6 ThQ Daily Tar Heel Monday. December 4. 1978
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Lou Bilionis, Editor
Chuck Alston, Managing Edi&r
Don Woodard, Associate Editor
David McKinnon, Associate Editor
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Activist for word : to ffaitEiffmi.
B6th year of editorial freedom
Behnie Ra'nsbottom, University Editor
Mary Anne Rhyne, City Editor
Mi chael Wade, State and National Editor
Richard Barron, News Editor
m
Betsy Flagler, Features Editor
Mark Scandung, Arts Editor
Lee Pace, Sports Editor
Billy Newman, Photography Editor
Springfest
Weather, booking agents and the Campus GoverningCouncilarethe
only remaining obstacles standing in the way of a weekend of
unadulterated entertainment this spring: two nights of the best music
money can buy in Kenan Stadium, along with Henderson Residence
College's traditional local concerts and the yearly Apple Chill
celebration on Franklin Street. Timed perfectly as an end-of-the-year,
pre-exam blowout, the new campuswide Springfest (borrowing H RC's
slogan) will feature big-name concerts in Kenan on the nights of April 20
and 21 and is certain to win the hearts (and probably minds) of students
of all classes and interests.
Just as impressive as the weekend's schedule, though, is the collective
work that was needed to bring such an idea so close to fruition. As early
as last fall, members of Student Body President Bill Moss'
administration held countless meetings with University and town
officials to sound-out-the-possibilities of returning music to Kenan
Stadium. They made numerous telephone calls to area and national
promoters and agents and checked out the demands for security,
lighting and other neccessities for a big outdoor concert. This fall, the
finishing touches were put on the notion and a promoter was found; all
that remains is formal CGC approval of an appropriation of $100,000 to
help finance the project and the selection of the four bands that will
appear.
And, of course, the ticket sales. At $4 for students, it's an offer you
can't refuse. We're eagerly awaiting the new Springfest, and in the
meantime commend those who have played a part in a difficult but
infinitely rewarding project.
After the boom
The average age of North Carolina's population is going up,
according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and the trend seems to promise
some touchy problems for the state's future.
An update report issued last week reveals that between 1970 and 1977,
North Carolina's population grew from 5.08 million to 5.52 million. But
the report also shows that the number of people in the state under 18
years of age decreased on the whole, while the adult population
increased dramatically.
And the trend doesn't seem likely to reverse itself anytime soon. It
appears that the particular needs and characteristics of an older"
society will be a major issue in our society for a very longtime to come
in fact, until most of us are also Qlder." As the Census Bureau report
reveals, those of us of college age are among the last products of the baby
boom which followed World War U; as the report also reveals, we are
failing for a number of reasons to reproduce that boom.; : '
Of course, things won't be all that terrible for North Carolinians. The
declining proportion of young peoplein the state's population reflects a
nationwide trend toward an older population, so at least we won't be
alone in dealing with its problems. And many economists feel that the
South in general will continue to grow proportionally against the rest of
the country.
But some adjustments will have to be made for the older population; it
is a phenomenon, after all, for which our country and our state simply
have no precedents. The most obvious consequence of our collective
aging will be the demands it places on our economic life. Nationally,
economic growth can be expected to slow from its current 4 percent
annually to about 3 percent, according to a number of economists. And
for many of the future members of the work force, the tightening of the
economy will mean a reduced chance of securing a management
position, while the growth of the Dver-65 segment of the population will
place a tremendous burden of Social Security taxes on the work force.
The picture seems somewhat brighter for North Carolina. Many
economists feel the tightening of the labor market will bring a drop in
the state's unemployment rate and a proportional increase in wages; the
state's economic growth, many feel, will continue pretty much
unabated, as women continue to make inroads into traditionally male
dominated occupations and people continue to move here to take
advantage of our expanding opportunities.
But if the aging trend will have its most important consequences in
economic terms, other aspects of our society will probably reflect much
of the same characteristics. Just as our economy will experience a
slowed pace, so too, for example, will our political life. As a nation we
can be expected to grow more conservative in the decades to come, and
while this doesn't mean that we will take a sudden collective lurch to the
right, it does seem to promise that our political thought will become
rooted more solidly in its present patterns.
But if the picture seems to be one of general ossification, there is at
least the hope that our generation will be equal to the task. Ours, after
all, has seen and caused a great deal of change in its time.
in Quotes'
Br DIN IT A JAMES
The Daily Tar Heel
Assistant Managing Editors: John Hoke, George Shad roui
Ombudsman: Chris Lambert
Weekender Editor: Michelc Meckc
News: Laura Alexander. Joan Brattord. Shannon Brcnnan. Michael I:. Brown. Chris Burritt.
