Acts of warmth return tenfold
My grandmother, like most
grandmothers, is a wise old lady.
She often uses old proverbs and
adages to make a point. And the
strong lady that she is, she makes it
a point to make a point very often!
One of her favorites—an oft
repeated Tamil adage—when
roughly translated, means, “When
you provide few others’ children,
yours will be provided for—
somehow.”
I suppose this is our own version
of “Practice random acts of kindness
and senseless acts of beauty!”
I truly believe it’s human nature
to help people in times of need. It
does not have to be outstanding or
truly brave. Simple acts of smiling
at strangers and helping them find
their way are just as special as
jumping into a burning house to
rescue a 3-year-old.
As the saying seems to suggest,
when you help others, you get paid
back in some form.
Like the time when my parents
helped an Australian couple
stranded in India. My parents did
not do anything out of the ordinary
in helping the couple, nor did they
expect anything in return from them.
But they got paid back, anyway.
Not by the Australian couple, but by
a stranger from Hong Kong who
helped their stranded daughter
(could that be me?) in Singapore.
Osceola McCarty I am sure has
never heard of my grandmother, or
the Tamil saying, but she sure has
made a point to provide for some of
the world’s children—even though
she does not have any of her own.
Osceola McCarty, the 87-year
old washerwoman from Hattiesburg,
Miss., has been washing clothes by
FAA system endangers fliers
Veimila Ramalingam
“I think the whole point
here is not in paying it
back’ but rather in
passing it on.
hand for the town’s people for most
of her life.
She would wash clothes from
sunrise to sunset, in the backyard of
her small wooden house, where her
mother — and her mother’s mother
before her — washed clothes for the
townspeople.
The tiny old woman, who—one
has no choice but to agree—was
not exactly bom with a silver spoon,
put many a privileged person to
shame when she donated some
money to the local university.
Last June, Osceola McCarty
donated some $150,000 to the
University of Southern Mississippi
to finance scholarships for the area’s
needy African-American students
pursuing higher education.
One hundred and fifty THOU
SAND dollars!
A mighty sum for even an upper
middle-class family! How can a
poor old woman with no education
whatsoever and a very under
privileged background ever get so
much money?
She obviously did not inherit it!
Nor did she win the money in a
lottery!
She “got” the money the long,
hard way -— by saving her meager
salary. The money she earned from
washing others’ dirty laundry by
hand for more than 70 years—one
scarce penny after another.
It is really amazing that Osceola
McCarty managed to save such a
princely amount. But it is truly
outstanding that she actually had the
heart to give it away!
The generosity of this simple
selfless old soul has touched the
heart strings of many self-righteous
people and has made them open
their purse strings as well.
The first beneficiary of the
Osceola McCarty scholarship of
$1000, Stephanie Bullock, may not
be able to pay back Osceola directly
— how can die pay this selfless old
lady back?
But I think the whole point here
is not in “paying it back” but rather
in “passing it on.” Osceola will get
paid tenfold back, when Stephanie
Bullock helps someone else when
she gets a chance.
Osceola McCarty has set the ball
in motion. I sure hope that this is a
snowball, that it gains momentum
and that it sets off an avalanche.
An avalanche that hurts no one
but instead smothers you in kindness
and warmth!
Ramalingam is a graduate student in
computer science and a Dally Nebraskan
columnist
Nothing sends a day down the
toilet faster than having the plane
you’re riding in plow into another -
airborne vehicle a^ £00 miles an ^
hour, sending a spiraling fireball of
twisted, burning wreckage plummet
ing to earth 35,000 feet below.
Don’t believe me? Try it. It’ll
ruin your entire day, for about a
tenth of a second.
Not many things put a damper on
travel like being blown into tiny,
flaming bits in an infernal conflagra
tion of jet fuel.
Some things might come close—
like having friends or family on one
of the planes involved. Down the list
a ways, although still traumatic, is
being the air traffic controller
responsible for those flights and
being helpless to prevent the
disaster.
