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2/Wednesday, November 14,1984/THE BLUE BANNER Miller's dumping deplored It’s happened again—another mini coup d'etat in the UNGA student government. Another vice president is gone. When one considers that no UNCA SGA vice president has remained in office throughout his or her entire term for at least the last three years, one begins to wonder about the stability of our student government. Since talk of the recent ouster began, things have become increasingly messy in UNCA SGA. Officers are taking sides; factions are developing. Some are quit ting or threatening to quit. Others ought to quit. They ought to quit, because they also are as guilty of rule infractions as the dismissed vice president. He failed (by one one-thousandth of a point) to maintain the required 2.0 grade point average. Others have fail ed to adhere to other rules. For example: The SGA by-laws state that senators will oe expelled from office who fail to put in at least five hours per week SGA office time, or who iiave two unexcused absences from regular Senate meetings. Several current senators are guilty of breaking these rules. As ousted vice president Doug Miller said, "Every one has been eating out of the cookie jar. 1 just hap pen to be the one caught with my hand in it." Miller may have eaten a cookie or two by failing to get that thousandth of a point, but he has also done a lot to matce SGA a valuable campus institution. He is probably the one person most responsible tor the SGA computer system anu its electronic intercampus hookup. He is also responsible for bringing back an annual to Ul^CA this year. * Since Miller's rule infraction is so minor; since he seems to have been faithfully performing his duties; since SGA President Ken Cagle last year ran on a ticket against Miller; and since Cagle seems to be choosing to enforce only those rules that would allow him to evict Miller; one is forced to wonder if the real cause for i'iiller's dismissal is not personal animosity rather tiian policy. Whatever the reason, The Blue Banner decries this renewed snow of conflict in SGA. Are we to be forever subjected to student leaders wJio spend more of their time righting among themselves than they spend accom plishing those duties for which they receive a portion of our student fees? Editor Anna Paulette Witt Associate Editor Pamela C. Walker News Editor Penny Kramp Sports Editor Anne Snuffer Features Editor Anna Wilson Arts/Entertainment Editor Colin "Scoop” White Photography Editor Sylvia Hawkins Circulation Manager Shawn Wickham StaHArtist Chris Streppa Advisor Cathy Mitchell Billv I Adams Caroline Brown Joe Czarnecki III Andrea Hutchins Alana Jones Donna McCov/n Kirby Donna Obrecht Phil Ross Joan Sterk Deborah W. Weeks THE BLUE BANNER, is the University of North Carolina at Asheville student newspaper. We publish each Wednesday except during summer sessions, finals week, and holiday breaks Office: Carmichael humanities Building, 208-A Phone: (704) 258-6S86 or 258-6591. Nothing in the editorial or opinion sections necessarily represents the position of the entire BANNER staff, the staff advisor, or UNCA's Student Government Association, administration or faculty. Editorials represent the opinion of the editor and or of a majority of the seven-member editorial board Letters, columns, cartoons and reviews represent only the views of their authors. The editor makes the final decision about what the BANNER prints. The BANNER welcomes letters to the editor and articles, and considers them for publication on the basis of interest, space, tastefulness and timeliness Letters and articles should be typed double-spaced, or printed legibly. They should be signed with the writer's name followed by year in school, major or other relationship to UNCA Please include a telephone number to aid in verification. All submitted articles or letters are subject to editing The BANNER regrets it cannot guarantee the return of any article submitted. Deadline for submissions is Friday noon Another apology called for Dear Editor: The previous issue of The Blue Banner carried an opinion column by Phil Ross attacking the Humanities 414 staff for showing the film "US vs. USSR: Who's A- head? and for permitting the filmmaker, Gary Krane, to answer students' ques tions after the presentation. Ross accused both Krane and the Humanities faculty of bias, blatently political" conduct of the class, "ax-grinding," and failing to give "objective instruction." These are serious cliarges. They are also false. ihe issues with which this film deals—the defense budget, US military stra tegy, and Soviet-American relations—are controversial. It is not the objective of Humanities 414 to shelter students from controversial topics. However, the film is not politically partisan or factually inaccurate. It attempts to assess the current status of the east-west military balance and, therefore, it focuses on the policies of the incumbent president. Ronald Reagan is allowed to present his ideas on military and foreign policy in his own words. The clips from Reagan speeches are short, but they do convey his positions accurately. fclach of the president's arguments is then refuted by the testimony of what Ross chooses to call "purported military experts"—namely several of the gener als, admirals and CIA chiefs, mostly registered Republicans, who have served in the American defense establisbmient for many years. The views expressed by these men reflect those of the mainstream of western specialists in Soviet military af fairs. If the juxtaposition of Reagan's views with those of various military, CIA and academic experts casts the president in a bad light, it is not the result of propagandistic filimnaking, but of his tendency to reject their professional expertise and to base policy on his own stereotype of Soviet-American confron tation. Moreover, both the film and the speaker emphasized that "Russia-baiting" as an electoral ploy is not limited to one party. Republicans and Democrats alike regularly engage in "crisis mongering." As the film points out, phoney "missile gaps" and "windows of volnerability" seem to materialize before every election. Similarly, "news" of Soviet superiority always seems to break just before con gressional hearings on the Pentagon budget. Kennedy did it; Reagan does it. The humanities are supposed to cultivate a critical, inquiring mind. A li beral education should enable citizens to search out the facts behind the vague and pious-sounding rhetoric of their leaders. It is the goal of education to de velop, in the words of Neil Postman, a "built-in crap detector." The faculty of Humanities 414 seem to be doing just that. An apology is called for, however; Ross should apologize to the 414 staff for irapuning their integrity and objectiv ity* c- ^ Signed, Ted Uldricks Associate Professor of History Witness to a 'mind crime' Dear Editor: I witnessed a crime on Saturday night at the UNCA theatre. I witnessed a mind crime. The thought police were out in grand style. At intermission of the play "Children of a Lesser God" the students of a certain boardi^ school were herded out of the theatre by their administrators. The highschoolers were not permitted to see the Second Act and to make up their minds about the characters and events in the play. continued on page 3
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