Carol Carnevale. Mike Coyne. Kathy Curry. Dm Dowdy. Anne-Mai ic Downey: Ben Estes.
Annette Fuller. CaroPHanner.. I'am Hildchran. .lac: Hughes. Jim Hummel. Jerri Hunt.
Dinita James. Thomas Jcssima n. Cieorge Jeter. Cam Johnson. Kamona Jones. I'am Kclley.
Keith King. Susan l.add. Ruth McCiaw. Kathy Morriit.. Debbie
Moose. Mark Murrell. Diane Norma n. Laura I'helps. Melanie Sill. David Snyder. Katha
1 reanor. Martha Waggoner. Sarah West and Carolyn Worsley.
News Desk: Chuck Burns. Lis a Cartwright. Bernie Cook. Pat Daugherty. Sue Doctor, Mary
Gibbs. Jere Link. Cathy Mclunkin. Debbie Moose. Laraine Ryan. Mary Beth Starr, Mary
Thomas and Robert Thomasaw.
Sports: Pete Mitchell, assista nt editor: Evan Appel, George Benedict. Norman Cannada, Bill
Fields, John Fish. David McNeill. Brian Putnam. Rick Scoppe. Frank Snyder and Isabel
Worthy. "
Features: Vikki, Brougnton. Cheryl Carpenter. Terri Garrard. Debra King. Margaret Lee,
Bill McGowan. Mary Ann R.ickert, Cathy Robinson. Clive A. Stafford Smith. Sudie Taylor,
Donna Tompkins and Pat Wood.
Arts: Ann Smallwood, ass istant editor; Buddy Burniske, Gregory Clay. Marianne Hansen,
Steve Jackson, Jere Link , Melanie Modlin. Mark Peel. Judith Schoolman and Anthony
Seideman.
Graphic Arts: Dan Brady . Alan Edwards, Bob Fulghum, G. Douglas Govus. Kathy Harris.
Jeff Lynch, Jocelyn Petti'oone, Eric Roberts and John Tomlinson. artists; Andy James, Ann
McLaughlin, Will Owens and Kim Snooks, photographers.,
Business: Claire H. Bagley, business manager; Linda L. Allred, secretary receptionist; Kim
Armstrong, Chuck Love lace and William Skinner, accounting; Julia Breeden. circulation and
distribution manager. .
Advertising: Neal Kim'ball, advertising manager; Nancy McKenzie, advertising coordinator;
Arje Brown, classified s; Andy Davis, Betty Fercbe. Ltnsey Gray, Wendy Haithcock. Julie
Plot, Lynn Timberlak c and Jerita Wright, sales.
Madalyn Murray O'Hair could be anyone's
mother or grandmother, judging from
appearances alone. She could even attend the
Baptist women's teas every Wednesday afternoon,
for all you could tell from looking'at her.
And she may be a mother and a grandmother,
but you would never find her at a Baptist women's
tea. unless she was there to convert the ladies to
atheism.
O'Hair, head of the American Atheist
'organization and principal in the lawsuit that led
to the barring of organized prayer in public
schools, visited the UNC campus on Nov. 21.
On Nov. 22, she began litigation in Charlotte to
overturn Article VI, section 8 of the state
constitution, which says, in part, "The following
persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any
person who shall deny the being of Almighty
God..."
She said American children grow up being
Christians because the government believes a
Christian democracy will defeat communism.
She said political leaders have reinforced the
Christian doctrine. "Eisenhower never made a
speech without linking atheism and communism.
He had the idea that the only way to fight
communism was with Christianity. This is one of
the most idiotic ideas this nation has ever had."
The turning over of large amounts of land and
buildings to religious institutions after World War
II was another means by which the government
indoctrinated Americans into Christianity, she
said.
"The War Assets Administration took land and
billions of dollars worth of buildings and turned
them over to churches. The first one was 120 acres
of land given to the Baptists in Florida, Florida
State U niversity. The largest was 300 acres and 237
buildings to the Seventh Day Adventists, who said
they believed in the separation of church and state.
They were liars. What they could get, they took."
The property owned by churches is under tax
exempt status, O'Hair said, and cuts taxpayers out
of millions of dollars. "The churches own part or
all of Borden Milk, Burlington Industries,
Firestone. Hertz and Westinghouse. They've
cheated you out of so much tax money just because
letters to the editor
k
111
Madalyn Murray O'Hair
of their tax-exempt status."
O'Hair also said the churches own property that
cannot be claimed as religious. "In New Orleans
and Cincinnati, the churches own whorehouses. I
can't figure out why that's religious. What it is, is
that the income is good, and they don't care where
it comes from. So. in order to fight the boogeyman
of communism, we decided to employ Christians,
subsidize Christians and give tax money to
Christians. Are we any better off now?"
