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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 27, 1995)
Spyingnotaplaygroundgame j Conspiracy theorists, take heart. We have the topic for Oliver Stone’s next movie fresh off the presses. Soon to replace the Cold War, we have the next phase: Industrial War. The CIA reports that overseas governments watch U.S. industry zealously. In response, the CIA monitors foreign companies — but doesn’t report the news to Ameri can businesses. They say it’s because they don’t know who to report to, but in reality it’s a little more compli cated. Of course, it’s different in the countries spying on us. European and Asian governments often own the businesses for which they’re spying. Fortunately, we live in a country where big business exists separate from government — with only peripheral federal interfer ence. The LIA cannot report to certain companies and not to others — because to do so would be unethi cal. In order to decide which companies should get the informa tion, the government would have to admit it considers big business much more valuable.than the Mom and-Pop store on the comer. But more to the point — is this something we even want our government doing? I understand the need to protect ourselves, but should we do so in a manner which fosters a climate of mistrust and hoarding of ideas? International affairs are already a shambles — the idea of sending troops to Bosnia scares the hell out of me — but I can and will not believe every company in the world is out to get us. Like so many things the federal government tries to take care of, Krista Sdi waiting Government agencies can’t keep acting like children. this kind of thing lies outside its jurisdiction. Just as we can’t legislate morality or solve the whole world’s problems, we cannot watch every country’s industries with a suspi cious eye. It just isn’t possible. Big business needs to take care of itself. It doesn’t need any more help making or losing money. The government should take its corporate tax money and stay far away from the everyday machina tions of the American Airlines and Xerox Corp. If corporate security is such a problem, businesses need to take care of that internally. Unless a federal law is broken, the CIA — 4or any other government agency — has no right to interfere. The whole thing is not only Orwellian, but harks back to one of the bleaker periods in our country’s history. When we were still under the thumb of Great Britain, anyone even suspected of spying could be clapped into jail without even a shred of evidence. There are reasons the original Sedition Act is no longer with us. Although treason and spying need to be dealt with, minor corporate leaks should be handled from the ground up. But now, instead of political intelligence, we have economic intelligence. The CIA contends it must watch over other countries because it’s already being done to us. The whole thing’s taken on a tone of one-upsmanship common on playgrounds but becoming increas ingly more popular in government. Just because France or Japan is spying on us does not mean we need to do the same thing. I never realized the country masquerading as the world’s leader was really just a poor follower. If the United States wants to lead in diplomatic relations, it needs to re-examine its policy on this point. If the espionage is being done for no other purpose than just to do it, Clinton and CIA Director John Deutch need to take a hard look at exactly what they’re trying to accomplish. Government agencies can’t keep acting like children.These are not playground games, and they certainly aren’t good sportsman ship. It’s indicative of our messy political arena that the whole espionage matter has gotten lost in the shuffle. George Orwell was, thankfully, wrong when he predicted what society would look like in 1984. His bleak vision of constant supervision would have been the perfect environment for this kind of spying. Krista Schwarting is a graduate stu dent in broadcast Journalism and a Daily Nebraskan columnist The dry, cracked skin has been split open and our vitality is leaking out while gangrenous logic seeps in. Now it’s just a matter of saving the limbs. Halloween is the jugular. The steamroller of politically correct sterility has pummelled many a cat in the last few years, and I’ve allowed most of them to go by as irrelevant roadkill, but Halloween is my jihad. And I will go to war for it. How dare the zealots in the Los Altos, California school district deprive children of their most holy of rituals, one of the two events breaking up the mind melting, sanitary monotony of the school year. Peel back ocular foreskin and see the light. Have we grown so blind to the freak show looming outside our window that we can satiate our tormented souls by projecting the dread we feel driving through our neighborhoods into the cheap, latex mask of a 6-year-old? If your dementia has reached such an epidemic proportion that you can watch society erode around you and attribute it to your son/ daughter having a Halloween party, fine — send ‘em to private school to suffer your twisted indignities. How much longer will we tolerate having our behavior dictated by the tyrannical interests of the minority? Public schools are just that, public. They should reflect the desires of the majority, and it seems that the majority wants to give its kids one iota of happiness in this cold world. The slippery slope is an elusive phenomenon; one day you have to wake up, say “no more,” suck in some mustard gas, and dig in for trench warfare. Is banning a Halloween party that big of a deal in and of itself? Maybe not, but it is another example of this nation’s new infatuation with grudgingly making itself miserable to cater to the interests of the radical fringe. We live like deer in the head lights, paranoiacs convinced our Aaron McKain In this day and age, the Super Bowl is a more overt statement of faith than Oct. 31 every action will bring up somebody’s red flag of offensive ness. Fundamentalists, stop the witch hunt for a second; it’s a Halloween party, not a ritual sacrifice. We sit around with puzzled looks on our faces, perplexed as to why kids are becoming so inter ested in getting drugs and guns into their hands; while at the same time we make school and education as tedious as Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. You want to save America? Give every kid Halloween, a guitar, and a swift Merry Christmas kick in the ass. Every boy and girl has the God given right to drip with gore and depravity. There is a primal perversion lurking in the mind of every child and All Hallow’s Eve gives them an outlet for it — preventing the urge from manifest ing itself as killing their spouse over a piece of burnt toast 20 years down die line. It’s asinine to equate Halloween with religion. In this day and age, the Super Bowl is a more overt statement of faith than Oct. 31. Using Los Altos logic, I could pledge devotion to a necrophiliac cult and then ban schools’ obser vance of Memorial Day on the basis of separation of church and state. Let’s stop kidding ourselves; we all know that Samhain is nothing more than the awkward transitional period between the Misfits and Danzig. To hell with pro-Vegetable Monster dentists and “you can’t lose one day of education” advo cates. God forbid if a Halloween celebration replaced “Learn To Hate People Who Are Different Than You Day,” “Hear Horribly Misconstrued Notions About Sex From Your Best Friend Week” or any of the other valuable nuggets of information you gather in grade school. I can’t even imagine my childhood without cheap makeup and potentially arsenic-ladened candy. Remember October in fourth grade? You were frothing and heaving so hard for that one night of abundant chocolate and arctic Nebraska temperatures you could scarcely keep the urine in. What kind of sick fundamentalist crack Hitler would take that away from kids? Eight-year-olds packing heat scare me, not three-and-a-half foot Freddy Kruegers. Halloween sets you up for the inevitable failures that will plague your life. It’s about paying six bucks to walk around a dilapidated warehouse to be groped in the dark by a lonely old man hoping to cop a feel. It’s about pissing in the bushes of the yuppie son of a bitch who gives you ONE goddamn Jolly Rancher, and then going home to snort a Pixie Stick up your nose. It’s about getting really psyched about a crappy costume, freezing your ass off, digging the staples out* of your Snickers bar and vomiting up Slo-Pokes. Beautiful. Gorgeous. As Ameri can as eating apple pie and dying for oil. McKaia is aa aadeclared sophomore aad a Daily Nebraskaa colamaist Authentic Italian Dining Daily Lunch Specials Only minutes from campus in the Haymarket HEY PUMPKIN HEAD, COME SEE US FOR YOUR HALLOWEEN THREADS! Second UJind Vintage Clothing and Costumes Now located in the St. George Antique Mall. 1023 "O" Street Downtown • 477-4400