On the second day...
Millenium sure to be a let down in terms of technological change
MARK BALDRIDGE is a senior
English major and a Daily
Nebraskan columnist
The plow goes up 13th Street, followed by
another plow, sparking pavement Another plow.
I imagine migrations of snowplows from
their summer homes in Canada, in formation like
dirty gray geese, soiling the snow.
I’m thinking of the future; it always makes
mesad.
I’m picturing Day Two of the Millennium,
and what a drag it’s going to be.
On Day Two of the Millennium you will
wake up with tears in your eyes and shake your
tiny fist at heaven.
“Where’s my hovercar?” you’ll squeak at an
impotent god and fall back among the bed
clothes, sobbing.
I’ve seen it all, in minute detail, down to the
leopard print silk jammies caked in dried vomit: I
can smell the ozone of hangover from here. %
Then you’ll get up and go to whatever job
you have, where everyone is just like a big family,
and you’ll sing the company song with your eyes
closed.
I’m not saying I’m a time traveler (no
Thorazine forme, Doc, I feel fine); I’m just say
ing I know. And that it’s a false, false hope: Day
Two of the Millennium hovers like the Emerald
City, by a shoestring.
No more snowplows pass or have passed
since I sat down to write. I suppose they all got
where they were going.
But “getting there” is over-rated: to he in the
park for all eternity under a big stone reading
“HE GOT WHERE HE WAS GOING” is not the
epitaph I have in mind.The future is going some
where, but you and I are going somewhere else,
unless, unless... (I cross my fingers and count on
immortality, again.) But you go anyway for sure,
and so why bother, why dwell on it?
The future isn’t Day Two of the Millennium
after all’ ‘ ’ ber 364,526, just as Jan. 14,
1999, would be die 364,526th day of die lame
duck millennium (the proof of which I leave as
an exercise for die intelligent reader).
The future isn’t a couple of years from now -
when, by any reckoning, the new millennium
actually begins - but a thousand years or so from
then, from that day, from Day Two.
Try that on for size. And then think:
In 1850, the only music anyone ever heard
anywhere was being played right there, live, by
live musicians. And it was the same a thousand
years before that, and a thousand years before
that, and a thousand years before that, and a thou
sand years before that and all the way back to the
mute hominids, whose parasites we have inherit
ed along with their genes.
Just this last century has seen more absolute
change in the way people do things than any
other, and there have been a lot of centuries,
for those who are still counting (and a
thousand years before that...).
Thinking about the next thousand
years i&somewhat more difficult
because of this singular fact.
I mean, it’s hard to imag
ine the rate of techno
logical change continu
ing to accelerate expo
nentially.
I’d say things have got %
to slow down a little; you
can only have one first-ever
trans-Atlantic flight, for
instance. And even if I go
shopping on the moon
next Tuesday, I’m not
the first to leave my
footprints in the park
ing lot.
At the same time, it’s kind
of hard to imagine a millenni
um with such a head start peter
ing out halfway through. And you
sure can’t legislate a technologi
cal slowdown to appease queasy
stomachs - the U.S. moratori
um on human cloning sim
ply means some multina
tional corporation will do
it first in Singapore.
(God how I miss the
Cold War!* In those
days we would have raced
to close the Clone Gap.)
And with the Human
Genome project nearing completion world-wide,
well, you know where that leads....
The Beatles Reunion Tour! (Give John
Lennon kaleidoscope eyes and Paul McCartney,
wings. Ringo, looking like an octopus’ gardener,
actually plays the
and sings, “I want to
hold your hand,
hand, hand,
hand.”)
It could
happen,
why
not?
; /l^P^r~ime~ Deb Lee/DN
The challenge of die future will be to die
imagination, what to do with the unlimited power
ofbiotechnology.
Cold fusion, warp drives and antigravity rays
may turn out to have been the worthless pipe
dreams of sleepless science-fiction authors,
devices to solve literary, and not real, problems.
But the power of the knowledge of the secrets of
our own genes - that will not be denied us.
I Inevitable: The human race will spend the
next thousand years learning to manage this
planet effectively, its most important tool,
* the genetic code. No longer a blind
L process, evolution is a truck and we,
l||f Good Buddy, are the truckers.
K Among die centuries there will be
Sjl plenty of time for reading road signs -
p figuring out the hows and wherefores -
f the question of “why” answering, as it
always does, itself with another question.
But no matter how cloudy, uncertain and
downright questionable this game of predict
ing the future gets, there’s one thing sure.
A thousand years from now, when aqua
form humanoids ply the seas
like Darwinian dolphins with
opposable thumbs,'They’ll be
_ able to choose what music they
want to hear, oldie Johnny Cash or
W moldy Yoko Ono. And they ’ll have
tunes of their own, of course, a thousand
years’ worth, as well as music composed
for playing underwater.
And that’s just the top of it.
A case of temporal vertigo sets
in, and I’ve got to get back to the past, to
the present, I mean - the future our
grandparents never dreamed of.
It’s late now. Jhe clock behind
me thinks it’s nearly 2, but I never fell
back this fall, so I know it’s only nearly 1.
I’ve got gas. My eyes blur, and I rub them
with dirty fingers.
Something in my apartment smells like
cheese....
