page four/the Journal/october 25, 1971
editorials
Stay in hed
Once a year, the Maintenance crews clip and cut and clean up UNCC
with a noticeable increase of concern. You’ve seen them about,
landscaping with dirt, putting names on buildings, and hanging
memorial plaques.
You know immediately it’s Dedication Day again, sometimes loosely
referred to as “Founders Day.” The idea of setting aside a day to
remember the hard-working founders who made UNCC possible isn’t a
bad one. The publicity-conscious image-making of this campus into an
instant grccn-and-manicured heaven is ridiculous.
For on Friday, the public (that awesome mass) is invited to come see
us play at getting educated. And the red carpet that the Administration
wishes to unroll for them must not have even a shade of pink.
Appearance versus reality didn’t stop with Shakespeare’s plays. It’s alive
and well at UNCC.
The buildings named that are set for dedication Friday were named
without student consultation. We are made heir to buildings without
participation in the function of naming them. Of course, the students
may have thought a “Love” or “Peace” building would be nice. Or
maybe a Martin Luther King building. Nice thoughts; but they remain
just that, nice thoughts.
Students have been ignored again while the University churns out its
decisions. We have been asked to participate in this dedication farce.
We don’t believe that the dedication events creditably represent
student interests or student involvement in the University. We don’t
feel that the image of this University as will be presented to the public
on Friday deserves student support.
Charlotte, the Queen City, besides being the largest small town in
the Southeast, is just about as culturally dry and stale as a week-old
peanut-butter sandwich»_
I realize that many will be immediately revolted by this statement
but I will now attempt to qualify my position. It has long been my
contention that the sidewalks of Charlotte would be duly rolled up and
stuck away every evening promptly at nine o’clock if the powers that
be could only get the people off of them. The entertainment facilities
in this city, for the most part, cater to anyone who thrives on boredom.
We have nightclubs with cover charges, nightclubs without cover
charges, !0-cent draft niglits, topless waitresses etc., etc. This is all right
for what it offers, but what about the citizen who occasionally wishes
to rind entertainment which feeds his intellect rather than his beer gut;
scarce indeed.
We do have a fine symphony orchestra, conducted by the very
efficient Jacques Brourman. But, like some overendowed women, the
products arc hardly noticeable due to non-support. True, Ovens
Auditorium is packed for almost every concert, but the rank and file
concert-goers in this city are not well off enough, financially, to pour
money into the Symphony. The money must come from somewhere
else. The non-support is evident in the fact that the Symphony gives
only one concert every month. This year Season tickets are all gone and
some people who would enjoy their rare appearances are at a loss since
they cannot afford season tickets. Highly noticeable among this group
are higli-school and college students.
Of course, some facets of the Symphony are self-defeating. Being a
season ticket holder 1 received a letter addressed “Mrs. Charles Peek”
(?) inviting me to come a sit with a crowd of overly dressed, pompous
women and help think up new ways to wring social prominence out of
being seen at the concerts. Also the Symphony’s repertoire though
adequate, is hardly courageous on an artistic level. However, on the
other hand, 1 guess it’s a question of supply and demand. The selection
that brought the Charlotte audience to its feet during last year’s
appearance of the New York Philharmonic was none other than “Stars
and Stripes Forever.”
On the art scene, we have one (uno, singular, 1) showplace for art
open regularly to the public, the Mint Museum. Private galleries have
come and gone; mostly gone, due to the ever present lack of support.
The Mint tries hard but lack of publicity and general apathy
has all but made the museum itself a museum piece. Even on a briglit
Sunday afternoon, a majority of people touring its halls are other
artists.
Let me interject here that if Dr. Mathis would consent to letting the
street urchins soil his Taj Mahal occasionally, The Rowe Art Gallery
could become a splendid place to show off the artistic attempts of our
students and perhaps North Carolinians in general. Why wait for a
travelling show to come to town to use the facilities. That is like closing
Ovens until a Broadway show comes to Charlotte.
