Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Sept. 30, 1993, edition 1 / Page 12
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12 Thursday, September 30,1993 SKjpMyalarlM Yi-Hsm Chanj editor Jennifer Tallielm associate editor Established 1893 A century of editorial freedom Chapel Hill residents might never find any one as qualified to serve them or who under stands the town better than Joe Herzenberg. Herzenberg resigned from the town council Thursday after more than a year of controversy. He was convicted in August 1992 of willful failure to pay state taxes. Although Herzenberg apologized for his ac tions, many town residents and his fellow council members still wanted him to resign from the council, resulting in a town-charter amendment for recall elections. A group of residents, led by James McEnery, recently collected enough sig natures to force the special election. But Herzenberg chose to step down, in the process saving the town nearly $14,000 for the recall election. But in saving the money, the town now has lost a dedicated, caring and con scientious council member. Herzenberg in spite of his legal problems —was one of the best representatives this town has seen or ever will see. He worked for his constituency, which represented all facets of the community, not just a select few. He represented students and openly supported council member and former UNC student Mark Chilton during his 1991 campaign even though they were opponents in the race. Herzenberg focused on minority issues. Be ing the only openly gay elected public official in Reform Congress Political games, inefficiency and apathy words that explain the current Student Congress. Three congress members, including two com mittee chairmen, already have resigned this year. Although the Elections Board plans to hold an election for two of the positions Tuesday, there are no official candidates because no one turned in a petition by Monday’s deadline. It is not surprising that no one in districts 4 and 22 has decided to run for the two open seats. The antics and political maneuvering of the past two congresses have left students disillusioned about Student Congress. Former Speaker Tim Moore, members Charlton and Darren Allen, Chris Tuck and others annually have attempted to defund Bi sexuals, Gay Men, Lesbians and Allies for Di versity. Some even distributed aprivate B-GLAD membership list at a meeting last February. Then there was the attempt last fall to im peach former Speaker Jennifer Lloyd and the controversy last April over Wendy Sarratt’s elec tion as speaker. All the negative publicity generated by the past two congresses have turned students off from Student Congress. Repression of Expression Freedom of speech was threatened last Fri day on yet another university campus, but this time closer to home Duke University. Duke student Nico Tyne picked up anywhere from 80 to 300 copies of a conservative campus publication he found offensive with the intent of throwing them away. An article in The Duke Review described Duke’s Black Student Association as a group that tells black students what to think, how to act and what to wear so they won’t be labeled “Uncle Toms” or “sell-outs.” It also said the BSA showed dangers of ethnic totalitarianism. The BSA did not condemn the act but denied any connection to the incident. The Review is considering taking legal action against Tyne although they might not have much of a case since the Review is a free publication. I“1 TOM ':*■£: JM W, R’ MIW ‘tWHSi?’ Goodbye, Joe North Carolina, he showed that sexual orienta tion doesn’t affect anyone’s ability to do a more than impressive job. He also has worked to bring more black-owned businesses to downtown. In addition, Herzenberg was a strong sup porter of the Inter-Faith Council’s homeless shel ter and its move to its present location at the comer ofNorth Columbia and Rosemary streets. As an environmentalist, he fought against the University’s South Loop Road plan to save trees, green space and Odum Village, the University’s student-family housing development. Chapel Hill only stands tobenefit ifHerzenberg remains active on his committees in town hall — but he must decide whether this is best for him. Very few people in town knowthe innerworkings of town government better than Joe Herzenberg. Whoever Mayor Ken Broun and the Chapel Hill Town Council choose to take Herzenberg’s seat during the upcoming application process, they must remember the time, talent and energy that Herzenberg devoted to the town. Herzenberg, the highest vote-receiver in the 1991 town council race, did more than sit in town hall on Monday nights and vote on the issues. He became a part of the issues, walking the streets and making sure that he understood them and represented the people. Chapel Hill will be very lucky if it finds anyone who can take his place. To compound the problem, congress is ex tremely inefficient at its meetings, often spend ing hours rehashing the same issue. Last week, the body spent an hour discussing funding for the newly founded James Bond Fan Club. Many student organizations that request funding complain