B-2 vs. B-52
Bombers compared in both quality, quantity
The B-2 stealth bomber has made
the news again, only this time it isn’t
because of another test crash or
global skirmish.
President Clinton has ordered “a
new look” at the program, which he
had previously limited to the
production of 20 bombers. Why the
change of heart?
Clinton has many reasons for
ordering additional planes, and
although some of these reasons are
obvious, there are other advantages
to the B-2 of which our president is
only now becoming aware.
First, despite the fact that it has
been a mainstay for U.S. strategic
bombing, the B-52 is old and
outdated. The B-2 is the primary
candidate as a replacement. The
sheer cost of B-2 production makes
it apparent that there will never be
as many B-2s as B-52s. But sheer
quantity might not be the best way
to measure a bomber’s impact.
In terms of quality, the B-2 offers
technological bonuses an upgraded
B-52 will never enjoy. High-altitude
and stealth capabilities make the
Defense Department’s “quality for
quantity” argument reasonable.
Another consideration is that air
superiority alone—even with the
performance of the bomber in the
Gulf War—is not the backbone of a
strong military. The war in Vietnam
pounded this lesson home. As such,
the B-2 represents a weapon able to
fulfill the requirements of modern
ized, interdependent armed forces,
ranging from ground support to
precision bombing.
And as the leader of a country
that depends on military industries
for capital gain, perhaps our
president is learning the true value
of American technology in the arena
of world markets. Take the case of
Fred Poyner
The sheer cost ofB-2
production makes it
apparent that there will
never be as many B-2s
as B-52s. But sheer
quantity might not be
the best way to measure
a bomber's impact. ”
Japan. The Japanese have an annual
defense budget of $50 billion,
ranking second among the United
States’ allies in overall annual
security-related expenditures.
They spend this money buying
from American producers with the
understanding that U.S. weapons
technology won’t have to be
replaced 20 years from now.
Investment in our technology has
enabled them to create a substantial
and well-equipped presence in the
Pacific, and never mind about the
impact of the VCR as an economic
cash-cow for Sony.
The technology of the B-2 will
last well into the next century, but
20 bombers alone will not. As an
investment, the bomber represents
the present and the future of how
defense industries approach govern
ment contracts.
Finally, Clinton sees the need for
supporting the bomber as a response
to the very real needs of a military
occupied with a seemingly unlimited
number of conflicts worldwide.
Bosnia is at the center for the
moment, and tomorrow it could be
Korea or the Middle East (again).
The last thing he wants is to be
accused of not providing enough, or
the right kind, of support to the
soldiers already involved in a
military campaign.
Understandably, the B-2 has had
some problems, not the least of
which is its cost-effectiveness (more
than $1 billion per plane). Another
factor is a General Accounting
Office report that criticized the B-2
as not able to avoid enemy radar the
way it is supposed to. Accordingly,
this is why Clinton has ordered a
new look, as opposed to resuming
production outright.
We have become a nation of
modern warriors, right down to the
live, televised broadcast of battle.
Our war documentaries come in
multi-pixel Technicolor, making the
borders between observer and
participant nearly unnoticeable at
times.
The weapons of war have kept
pace, and it would be ludicrous to
believe they will disappear, or put
an end to war, as people once
believed about the invention of the
machine gun and TNT.
One of the first testing grounds
for those weapons of mass destruc
tion was supposedly the War To
End All Wars: World War I.
Foyner is a graduate student In museum
studies and a Dally Nebraskan columnist
Kids nowadays
Childhood seems harmless in today’s society
I’m not sure how it all started.
Maybe the radio stations in town
played one too many Violent
Femmes songs. Or maybe it was all
of the old friends who came back
for Christmas break this year,
willing to drink too much, stay out
late, and behave like obnoxious
adolescents with me.
I used to think I was immune to
nostalgia. But the icons of my
childhood and youth have been
popping up all over, and I find that I
have no desire to escape them.
