Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Sept. 27, 1994, edition 1 / Page 8
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8 Tuesday, September 27,1994 Mg ®ar Kelly Ryan EDITOR (S> Jm Established 1893 gill 101 Years of Editorial Freedom Tainted Petitions No local issue has fired up Chapel Hill and Carrboro in recent years as much as the sound and fury over school board member LaVonda Burnette. But even Burnette’s strongest critics maintain that the effort to remove her from office for dishonesty is not a racial issue. Former Parent- Teacher-Student Association President Madeleine Mitchell and the other community members who led the petition drive to recall Burnette acted as concerned voters who wanted to take an issue directly to the public rather than see the school board engulfed in a protracted legal conflict. But the way the petition drive was conducted unnecessarily racially polarized the Burnette issue more than the issue itself already had. If the groundswell of criticism against Burnette, who lied about her status as a UNC student, reflects a sincere concern about honesty in politics, then her detractors should come from all political and racial backgrounds. Placing petitions only in white-owned busi nesses and canvassing for signatures only in white neighborhoods presents the effort as a No Drop in the Bucket After a sluggish beginning, the University’s fund-raising campaign for the Sonja H. Stone Black Cultural Center finally has an asset to celebrate. Hugh McColl, chairman and chief executive officer of Nationsßank, has singlehandedly turned around the effort, which was slow and embarrassing at best. Nationsßank is contribut ing a $500,000 leadership gift and has pledged another $500,000 in matching funds if the North Carolina banking industry comes through with $1 million in donations. The BCC still needs almost $6 million before construction can begin. The leadership Provost Richard McCormick has shown in securing this significant gift should give the incentive to finish raising funds in step with the Bicentennial Cam paign. There is no more time to waste admin istrators should use the momentum McColl’s •THE PICTURE SHOWN BELOuJ IS..^ Mft SCENE. FROM I '/ <S (/ Jr If raj ffl FOR FM.L BREftK | ft| |S BIT OF LKUMDRY i|| i'l \ Ji I 1(111 Business and Advertising: Kevin Schwartz. director/general manager Chrissy Mennitt advertising director. Leslie Humphrey, classified ad manager; Holly Aldndge. business manager Tiffany Krueger, advertising manager Business Staff: Jenny Schwartz, assistant manager Assistant Editors: Alison Maxwell, arts/diversions Andrea Rednick. copy. Emma Williams, features ; Jill Duncan, layout David Alsord. photo, Adam Davis. Jacson Lowe and James Whitfield, sports; Chad Austin and Alison Lawrence, sportsaturday; Ryan Thornburg, state and national; Marissa Jones and Judy Royal. University Arts/Diversions: Richard Allen. Mitch Bennett Kelly Breen. Baker Burleson. Nathan Elis. Susannah Felts. Jason Frank. Todd Gilchrist Tom Holden. Aziz Huq. Todd Ho. Anthony King. Dan Kois. Ryan McKaig. John McLeod. Rachel Miller. John Neiman. Tanya Oestricher, Bryan Powell. Derek Powers. Mark Prindle. John Pritchard. Brent Simon. Charlie Speight Zola Springer. Barry Summerlin. Seth Surgan and Grant TenmHe Cartoon: Tim Daily. Todd Gilchrist Bnan Kahn. Dan Tarrant Joel Tesch. Onur Turkel and J.D White City: Michele Lambeth, senior water. Bill Blocker. Elena Bourgoin. Sarah Corbitt Jennifer Freer. Nicole Galbo. Laura Godwin. Charleen Graham. Hooper Graham. Dean Hair. Kathryn Hass. Megan Hanley. Gretchen Hoffman. Jason Johnson. Kristen Laney. Jennifer Marcum. Sarah Mcßride. Alex Podlogar. Kate Power. Kurt Raatzs. Joe Reynolds. Richard Sackmann. Hilary Sparrow. Jacob Stohler, Holly Williams. Karen Williams. Suzanne Wood and Sara Yelton Copy: Allison Barbee. Greg Braun. Ingrid Breuer. Wade Casstevens. Sara Frisch. Mazi Gaillard. Taylor The editorials are approved by the majority of the editorial board, which is composed of the editor, editorial page editor and three editorial writers. The Daily Tar Heel is published by the DTH Publishing Corp.. a non-profit North Carolina corporation. Monday-Friday. according to the University calendar Callers with questions about billing or display advertising should dial 962-1163 between 8:30 a m and 5 p.m. Classified