about sitting through hours of debate before they are considered. Congress members often find they have accomplished very little when they adjourn about 12:30 a.m. Congress needs to adopt strict rules to limit debate on each agenda item. Members should be discouraged from making nongermane points or repeating something that already has been said. At the same time, members of congress should stop playing political games that waste time and do not serve the students’ best interests. Meanwhile, students need to get involved in Student Congress as representatives or watchful constituents. More students need to run for of fice, and more students need to turn out to vote so congress members truly are representative of the students in their districts, not just of the handful of people who show up to vote. Let’s put an end to political antics, ineffi ciency and apathy. This incident reflects a trend of censorship emerging on college campuses. It is not surprising that the conservative publication would write such an ugly review, but it is not up to Tyne or any other student to take action. University campuses function as a market place of ideas where students supposedly are committed to open exchange of various thoughts. Denying others the right to express different or daring views is censorship, pure and simple. It goes against the First Amendment’s guarantees of freedom of the press and expression. The response to an idea one finds offensive or false should be combated with another one that is stronger, or one that exposes the falsity of its premise. No ideas or beliefs should be hushed down and prevented from coming out. Repression is the worst kind of expression. Dint Pope EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR Miduel Workman UNIVERSITY EDITOR KeDy Ryan oty editor Stephanie Greff STATE S NATIONAL EDITOR Steve Politi SPORTS EDITOR Amy L Seeley features editor Kim Costello arts & entertainment editor Marty Minehm special assignments editor Rohin Cagle copy desk editor Justin Wiiams photography editor Justin Scheef graphics editor Erin Lyon layout editor Kas DeCarviiho cartoon editor Job C. Manuel sportsaturday editor EDITORIALS ff "HI AWI... JUST LEAVE THE SAMPLE IN THE AIRLOCK AND ILL 6ET BACK TO M" Clinton’s Health Care Fairy Tale Won’t Come True Junk mail. I get lots of it. The same kind that I suppose all college students get. Free this and free that, the fliers promise. Evidently the people who sell usurious credit cards and loans and promise “free” gifts through the mail believe college students are some of the less intelligent members of society. The gimmicks are limited only by the imagi nations of some very desperate and/or unscru pulous marketing executives. I sometimes think I could take a year off from school and live the whole time on all the “free” vacation offers I get. They are all too good to be true. Laughable, really. Not unlike the promises that the Clinton co-presidents are making about their health-care reforms. The mail I get for “free” vacations and “free” credit cards that charge “only” 20-percent inter est go straight to the old circular file. So should the proposed health-care reforms. President Clinton promises that all Ameri cans can have cheap or “affordable” health care. He suggests that it would be great if all of our citizens were fully covered and never had to worry about health care again. Of course, it would be great. Just like Hoover’s “car in every garage and a chicken in every pot” would have been great. Just like Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society would have beta great if it had brought prosperity rather than income redistribution. Just like the balanced budgets Reagan promised would have been if they hadn’t been forgotten after all the votes were counted. No one suggests that utopia wouldn’t be a wonderful place. I do not doubt that everyone would enjoy living happily ever after in Never Never Land or A Land Called Hanalee. But our government has a terrible track record when it comes to turning utopian ideas into reality. Promises of prosperity and plenty for everyone never have much more substance than Peter Pan or Puff the Magic Dragon. The Great Society is the most recent and relevant example. LBJ's war on poverty ushered in the modem welfare state —and opened Pandora’s box. We now have a welfare system with backward incentives that trap people per manently in a demoralizing economic state. We have entitlement programs we can’t pay for and can’t take away because people have gotten so used to life on the government teat they no longer believe they can live without it. For all the millions of dollars that were thrown into the war on poverty, the people of Appalachia are relatively just as poor as they were before J ohnson Pageants Require Great Deal of Work, Dedication I agree that some people are simply not cut out for pageants (“Miss America Pageant’s Changes Weren’t Enough,” Sept. 20). Many narrow-minded feminists see them as degrading meat markets for women. Then, some see them as useless and easy beauty contests that are extremely fake. I can’t argue that there are fake participants