According to O'Hair, we are not. "If you look,
you'll see they are not fighting , communism.
Europe is Marxist, West Germany is Marxist.
Portugal. China and Spain are Marxist. Even
England is socialist. So the grand scheme to fight
communism with Christianity has not worked.
The Roman Catholics have just pulled off the
biggest coup of all time. They pulled in a bishop
from a communist country and made him pope.
Now that's evidence of our grand scheme working
that Moscow can send up a rocket for. There's
detente between the Kremlin and the Vatican."
She also said the money donated by church
members that goes to buy more factories and land
could be used much better elsewhere. "Churches
get $9 billion a year in those little wicker baskets.
With $9 billion a year we might eliminate VD.
With $9 billion a year we could fight cancer. With
$9 billion a year we could ease the slum
conditions."- '
Atheists are concerned with the tax-exempt
status of churches because it affects their and
others' tax burdensl she said. "In the United States,
2527 percent of the population is either atheist or
agnostic. We have a long tradition in the States.
Mark Twain was an atheist and so was Thomas
Alva Edison. And the only thing I am concerned
with now is to have those atheists try to correct the
tax situation. We want to rally around the issue,
bring the atheists out of the closet and see what we
can do to ease the burden of taxes that is such a
burden because religion won't pay its share."
Prayer and religious rituals are also a way
government controls the masses, O'Hair said. "It is
a way to control you by teaching you that you are
no good. They teach you to rely on prayer. Prayer
is useless exercise. All you do with prayers is
deceive yourself."
- And she also said ministers were corrupt and a
part of the brainwashing system of the
government. "1 debate the ministers and then go to
their hotels, the best hotels in town. 1 see their
women. I see them feel up their women in front of
me. 1 see their diamond rings and their whiskey. I
drink some of their whiskey and then watch them
leave in their Cadillacs.
"And then these ministers use sex to control you.
Each and every one of you has masturbated. And
each and every one of you has felt guilty about it,
guilty about something as innocent and human as
that. The government needs you Christians
because you are mindless and faceless."
She said that if the freedoms of individuals
continue to be diminished by religious institutions
which forbid them, the government, with the help
of atheists, will stop supporting Christianity.
"Atheists have always stood for freedom of
speech, freedom of the press and freedom of the
individual and the individual's right to free
thought. The churches are beginning to tell the
government to go to hell, and when this goes on
long enough, it's going to come down to a
showdown between the churches and government.
I'm just waiting to see that happen."
Dinita James, a sophomore journalism and
English major from Stokesdale, is a staff writer for
the Daily Tar Heel,
Hunt education policy; u double stundurd
o
To the editor:
While I can't doubt Gov. Hunt's good
intentions regarding education, I must
question his methods. He consistently
puts his political cart before the horse.
An educational system can't be remade
overnight, or in two years, or even in one
term as governor. But in " two terms?
That's another story. With the proper
ostentation, that second term can be
secured. ' .
This is what North Carolinians have
been served: window dressing.
The competency test and the Math and
Science school are not inherently bad
ideas, if they serve as hallmarks of a
prudently strengthened educational
system. Instead, they're being used as a
bureaucratic whip to make teachers and
students sit up and beg. Schools aren't
improving their curricula, but are
training explicitly for the competency
test. If this keeps up. soon students will be
spending their entire school careers
-learning to fill out a computer form,
except those few gifted fortunates the
governor deigns to receive into his quaint
new boarding school. There they will
learn to benefit the state (those, at least,
who lack the career mobility to get their
kids a better education out-of-state.)
Why pronounce the patient cured
before administering his treatment? Let's
make sure that all students can at least
read before we fawn on the gifted ones.
Improve schools for everyone, and there
will be less compulsion to rescue the white
and bright from the thioes of public
education.
R.K. Kloko
4427 Erwin
How about an Eskimo?
To the editor:
1 thoroughly enjoyed reading the
comments that Greg Crawford and
Michael Bagley made concerning a name
for the proposed new library ("Name new
library for black." DTH, Nov. 30).
Howard Lee is an excellent choice. Mr.
Lee has made many an outstanding
contribution to Chapel Hill and the
University... and he is. of course, black.
But let's not limit ourselves to just one out
of many alternatives.
Consider the Italians. Certainly there
have been, and are, many citizens of
Italian descent that have given generously
to this village. There have also been
numerous campus leaders of Jewish
heritage. In fact. I doubt that there is a
single building dedicated to a Pole. Face
it, there is no limit on the choices we have.
But seriously, isn't it about time that
we, as responsible citizens of this
university community, grew up? I am not
by any means condemning Mr.