ads can be reached at 962-0252. Editorial questions should be directed to 962-0245/0246. ICC .. OJOC Office: Suite 104 Ceroliru Union ISSN #IO7O-9436 Cempue me) eddreee: CM 5210 Bo> 49, Caroline Union U.S. Mel address: P.O. Boa 3257. Choral Hill. NC 27516-3257 white effort. The local chapter of the NAACP is justified in its complaint about the petition to state legislators, who now will investigate whether Mitchell followed the stipulations of the recall legislation. The recall legislation says petitioners must attend to the petitions and witness voters actually signing them. The petitioners ’ approach unnecessarily taints the sincere hard work of Mitchell and her fellow residents. The petition effort should have tar geted more of the diverse neighborhoods and ethnic groups that make up this community. The startling lack of responsibility on Mitchell’s part witnesses say she left unat tended petitions in businesses for people to sign —violated basic ethics and rules about verifying petition signers. To ensure the integrity of the recall movement, Mitchell should have handled the drive with closer supervision. Everyone in this community should be con cerned about the racially divisive way the peti tion drive was handled. There’s no reason to discredit a recall effort based on a legitimate democratic ideal: putting issues directly in the hands of voters. effort has generated to step up the BCC fund raising campaign. McColl himself has pledged to lead the effort to secure an additional $ 1 million from the bank ing industry, showing the state of North Caro lina that it should have confidence in a center that divided the campus and the state. If the largest banking corporation in the state can support the BCC with such a lavish dona tion, the debate over the viability of the center can be put to rest. Fund-raisers can’t sit still on a project whose time has come. The center can’t be built with $2 million, and the search for a permanent BCC director will stay on hold until fund raising is almost complete. Now that Nationsßank has set the BCC campaign in motion, administrators and development officials can put their own work in high gear. THE DAILYTAR HEEL Business & Advertising Staff Classified/Customer Service: Melissa Allam. Gwendolyn Blackburn, Dodie Brodsky. Michelle Byrd. Grace Consacro. Shannon Hrdlicka. Jacson Lowe. Leah Richards. Allison Saunders. Holly Stepp. Mary Tate and Justin Williams, representatives Display Advertising: Kristen Boyd. Michelle Clifton. Amy Cojac. Tiffany Krueger. Gidget Lamb. Megan Editorial Staff Harris. Karen Hurka, John Mills. Jennie Perey, Brian Styers. Chrissy Sweeney. Heather Weide and Becky Wishon. Design: Andrea Bachl. Bjorn Book-Larsson. Paige Hess. Laura Kubovcik and Peter Roybal. Editorial: Michelle Chan. Gregory Dreher and Meredith Nicholson. Features: Marshall Benbow. Michelle Crampton. Todd Crawford. Jonnelle Davis. Ellen Flaspoehler. Jennifer Fuller. Shirley Fung. Kendra Gemma. Emily Gorman. Michele Huggins. Alllison Ince. Greg Kaliss. Jaime Kowey. Sadie Lacy. Eva Undemann. Dana Meisner. Kevin Metz. Stacey Mewbom. Rachel Miller, Olivia Page. Jenny Singletary. Kurt Tondorf. Julie Twellman, Mary Cameron Van Graafeiland. Tia Webster and Aranda Wilson Graphics: Chris Anderson. Todd Barr. David Brooks. Korey Casper. John Garner. Colleen Harreld. Chris Kirkman. Matt Leclercq. Kristin Lee. Jacson Lowe. Allison Shepherd. Onur Turkel and Mark Worrell Layout Jill Duncan. Marc McCollum. Lisa Newman. Christine Nicolette. Kristin Rohan and Gary Wilhelm. Photography: Teressa Cook. Sarah Dent Selena DeWitya. Chris Gaydosh. Claire Jarvis. Craig Jones. Elizabeth Mayback. MeHissa Milios. T.C. Morphis, Erin Mane Morris. Tracy Poe. Kristin Prelipp. Jonathan Radcliffe. Shelly Romero. Judy Siviglia. Laura Thomas and Heather Wilson Special Assignments: Jeff Ganglieno. Laure Gross. Erica Luetzow. Matt Rehm. Kirk Royal, Michelle Thanasas Cambanis EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR Amy Pmiak university EDITOR Chris Nichols city editor Jenny Heinien state 5 national editor Steve Robb lee sports editor Jon Goldberg FEATURES EDITOR Wendy Mitchell arts/diversions editor Holly Stepp special assignments editor Kathryn Sherer COPY DESK EDITOR Jennifer Neckyfarow COPY DESK EDITOR Katie Cannon photography editor John Caserta design EDrroß Robert