6The Dally Tar HeelWednesday, September 2, J98j
Jim Hummel, Editor
SUSAN MAUNEY. Managing Editor
MARK MURRELL, Associate Editor
JONATHAN RICH, Associate Editor
EDWINA RALSTON, University Editor .
JOHN ROYSTER, Gty Editor
CHARLES HERNDON, State and National Editor
BETH BURRELL,- Nfu Editor
Clifton Barnes, Spom Editor
Tom Moore, Arts Editor
KEITH KING, Features Editor
SCOTT SHARPE, Photography Editor
ANN PETERS, Weekender Editor
Chuck James. Ombudsman
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89th year of editorial freedom
Patrolmen's plight
Highway patrolmen have never been wealthy men, but North Carolina
has allowed the salaries of troopers to fall so low that the state is losing
many of these qualified professionals at an unprecedented rate. In fact,
some troppers with a starting salary who have children are eligible for
food stamps. It is no wonder that troopers are leaving the job considered
by law enforcement officials as one of the most dangerous in their field.
So it comes as welcome news that Gov. Jim Hunt has promised that
when the General Assembly meets in October, his top priority will be to
secure a pay raise for all state employees. Hunt has targeted patrolmen
and nurses as groups most in need of a raise. It would be difficult to
contest the governor's efforts in pushing raises for these groups the most.
Highway patrolmen make $1,000 to $3,000 less per year than police
officers in the state's largest cities. The starting salary for a trooper is
$12,468 a year fifth lowest in the nation. After three years that
amount can increase to $15,550. The maximum nav for a trooner is
$19,476, and most patrolmen do not reach this amount until after work
ing nine years.
For comparison, a starting policeman in the Charlotte Police Depart
ment earns $14,755 a year and then can reach the maximum of $22,881
after only five years. The situation across the state is similar; police start
at a higher salary and then make a higher maximum salary in a far
shorter period of time.
The result is that highway patrolmen are. leaving the forces in larger
numbers than ever before. Personnel turnover has reached an annual
rate of 7-10 percent. As it costs about $30,000 to train each patrolman,
the exodus of troopers is already costing the state a considerable
amount of money.
A increase in salary even as little as $1,000 a year would keep
troopers from leaving the patrol, state officials have said. It would also
save the state the thousands of dollars it is currently using to train patrol
men who leave without giving the state a full return on its investment in
their training.
Federal budget cuts have made money especially tight and Hunt has
said funds for the Day increase would be more difficult to acauire than
he once expected. Still, the complete support of the governor should go
a long way toward achieving a raise that would more fairly compensate
patrolmen and decrease the number of troopers who leave their jobs
because of insufficient salary.
To bee or not to bee
When students anticipate returning to Chapel Hill, the prospect of lunch
out by the Pit on a warm, sunny day seems a pleasant diversion.
We remember cherished days of past years: watching nature-loving folk
musicians, frisbee throwers and jugglers or listening to frenzied political
activists and evangelists while quietly munching a sandwich. But, we con
veniently tend to forget one thing.
The Bees.
Some, days they seem to be everywhere: on the cheeseburger, in the
drink can, stuck in the ketchup, tangled in the hair or urgently converging
like the UN Security Council on your dessert.
The insects have no couth. They are pushy, arrogant and menacing.
What street people are to a metropolis, The Bees are to UNC. Always
begging for a handout, accosting the general public in an insane manner
and making it unsafe to walk with sweets.
But we cannot just complain about this sociological problem of The
Bees without trying to understand the cause.
It is estimated there are hundreds of homeless bees in the Pit area.
Driven from their natural homes and forced into a concrete jungle sur
rounded by the huge urbanesque union complex, they have nowhere to
turn, but the garbage can.
It is a vicious circle. They find themselves alienated because they eat
out of garbage cans and can be found resting on picnic table benches long
after normal students have deserted the area each day.
They are forced to feed on the filth and squalor they enhance.
Today, they are a problem ignored by the public. We'd rather pretend
they're just not there and look the other way when they fly off with a
sweet morsel or two. v
But this type of attitude can't last. The problem will only increase.
Custodians become hesitant to empty the infested garbage, the bees' en
vironment becomes filthier; they become more irritable, trapped and
stacked up in what could only be considered inadequate and substandard
will result in us the general public being stung.
The Daily Tar Heel
Assistant Managing Editors: Mark Ancona, Cindy Cr an ford, Rachel Perry
Editorial Vriters: John Drescher, Beverly Shepard
Assistant News Editor David Jarrett
News Desk: Melody Adams, Cheryl Anderson, Keith Cooke, Reniece Henry, Michele Pelkey,
Leisha Phillips, Carol Reynolds, Laura Seifert, Louise Spieler, Mike Turner, Darryl Williams
and Chip Wilson.
