oots,
Circa 60,000 B.C. Glog. the chieftain
of a band of cavemen, was confronted
by certain members of his band who
were indignant because Klog, the band's
spearhead maker, had raised the price of
a spearhead from two sabre-tooth tiger
teeth to four. The crowd demanded that
Glog do something about it, so Glog
demanded an explanation from Klog.
Klog replied that flint was getting
hard to come by, and he had to spend
more time looking for flint than he spent
actually making spearheads. His output
of spearheads was thus reduced, and he
couldn't make a living at the old price.
On top of that, Klog continued, he
couldn't supply as many spearheads at a
price of two tiger teeth as the band
wanted to buy at that price. He had tried
to hold the price line, but various
members of the band kept bothering
him at work or waking him up in the
middle of the night, offering to pay three
or four or five teeth for spearheads that
hadn't even been produced yet. Others
had sought to be first in line for
spearheads, and some had camped for
several days at a time outside his cave.
While they were camping of course they
hadn't been hunting and Klog himself
had found it increasingly difficult to buy
meat.
Klog resented all this waste of his and
Editor's note: Vie following was
excerpted from Student Body President
Marcus Williams' State of the Campus
address, delivered Wednesday. Feb. 2.
With few exceptions, the year has
passed swiftly and quietly. This is not to
say that there were no exciting events; it
just appeared that the average student
did not know and or care about them.
In fact, as one example of this, social
dialogue reached a frightening ebb.
Even the DTH had to give out
1 assignments in creative writing in order
to present some newsworthy reporting.
Yes, the campus was in a dire state: a
"dangerous silence" pervaded the
air . . .
Maybe it would be insightful to
attempt to pinpoint a few tempo-setting
factors.4 Without-a" doubt; thefifsr and
the most prominent was the economic
crisis. Fighting for financial survival can
be a full-time responsibility; it can
exhaust the time and energy of the best
of academicians. Such a predicament
lends credence to the slogan The
more one has, the more one should
participate.
A second factor influencing student
life has been a contagious political
cynicism. Since Nixon hurt our pride,
The
Daily
Tar Heel
I"o the editors:
As members of the Carolina Coalition, we
eel that the student body deserves a reply to
Friday's unfair and blatantly inaccurate
DTH editorial.
In a classic case of the pot calling the kettle
black, w? were slandered as "false
prophets . . . a mutual admiration society"
and, generally, people who want to preserve
the status quo and get our buddies elected to
political positions.
The Carolina Coalition doesn't pretend to
prophesy. We are a group of non-apathetic
students trying to improve SG by putting
vital issues before the students. We. like the
editors, have a right to endorse candidates if
we desire.
The Coalition is not a clique. The group
eagerly seeks membership by all students.
Any endorsements that may be made will be
decided by the entire membership. ,
Rather than trying to push SG's other foot
into the grave, as Cooper-Turosak suggest,
the Coalition is trying to revive a dying SG
by combatting apathy and encouraging
involvement.
It is extremely hypocritical of the editors ,
to condemn us for this effort. Only Jan. 30, a
DTH editorial begged students to get
involved. It is a sin to keep a low profile, the
editors declared. And the editorial called on
the student to "break out of the conventional
wisdom around him by daring to try to lead
his fellows."
Now the editors damn us for doing just
that.
H
End
da
L.T. McRae
hollers won't help economy
others' time and after deep thought hit
upon the idea of raising the price of
spearheads. At four tiger teeth per
spearhead his problems had
disappeared. Fewer people wanted to
buy spearheads at that price, and
everyone was more careful about how
he used his spear. The wastrels who had
casually discarded spears because the
points had dulled learned to sharpen
points. This pleased Klog who was
proud of his spearheads and hated
seeing them abused.
Klog concluded by asking what all the
fuss was about: he made enough
spearheads to supply anyone who
wanted one at four tiger teeth, and no
one was wasting time waiting for a
spearhead. All in all, it seemed like a
considerable improvement over the
previous chaos.
Someone in the crowd cried out that
the band's poor were being destroyed by
the unfair, monopolistic price of
spearheads. Klog, who was something
of a curmudgeon, responded that the
poor were poor because they were lousy
hunters. At four tiger teeth per
spearhead only the better hunters
bought spearheads, and the band's
limited supply of spearheads went where
it would do the most good. The poor,
Klog finished, damn well ought to find
Marcus Williams
neerous
we are not eager to give someone else a
personal mandate to repeat the trick.
