Commentary
Friday, February 24, 1995 Page 5
Escaping the realm of razors
To shave or not to shave: that is
the question.
Whether ’tis nobler to suffer the
nicks and cuts of errant razors, or
to take armpits against a sea of
shaving creams and by opposing
them go au naturel ...
It is a dilemma.
But let’s face it. For most of us,
female body hair is difficult to
defend on aesthetic grounds alone.
Although it does have its
benefits.
I’m fairly certain that it was my
hairy legs that nabbed me this job
in the first place.
“Tell me something about
yourself,” the editor asked.
I smiled winsomely, as women
desperate for work are wont to do,
and crossed my legs.
I considered sharing my grade
point average, my enduring love of
the classics, my penchant for opera,
my geode collection.
“I don’t shave my legs,” I
replied instead.
His eyes widened perceptibly;
he peered surreptitiously over the
desk at my gams.
I had him.
How could he risk not hiring one
of the 10 women at the university
with wooly calves?
Another perk that goes with
unshorn legs is obvious — no nubs.
No prickly, bristly, stubbly hairs to
rub against your loved one in the
middle of the night.
And if you don’t whack off your
armpit tresses, you can actually
wear deodorant without incurring
third-degree burns under your
Cindy Lange-Kubick
arms.
No razor bum, no multitude of
teensy hairs to wash down the drain
or scrub off the side of the bathtub.
Fewer Band-Aid bills.
To shave, to shear, perchance to
cut: ay, there’s the rub.
American women sporting the
European style in body thatch are
about as common as an honest
Washington politician and as gaped
upon as three-headed cows at the
state fair.
I’ll admit that it’s difficult for
Americans to look beyond the hair
to the person beneath.
However, there is a decidedly
sexist twist to this logic. What do
we call a man with a three-day
growth of hair on his face?
Sexy.
What do we label a woman with
leg hair?
Butch.
Men with stubbly faces are
sporting the Don Johnson look.
Women with stubbly legs are
unbecoming, unfeminine.
Thus culture doth make con
formists of us all...
One of the first rites of passage
into womanhood involves a Bic
razor and a can of SoftShave.
After the onset of puberty,
unshaven legs become a sin of the
highest order.
Like most women, I dared not
break the sanctimony of smooth —
read sexy — baby-soft legs.
I begged to shave my legs. I
shaved on the sly and have the
scars to prove it. I even shaved my
arms — big mistake.
On the eve of the birth of my
first child, I plopped my bare
bodkin into the tub to ensure that a
silky smooth body would greet his "
imminent arrival.
“What are you doing?” my
husband asked, panic in his voice.
“Just getting rid — pant, pant —
of these nubs, Honey,” I replied,
straining to see my legs over my
belly.
And why? Five hours later, I sat
on a hospital bed, sweating,
panting, moaning, every orifice in
my body exposed; but, hey, my legs
looked good.
My move into leg-hair accep
tance has been gradual. Right now
I’m just a winter-hair person —just
beginning to see beyond the surface
to the beauty of the hirsute leg. The
advent of shorts and swimsuit
season usually drives me back to
the blade.
To bare or not to bare.
That is the question.
Lange-Kubick is a senior news-editorial
and sociology major and a Daily Nebraskan
columnist.
Faith found through baseball
Right now in Florida and
Arizona, replacement players are
preparing themselves in spring
training camps for the upcoming
baseball season. In our nation’s
capital, the players and owners are
still arguing over who will receive
the biggest slice of the revenue pie.
There is no doubt that a large
number of American people are just
plain fed up with the whole deal
and could care less if the season is
played by a bunch of has-beens and
never-will-bes.
I feel differently, though.
I have a very unusual connection
with baseball. It is through baseball
that I found God. I realize that most
people, when claiming to have
found God, are either handing out
pamphlets or sitting on death row,
but that’s not my story.
In the summer of 1993,1 began
to have serious doubts as to the
existence of a supreme being. There
were the usual amounts of war and
brutal crimes in the world, but it
was a tragedy closer to home that
really made me wonder if we were
being cared for by a creator.
It was the summer of the
Midwest floods. Iowa was underwa
ter, and the national media focused
daily upon the loss of life and
property and the building of
sandbag barriers.
One night as I was standing in
line at the grocery store, I picked up
the evening newspaper. There was
the usual picture of a submerged
farmhouse, but the story was what
set me off. A woman, who had lost
everything she owned, was quoted
thanking God that it was only her
home that had been destroyed, and
that no one in her family had been
killed.
I shook my head in disbelief. I
began to wonder why anyone would
be thanking God after a devastation
Todd Elwood
like that. I actually became angry at
this woman. “Am I the only one
who would question God for
something like this?” I thought.
As doubts and anger filled my
head, I passed a gum machine. This
was no ordinary penny-slot ma
chine, though. This was a monster.
It stood about five feet tall, and the
gumballs were the size of golf balls.
They were beautiful, bright, and
most assuredly, sugar-packed. They
were also 25 cents apiece.
I slid a quarter into the slot, and
as I turned the giant handle, I
prayed. More precisely, I chal
lenged. “God, if you are there, give
me a red gumball.”
It wasn’t as though I were
asking Him to turn stones into
bread, and I had, after all, just
invested a quarter on my faith. But
after the guts of the machine turned
and twisted, out popped my
gumball.