in the pageants, but there are always some bad apples. I would like to set the record straight. Miss America, just like all other pageants, is a great deal of work. Asa reigning queen, I know the hours of endless work that goes into a pag eant. First of all, it is a year-round preparation. A girl must begin by watching hours of news reports and reading every news article she can find, so that in the interview she will be prepared to answer any questions the judges may ask. These aren't easy interviews we’re talking about. These are certified judges that can spot B.S. a mile away. They ask you about the most obsolete current events, and you better know about it. I ask Shirliey Fung to tell me how many people can sit perfectly poised and smile for 10 minutes of political interrogation, always answering promptly with an intelligent and coherent response, while remembering to have that essential eye contact at all times. Still sound so easy? Then, there’s talent. You say they were talentless singers. I watched the Miss America pageant and all the singers were great. True, most of them sang classical opera, not some thing you listen to tiding down the road. It is far from talentless. CanFung hit even half the notes they were singing? Talent is very difficult, no matter what the talent. It’s something you must practice every day; that’s the difference between a runner-up and the winner. Then, when you’re on the stage, you have to put your whole heart into it (and remember, always keep smiling). You walk out and thousands of people are watching you. You’re nervous but you have to look confident and relaxed and perform like you’re having the time of your life. As for the swimsuit competition, yes, it does have a lot to do with your figure but isn’t that a became President. Yet Clinton thinks government can take on the even greater fi nancial burden of pro viding health care for the entire nation and somehow break out of that trend. It’s almost as if he thinks we haven’t tried hard enough or spent enough money. As it is, we can’t pay our bills. We ■■■pm ALAN MARTIN WITH MJUJCE TOWARD NONE haven’t been able to come close in more than 20 years. But Clinton expects to balance the budget while creating programs that his own adminis tration predicts will cost at least S7OO billion in the first five years. If you figure that Uncle Sam rarely accomplishes anything for less than twice what it was predicted, the price tag could be as high as $1.4 trillion. Round that down to $1 trillion and it’s still one-fourth of the present government debt —a debt that we have taken decades to run up. Even Clinton’s fellow Democrats have de scribed his proposals for cooking the books and supposedly saving money as fantastic. That’s “fantastic” as in unreal, illusory and unattain able. Clinton’s heart may be in the right place, but he is living in a fairy tale. The most ludicrous thing I have heard to date is the suggestion that government is going to nationalize the health-care industry and give doctors more time to treat patients by REDUC ING paperwork. This cannot be a serious sug gestion. Midas turned everythinghetouchedintogold. Midas was very pleased with this situation until he touched his daughter and turned her into a very large and very dead nugget. Uncle Sam turns everything he touches into a blizzard of paper. It is impossible to imagine that he will get his hands on something as complex as the health-care industry and manage to create anything but additional mountains of paper work every bit as dead and useless as Midas’ 24-karat daughter. Even if it were possible for government to cure all that ails us, I do not see the wisdom in the politics of love and altruism that are motivating the health-care reform proposals. When it comes down to real life and practical issues, there isn’t a lot of room in political philosophy for emotion sign of physical fitness? How many people consider someone who is 1,000 | TAMMY jOHNSON | GUEST COLUMNIST pounds overweight physically fit? A girl has to work out every day and watch what she eats to compete in pageants. I don’t mean that she starves herself, she simply eats healthy. What’s wrong with that? In fact, it’s good for you. If it insults you so much, maybe you should try an hour and a half of aerobics a day and lifting weights three times a week. It’s a lot of work! Then, in the pageant, you walk around the stage, trying to appear full of confidence and model a swimsuit in 4-inch heels. Always com pleting your runway walk and your two full turns without so much as a wobble. And forthe record, I have NEVER taped myself! Contrary topopularbelief,thathas nothing to do with fitness or with the judging. I mean, they don’t have that as a category or anything. Miss South Carolina wasn’t exactly overly blessed. Every contestant also must have a platform. This is die way she will help her town, state or county if she is crowned. She also must be currently working on her program. Every year, Miss America works diligently to help her platform. Miss America 1993 helped with the AIDS awareness campaign. She trav eled 2,000 miles a month to advocate her plat