Anderson graphics EDITOR Kelly Peacock LAYOUT EDITOR Jake Mac Nelly editorial cartoon editor Justin Seheef SPORTSATURDAY EDITOR Stephenson. Kathy Trent and Ashley Widdis. account executives; Nina Hashway and John Logan, assistant account executives. Tina Collie. office assistant Advertising Production: Bill Leslie, manager/ system administrator Richard D Allen, Laura Bensen. John Mims and Denise Walker, assistants. Vanstory and Keri Waldrop Sports: Andy Alley. John Ashley. Aaron Beard. Doug Behar. Seth Brown. Todd Graff. Jonathan Hart Sherry Honeycutt Gautam Khandelwal. Sarah Manekin. Kimberley McCudden, Alec Morrison. Erin Parrish. Robbi Pickeral. Joseph Rolison. Reuben Sack. Jill Santopietro. Heidi Schmitt Frank'Wang. Scott Weaver and Lisa Zaranek. State and National: Adam Bianchi. senior water Jennifer Adams. Erica Beshears. Sree Chavali. Bronwen Clark. Loree Crowell, Martha Elder. Enc Flack. Steve Jackson. Seshupo Milazi, Billy Morton. Cam Nguyen. Biyan Pruitt Richard Purcell. Kelly Race. Paul Robinson. Keny Schwarz. Susanna Stephens. Dan Thomas and Crystal Wicker. University: Sarah Bahnson. Ali Season, Scott Boze, Jennifer Burleson. Kari Cohen, Jeni Cook. Julia Corbin, Daniel DeFranco. Nancy Fonti. Vida Foubister. Adam Gusman. Edward Kennedy. Rachael Landau. Stephen Lee. Kelly Lojk. Steve Maggi. Christina Massey. Leah Merrey. Melissa Milios. Anne O'Connell. Tee Omolodun. Debbie Rappaport Amy Reavis. Heather Robinson. Andrew Russell. Sharron Scott Thomas Sidders. Prachee Singh. John Stone. Kathryn Taylor. Brian Vann and Kamal Wallace Editorial Production: Stacy Wynn, manager Printing: The Chapel Hill News Distribution: Triangle Circulation Services. EDITORIAL f ( \ -T ...ANO \bl LOCAL NEWS, LAVONDA eURNPTTF Vf- ONCE A&A/N CCA//W Ik • KACISM IS BEtim / J . ‘Dead Poets’ Was Right: No Time to Watch Clock After a long day of intellectual strain, I often flip through the various TV channels to see what mindless things I can find. Last week, I caught a few minutes of an Oprah show. I wouldn’t admit to watching this crap, but Oprah was introducing a neat little gadget: a black marble clock in the shape of a pyramid. A clock that counts down the number of hours, minutes and even seconds you have left to live. Yes, this clock is set for the total amount of time allotted in 80 years, from which your age is subtracted. You can set it on your desk and know, at any time of the day, how many more hours, minutes and seconds you have left to live. The inventors of this handy, time-saving de vice (for who wants to sit down and calculate, at any given time, how many more hours, minutes and seconds they have to live?) said they had a point above and beyond making money. They said they wanted people to realize that they should live for each hour, minute and second in the day because they don’t have that many left. Something’s wrong with that logic. If I had a clock telling me that I had 324,000 hours left to live, no single hour would be that precious, and the clock would have the opposite effect on my philosophy. I’d think to myself, “Should I go out and do today?” But I wouldn’t, because I’d know I had an other 323,976 hours in which to do it before I die. Other people, Type A’s, would freak out, thinking, “I only have 323,976 more hours left to finish everything ...” and be too upset to do anything. Either way seems a horrible way to live. You’ve heard what I’m about to say before, but some of you have not listened. So I’ll say it again. The fact is, we’re not all going to live to be 80 Director Clarifies Service Mission of Student Health TO THE EDITOR: Recent coverage in The Daily Tar Heel has helped to clarify a fact which Student Health would certainly wish students to understand: no student will be denied services because of lack of available money on the day services are given. However, the repeated statements in DTH cov erage that the new procedure required payment on the day of service were inaccurate. The statement made by SHS was that pay ment was encouraged and expected but students were being told they could make arrangements to defer payment if necessary. Two changes in the computer system at Cashier’s Office are particularly relevant to stu dents’ health care dollar: 1. New computer systems do not permit large numbers of daily charges to be prepared by the Student Health computer and “batched” to the Cashier’s Office as was the case previously. 