EDITOR
Doug Kouma
OPINION
EDITOR
Anthony Nguyen
EDITORIAL
BOARD
Paula Lavigne
Joshua Gillin
Jessica Kennedy
Jeff Randall
Erin Gibson
Our
VIEW
Dedication
Sen. Warner’s shoes
will he hard to fill
Irreplaceable.
It’s the one word that starkly describes
the loss of Sen. Jerome Warner of Waverly,
who died this week of cancer.
Warner’s contributions as the most se
nior member of the Legislature were count
less.
During his 35 years in the Legislature,
he served at one time as speaker of the Legis
lature and chairman of several committees.
He was instrumental in getting state aid
for schools and helped cut state spending dur
ing severe tax crunches. This year, people
across the state recognized time and again
how Warner wrangled agreement among sena
tors in the Revenue Committee on details of
the upcoming tax relief bill package.
One big impact Warner had on the NU
system was helping transform Kearney State
into the University of Nebraska at Kearney.
He was known as a champion of peoples’
causes and a fiscal conservative firm in his
belief that the state could not outspend its re
sources.
Possibly even more important than his
contributions on individual issues was his
underlying wisdom. Legislators knew him as
the dean of the body. He was known for bridg
ing the gap in disputes and for coming up with
last-minute solutions to statewide problems.
When he spoke, people knew to listen.
Ears perked up throughout the chamber for a
valuable piece of wisdom, explanation or
suggestion.
Gov. Ben Nelson, who generally supports
term limits, said Warner was an exception,
calling him the “best argument against term
limits I have ever known.” His wisdom, stat
ure and leadership in the Legislature, Nelson
said, were qualities that would make him “ir
replaceable.”
During this session, Warner kept coming
to the Capitol even though the cancer spread
ing to his bones was making him weak—he
zoomed around to committee hearings in a
motorized cart, sometimes joking about his
“new wheels” as he presented one of his bills.
Nelson said the effort was one he couldn’t
imagine anyone else making.
Let’s hope someone else is willing to put
forth the effort Jerome Warner did.
It may be impossible to replace 35 years
of service to the people of Nebraska, but the
zeal, dedication and fairness that marked
Warner’s career are certainly strong ideals to
aim for.
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Spring 1997 Daily Nebraskan. They do not
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Mehsling s
VIEW
r
Guest
VIEW
The Right Stuff
Conservatives’ nostalgia is hypocritical facade
AUSTIN, Texas (U-WIRE) —
Alongside our exhilaration about
many of society’s recent accomplish
ments, such as the Internet, gene
engineered miracle cures, expansion
of human rights and anti-lock
brakes, lies a parallel nostalgia for
the way the world used to be.
Audiophiles hoard old LPs.
People forgo rollerballs to buy
obsolescent fountain pens. Old folks
mutter about how safe their neigh
borhoods once were.
While much of this longing for
the past is harmless, the political
uses of nostalgia are insidious in
their application by myopic conser
vatives.
Describing the politics of
nostalgia in America is like recount
ing the social controversies of recent
decades.
Conservatives who detest “social
fragmentation” conjure up a cozier,
more righteous past as they decry
teen pregnancies or the unraveling
of the urban fabric.
Family-values advocates empha
size the alleged domestic harmony
of their own childhoods (much of
which is pure fantasy) when
critiquing the liberated state of
middle-class modem women, who,
traditionalists reason, selfishly favor
careers over the traditional maternal
role.
Paradoxically, a number of these
very family-values-activist mothers
abandon their own children to carry
on their self-empowering national
crusades.
Religion is, of course, the
ultimate bastion of citing traditional
authority. It is not surprising, then,
I .
that conservatives call upon the
religious right’s condemnation of
abortion, contraceptives and divorce
for moral justification in their
arguments.
Conservatives are fond of
comparing yesterday’s family piety
with today’s godlessness. But these
activists’ manipulation of the past is
remarkable both for its widespread
appeal and lack of self-conscious
ness.
The details of tradition are often
invented wholesale for political
purposes. For example, when New
York Gov. George Pataki banned the
state flag of Georgia from Albany,
Georgians were outraged that their
sentimental, Civil-War-era flag (a
near-copy of the Confederate
banner) had been so disgraced.
Few Georgians realized, however,
that their state leaders generated this
version of the Stars and Bars during
the civil rights unrest of the ’60s as
a show of racist defiance against
federal desegregation policy.
Similarly, many Southerners
naively believe the Civil War had
nothing to do with slavery and was
only about states’ rights. The fact
that the primary right these states
fought for was the right to subjugate
black slaves is conveniently de
emphasized in their spurious high
school textbooks.
Even in a less political sense, the
traditional lifestyle longed for by
nostalgic types is rarely what life
used to be like in the past. Wistful
recall is-always selective; nostalgia
is often less about the past than the
present.
Reminiscence is not unhealthy.
On the contrary, it is vital to realize
that candlelight can be romantic,
that automobile design used to be an
art form, that a handwritten letter is
a welcome change from the e-mail
queue.
Appreciation of what used to be
serves as an important critique of
what our technologically oriented
economy engenders.
Awareness of history is particu
larly crucial in the seemingly
ahistorical maelstrom of TV-image
consumption and modem informa
tion overload.
The political uses of nostalgia, on
the other hand, are perversions of
the past for current advantage, and
must be recognized as such.
— Peter Kirby
The Daily Tkxan
Aaron Steckelberg/DN
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