Old Yeller
Tartar build-up torments dentist-fearing men
The other week, I decided I could
no longer avoid seeing a dentist. I
haven’t been to one since I came to
Nebraska four years ago, yet the
unmistakable clue that I was due for
a checkup was not a pain in my
tooth, but rather, the remark from
the daughter of a co-worker of mine.
She was sitting on my lap playing
“horsey,” which is a game where I
bounce her on my knee while she
becomes insancously happy, and I
shred all available ligaments.
Her beautiful brown hair, flecked
with sparkles of gold, danced
around her face as I flung her higher
into the air. Suddenly, she pushed
herself away and shot a piercing
glare at me with her once angelic
blue eyes. Softly, in a shy, tender
voice she said,
“EEeeeyeecccwwww, YOUR TEEF
AREYELLER.”
Now in my defense, my teeth arc
not yellow, but more of an opaque
off-white, sort of the hue of a
manilla envelope if it were not that
color. (And to add to my defense,
my checkup by the dentist came
back spotless.)
Still, the dear child’s blunt
insight was enough to send me to a
place 1 dread going to.
* Actually, there really is nothing
I enjoy more than visiting the
dentist, (aside from spending the
rest of my life underneath a slobber
ing St. Bernard with a “methane
problem.”)
The truth is, I have never been
comfortable in those dentist chairs,
and I have yet to meet a man who is.
I suppose it is because all men have
an inherent fear of all doctors. We
tend to think that everything
medically wrong with our bodies
can be solved by “Walking it Off.”
Men also like to spend their
money on things that they can
actually hold later, such as a muffler
or stripper. We’ll be damned if
we’re paying $60 just for some loon
to rummage around in our mouths.
Water fight
World must find solution to depleting supply
In my early teens, when I
watched old westerns, I couldn’t
understand those scenes where a guy
lets his cows drink from another
man’s stream, and the owner comes
and shoots the guy. It always
confused me. Why was it such a big
deal if the cows drank some water?
Was the owner afraid of cow germs,
or something?
Later, somebody told me what it
was all about. I heard that water is a
rarity in American West. I learned
this truth by heart but couldn’t adopt
it at once. After all, I was born in a
country that promotes itself in
tourist guides as “a land of tens of
thousands of lakes” and where
everyone I knew either owned a
summer cottage or lived perma
nently by the lake.
Last year, I took a course in
general environmental history. One
of the most interesting lectures dealt
with the global use of water. The
instructor had pictures of the former
Soviet Union and told us about the
huge dams and the unbelievably
impractical attempts to turn the flow
of big Siberian rivers north to
provide water for the fields. He also
showed us some pictures from
Arizona. First in its state of nature,
as arid, treeless and extremely hot
semi-desert. Then Arizona as it is
today after human interference, with
golf courses, orange trees and
swimming pools. And the water
obviously taken from somewhere
else. Tile scenario seemed just as
surrealistic to us as the landscape
after the rather pathetic Soviet
efforts.
This year, I’ve tried to study and
follow the discussion on water use
and policy in Nebraska. The
question of water appears to be
insuperably complex. Agriculture,
industry, recreation and domestic
and municipal use all need their
share of water, and there simply
Veera Supinen
“No matter how
carefully the remaining
water is distributed, it is
impossible to balance
between the needs of
various interest groups.
If people won't suffer,
wet meadows and
whooping cranes surely
will."
isn’t enough for everyone. Thanks
to abundant ground water supplies
and the Platte River and its tributar
ies, Nebraska is in better position
than most of the Great Plains. At the
same time, however, the location
and the state of the Platte, one of the
most endangered rivers in the
nation, makes the the water issue
even more delicate and difficult for
both the state and federal govern
ments.
In a way, the situation is hope
less. No matter how carefully die
remaining water is distributed, it is
impossible to balance between the
needs of various interest groups. If
people won’t suffer, wet meadows
and whooping cranes surely will.