Conj uncti on -j unction, what ’ s
your function? Do you like green
eggs and ham?
I’d love to be a 6-year-old again,
dozing off to the sound of my dad
reading Winnie-the-Pooh stories.
The only real concern I had at the
time was whether my stupid dog **
ever would learn to talk and solve
mysteries.
Unfortunately, barring severe
brain damage, that carefree age is
well out of my reach.
So how many times did you see
“Star Wars”? And where were you
when the space shuttle blew up?
I was in junior high, ninth-grade
algebra class. I’ll never forget
watching the explosion over and
over again in that crowded and
strangely silent classroom.
But junior high was a horrible
time. My hair never did what I
wanted it to do, and I couldn’t
afford enough clothes to keep up
with the popular kids. That early
adolescent haze is best left in the
past.
After junior high, I lost my
fascination with the elusive “in”
crowd. I came to know the joy of
full-scale rebellion, and started
hanging out with a motley collection
of geeks, outsiders, skate-punks and
fashion victims.
That’s the era I keep coming
back to. I was immortal. I didn’t
have to care about anything. I’ve
been digging my old punk rock
tapes out of boxes lately, and I even
bought the Repo Man soundtrack on
Jennifer Mapes
“/ used to think I was
immune to nostalgia.
But the icons of my
childhood and youth
have been popping up
all over, and Ifind that 1
have no desire to escape
them. ”
CD—it was a cheaper alternative
to to getting my turntable fixed, so I
could listen to my battered vinyl
copy. I know every beat of every
song. And the music takes me back.
My friends and I were a little
wild in high school. We were bored
most of the time. We drank alcohol
whenever we could get our hands on
it, sometimes hard liquor mixed with
sweet juice, sometimes cheap beer
stashed in someone’s car or base
ment. We slipped outside every day
at lunch period to smoke.
My best friend dyed her hair
black one day. When her parents
forced her to dye it back to its
original brown, the result was a rat’s
nest in a dozen shades of color
ranging from blond to ebony. Some
time later, we dyed another friend’s
mohawk a gaudy shade of red. The
dye ate holes through one of my
mother’s best towels.
The popular hangouts came and
went, but in the end no business
could withstand the constant
patronage of a bunch of funny
looking teen-agers. So we tiptoed
around each others’ parents, and
whispered news of parties at
abandoned parents’ houses or older
friends’ apartments.
Late one night, me and a couple
of my girlfriends sneaked out of the
house after the resident parents had
gone to sleep. We prowled the
surrounding neighborhoods until we
found a dark block with well-kept
homes and tidy front yards. Then we
switched around everybody’s lawn
ornaments and ran away.
It’s not that I want to go back. I
have privileges now that the
adolescent me would have killed
for: I can drive anywhere, buy liquor
in bars and stay out as late as I want.
But the memories of my careless
youth have been making me wonder
about kids these days.
I had a copy of The Anarchist’s
Cookbook when I was a teen-ager. I
found it in the political science
section of a local bookstore and
bought it in a fit of subversive glee.
The book contained instructions on
how to make all sorts of bombs and
other disruptive devices.
My friends and I weren’t the
nicest kids. In fact, we were
horrible. We did a few bad things,
and a lot of stupid things.
But nobody I knew ever plotted
to blow up the school, as two boys
from Pine Grove Junior High
School did in Minoa, New York,
last week. And we had access to the
same information they did, albeit in
pedestrian form.
No one I knew ever carried guns
to school, and no one I knew ever
got shot. No one walked into my
school and shot at their classmates,
as a boy in Moses Lake, Washing
ton, did last week.
I have to wonder what kids these
days are coming to.
Mapes Is a senior advertising and his
tory major and a Dally Nebraskan colum
nist
Americans accept
the ‘mother’ word
Only minutes before the Super
Bowl kickoff, Slats Grobnik
slapped the bar and angrily
declared: “That’s it, I’m leaving.
If I don’t have a team to cheer
for, I can’t watch a game.”