Crawford's and Mr. Bagley's suggestion
of dedicating the new library to Howard
Lee. It's an excellent choice. But can we
not consider such action on the value of
Mr. Lee's contribution alone and not
on the color ot his skin, or the land of his
heritage?
Steve Hull
1 16 Connor
Et tu, DTH?
To the editor:
I wish to express my profound dismay
at the article "LatinMore students
taking " it, but doesn't make sciences
easier." DTH. Nov. 27. It seems
superfluous to offer a systematic rebuttal
of the article, since it is written from a
stance of brute "practicality" which,
carried to its logical conclusion, is
antithetical to the entire humanities
curriculum on this campus. The notions
of what people are. and of our
relationship to our cultural heritage,
cannot be subordinated completely to the
mastery of technical knowledge necessary
for any given career. Else, what is now a
university becomes a glorified
vocational-technical school.
But even if one could accept
practicality as the highest criterion for
choosing courses, the article does a
disservice to health sciences students. It
implies that "Medical Latin" is another of
those "unnecessary" language courses.
This is simply incorrect. "Medical Latin,"
of which the real title is "Medical Word
Formation and Etymology" (Classics 25),
does not attempt to teach the student
Latin or Greek. Rather, it deals with the
650-odd Greek and Latin words which
make up literally thousands of medical
terms (about 75 percent of those currently
in use). By learning these root words, and
the ways in which they combine to form
medical terms, the course provides a
system, a shortcut to mastering the many
strange terms which confront every
preprofessional in the health sciences.
Far from being a language course.
Classics 25 is practical in the most
obvious way. Students who could find
great value in such a course may well be
discouraged from taking it because of
your careless blanket application of the
label "not necessary" to Classics 25 and
courses of subtler value. Though 1 am
sure that the author's intentions were
benign, the result is pernicious.
Hopefully, you can undo some of the
.damage by printing this letter. Thank
you.
Christopher P. Craig
Classics department
More on nukes
To the editor:
I was intrigued by Mr. Rose's
contention ("Distortion's. DTH, Nov.
30) that anti-nuclear energy arguments
are based on faith and emotion, not facts
and evidence. Seldom have I encountered
a person so confident of his own evidence
and unwilling to accept criticism of his
own beliefs. Apparently anything that
can be mustered to support his argument
is fact, and therefore a building block in
the construction of progress. Contentions
to the contrary are simply foolishness, in
his view. He does not realize that his own
approval of nuclear energy is based on his
faith that it can be handled safely,
i Call it faith or emotion or whatever, I
cannot escape believing that it is
dangerous to create large quantities of a
material which is highly deadly even at a
distance. Once the material is created, we
have to live with it. My understanding of
the current situation is that the nuclear
industry is waiting for the government to
come up with a satisfactory solution to
the radioactive waste problem. How
interesting the industry is every day
creating more of this deadly matter,
trusting on faith that the government will
find some way to get rid of it. I suppose
Mr. Rose would counter this by saying
that based on his facts and evidence,
radioactive waste can be stored safely if
we are willing to take the necessary
precautions. 1 think that to claim that it
will never endanger anyone is to assume
human perfection; as a student of history,
1 have yet to see evidence of such
perfection in the past.
The manner by which we have come to
depend on nuclear energy strikes me as
irrational. A gigantic industry was
created, people were then convinced that
they could cheaply maintain their high
level of energy consumption (maintain
their addiction); and the liabilities have
only recentlv become a topic of serious
debate. A more logical method would
have been to reassess our real energy
needs first, compare them with the
liabilities of using nuclear energy, and
then make the decision to build or not
build it.
I think, a little common sense in the first
place woul have indicated that we, and all
the plants and animals on this planet
(which unfortunately are never able to
assert their interests in such matters),
would be better off if we used much less
energy and did not fool with this most
dangerous form of fire. Now there is too
much invested in the nuclear industry,
and we are too much accustomed to the
easy life it provides, to make
abandonment of it "practical."
What really galls me is that the utilities
never asked me if I mind them creating
large quantities of radioactive waste. Of
course, many things are done which I do
not like, without my approval. This case,
however, is particularly insidious my
living to a ripe old age and having
normal, healthy children, depend on the
utilities' perfect handling of deadly
materials. That is fact, not emotion. Mr.
Rose, you have faith that they can do the
job flawlessly, i do not. There may not be
monstrous trolls in the hearts of nuclear
power plants, but I hope neither you nor
your children or grandchildren ever have
the misfortune of coming in contact with
what is there.
Mathew Fischer
211 Craige
Letters?
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contributions and letters to the editor.
Letters must be signed, typed on a 60
space line, double-spaced and
accompanied by a return address.
( Letters chosen for publication are
subject to editing.
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