2. The former practice of crediting Student Health accounts with revenue at the time of transfer (in effect bon-owing from other Univer sity funds) is no longer possible. A study of the financial ramifications of these changes for Student Health showed the loss of student dollars in two ways: 1. Charges could be sent to the Cashier’s Office; however, they could not be automati cally sent electronically but would require rekeying into the cashier’s system, significantly increasing expenses. During the previous year, between 250 and 425 charges were sent daily without handling a second time. 2. Since credit would be given only for cash deposits, the sum available for the University to invest with interest credited back to Student Health would be reduced, thus decreasing an important nonfee source of revenue that helps keep fees low. In developing a procedure to minimize the impact of the changes, SHS made every effort to ensure that no student would be denied or dis couraged from seeking care. The protocols developed to carry out the change were designed to convey to ail students that payment at time of service was expected, but that no student would be refused service for financial reasons; that alternate forms of pay ment by check or credit card were available, and that those approximately 4,500 students and postdoctoral fellows carrying the UNC group insurance plans would not be affected by this years old. Some of us won’t even reach 30. We simply do not know when or how we’re going to die. Now’s the time for me to impress you with my reading of Carpe Diem litera ture, by quoting Robert Herrick’s “Gatherye rosebuds while ye may,/for NO CHASER time is swiftly passing,” or scenes of Robin Williams in “Dead Poet’s Society.” I lack the eloquence to write such memorable lines myself, but for Chrissakes, just get your thumbs out of your asses. You don’t need a clock to tell you that life is short; we all know that. I can’t stand to walk around and see everyone looking so goddamn serious. People have such intense, pained expressions on their faces; even the people who smile seem to do so with ulterior motives. What ever happened to living life for the moment? To sucking the marrow out of life? I can only guess it’s been replaced by thoughts in future tense and attempts to fill up resumes with laudable activities. How many people care more for what’s happening around them now than what they think will be a “better” future? Not enough. It’s so wrong to let life pass you by. Think what a cool world this would be if everyone did the thing they loved the most. I’m not talking about the bitterness that has overtaken us at this late stage in life, like “I just wanna get (rich, drunk, laid).” I’m talking about the dreams we had as kids. Like I wanted to be a female Indiana Jones or Wonder Woman or Princess Leia. Iknewmany aspirant firefighters and ballerinas and Broad- READERS’FORUM The Daily Tar Heel welcomes reader comments and criticism. Letters to the editor should be no longer than 400 words and must be typed, double-spaced, dated and signed by no more than two people. Students should include their year, major and phone number. Faculty and staff should include their title, department and phone number. The DTH reserves the right to edit letters for space, clarity and vulgarity. change. Their charges would continue (and are con tinuing) to be filed automatically. We estimate that with the new system, con tinuing to send charges to the cashier in the numbers sent last year would require additional staff, probably one position dedicated to data entry and time from other personnel to hold and organize the material to be entered. Coupled with the loss of interest revenue, this could readily result in an additional burden to Student Health of $25,000 to $30,000 annually, solely for the purpose of handling large numbers of small charges (SSO or less). This would be a drain on the SHS budget with no positive impact on health care. In this day when health costs are increasing, when health fee increases often are not approved and when emphasis on cost effectiveness is ex pected, this use of student dollars is not wise and that needs to be clearly stated. It also needs to be clearly stated that most medical practices, including