For air traffic controllers, who
hold thousands of lives in their
hands every second of every day,
life quickly can become a morass of
Pepto Bismol and blood-pressure
pills.
And that’s when things are
working right.
Last week, the computers at the
Chicago Air-Traffic Control Center,
which is responsible for most of the
flights crossing the Midwest region
of the United States, crashed—
again.
The little green blips disappeared
from ATC screens in Aurora, 111.,
and controllers (and pilots) were left
in the dark.
As if their job weren’t stressful
enough.
It wasn’t foul weather. It wasn’t
"human error’’ either. Those things
happen—they’re regrettable but
unavoidable realities. The conput
ers just crashed. That’s it. And
suddenly, hundreds of flights were
without air-traffic control support.
Bummer.
Listen, let’s get this straight The
air-traffic control crashing is a little
more severe than, say, your map
flying out the window on a cross
country drive. We land-lubbers can
always step at a gas station and ask
directions—when we hit our
brakes, we don’t have 6 1/2 miles to
fall. Planes do. This is serious
business.
Last week’s incident in Illinois
was the Chicago Center’s sixth
computer failure this year and the
Doug Peters
“For being part of a
government that finds it
necessary to buy a new
inventory of ashtrays
every year for its
(nonsmoking) office
buildings, it seems odd
that the FAA, so
intimately linked to the
safety of everyone who
flies across this country,
would depend on
computers designed well
before Elvis was
abducted by the aliens. ”
20th incident this year nationwide.
One computer failure in California
this year was coupled with a
telecommunications failure that left
controllers not only blind, but mute
as well. They couldn’t communicate
with pilots, even by radio.
Strange, isn’t it? Air traffic is at
an all-time high, and high-tech is the
buzzword all over the country. The
ATC computers, one would think,
should be state-of-the-art Mighty
Morphin’ Super Robo-Mutant Ninja
from Hell computers or something.
They’re not.
The computers that the air-traffic
controllers have to deal with predate
“Pong,” the beloved predecessor to
such technologically astounding
games as “Super Pong,” and, later,
the high-tech marvel “Tennis.” They
have been up and running (usually)
since Robot Kennedy won the
California Democratic Primary.
And, unfortunately, it appears
they’re entering their version of a
midlife crisis,__ ,.
Luckily, according to our friends
at the Federal Aviation Administra
tion, the current system has a failure
margin of only six-tenths of one
percent. That’s reassuring.
“Thank you for flying with us
today, ladies and gentlemen. Our
estimated arrival time in Chicago is
2:35, and we have a 99.4 percent
chance of making it there alive.
Enjoy the flight.”
Who knows what the case really
is, though? It could just be that
those crazy controllers keep
forgetting to close the “Solitaire”
program before attempting to
download naked pictures of Cindy
Crawford and the system just
freezes up. Or maybe somebody
kicked the plug while scrambling
under the desk for a dropped donut.
Could be.
But I doubt it.
For being part of a government
that finds it necessary to buy a new
inventory of ashtrays every year for
its (nonsmoking) office buildings, it
seems odd that the FAA, so inti
mately linked to the safety of
everyone who flies across this
country, would depend on comput
ers designed well before Elvis was
abducted by the aliens.
But at least they’re trying to
change.
Interim computers are on the way
to replace the archaic IBM 9020E
computers that are currently in use.
Phew! Big sigh of relief there—
expected implementation date:
1997.
A brand-new system, ostensibly
designed since Nixon’s resignation,
is slated to be up and running
(constantly, I hope) by—hold your
breath—1999.
Until then, I guess we’U have to
take our chances.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we will
begin our descent into Chicago
shortly. Please return all seatbacks
and trays to the original upright
position. Thank you for flying Now
You See ‘Em, Now You Don’t
Airlines, and have a nice
Boom.
Peter* Is a eradiate stideit li Joiraal
Isra aid a Dally Nebraska! coliaudst
ktie/i... f rom the
Money’s crazy grip
has religious hold
Adrla Chllcote
It’s weird how money can
make you so happy. It feels good
to walk down the street with a lot
of money in your pocket. To
know that if you see anything you
could possibly want, you can just
buy it.