According to the National Census
Bureau, 64 per cent of those citizens 18
to 21 years old never even bothered to
register. The voting percentage, of
course, was more appalling; a scant 21
per cent. On our campus, it took only a
handful of students to permanently
establish a legislative body (CGC) that
has been the subject of extensive
criticism: (Personally, I think the voting
students displayed remarkable
wisdom.)
Thirdly, someone instigated the
"grade inflation" discussion. This
ostensibly led to escalating work loads
and diminishing rewards. Thus,
students astutely perceived the necessity
to become more intimately engaged in
their studies.
The remainder of the factors form a
list that is long and continuous. Perhaps
others are more pertinent. Are you
concerned enough to offer any?
In light of the above, it may be
contended that a decline in student
activeness was both fitting and proper. I
wholeheartedly disagree. And yet, it is
not the dissipation of student
involvement that is most disturbing.
Jim Cooper, Greg Turosak
Editors
David Ennis, Associate Editor
Lu Ann Jones, Associate Editor
David Klinger, News Editor
Alan Murray, Features Editor
j Susan Shackelford, Sports Editor
Gene Johnson, Wire Editor
Martha Stevens, Head Photographer
Jim Grimsley, Night Editor
t
ditorial criticizing Coalition was hypocntica
Finally. Friday's editorial was inaccurate.
The Coalition is small, but we have well over
50 members, not 1 1 as was written by
Cooper-Turosak. We're not on a pedestal,
boys, and we advise you to check your
footing. It's getting shaky.
Ben Steelman
403 Grimes
Laura Dickerson
111 Spencer
Winston Cavin
14-C University Gardens
Chip Cox
105 Grimes
Tony Wike
104 Grimes
Students need
good FM station
To the editors:
1 was very dismayed to read the latest
chapter of "The Further Misfortunes of
WCAR" in Wednesday's DTH. It now seems
as if the university has abandoned WCAR
on the FCCs doorstep. This "hands off
position by the university seems, perfectly
asinine to me, especially after all the time,
energy, and money that has been used to get
the proposed FM station to its present stage.
Chancellor Taylor said in his letter to the
FCC that "the University cannot assume
responsibility for a second FM station in this
something they could do better than
hunt.
No one attempted to refute Klog's
argument with reason; his statements
were met with hoots, hollers and
horselaughs from the mob. Glog hadn't
gotten to be chieftain by being a poor
politician, and he saw how things were
going. So Glog told Klog to reduce the
price of spearheads to two tiger teeth. If
he didn't, he, Glog, would personally
break Klog's head. If there weren't
enough spearheads for everyone, they'd
be sold to the first comers. (No one had
silence
9
Instead, my gravest concern lies with the
covert concomitants of this non
involvement. Lack of social and racial
. interaction, deteriorating social
dialogue,, maladjusted priorities,
insensitivity to the needs and desires of
others and reckless indifference, appear
to be the most salient. These elements
can reduce the expected educational
experience to a mere educational
process. They do serve to precipitate
David Duke incidents. And eventually
they develop individuals incapable of
correcting the present sicknesses of our
society ...
President John F. Kennedy once
remarked: "Those who do nothing are
inviting shame as well as violence." Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. also broached
this situation by saying "There is a
dangerous silence today, which
unintentionally encourages evil to
flourish." Even Albert Einstein had
said, "The world is in greater peril from
those who tolerate evil than from those
who actively commit it." .
But perhaps, no thoughts are as
convincing as the experience related in
1963, during the March on Washington.
"When I was a rabbi of the Jewish
community in Berlin under the Hitler
regime, 1 learned many things. The most
important thing that 1 learned in my life,
and under tragic circumstances, is that,
bigotry and hatred are not the most
urgent problems: The most urgent, the
most disgraceful, the most shameful and
the most tragic problem is silence. A
great people, which had created a great
civilization, had become a nation of
silent onlookers. They remained silent
in the face of hate, in the face of brutality
and in the face of mass murder."
It is time for you to get involved.
Break the silence. 1 have an abiding trust
that you will.
