see the Finnsters play cover versions of old '60s songs until I went to England and saw punkers grooving to Lesley Gore and Donny Osmond oldies. From Lincoln to Lisbon, the kids are trying to build a time machine back to the good old days when things were supposedly cool, hip and culturally coherent. Even Madonna, perhaps the biggest superstar in teendom, has built a career around retroactive underpin nings. She thinks she's the reincarna tion of Marilyn Monroe, and she's copied everything about the star right down to the fake mole, the c heesy giggle and the bleached hair. It seems that in the '80s we've adopted a VCR sensibility, thinking that we can relive the past simply by hitting a magical rewind button. Sud denly, it's the '50s all over again. Get a good job, buy a house in the suburbs and live happily ever after, right ? Only Letters Pay hikes should be up to the voters The act of our elected federal repre sentatives voting themselves a hefty pay raise is again an event worthy of news-media attention. Must be a slow day. I would be astonished only it' someone found this news to be "new." Congress has a great disclaimer this time. After the raise became effective the congressmen voted for it not to start. Good move, considering it is legal nonsense. Now, if anyone asks, each elected representative can say, "1 voted against the raise." Ask your represen tative a better question: "Who voted for the bill that made the raise possible the first time?" Each time Congress starts a new session they ac t like they were all just elected and haven't any voting record. Never mind that they have been in office from four to 40 years. Maybe it is time for the public, the people who elected these good men and women, to regain a little control. Those elected are state representa tives: why not pay them from state funds? Only, make it impossible for them to vote themselves any raises. The raises could be voted on during all statewide elections. If you don't like the job he or she is doing, then cut the salary. If they need money to run their offices then use state funds. But we'll tlaen, m tints mow? marked by retrospective redundancy now women no longer try to cook like Betty Crocker and look like Donna Reed the '60s showed them how absurd that was. Fast forward and wham! it's 1967, the "Summer of Love." Drag out Daddy's old dashiki and Mom's old paisley scarves, drop some acid, put on Jimi Hendrix and, gee, aren't we psychedelic and mod? So simple, isn't it? Perhaps, the most sobering expe rience I've ever gone through occurred at a retro concert in Omaha last December. The Byrds, the Turtles and the Mamas and the Papas (minus Mama Cass and Michelle Phillips) played for a crowd of screaming, nostalgia-loving yuppies. "Don't ever let your kids become hipper than you," screamed the Tur tles' lead singer. "We had acid, love ins, Hendrix and Woodstock. What do they have? MTV. Did you check out Annie Lennox's hairstyle? Billy Idol's sneer? Yeah." Scott Harrah The crowd of clean-cut, gray-flannel-frocked fans squealed with approval. When our parents begin to make fun of our weak cultural identity, that's when I get a bit ill. It seems that we have become so nonchalant in our political attitudes that even the mistakes of our past are seeping into the social fabric under neath our nostaligic noses. The false traditionalism and post-war patriotism we eradicated in the '60s are slowly coming back along with the styles and the sounds of those eras. Instead of moving forward and heading towards new ideas and expressions of the state of the world today, we are heading back into the manifestations and idiocies that defined a time we left behind. Suddenly, McCarthyism is back. Numerous right-wing groups and even some feminists sent letters about por nography to convenience-store chains last summer. The Meese Commission told the 7-Eleven chain that if it didn't remove copies of Playboy from the shelves, the public would be informed that smut was for sale just down the let the state auditor, the guy who by law must make the state budget bal ance each year, run the books. The consequences of our act must be examined. When each representative loses at the polls, he or she should be eligible for state unemployment, the same as the rest of us. "Do you get to retire when your boss replaces you?" Mike Miller senior engineering Basham blasted; views 'warped' As I read Lee Basham's Feb. 4 column regarding the "conservative" view of men, I was appalled by his total lack of logic and evidence for his statements. It would seem that the reader should be awed by his great knowledge and ability to think, yet it becomes obvious that he is reaching for evidence to justify his pseudo-intellectual, left-wing claims and using the Daily Nebraskan as a legitimate forum to expound the trash. His first point, that children are defined as subhuman if a conservative government reduces child support pro grams, is mindless at best. Like taking a quote out of context, Basham drops this example in our laps without explaining the background of the deci V $ corner. Later this month, Americans will be subjected to 14 hours of anti-Commie propaganda called "Amerika." And for what reason? If Reagan had been president in 1972, we would never have tolerated Irangate. But in 1987, the attitude seems to be, "Gee, Ron, you made a mistake, but at least you were fighting for democracy. Should we ask you to resign or impeach you? Naw. You're only human, but a true American who will fight to the end against Commie regimes." What set the '60s apart from other generations was its tremendous amount of activity. In fact, the '60s youth was so politically conscious that they would jump onto any cause regardless of how worthwile it was. Today, a "politically conscious" people are more likely to stand around proclaiming themselves either "liberal" or "conservative" in stead of taking an active role in issues. This has been especially true at this paper in the past few years. And so we sit in our little time machines, squeezing every symbol out of the past that we can. We add color by computer to old films to give them an '80s premise. We make new versions of old songs, packaging them as new pro ducts for a new generation. By the end of the decade, what will there be left to rehash? Perhaps we are all living in a time redolent of Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," in which Gatsby says, "Can't repeat the past? Why, of course you can!" Such a belief eventually led to Gatsby's destruction, but we are hardly characters in a novel. We are, instead, washed-out, lifeless figures rummaging through the ashes of forgotten fires, searching frantically for something that is no longer palpable. A modern identity. The last passage in "The Great Gatsby" sums up the situation best, for, like Gatsby, we have become fol lowers of the green light: ". . . the orgiastic future that yea r by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that 's no mat ter tomorrow we will run fas ter, stretch out our arms farther . . .And one fine morning So we beat on, boats against the cur rent, borne back ceaselessly into the past. " Harrah is a senior English and speech major and t he Daily Nebraskan arts and entertainment editor. sion, hoping that we swallow his inter pretation as true. But, of course, sub stantiating his skin-deep intellectualism is impossible, as it has no basis in fact. He proceeds to make an all-encompassing claim that conservatives have treated humans horribly throughout history, but again fails to support him self with any evidence. He also seems to have conveniently forgotten that regimes that claim Marxism as their guiding force have destroyed perhaps 50 million of their own citizens in attempts to reshape society into that left-wing Utopia. Finally, his idea that fundamentalist Christianity is the root of all this con servative evil is beyond belief. Not to mention his linking it with Stalinism (which, if true, shows the left to be equally as evil). Perhaps he overlooks the many programs which we evil Christians head to help the poor in worldly and spiritual ways. In conclusion,. Basham's rumblings are symptomatic of the left's inability to deal with a reality that does not match their warped perception. They simply blast their drivel at us, without regard for facts, swallowing the intel lectually weak. As a conservat ive, I do not claim a monopoly on morality, but I do make some attempt at objectivity a lesson that is lost on Basham. Kevin Terrell Lincoln