It’s especially gratifying when
you acquire money you weren’t
expecting. Even if it’s a buck off
the pavement, it makes your day.
And finding anything more than a
buck lying on the street is worth
bragging about.
It’s great when you get out an
old coat from the closet or put on
a pair of pants, to slide your hand
into a pocket and find a wad of
paper money.
The effect it has on people is
strange. It’s almost like a drug.
Finding or winning money can
elevate your mood.
I think it would be great to be
filthy rich. Then go out on the
street and hand people hundred
dollar bills, or maybe just fifties.
It would be great to see people’s
reactions.
How many stupid things could
you get a total stranger to do for a
hundred bucks? I wonder how
much it would take to make
someone sing a stupid song and
do a jig in public, when they’re
sober.
That would be fun if I were
filthy rich. Since I’m not, I’ll just
have to wait until I win the
Publisher’s Clearing House
Sweepstakes.
The whole concept of money
is so abstract. It ’s just pieces of
weird paper with pictures of dead
white guys on the front. And you
can just go into a store and
exchange this paper for real stuff.
It’s amazing.
Everyone trusts that these
pieces of paper will always be
worth something. Almost every
thing around us is built on this
stupid paper.
People will do anything for
money. They’ll jeill for it and die
for it. People go crazy for money.
I think we’ve all gone crazy.
The whole world has put such a
great amount of power in these
little rectangular pieces of paper.
Our lives revolve around it.
In America, it's like our
national religion. The banks are
our places of worship, our
temples. The disgustingly rich are
our gods. Everyone works their
whole lives with the hope that
they too will one day become a
god.
Some “churches” claim that
they have selected you to have a
chance at becoming a god. All
they want you to do is fill out a
“Even though the
whole concept of
money is strange, I still
kind of like it. ”
form and order a magazine
subscription.
Then one day their band of
holy servants will knock on your
door and transform you into a god
by giving you a humungus check
and put you on the Clearing
House commercial.
We devote most of our lives to
performing such religious
ceremonies. Years and years are
spent in preparation for these
ceremonies. Then, after you’ve
acquired a certain amount of
knowledge, you earn a certain
position and spend 40 hours a
week earning more of this holy
paper.
We put humans into categories
based on how much of this holy
substance they possess. There is
constant strife between these
groups.
The rich think the poor are the
scum of the earth because the
poor aren’t holy enough.
And the poor think the rich are
slime because the rich have what
the poor don’t have.
Money causes many problems.
But without this religion we
would all be lost. It’s difficult to
imagine a world without money.
Our holy paper doesn’t really
mean anything once you take it
outside of civilization. We all act
like it’s one of life’s most
important necessities.
If you lose all your money or
the means of acquiring it,
everyone in this religion shuns
you.
People act like the amount of
money you possess is directly
related to the amount of personal
-worth you possess.
Once you have no holy paper,
and can no longer maintain your
appearance in the manner that
people in possession of money
can, people act totally different
toward you.
People no longer make eye
contact. They avoid you on the
street. For some reason they can’t
talk to you once you don’t have
money. And they will go to any
length to avoid physical contact.
Even though the whole
concept of money is strange, I
still kind of like it.
Maybe I just like the stuff it
can buy.
I’ll probably keep on practic
ing the same religion that practi
cally the entire human race is
practicing.
And when I’m walking down
the street, I’ll keep my eyes open
for any stray dollar bills blowing
in the wind.
Chlkote Is a freshmaa womea’s stwd
les major aad a Daily Nebraska* coiam
■lst.
BE OUR GUEST
The Daily Nebraskan will present a guest columnist each Monday.
Writers from the university and community are welcome.
Must have strong writing skills and something to say.
Contact Mark Baldridge c/o the Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska
Union, 1400 R St., Lincoln, NE 68588.
Or by phone at (402)-472-1782.
