8
Friday, November 2, 2001
Opinion
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Established 1893 • M Yeats of Editorial freedom
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Katie Hunter
Editor
Office Hours Friday 2 p.m. ■ 3 p.m.
Kim Minugh
MANAGING EDITOR
Sefton Ipock
VISUAL COORDINATOR
Jermaine Caldwell
SPECIAL PROJECTS COORDINATOR
Kate Hartig
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
Lizzie Breyer
UNIVERSITY EDITOR
Kellie Dixon
CITY EDITOR
Alex Kaplun
STATE & NATIONAL EDITOR
Rachel Carter
SPORTS EDITOR
James Giza
SPORTSATURDAY EDITOR
Faith Ray
FEATURES EDITOR
Russ Lane
ARTS Sr ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR
Terri Rupar
COPY DESK EDITOR
Kara Arndt
PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Beth Buchholz
DESIGN EDITOR
Cobi Edelson
GRAPHICS EDITOR
Catherine Liao
ONLINE EDITOR
Josh Myerov
OMBUDSMAN
Concerns or comments about our
coverage? Contact the ombudsman at
jmyerovWemail.unc.edu or by phone at
918-1.311
Board of Education Endorsements
The race for three seats on the
Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board of
Education will come to a close Tuesday,
Election Day. Out of the five candidates,
The Daily Tar Heel editorial board
endorses die following three candidates:
Nick Didow
Nick Didow, an incumbent candi
date, has the experience and vision
important to the balance of the Board of
Education. Didow plans to keep
endorsing student achievement by
implementing the Minority Student
Achievement Plan, recognizing acade
mic success of every child and devel
oping solid partnerships with parents by
character and citizenship education.
Didow is committed to dealing with
overcrowding and growth issues as
well as renovating older buildings. He
also will continue to work for improve
ments in exceptional education.
His platform also specifies a com
mitment to recruiting, supporting and
retaining outstanding teachers, staff and
district leadership. Didow is also com
mitted to working with Orange County
Schools and the Orange County
Commissioners in a way that will yield
Board Editorials
Working for the Clampdown
Chapel Hill must learn how to respond appropriately to its annual Halloween celebration
Halloween on Franklin Street, a Chapel
Hill tradition for many years, might go the
way of Brent Road if the town continues to
demand a police presence that is com
pletely out of proportion to the event.
More than 300 law enforcement officers
from several different counties descended
on the downtown area and established a
traffic blockade around a 1 1/2 mile radius
from Franklin Street. Makeshift check
points were set up on the street itself as offi
cers inspected partygoers and confiscated
such contraband items as walking canes,
water pistols and plastic swords.
If town officials hoped that this unprece
dented law enforcement presence would
put a damper on the party, they were cor
rect. But the sheer breadth of the police
response was expensive, unnecessary and
perhaps even counterproductive.
This annual celebration has certainly
produced its share of headaches for the
town. Thousands of students and other rev
elers crowd Franklin Street each year, dis
The government needs to let the public know exactly what kind of terrorist threats it might be facing
A little information can be a dangerous
thing, but a lot of information can be a
wonderful thing.
On Monday, the director of the FBI
issued a warning to Americans to be on the
“highest alert” for possible terrorist attacks
on the United States. On Thursday,
California Gov. Gray Davis announced that
law enforcement officials suspected terror
ists of targeting four California bridges,
including the Golden Gate Bridge.
The difference between these two warn
ings is the difference between a safer pub
lic and a hysterical one.
Monday’s warning was the second one
in as many months which described a
vague, undefined terrorist threat that might
strike anywhere in the nation. Yet even as
top governmental officials asked
Americans to be on “highest alert,” they
urged citizens to carry on with their lives.
The contradiction inherent in these two
statements was probably not lost on law
results for all students and staff.
Valerie Foushee
Foushee, also an incumbent candi
date, should be re-elected to her seat to
continue the progress she has made on
the board during the last four years.
She has served as the board’s chair
woman. In her platform, she notes that
the issues are the same as four years
ago - providing adequate capacity in
the schools, renovating older facilities,
closing the achievement gap between
minority and majority students and
recruiting and retaining teachers and
administrators - all of which she will
continue to support and address the
changing concerns.
Foushee also plans to continue work
ing toward improving minority achieve
ment. Foushee’s leadership and com
mitment to the school system’s excel
lence make her a qualified candidate
and justify her re-election to the board.
Lisa Stuckey
Stuckey, a first-time candidate to
the school board, brings hands-on
experience with teachers and parents,
having been the PTA president at two
rupting traffic, leaving a mess and occa
sionally picking fights among themselves.