News: Ted Avery, Richard Boyce, Laurie Bradsher, Alan ChappleAlichelle Chris tenbury, John
Conway, Nancy Davis, Kerry DeRochi, Lynn Earley, Tracy Ford, Jane Foy, Deborah Goodson,
Steve Griffin, Louise Gunter, Karen Haywood, Katherine Long, Dean Lowman, Diane Lupton,
Monica Malpass, Elaine McOatchey, Joe Morris, Ann Murphy, Eddie Nickens, Jamee Osborn,
Lynn Peithman, Rachel Perry, Leisha Phillips, Scott Phillips, Jeannie Reynolds, Mark M. Schoen,
Ken Siman, Jonathan Smylie, Lynne Thomson, Lynn Worth and Tammy Wright.
Sports: Geoffrey Mock, assistant sports editor; Kim Adams, Jackie Blackburn, R.L. Bynum,
Stephanie Graham, Adam Kandell, Draggan Mihailovich and Linda Robertson.
Features: Ramona Brown,' Jane Calloway, Susan Hudson, Steve Moore, David Rome, Randy
Walker and Chip Wilson, assistant Weekender editor. .
Arts: Marc Routh and Leah Talley, assistant arts editors; Vick Griffin; Nissen Ritter; Bob
Royalty and Guha Shankar.
Graphic Arts: Matt Cooper, Danny Harrell, Dane Huffman and Tom Westarp, artists; Susanne
Conversano, Matt Cooper, Jay flyman and Al Steele, photographers.
Business: Rejeanne V. Caron, business manager; Linda A. Cooper, secretaryreceptionist;
Brooks Wicker, bookkeeper; Dawn Welch, circulationdistribution manager, Julie Jones,
Angie Wolfe, classifieds.
Advertising: Paula Brewer, advertising manager; Mike Tabor, advertising coordinator; Jeff
Glance, Julie Granberry, Julia Kim,. Keith Lee, Robin Matthews, Jeff McElhaney, Karen
Newell and Betsy Swartzbaugh, ad representatives. .
Composition: Frank Porter Graham Composition Division, UNC Printing Department.
Printing: Hinton Press, Inc., of Mebane.
Bunker p o ver junior high
By MARK MURRELL
And HARLEY FLANAGAN
Editor's note: Harley Flanagan is a 14-year-old drum
mer with the New York punk rock band, The Stimu
lators, which has played in clubs in Raleigh and Chapel
Hill this week. He is the nephew of the band's guitarist,
Denise Mercedes. Between sets Monday night, Harley
shirtless, with a crew cut, energetically strumming
a guitar talked to three visitors in his hot, cramped,
graffiti-scrawled dressing room at a local club.
Q: I just got the breath knocked out of me out there
on the dance floor. What's going on?
Harley: It's worse in New York, man, much worse.
In New York, everyone tries to slam dance as hard as
they can. Everybody does it just to have a good time,
but some of them start getting too much into hurting
people and it gets really wild sometimes. It's like the
bouncers have sort of given up. They're just too tired
of throwing people out. So now, I mean, like, a few
shows ago I was really psyched up, so I grabbed this
chair and I threw it in the back of the room and I threw
another one and hit this guy in the head by accident
and then I threw this table up in the air and it landed
on this girl's head and then everybody just started
kicking the tables over. .
Q: How old are you?
Harley: Fourteen.
Q: Well, how did a 14-year-old start playing drums
for a punk band?
Harley: I've been playing drums since I was seven
and I played my first concert when I was eight. I was
living in Europe and they didn't have too much music
there. I mean, they were like years behind the times.
They were still listening to Led Zeppelin and I got
really bored with the music there. Then, my mom
went to England and she brought me back some re
cords. She brought me back the Sex Pistols and The
Damned and I listened to them and I was totally fas
cinated by it. ;
So, I went to this punk convention and these guys
said "You're cool, but you need a haircut," cause my
hair was pretty long, like down past my ears. So, they
just sat me down and got the scissors and they started
chopping away at my head. And then, before you
knew it, I had like a Sid Vicious haircut.
Q: How old were you when that happened?
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Harley: Eleven or twelve. And then I went to Eng
land in '78 and I really got totally into it. I was living,
like, with Rat Scabies and all them. He just snuck me
into one of the shows. After The Damned broke up,
he was playing with this band the White Cats, and
they had to sneak me in clubs because the bouncers
would throw me out. They had to stand in a circle
around me over in the corner of the room so the
bouncers wouldn't see me.