Letters to
community." The "first" FM station is ol
course WUNC-FM, which is about to make
its grand and glorious reappearance after
several years off the air. When it does sign on
in a few months, it will, for all practical
purposes, represent the university so far as
radio goes. If its programming resembles the
"scratchy classical" format that the station
had before, it is doubtful that the station will
have a strong student audience. It will not be
operated like a student station or aimed at a
primarily student audience.
The student body deserves a campus
station to serve their interests,1 especially
since they are the ones that are largely
supporting and not benefiting from the
existing AM campus faciljty. .
I wish that all administrators concerned
had done their homework and been
thoroughly familiar with the situation so
that it would not have necessary for them to
wake up one day and announce a complete
reversal in position. If the university and its
officials weren't willing to accept
responsibility for the FM student station,
they shouldLhave made their feelings known
before now.
This issue should not be taken lightly
because the outcome could affect the
university and surrounding community for
years to come. I feel thai the university
should re-examine its hasty new decision
with the interest of the student body in mind.
Students that care whether or not they will
have an FM student-operated station next
fall should make their feelings known to the
invented rationing yet, and Glog, like
most politicians, was shrewd but hardly
innovative.) -
Glog's policy-had the predictable
outcome. Klog couldn't buy enough
food with his income to maintain his
vigour, and his output of spearheads
shrank even further. Spearheads went
mostly to the lazy and infirm who had
nothing better to do than camp at the
mouth of Klog's cave for four days at a
time. The best hunters were busy
hunting and usually arrived at Klog's to
find that all the spearheads had already
been sold. So the worst hunters got the
spearheads and felt no compulsion to
use them wisely, while the best hunters
missed kills for lack of spearheads. As a
result the band's output of meat shrank,
and the band was soon on the verge of
starvation.
Eventually things came out all right
though, for 60,000 B.C. was a simpler
and more direct time than ours. A group
of the better hunters broke Glog's head
and elected a new chieftain. Klog was
allowed to raise his price to four tiger
teeth, and the worst hunters were put to
work gathering flint so that Klog could
spend all his time making spearheads.
Klog found that even after paying the
flint gatherers, he could lower his price
to three tiger teeth, fill all the band's
demand and have spearheads left over
for trade with other bands.
So the band lived happily for several
years until Klug, the maker of bearskin
sleeping robes, was compelled to raise
his price because of a shortage of bears,
whereupon the mob demanded that
somebody do something about the
outrageous price of bearskin sleeping
robes, and the whole thing started over.
Sad to relate, in the intervening
62,000 years, the mob has never found a
champion who could present a reasoned
rebuttal to Klog's economics; the
argument is still by hoot, holler and
horselaugh. And Klog's victory was
fleeting; the mob has won more often
than not.
Moral: Before he screams that the
government should do something, a
reasonable man will first ask, "Is there
anything the government can dol If so,
at what price?"
Larry McRae is a graduate student in
economics. ' '
111 g M -.
IRAN SKY CAVALRY- A DIVISION OF
the editors
administration.
John McAllister
622 Ehringhaus
Ruffin proposes
alternative plan
To the editors:
The author of Thursday's editorial
"Condie should prevent segregation,
intrusion," appears to be considerably
ignorant of Ruffin resident's sentiments
concerning the future status of Ruffin dorm.
The author seems equally ignorant of the
"campaign" mounted by residents to stop
tentative plans for the dorm.
There has not been a "campaign" by
residents to stop tentative plans concerning
Ruffin dorm. There is a proposal presently
under consideration by housing officials
which entails housing female handicappted
students on first floor, and transforming the
dorm into a co-ed International Student
Center (ISC). This proposal has not been
condemned by the residents, as the DTH
would have people believe. Most residents
feel that these are valid, reasonable goals, yet
the proposal would bring about almost
complete relocation of the 90 plus present
Ruffin inhabitants. Instead of a campaign
against this plan, the residents have,,
however, submitted an alternative proposal
The Daily
82nd Year Of Editorial Freedom
All unsigned editorials are the opinion of the editors. Letters and
'columns represent the opinions of individuals.
Founded February 23, 1S93
CCD'
The Superior Court in Boston, Massachusetts found a local doctor guilty
of manslaughter Saturday after the doctor had performed an otherwise legal1
abortion. Eleven of the 1 2 jurors felt that the physician's efforts to smother a
24-week-old fetus were illegal, even though its removal from the womb of its
mother's body was not.