Hold on. I thought we agreed
we would cheer for the Steelers
because we’re always for the
underdog and the Cowboys are
such braggarts.
“No, I can’t do that. Not after
what that one big bozo just did.”
Which big bozo was that?
“Didn’t you hear him? The
first Steeler who came running
out the tunnel during the intro
ductions. Couldn’t you hear what
he was screaming?”
Yes, he seemed to be all
pumped up, ready to do serious
violence to the opposition and
urging his teammates to do the
same.
“But he was screaming that
filthy mother word. He was
sayingthey should kill the mother
words or kick the mother words
or do something to the mother
words.”
Actually, I think he might have
pronounced that mudda or
muhtha. But, yes, I did hear what
he was shouting. But I’m sure he
didn’t know that the NBC
microphones would broadcast his
words for all the civilized world
to hear.
“Then why did NBC have the
microphones turned on?”
Because they had no way of
knowing that when the fellow was
proudly introduced to an audience
of millions, he couldn’t think of
anything more to do than repeat
edly scream the mother word.
“Well, there’s no way I’ll root
for someone who would do
something like that.”
Since when have you become a
prude?
“Hey, I’ll admit it. I use bad
language. I know as many four
letter words as anybody . But I got
some standards. There’s a time
and a place for everything. Like I
never use swear words in the
presence of kids or women,
except my wife, but she never
hears anything I say anyway. I’d
think she was stone-deaf if she
didn’t listen to the radio. And in
my whole life, I never used the
mother word. You can cut out my
tongue and make a sandwich if
you ever hear me say it.”
No thanks, I’m on a diet.
“I don’t think anybody in our
neighborhood ever used that
word. We could call anybody
anything except that. But you
didn’t never say anything about
somebody’s mother unless you
wanted to get in a fight. Mother is
one of the most special words in
any language. Or it used to be.
There are poems about mothers
and songs like ‘Mother McGee.’
A lot of people call their country
the motherland.”
The Germans call it the
fatherland.
“Yeah, maybe that’s why they
are always getting in trouble,”
But when used in the obscene
Mike Royko
context, the word mother isn’t
directed at any specific mother.
It’s sort of a generic mother. In
fact, it doesn’t even mean mother
in the true maternal sense.
“What’s it supposed to mean?”
I’m not sure. Maybe it doesn’t
mean anything.
“Then if it don’t mean any
thing, why don’t they use a
different word? How about
instead of mother they use some
words like ashtray or poodle or
cupcake?”
I suppose a person could do
that, but it wouldn’t make any
sense, except maybe poodle. And
then the poodle owners and
breeders would be appalled.
“Why should a poodle be any
more sensitive than a genuine
mother or someone who had a
mother?”
Everybody had a mother.
“That’s right. So when
something like this happens,
everybody who hears it should be
mad.” ..
bui we uve in a amerent era.
There was a time when it would
be unthinkable to hear a woman
use any language stronger than
“damn” or “tish” unless she was a
harlot. Today, women on all
social and economic levels use
foul words that once were heard
only in barracks or taverns.
Where do you think tiny suburban
tots leam their first four-letter
words? In preschool? No, in the
family can when their gentle
moms call someone who cut them
off in traffic a (bleep) or a
(deleted).
“So you’re saying that
nobody’s going to care that some
big clunk yelled the mother word.
Even real sweet little mothers,
with white hair and twinkly eyes
who are cooking meatloaf and
baking apple pie, aren’t going to
be bothered?”
There was a time when they
would have. There was a time
when the entire country would
have been shocked, and that
lineman’s foul language would
have made him an outcast and the
president of the network would
have issued a heartfelt apology.
But those times are gone. Today,
there are probably thousands of
mothers in Pittsburgh screaming,
“Do it, do it.”
“So you’re saying I shouldn’t
take it seriously.”
That’s right. Just relax and
watch the game like a good
American.
“You’re probably right. But I
hope somebody knocks that
poodle (bleeper) on his back.”
© 1996 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
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