White.
I don’t know anyone who enjoys
white gum balls. It is the worst
flavor of the bunch. That was it, I
thought; God is a hoax. He is a
creation of men to keep society
ordered and nothing more.
For the next week or so, I
collected as much evidence as I
could to prove that God did not
exist. It was not difficult. More
people died in the floods. The
robberies, rapes, murders and other
forms of senseless violence contin
ued. The world was filled with
white gumballs.
But then, on July 13, all of that
changed.
Being a baseball fan, I found
myself in front of the TV watching
the All-Star Game. I noticed that
one player, as he stepped up to the
plate for his turn at bat, crossed
himself.
I chuckled confidently at his
foolishness. This All-Star was
obviously asking for God’s assis
tance at the plate, and I knew that
God was way too busy saying
you’re welcome to a woman in Iowa
to help him hit a baseball.
But before every pitch, the
player made the sign of the cross.
After three or four pitches, this All
Star (and God, apparently) liked the
next pitch. He swung the bat and
the ball exploded to left field. I
thought it was actually going to go
over. It didn’t.
The ball flew to the left-field
fence, and there it stuck. It was one
of the most unusual things I had
ever seen. The ball lodged itself in
between two of the mats that line
the fence to make a soft landing for
any player who decides to run into
it. The play was ruled a ground-rule
double.
Before the ball was pried out of
place, the TV camera got a nice
tight shot of it. My jaw dropped
open as I stared at what looked
exactly like a giant white gumball.
I decided that questioning God
was pointless. He would not answer
me in human words, or with the
challenge of a quarter and a
gumball.
I got down on my knees and
thanked God for the ground-rule
double.
Ehvood Is a senior English and sociology
major, and a Dally Nebraskan columnist.
Leaders redefining
equalityphilosophy
It seemed like old times for
Democrats last week. Vice
President A1 Gore was in
Florida, promising the AFL-CIO
convention that President
Clinton would bar government
agencies from doing business
with companies that replace
striking workers. The new
chairman of the NAACP was
spouting the same old cliches
that stereotype blacks as hope
less, hapless victims of white
racism who cannot make it
without affirmative action and
other quotas designed exclusively
for them.
Newly elected NAACP
chairman Myrlie Evers-Williams
vowed to be “very vocal on issues
that deal with welfare reform” —
meaning don’t cut the dole. And
also with issues dealing “with the
real attitudes and attempts to roll
back many of the gains that we
have made over the years ...
particularly affirmative action”
— meaning the continued hiring
of people based not on the
content of their character and
ability, but on the color of their
skin.
These are echoes of a soon-to
be-buried philosophy. Politicians,
including some Democrats,
realize that while the Voting
Rights Act, open housing laws
and school desegregation
produced equal opportunity,
affirmative action produces
unequal opportunity, dependency
and increased tension between
races. Politicians are getting this
message: It’s no longer political
suicide to stand against affirma
tive action and to campaign for
colorblindness.
Even Charles Evers, brother
of Evers-Williams’ late husband
Medgar Evers, is a Republican.
It was from the lips of the
president of South Africa, Nelson
Mandela, that some profound
truth recently came. Addressing
the second session of the Demo
cratic Parliament in Cape Town
on Feb. 17, Mandela sent a
message to people who thought
his election meant government
was open for handouts. Mandela
said, “The government has
extremely limited resources to
address the many and urgent
needs of our people. We are very
keen that this real situation
should be communicated to the
people as a whole. All of us,
especially the leadership of
political organizations and civil
society, must rid ourselves of the
wrong notion that the govern
ment has a big bag full of money.
The government does not have
such riches.”
Mandela wasn’t through.
While he spoke favorably of
Cal Thomas
affirmative action for those who
had suffered the sting of apart
heid, he said only those who
exhibited “collective responsibil
ity and accountability” would
benefit. Then, in a statement that
would get him branded a right
wing reactionary in this country,
Mandela added: “It is important
that we rid ourselves of the
culture of entitlement, which
leads to the expectation that the
government must promptly
deliver whatever it is that we
demand, and results in some
people refusing to meet their
obligations. ...”
The past is the NAACP and
its total allegiance to the Demo
cratic Party, which has dispensed
welfare checks and affirmative
action in exchange for the
organization delivering a huge
bloc of black votes to the party.
And the future is hard-working
blacks such as Oklahoma Rep.
J.C. Watts, Rep. Gary Franks of
Connecticut and Supreme Court
Justice Clarence Thomas.
Growing numbers like them have
made it without the “assistance”
of the NAACP and quotas. By
their lives and words, this new
generation of blacks is saying
that nothing takes the place of
persistence.
The desperation of those who
are about to lose power was
expressed recently by Rep.
Charles Rangel of New York,
who equated opposition to
affirmative action to Hitler’s
policy of exterminating Jews. (He
did subsequently apologize for
this remark.)
Perhaps Rangel, the NAACP
and similar organizations dislike
anyone who declares indepen
dence from government because
it means people will no longer be
dependent on them. Some civil
rights “professionals” may have
to find productive work — an
unwelcome prospect for people
who have earned big bucks by
playing a lifelong and divisive
game of racial politics.
Nelson Mandela has it right.
He should return to America and
give that parliamentary speech to
Congress and the American
people.
© 1995 Los Angeles Times Syndicate
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