I put another stack of 78s on the old record
player, and right on cue, a final snowplow, lost
straggler, heads up 13th Street, very early day two
of the new year, 1999.
And did you party like it was?
* The Cold War, for those who missed
it: a historical footnote of no importance.
Hookers, Inc.
Hooters franchise, employees and customers undermine women s equality
JESsiua FLAINACiALIN is a senior
English and philosophy major and
a Daily Nebraskan columnist
' ' ' ■ • ■■ ■ ■ - a’ * ' s''*.
Prostitution has been legalized right here in
middle America. Just down O Street, ash matter
of fact Rest assured, the objectification and
dehumanization of women continues at Hookers,
I mean Hooters.
Hooters, a self-proclaimed family restaurant,
has brought corruption and vice to our nice little
town without an audible peep from any of the
fine, upstanding leaders of our community. I sup
pose all the sexist idiots running about bought the
pitch that Hooters wouldserve the best wings in
town. And you know, that may well be the honest
truth. I don’t particularly care for wings, so I
couldn’t tell you.
Let’s not play grab-ass with each other,
though; Hooters would be successful if the menu
consisted of overcooked Ramen noodles and
squishy grapes.
The real appeal of Hooters are the sets of
hooters on its employees. Clever guy (or gal) who
thought of the name “Hooters,” eh? It would be
interesting to see a marketing plan for this estab
lishment. I suppose it would be somewhat telling
as well.
All this family-schmamily stuff - who do you
think their target audience is, the Sunday-after
church brunch crowd? I went in and checked it
out before I fully developed my opinion. Please.
Hooters is a restaurant that openly considers
the size of a woman’s breasts as a qualification
for employment It’s a restaurant, a harem if you
will, where women get paid to put their bodies on
display so patrons can ogle at their leisure. No, I
don’t think “harem” is too harsh a word.
Prostitution is the act of participating in sexu
al relations for money (Webster’s). It’s the sale of
bodies. The Hooters franchise has profited direct
ly from its employment of buxom women. It has
therefore practiced legalized prostitution.
And although I believe the definition of “sex
ual relations” is currently being debated by our
nation’s elected officials, there is an unmistakable
element of sex involved over at Hooters. So leth
just concede that fact and leave our fearless lead
ers to hash out the details.
Who cares if it’s just looking? It’s the princi
ple of the entire operation.
This leads us to two very interesting compo
nents of this prostitution ring - the employees
and the customers. We’ll start with the customers
because they’re an easier target
Dirty old men and fraternity guys - these
customers are the true cause for the perpetuation
of sex-based industries. Hooters knows its cus
tomers could care less if the waitresses can
remember who had what drink and who had
spicy or mild, but ratter for the willingness of the
said employees to strut their stuff.
And of course, who could forget those famed
. wings?
These customers should be ashamed of them
selves. Hooters and comparative businesses are
mini-oppressors of women in the big picture of
equality.
There is something about prostitution that has
compelled legislators across the nation to deem it
illegal. It could be that this industry fosters the
further digression of family values.
But I would argue that it is because sex-based
industries CANNOT operate without exploiting
the civil rights of women. This type of “work” is
clearly exploitative and negates the years of work
spent acquiring equality for women.
I think that deep down, the recent strides
made for women in the arena of equality are
threatening to the overall male population,
because they are detrimental to the time-honored
Good Ol’ Boy structure entrenched in our society.
This dehumanization stunts the realization of
equality for women. If compared theoretically, it
is not unlike theobjectification of blacks in foe
South following the Civil War - legally equal, but
societally subservient.
You want to know what the worst part of the
whole deal is? The employees of Hooters. Yeah,
yeah, this is a free country - capitalist society, la,
la, la. Hell, foe Foxy Lady has been in Lincoln for
years, and besides, there are male and female
strippers in every city. . > ■ ■ • >
True, but that doesn’t make it right
Prostitution is illegal, and while we may follow ;
foe letter of foe law and consider intercourse for
money illegal, we need to pay more attention to
the spirit behind the laws.
And I think the employees of Hooters should
have a little respect for themselves and not be
hookers.
Nobody forced them into their jobs. There are
non-exploitative jobs available at comparable
pay.
For instance, these women could wait tables
at a more expensive restaurant, perhaps one in
our Historic Haymarket District. They could
experiment in telemarketing -1 hear that can pay
very well. These women should at least explore
their options before lowering themselves to the
standard of this industry.
Perhaps these women would end up bringing
home less money, but at least they’d have some
dignity. And if they sill don’t like their options?
This is also the “land of opportunity.” They could
make new options. I
They could learn a trade, develop a natural
talent or go back to school. Aha! No excuses.
Money? I don’t haw any either. I’m not one of
those students whose parents foot the bill. I pay
the rent, car, gas, food, tuition - the whole she
bang.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Don’t
accept the rationalizations of laziness.
It’s important that women stop willingly
putting themselves in positions of subservience,
and take personal responsibility for where they
are in their lives.
Employment of this kind not only hurts-the
employees of Hooters and other similar business
es, but it hurts me, along with all the other
women who are fighting to be taken seriously. It
makes women look stupid.
Women need to reject industries that pad
profit margins with women’s bodies. And com
munities like Lincoln need to denounce Hooters
for what it is - prostitution.