form. She went to many hospitals all over America and volunteered in the neonatal units with HIV-positive babies. She held and watched over many of these children. I don’t know many people with that much compassion. Is that what Ms. Fung considers a “pointlessplatform”orashallow-mindedbeauty queen? Miss America 1994 plans to help the home less through education. She already has founded HERO (Homeless Educational Reform Oppor tunities). That doesn’t sound very easy! Pageants are a very rewarding experience. You leam a great deal about yourself and the diversity of others. You get to meet a lot of unique people and many life-long friends There is no other feeling like the joy you feel when they call your name out and put that crown on top of your head. Suddenly all that work pays off and the night uJljp Batty dor M untempered by large doses of stoic rationality. It is no coincidence the Summer of Love died in the fall of 1967 when hippies started thinking about the comfort of nice “square” houses with “conventional” roofs and heat powered by “es tablishment” utility companies. The Clintons’ health-care plan, among others things, is a blueprint for massive income redistri bution. Income redistribution is little more than mandatory charity on the part of those who are forced to pay “their fair share” in however many dollars that semantic license to steal is defined. Charity is, or at least should be, a personal emotional decision. In truth, the decision to go beyond what the government requires in your charitable endeavors is still a personal decision. But the right to be a miserly curmudgeon was squashed by the New Deal and utterly destroyed by the Great Society. Income redistribution schemes like this one essentially hold a state- sponsored gun to taxpay ers’ heads (the gun being the threat of following Joe Herzenberg through the criminal justice sys tem) and demand they love strangers enough to cough up the dough for whatever the state has decided they need. There is no personal decision left for the payer. There is no opportunity to decide how the money is spent. There is no opportunity to use the money in ways that create gainful employ ment, eliminating the need for charity and get ting something in return. There is no opportunity to decide which charities (i.e. government pro grams) to support - because no one will pay. There is only die tax collector who comes to the taxpayer’s door with a bill for his share of the love and a demand for the cash. This government-mandated love strikes me as no different than the practice in some cultures cultures that many Americans consider op pressive and archaic where marriages are arranged rather than created and individuals have no choice who they are to love. Unfortunately, I fear no knight in shining armor will come along in time to save us from the marriage named socialized medicine the Clintons have arranged between government and society. And we will all be stuck in a fairy tale gone bad —with no happy ending. Alan Martin is a third-year law student and 1991 graduate of UNC from Morganton who is not a miserly curmudgeon but who would like the freedom to change his mind. is truly yours. After you become crowned, though, the job doesn’t become any easier. You must make so cial appearances, speak for schools, and always uphold your life so that you will be a positive role model and a good influence because everywhere you go you are representing someone else! A lot of people say, “Well, that doesn’t seem like a lot ofhard work. ” Yet, those parades are on a lot of the good football games and there is a lot of late Friday-night practicing that cancels out that date! There is a tremendous amount of sacrifice in pageants, and you must love it to be able to participate! In closing, pageants have their good and bad points along with everything else in life. How ever, they’re a great experience, and you leam skills that last you a lifetime. Not to mention all the memories you’ll always carry with you. Everyone finds their enjoyment in different ways, some in sports, some in academics and some in pageants. If some girls enjoy it, what’s wrong with it? It doesn’t hurt anyone. My question is, could you have the determi nation and dedication to sacrifice the time, energy and effort it takes? So, until you’re in a pageant or you’ve held a title, don’t criticize something you really know absolutely nothing about! Leave us alone: No one is making you partici pate, and if you don’t like it, DON’T WATCH IT! Tammy Johnson is a freshman political science major from Fuquay-Varina and the reigning Miss Roseboro. Columns Policy The Daily Tar Heel welcomes guest column submissions from our readers. Please follow the following guidelines when submitting columns: I Limit column length to 800 words. ■ All columns must be signed and typed double spaced. ■ If you are a student please include your class, major, hometown and phone number. ■ The DTH reserves the right to edit guest columns for space, clarity and vulgarity.
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Sept. 30, 1993, edition 1
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