According to some environmen
tal philosophies, the well-being of a
crane is no less important than that
of a human. Whatever their concepts
on this one specific issue, most
conservationists believe that the
main goal of a state’s water policy
should be the preserving of wildlife
and pure nature for coming genera
tions.
On the other hand, there are
certain other philosophical trends
whose supporters argue that the law
of the fittest is the only significant
law of nature, and that it could and
should be extended to the relation
ships between humans and whoop
ing cranes. Unfortunately, after the
urbanization of recent decades,
human beings need to relax by
canoeing in Nebraskan streams and
watching migratory waterfowl now
more than ever.
There are some people who
believe that water — like any
commodity — should be completely
privatized. Personally, I find the
idea terrifying, but I must admit it
makes a lot of sense. In a country
like the United States, where nearly
everything from education to health
can be bought, it would be logical to
give water to those who can pay the
highest price for it. It’s too bad the
hydrologic cycle can’t be separated
from other processes of ecosystems.
Otherwise some millionaires could
transport the remaining water from
here to Arizona, and Nebraskans
could move to the Southwest to
work at water parks and other
brand-new tourist traps.
While we wait for this or some
other solution, there, is much we can
do. Most important, let’s try to keep
conversation alive. The situation in
Nebraska is illustrative of enormous
water use problems worldwide.
Snplnen is a history and American stud
ies major and a Dally Nebraskan columnist
Steve Willey
“Men also like to spend
their money on things
that they can actually
hold later, such as a
muffler or stripper. We’ll
be damned if we’re
paying $60 just for some
loon to rummage
around in our mouths. ”
For me, the worst part about
dentists is the way they tell you to
relax while they explain what their
tools will accomplish while probing
inside your mouth.
* “The Gouging Chiseler 400 you
see here will temporarily remove
your gums so that we can better
reach and clean the tartar and ant
farms that have accumulated.”
TRANSLATION: “I’m only
using this miniature weed-whacker
because my co-workers and I have a
serious bet going on the number of
limes I can get you to bolt upright
and yell ‘JESUS CHRIST!’”
Another reason guys hate dentists
is that all dentists are belittling to
their patrons. They always ask _
questions that NECESSITATE a lie
as a response.
“Do you floss regularly, because
you seem to be missing some
spots?”
“Yessir, twice a day, just like that
poster on the wall says I should.”
The doctor could tell I was lying,
however, because, when asked to
demonstrate my flossing technique,
I instinctively began to floss the
underside of my nose — a dead
giveaway that you don’t know what
the hell to do with the floss.
Men throughout history have
shown this inherent fear of dentists.
Mahatma Gandhi was said to have
gone the entirety of his adult life
without ever visiting one.
Of course, he also wasn’t eating
much during his adult life, so tartar
buildup was probably at a minimum.
Another historical hater of
dentists was Adolf Hitler. “Hitler’s
passion for hating the Jewish was
pale when compared to those
dentists,” said one historian. “He
was known to have had terrible
Gingivitis (Pronounced: HEIL ACH
GINJUVITUS), which pained him
so greatly at times that he could not
pronounce the phrase ‘This war
thing is starting to suck’ without
getting huge laughs from his
troops.”
My father, also being a guy, has
gone 40 years without ever visiting a
dentist. I swear I’m not lying. He is
under some sick delusion that —
imagine this—he can clean his
OWN teeth! He does a good job
too, although neighbors find it
extremely “disheartening to watch a
man of his age” sit on his porch and
pick his tooth with a nutcracker.
The receptionist at the office
scolded me as if I were a mangy
dog, or at the very least, the human
equivalent. She was trying to get me
to sign up for a return visit, but I
wouldn’t. At least not until some
child decides it’s time.
Willey Is a junior ag-Journalism major
and a Dally Nebraskan columnist.
Condoms not solution
to teen sex, AIDS
Mona Ctaaren Is on maternity leave. The
following column originally was pub
lished In April 1992.