The case of Dr. Kenneth Edeiin has become the focus of nationwide legal,
moral, and religious controversy because of the surprising verdict. Most
observers had thought Edeiin was safe from conviction after the Supreme
Court's historic 1973 ruling which outlawed state intervention during the
first 24 to 28 weeks of pregnancy. But the manslaughter conviction has split
the already complex abortion question into at least two main issues: the
right of the mother to terminate unwanted pregnancy, and the right of the
fetus to all possible life-sustaining care even when artificially delivered three
months premature.
Sidelights such as the fact that Dr. Edeiin is black, that Boston is one of
the nation's most Catholic cities, and the unusual vehemence of the jury
foreman have only clouded the twin issues. But the loophole that the jury
found in the nation's abortion law is significant. Does abortion imply the
death of the fetus? In a ghastly way this question reminds us of the pound of
flesh argument in the Merchant of Venice. It is a fine distinction but a vital
one.
Hard cases have traditionally made bad law, and this is particularly true
with abortion. What is demanded is a definition of life itself, and Saturday's
ruling expanded that definition to any fetus with possible respiratory
faculties, or any fetus over 20 weeks of age. In other words the Boston
decision gave women a month less freedom in governing their bodies than
the Supreme Court was willing to allow.
It is too easy to criticize the ignorance of the mechanics and the bartenders
who comprised the Boston jury on this essentially scientific question,
because the judgment of any doctor would be equally arbitrary. Once again
technology has forced on us a decision that we are neither intellectually nor
morally" equipped to make. But the question is urgent. Abortions are now
second only to tonsillectomies both in their frequency and their safety. In
Chapel Hill alone, an average of at least three abortions are performed a
day.
The abortion law should once and for all be settled, even if it must be done
arbitrarily, to give women as much freedom as possible with their bodies.
The 24-28 week Supreme Court rule is as good a guide as any and it is wrong
of the Boston court to try; to circumvent the rule by keeping terribly
premature fetuses alive. That is a greater "crime against life" than abortion.
BELL HELICOPTER INTL
which provides for all intended goals
previously mentioned with less relocation.
Ruf fin's alternative proposal would allow
for the same facilities for female
handicapped students. The female segment
of the ISC would be completed as soon as
desired. The only differentiation between
Ruffin's plan and the one which has been
under consideration involves the male
segment of the ISC. It is Ruffin's proposal
that those persons presently living in Ruffin
would be allowed to live on third and fourth
floors next year, with male international
students occupying the remaining spaces. As
residents would move out of third and fourth
floors, male international students would be
granted first priority on these new spaces.
This would allow for a gradual transition
from the present men's housing unit to the
International Student Center, with the
female segment on first and second floors
being completed next semester and the male
segment reaching completion within two to
three years. This plan. 1 feel, is a plausible
compromise which would provide the
campus with housing for female
handicapped students, an International
Student Center, and would appease the
present Ruffin residents who would in time
be forced to move.
The reason Ruffin residents aren't anxious ;
to move is not because of a beloved ice
machine or a cherished color T.V. It is
because a great many residents take pride in
their dorm, and for. all practical purposes,
their home. We may not cherish our
Tar
Heel
Monday, February 17, 1975
appliances, but we do indeed care for the
friendships we have made here in the dorm.
Complete relocation would destroy much of
this. Moving en masse to another dorm, as
ignorantly suggested by Thursday's article,
has long been deemed impossible by Dr.
Condie. If possible, it would merely cause a
similar problem in another dorm.
1 feel that Ruffin's proposal should be
seriously considered. Why break up a great
group of guys unnecessarily when a suitable
alternative is available which will
subsequently bring about the same results? I
see no reason why Ruffin's proposal should
not be accepted.
Jon Mundorf
President. Ruffin Dorm
The Daily Tar Heel welcomes the
expression of all points of view through
the letters to the editors. Opinions
expressed do not necessarily reflect the
views of the editors. This newspaper
reserves the right to edit all letters for
libelous statements and good taste.
Letters should be limited to 300 words
and must include the name, address and
phon number of the writer. Type letters
on a 60-space line, double spaced, and
address them to Editor, The Daily Tar
Heel, in care of the Student Union, or
drop them by the office.
i fly I