The entire event is an unsanctioned dis
ruption of normality that the town has tol
erated with good grace until this point.
The enormous number of often intoxi
cated people requires a healthy police pres
ence to maintain the public safety for all
partygoers, and that is why many law
enforcement officers have been present at
every Halloween for years. But this year
the streets were choked with officers from
across the state, many of whom seemed to
have little to do.
Moreover, the cost of this tiny army was
estimated Tuesday at more than SIOO,OOO -
$25,000 more than it cost the town to man
age Halloween last year.
Even more inexplicable than the swollen
number of police officers was the incredi
bly wide cordon set up around Franklin
Street. Halloweens of years past created
small traffic jams in the immediate area, but
this year’s checkpoints affected traffic
Panic Is On the Way
enforcement officials, who have been
forced to walk an agonizingly fine line since
Sept. 11.
On one hand, the government wants its
citizenry to be alert for any suspicious activ
ity that might be connected to a future ter
rorist attack.
On the other, no one wants to provoke
panic in a populace already rattled by the
events of recent months.
Certainly, it is always better to warn the
American public of potential danger than
to keep them in the dark.
But officials need to do a better job of
explaining what exactly being “on highest
alert” entails.
Because there is only so much that the
general public can watch for, the FBI, the
newly created Office of Homeland Security
or even local authorities have to do a better
job of explaining exactly how the public
reaches this stage of alertness.
Thursday’s warning, for example,
local schools and held positions on
school governance committees. She is
committed to dealing with over
crowding and growth concerns. She
looks to work on getting two new ele
mentary schools and an additional
high school when the need becomes
imminent. Stuckey understands the
need for school renovations and
improvements s well as maintenance
of the system’s facilities.
Parental involvement is also a pri
ority of Stuckey’s, as well as a good
relationship with the local government
to ensure better use of limited funds
and resources. She would also like to
see that the two work together for joint
park/playground facilities and pro
grams. Also, like Didow and Foushee,
Stuckey supports enhancement of
minority achievement, important to
the success of every child.
The DTH editor, the editorial page
editor, the assistant editorial page
editor and the editorial board
endorse candidates in all races. They
base their decision on a question
naire and a platform submitted by
each candidate.
throughout an enormous part of the town.
The inconvenience experienced by
motorists who had no intention of ventur
ing anywhere near Franklin Street would
seem to outweigh whatever goal officials
had in mind.
Finally, the police presence might even
have created additional dangers. With traf
fic backed up in so many places, what
would have happened in the event that a
fire truck, ambulance or other emergency
vehicle needed to quickly get from one side
of town to another?
Instead of trying to squelch the celebra
tion, perhaps town officials could explore
ways to actually make it pay. Charging vis
itors to park in temporary parking lots
could offset quite a bit of the costs.
In any event, the town shouldn’t feel that
it has to clamp down so harshly on fun-lov
ing partyers.
Having fun and maintaining a safe envi
ronment don’t have to be mutually exclu
sive.
described the threat in explicit detail. Davis
named four suspected targets - San
Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and Bay
Bridge, San Diego’s Coronado Bridge and
the Vincent Thomas Bridge at the Port of
Los Angeles. He also said that authorities
anticipate an attack between today and
Nov. 9.
With Americans now informed of exact
ly what kind of threat faces them, they per
haps have a better idea of what kind of
activity they should be on alert for.
Telling citizens they need to be “on high
est alert” will only contribute to a sense of
paranoia and panic if officials do not give
people specific, probable terrorist scenarios
across the country.
It’s difficult for the American people to
behave in a calm and rational fashion when
the government issues vague threats of
impending terror.
It should remember: Knowledge is
power.
Barometer
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A
The Daily Tar Heel wel
comes reader comments
and criticism, letters to
the editor should be no
longer than 300 words
and must be typed, dou
ble-spaced, dated and
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them to P.O. Box 3257,
Chapel Hill, NC 27515 or
e-mail forum to:
editdesk@unc.edu.
illegal to whore yourself out on a college campus,
unless it’s to Nike.
like screwing up Commencement speaker selection.
Tar Heel Quotables
“There’s nothing normal about (football) at
all. It starts with the shape of the football
itself.”
Football Coach John Bunting
Football coach or Zen master? You be the judge.
“We believe we are the majority, and you
can hear from every car honking as they go
by that we truly are.”
Junior Brian LiVecchi
Commenting on his opposition to anti-war activists. Yes,.it's
always nice to be in the majority of car-honking jackasses.
Going Once,
Going Twice,
Sold to Qatar
Heard of Qatar? If you haven’t, it’s probably a good
time to brush up on Qatar trivia, because the small,
Middle Eastern country has offered to buy a piece
of UNC -and our administration is all too happy to
oblige.