Are we becoming a nation of
condom worshipers? Is the
humble latex that was scorned for
its failure rate when I was in high
school now the answer to our
woes? If you listen to Phil
Donahue and the House Select
Committee on Children, Youth
and Families, you might think so.
In 1992, the committee issued a
respectfully received report called
“A Decade of Denial: Teens and
AIDS in America.”
The title so suits the liberal
agenda — begin the condom
propaganda with a satisfying slam
at the 1980s. The “decade of
greed” now gets a new sobriquet.
The “chair” of the committee is
Rep. Pat Schroeder (D-Colo.),
condom-hawker-in-chief.
Schroeder agrees that abstinence
is the best protection against
AIDS, but she wants to be
“realistic.” Kids arc going to have
sex no matter what we say. After
all, Schroeder insists, “We’ve
been talking abstinence and ‘just
say no’ for more than a decade,
and the teen pregnancy rate is
going up and so is the sexually
transmitted disease rate.”
Now be serious. Anyone who
thinks that the dominant social
message to teen-agers during the
past decade has been the virtue of
virginity is living in a time warp.
The last time the culture transmit
led that message, John F.
Kennedy was in the White House,
and “The Dick Van Dyke Show”
was in the top 10. Today, we live
in the world of “Married With
Children” and 2 Live Crew.
Virgins are considered rare
enough creatures to get their own
hour on the “Gcraldo” show, just
after transvestite accountants and
men who sleep with their moth
ers-in-law.
Nevertheless, the Democratic
majority of the House committee
sees a scandal in our collective
approach to the issue of teen
agers and AIDS and recommends
— surprise! — more federal
dollars for AIDS education and
school-based health clinics (read:
condom dispensaries).
Liberals are not honest about
sex. They claim to believe that
abstinence is best for teens, but
they don’t mean it. In their hearts,
they think people who promote
abstinence are fundamentalist
freaks. If they truly believed that
sex was bad for teen-agers, they
wouldn’t be pushing condoms at
them. The comparison with drug
use is apt. Imagine school-based
clinics to distribute clean needles.
“Well, we think abstinence from
drugs is best, of course. But let’s
be realistic; they’re going to do it
anyway, so they might as well
protect themselves.” It would
never happen. Why? Because not
even liberals believe that drug use
is acceptable. And the answer to
unacceptable behavior is prohibi
Mona Charon
“Anyone who thinks
that the dominant
social message to teen
agers du ring the past
decade has been the
virtue of virginity is
living in a time warp. ”
tion, not facilitation.
In their eagerness to believe
that condoms provide the magic
solution to the problems of sexual
promiscuity in the age of AIDS,
liberals ignore some basic facts of
tecn-agerhood. One is this:
Disbelief in one’s own mortality
is endemic to teen-agers. That’s
why so many die in accidents.
Another is this: Teen-agers are,
more than other people, acutely
sensitive to shame. If the culture
makes virginity shameful, as ours
now docs, not even the fear of
AIDS will make teens chaste.
Promiscuity is motivated far, far
more by conformity than by
hormones.
But the entire House commit
tee report, with its emphasis on
governmental action, was
misconceived. The minority
report, issued by the Republicans,
got to the heart of the matter.
“Cultural problems demand
cultural solutions,” said the
minority, quoting William
Bennett.
“It appears,” the report goes
on, “that teens are seeking love,
and we arc giving them biology
classes. Teens arc seeking
guidance about whether to engage
in sexual experimentation, and we
are merely listing options for
them. Teens are seeking to
belong, to be given a sense of
community with shared values,
and we are giving them a hall
pass to sec the school nurse.”
Positive cultural change is
possible. The recent turnaround
in attitudes toward drunk driving
is illustrative. Groups like
Mothers Against Drunk Driving
helped make it shameful to get
behind a wheel tipsy. Handing out
condoms with a wink and a nod in
every junior high in America is
guaranteed to make the problem
worse.
(C) 1996 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
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