other student health services, are now requesting or requiring pay ment at time of service for reasons of decreasing administrative costs and assuring revenue. At SHS, we have devoted time and energy to increasing efficiency and have not discontinued any service to students. In feet, we have made additional services available at significantly less cost to the student than is the case in the surrounding community. When you recognize that such services as confidential HTV testing and the Contraceptive Health Education Clinic combined cost about the same amount as the increased data entry expense and the associated interest loss, the Sails (Tar Hrrl way stars. Everyone had their dreams of being some thing Great, something far and beyond what they eventually settle for. All of these dreams seem to dry up after we’ve discovered love and work and alcohol and re sponsibility. And they shouldn’t. At times, I want to slap someone in the face. I want to shout, and wake up the living dead around me. “Do what you want!” I hate to see people constrained from living life, sleepwalking through it, because their Mamawouldn’tapprove.orbecausetheßev’rend might send them to hell or because people would talk. If you want to have a one-night stand, do it. Using precautions, of course. If you want to stand up in the middle of class and recite a poem you’ve written, do it. If you want to tell someone you can’t stand them or that you love them, do it. If you want to write “shocking” letters to this paper, do it. Just don’t get old and tired and full of regrets. Don’t wait until you only have 10,000 hours left to live to try to make up for lost time. I have a reason for my solemn tone today. This weekend, I celebrated a birthday. And I looked at my life and thought how very “old” I had become. I have my own washer and dryer; I pay insur ance; and I’m monogamous. I find myself buy ing more expensive beer and wine, for the taste ratherthan for the drunkenness. I’ve even started to clean the apartment. I might as well have two and a half kids and live in Charlotte. Seeing the pyramid clock on Oprah’s show did make me stop and think, as to whether I’m living life or whether I’m letting it slip through my fingers. But I’ve got 525, 552 hours and counting left, so I won’t panic. Yet. Jeanne Fugate is a junior English major from Ocala, Fla. choice seems clear. Student money should go to health care and not to unnecessary data entry. For Student Health, financial concerns are ever present. In the face of decreasing reserves, we are struggling to maintain all services and need stu dent help to do so. We operate with student funding, we seek means to have students actively involved in their own health care and to have students play a definite role in the allocation of resources. The Student Health Advisory Board is the body which provides for official student input, and these issues will be discussed there. We will continue to encourage payment at the time of service and will work with students unable to pay at the time of service in working out satisfactory arrangements. We will not turn away any student for finan cial reasons. Bills incurred at SHS may be charged to student accounts, and we are investigating the possibility of a UNC ONE Card payment op tion. In the long term, we expect these adjustments to accrue to the overall benefit of our student patients. We believe we will have their cooperation in cost containment as we continue to work to provide quality care at a reasonable cost. Dr. Judith Cowan DIRECTOR JAMES A. TAYLOR STUDENT HEALTH SERVICE South Asian Philosopher to Explain Ideas for Students TO THE EDITOR: A rare event is to occur on the UNC campus today Mr. V. Ganesan will speak on ancient Indian philosophy in lucid terms suitable to any audience. He brings with him experiences from the ashram of the well-respected sage, Sri Ramana. Taking part in this evening discussion will encourage a higher level of cultural awareness, truly allowing the “world to be our campus” at Carolina. Asa representative of Sangam, the South Asian Awareness Organization on campus, I strongly encourage all students to join us today at 8 p.m. in Union 212. Nedam Patel SOPHOMORE UNDECIDED
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Sept. 27, 1994, edition 1
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