OPINION Nelsraskan Thursday, January 20,1994 Nebraskan Editorial Board University of Nebraska-Lincoln Jeremy Fitzpatrick Rainbow Rowell. . Adeana Left in . . . Todd Cooper JeJfZeleny. Sarah Duey. Staci McKee. .Editor, 472-1766 .Opinion Page Editor .Managing Editor .. VJ_.Sports Editor .Associate News Editor Arts & Entertainment Editor .Photo Chief I I>1 I < M Vt?tW5 s \ \ 0>i \M0'5 ! E. HUGHES SHANKS Decades portrayed inaccurately Lately, we hear and speak a lot about the ’60s and ’70s. It’s as if they’ve been rediscovered, as if we’ve uncovered hidden treasures. But if I hear one more thing about how great the ’60s and ’70s were, I’ll scream. I received a letter recently that brought back bad memories of times past. To put my frustration with the let ter and overexposed decades in per spective, we need to go back to where this whole mess actually started. The Cold War. The 1950s, damn it. Just when I thought I’d gotten over it, “Big Brother/Sister” reared its ugly head, and I cracked. A letter from Financial Aid came last week and sent me off the deep end. Apparently, the processing center for my student loan was unable to confirm whether I had registered with the Selective Service. “They found me,” I thought. But then I thought: “Wait a minute. I’m too old. Besides, five years in the Navy, five years in the Air National Guard and a 10 percent disability ex empt me. Don’t they?” You may not understand how a letter from the university could send me crashing back to the Cold War, but the events of the past leave profound residual effects. I remember a time when my peers and I lived in fear that we would be drafted, that our number would come up. Someone — we weren ’ t sure who, maybe the government, maybe the Big Brother/Sister we heard so much about — was watching us, and if they wanted to find us they could and they would. Picture this: the invention of televi sion, Charles Starkweather, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, the Cold War, George Orwell, the Manchurian Candidate, Sen. Joe McCarthy and You may not understand how a letter from the university could send me crashing back to the Cold War, but the events of the past leave profound residual ef fects. most importantly, a lack of global communication. The overriding theme of the time encapsulated a drab, cold, dark, dank climate. Ironically, we weren’t talk ing to the Eastern Bloc countries, but we were listening. We were perfecting “space-age” technology to look at, to listen to, to spy on and to duplicate all we could. We weren’t even safe from ourselves back then. To hell with Russia. The ’50s were rich with irony. Black soldiers served alongside whites in Korea, but they couldn’t be served alongside them at most metro politan lunch counters stateside. In 1954, our benevolent grandfa therly president — a professional sol dier and killer of men, women and children, Dwight Eisenhower — pre sented a paper to the United Nations entitled “Atoms for Peace.” Within a year he launched his first nuclear sub marine. Pop culture has a way of imitating history without actually reliving it. It doesn’t need to be relived. However, if you’re going to wear our clothes, walk our walk and talk our talk and continue to haunt us, listen up! Pop culture emphasizes just one side of past events and treats them as true historical images. We have failed to credit some of our more sinister sides. For example, we fondly remem ber hula hoops, but what of the thou sands of fallout shelters we built? Early modern political theorists warned that we could not withstand ownerships of the media by large sin gle bodies and, 30 years ago, we be lieved them. They were wrong. Later, alarmist intellectuals thought we’d be blown to bits or controlled by “Big Brothcr/Sistcr.” They too were wrong. We have proof that Orwell was right to some extent. My guess is there are plenty of young folks today who know who “Big Brother/Sistcr” was/ is. And no doubt many would wel come a wider window to the world than the glossy Madison Avenue one we now call Time-Warner or MTV. All of our sources of information and entertainment are owned by just a few people. Today we refer to media giants and megacorporations by name. We even delight in knowing their wedding plans, such as those of Donald Trump and Marla Maples. Where once we referred to a single street, Madison Avenue, we now know “Big Brother/ Sister” by name, and we appear to be quite comfortable with him/her. I’ll probably never leave my Cold War fears and paranoia behind me. I’m still pissed about that letter. Shanks is a political science graduate student and a Daily Nebraskan columnist. Kepfield Sam Kepfield’s last column (DN, Jan. 18, 1993) started to make a very good point. Of course he ruined it with his drastically incorrect assumptions, but I actually started to applaud him. The column argued that although abortion is supposed to be one of the core tenets of American liberalism, it violates other liberal beliefs by being applied in racist, sexist and possibly homophobic ways. Kepfield’s mis take was in assuming he had caught all liberals in great hypocrisy when in fact many of us have always seen legal abortion as the lesser of evils. There is even a group called Feminists for Life who say just what he did about abor tion harming women. Many people of color and disabilities rights activists are either opposed to abortion or very wary of proclaiming its virtues be cause they also see its dangers. I I I I IKS |() INI Kl>| I OK His greatest mistake was to assume there is some monolithic group of people called LIBERALS who all think exactly alike and question nothing. Abortion is one of those issues tearing across and apart both liberal and con servative camps. It is unwise to compare abortion rights advocates to Stalin and Hitler because it then allows others to com pare abortion foes to Andre Ceausescu, the tyrannical former leader of Com munist Romania who made abortion a treasonable offense. Is Kepfield more comfortable with that company? Trevor McArthur . senior teachers college Parking Now that the “green space” north of the Nebraska Union will finally be a reality, Chancellor Spanier could offer the ultimate “good faith” ges ture: exclusive parking for physically challenged students, staff and faculty in the lot directly west of the Admin istration Building. Because there are so few marked spaces for the physical ly challenged in the core of campus, this lot would allow easier access (the ramp entrance is right there) to the Administration Building, where ser vices for the physically challenged are housed; Love Library; and the Ne braska Union. Because Spanier decided it wouldn’t be an imposition for physi cally challenged faculty and staff to walk to campus from a more remote lot, he and the other administrators shouldn’t mind either. Let’s be a lead er in providing services for the phys ically challenged as well as develop ing a reputation for a “beautiful, green campus.” Alicia A. Law retired UNL employee