Here’s what’s on the auction block: a Kenan-Flagler
Business School diploma bearing the name of UNC-
Chapel Hill.
Our only bidder is the Qatar
Foundation, a group headed by Her
Highness Sheikha Mouz Bint Nasser
Al-Misnad, the second of three wives
of the ruling emir of Qatar. The foun
dation approached UNC one year
ago with the idea of creating a satel
lite campus of the business school in
the small emirate’s capital of Doha.
The bidding begins at an undis
closed price. But Qatar’s timing
couldn’t be more perfect, given that
Chancellor James Moeser just launched a $1 billion cam
paign to fill the University’s coffers. Provost Robert Shelton
told The News & Observer, “Maybe they can meet our
campaign goal with one check.”
Going once ...
Cornell University has already received $750 million to
run a satellite campus of its medical school in Qatar.
Cornell also received an undisclosed amount for managing
the program. All of the sudden, UNC administration is
gung-ho about Qatar - while most students can’t even pro
nounce the country’s name.
Going twice ...
Qatar wants to modernize. In 1998, the country
approached the University of Virginia about creating an
undergraduate campus in Qatar. After two years, UVa.
declined, citing problems with accreditation.
Going three tunes...
That’s where we come in. Qatar has offered an undisclosed
sum to UNC to develop an undergraduate business program
intended for native Qataris. On the bright side, it will include
women. This is significant, considering that Qatar lies in the
middle of a culture that denies women basic liberties. But in
Qatar, the women can actually drive cars.
Our university will grant Qataris the same degree we
receive here in Chapel Hill, but our fellow Qatarheels
won’t even have to set foot on American soil, let alone in
North Carolina.
Current students, meanwhile, might not even have
access to the Qatari campus. As Moeser said in a
Wednesday meeting with the Chancellor’s Advisory
Committee, “It’s not for UNC students.” Some of the finest
faculty that we wait semesters to take classes from and who
are paid with our tax dollars and tuition money might be
temporarily unavailable - vacationing in Qatar.
Qatar has a population of 700,000, roughly the same as
Wake County, although it’s smaller than the state of
Connecticut.
That’s where the similarities to America end. Qatar is an
autocratic regime run by the vast al-Thani family. The
country’s rulers have promised to hold free elections for
the first time since 1970, but that hasn’t taken place yet
While we call our home the land of the free, critics of the
Qatar regime are jailed, citizens have limited civil liberties,
and there is no freedom of assembly.
The little Gulf state also lives in a rough neighborhood.
Plopping an American school espousing Western ideals in
bin Laden’s backyard sounds like a bright idea. UNC has
two options here: We can bail on the program because the
risks of terrorism outweigh the goals. Or, the University
can proceed with this venture in the middle of America’s
War on Terror and attempt to instill some Western values
into the people of Qatar.
Whatever the school decides, students will have no
voice in the decision. That is ethically inexcusable. No stu
dent representative has been allowed to go on the two posh
trips the Sheikha has arranged to woo faculty into endors
ing the program. Heck, there’s not even a Web site on the
UNC page that says a thing about it. A complete mystery,
considering that the last time administration missed a
chance to create a Web site was 1991.
Perhaps it’s because students have learned that money
(Nike) is more important than integrity (Wachovia), safety
(Aramark) and most of all students (IBM). Students have
been intentionally left out of the Qatar program discussion
because we follow our gut instincts, not our checkbooks.
... Sold.
Rachel Hockfield thinks it would have been easier to just
sell the University off brick-by-brick. Send all bids to
rachel@email.unc.edu.
For the Love of $
Two UNC-Greensboro students
were arrested last week and
charged with prostitution. It's
Jumping Ship
Despite the resignation of the senior
class vice president, senior class
officials vowed to continue their work,
®tjr Satis ®^ r Mppl
RACHEL
HOCKFIELD
OVER MY HEAD
It's Snore-ific!
Cam Hill announced that he was
dropping out of the Chapel Hill
mayoral race Tuesday morning,
/
thereby removing the last gasp of personality from
local elections.
Going Postal
Officials said that reports of
suspicious letters on campus have
all been false alarms. So now there's
&
no excuse for not opening your cell phone bill.
“(Our) goal is that every student can say,
‘Yes, Carolina’s got something for me.’”
RHA President David Cooper
On RHA’s Halloween Bash. The University already has
something for every student: another tuition increase.
“We are developing a series of tools that
will let us replace human decision-making
with electronic decision-making.”
Richard Rocks
Of Boeing Cos., on a UNC-designed software application.
Coming soon to South Building: The Moesertron6ooo.