Now let us move from Art and music to other culturally oriented
pastimes such as lectures, poetry readings and the like. If one goes off
local campuses, he is hard pressed to find such goings on encouraged by
anyone in Charlotte. A case example is the School Board’s witholding
funds for the Children’s Concerts. Under much pressure, mostly by
school administrators, they finally allocated money for stringed
orchestra concerts on quite a limited basis. It seems odd that thousands
of dollars are poured into football equipment, cheerleaders, and little
league baseball, all for grade school children, and everyone becomes
suddenly tiglrtfisted when money is asked for cultural exposure for our
children. It makes one wonder what outvalue system will be like when
these children will be grown.
Charlotte, when are you going to wake up, sweep the sawdust off
your floors, and stop being the biggest small town in this part of the
country.
The best thing to do on Friday is to stay in bed or find some
worthwhile activity to support. Dedication Day does not deserve your
attention until the University decides to notice that you will not be a
silent partner to hypocrisy.
ahimiu!I!
A lesser evil
S>ick gjtxL StLt\
The upcoming liquor-by-the-drink referendum has stirred up much
debate and controversy. Both sides bantered the issues around on
campus last week, but without much of an audience.
Most of you have probably made up your mind about the
referendum and we hope you exercise your responsibility in voting as
you believe. It is unfortunate that the anti-drink forces have been led
by religious ministers and the like: too many have neglected their
arguments as the mumblings of fanatical Christians who wish to impose
their morality on the poor “sinners.”
The strongest anti-statement that must be considered is that the
legislation is “class legislation,” with benefits aimed to the wealthy
lushes around our city. Few blacks or poor people will ever see the
inside of the plush clubs and restaurants where the per-drink consuming
will take place. It has been argued that the proposal is of the rich, by
the rich, and for the rich. We cannot disagree with that.
But, the referendum does permit the elimination of hypocrisy in
our system, a much-needed relief. And it offers an alternative for
drinkers to buying and carrying around that brown bag.
Most of the pro-drink arguments concerning control and revenue
increases are bullshit, but the legislation can give freedom of choice to
the drinker. In these days, it should be the individual’s right to choose
his type of pleasure-seeking.
Support of the legislation in the referendum will give area residents a
choice, and that must be placed against the class evils inherent in the
proposal.
Unfortunately, the drafters of the bill were wise enough to get us by
the balls on this one, and it should be supported even though it is only
the slightly lesser of two evils.
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Same ole Dick
We all learned a lesson in truth during the Nixon-Graham Mutual Admiration Society visit. First, it was
established that we are not trusted by Nixon and his paranoia over never being the Governor of California has
reached massive proportions. There is little doubt that he fears the voice of dissent: it simply fails to fit his
self-delusion that Americans are behind hiifi.
No President wise enough to outwit the ABA, television news, and most Washington analysts with
Supreme Court nominees is unaware of the tactics of Secret Service agents in refusing admission to a
“public” event. It is Nixon’s greatest ploy to act dumb and sit quietly in the White House while all his plans
unfold. His quaint nickname of Tricky Dick isn’t just colorful. It means something quite real to all of us.
We’ve been asked to believe in a Government that practices cloak-and-dagger secrecy and Mission
Impossible search-and-seizure before our disbelieving eyes. We’ve been told to work within a system that
either ignores the expressions of its young or refuses to hear them. Nixon may claim that his Administration
is not a new Isolationism, but at home he was never more removed from the feelings and frustrations of the
young than at the Coliseum in Charlotte.
William Rendquist, one of the Supreme Court nominees, was a major actor in the play last November
when 12,000 young were placed in concentration camps in Washington. His projects include preventive
detention, no-knock, and wiretap legislation. This type of “law and order” fanatic will probably be allowed
to sit on the highest court in the land. Nixon’s balance of the scales of justice in America leans heavily to the
right and the threat is not distant nor minor: it is happening now.
The days of marches and protests in the streets may indeed be over; the days of anger and frustration that
caused them are still,with us.
We have the vote and the rightful exercise of that power can have an effect on the future of Nixon and his
cronies; it is still possible that action like that at the Coliseum can never happen again, if we don’t let it. You
must watch the man in Washington, friends: there’s no new Nixon; he’s the same ole Dick.