Q: How did you start playing with the Stimulators?
Harley: Johnny Blitz of the Dead Boys was drum
ming with them and they were going to Philadelphia
and he called up and said, "I can't make it, I'm sick."
The band finally said forget it and said, "Harley
you're drumming for us tonight." And I was like really
shocked because I didn't know any of the songs. So
what we did is we took a tape of one of the concerts
and a cassette player and some drum sticks and I sat
in the back of this U-Haul and drummed on my knees
to the tape. I learned the songs like that and went out
and did the best show we ever did.
Q: What about school and stuff like that? What do
your parents think about you?
Harley: Well, school they want me to do good in
school. See, my school doesn't start for another week
or two and in New York, we're pretty famous, we're
well known and everything, so we usually play on
weekends, anyway.
Q: You guys have played Belfast, too, right?
Harley: Yeah, it was great. The first show we did.
was pretty hectic because people were running back
and forth across the stage hitting each other across
the head with chair legs and bottle and people were
running around bleeding. Like, right when our set
ended, a bunch of police came in with bullet-proof
vests and started hitting people and making them get
out. Like, they cleared the place out. Like, everybody
that wasn't fighting was in the bathroom sniffing
glue, so everybody was totally messed up that night.
Q: Do you find audiences in the United Kingdom
differ from audiences in America, or do they?
Harley: They dress differently. And, also, over
there most of the people who are really into it are all
working-class kids who are like really poor. And over
' here right now in L.A., for example, most of them
are little rich kids basically. And that's why a lot of
the L.A. scene is pretty gross because they all got a
lot of money so all they do is go out and buy lots of
drugs.
(Charley's aunt, guitarist Denise Mercedes, walks
in and sits down.)
Q: We had planned to come here and not dance and
left, with tha Stimulators
do a straight interview and drink no beer and you can
obviously see that it didn't work that way.
Denise: Let me see. Gross. Your hair's greasy.
Q: Is there any name for this new dance people are
doing?
Harley: Right now, it's just called slam dancing.!
Denise: We were in Belfast last year in Northern
Ireland, and we saw the absolute forerunner of the
slam. It was called the Monster Attack.
Harley: What they were doing, basically, was
throwing each other on the ground, stomping on each
other, grabbing each other by the hair, hitting each
other and getting up laughing, drinking a beer.
Q: Were you guys shocked?
Denise: Sure. I thought they were crazy.
Q: You're playing for these people and yet you're
shocked by what they're doing?
Denise: I mean, people are getting so wild over
there.
Harley: Over here, everybody walks out of clubs
clean, maybe sweaty and stuff, but over there
mostly because the floors were really dirty people
would walk out totally black, caked with dirt and
beer all over them. People get so drunk over there be
fore they go out dancing. One, time there was this
concert and I saw this guy standing in the middle of
the dance floor taking a piss and laughing at every
body. Q: So, what's it like going back to school after all
that? .
Harley: If you haven't got something good to say
about something, don't say anything.
Q: I was just telling somebody I wanted to do a
different type interview, so I just wanted to ask you
what your favorite flavor of ice cream is.
Denise: I don't eat ice cream anymore.
Harley: Butter pecan. Actually, I like any ice cream.
Denise: I like sherbet.
Harley: I hate sherbet. You're disgusting.
Q: What about bands? What bands do you like the
most? ;
Denise: None, none. Every band sucks.
The Manager: You go on again in five minutes.
Harley: Any band that's loud and fast and can
keep it together and is good -""
Q: Loud,' Fast Rules, right?
Denise: Loud, Fast Rules.
Harley: Of course. ; .
Mark Murrell, a senior journalism and English major
from Jacksonville, is associate editor for The Daily
Tar Heel. Harley Flanagan is a 14-year-old punk
drummer.
1
sorority
rasli woiH'm system
By JONATHAN TALCOTT
As anyone who is allergic to conformity
certainly knows, sorority rush at Carolina
has begun. Everyone is happy to contribute
a favorite rush joke or anecdote to any
conversation. Some of the official sugges
tions of the Panhellenic Counsel given to
rushees were read over the airwaves to pro-"
vide comic relief at a local radio station.
Despite all of the abuse sorority rush
receives around campus, most of its major
critics remain aloof and only partially in
formed. In fact, sorority rush at UNC
employs a fair system that could be im
proved only slightly. The innumerable rules
to which rushees are subjected are usually
well-conceived. ,
Sororities, however, do tend to en
courage conformity to make the system run
more smoothly and efficiently. Sorority
rush could be improved by reducing con
formity and relaxing the atmosphere in
several ways.
According to Panhellenic Council Pres
ident Betsy Brady, "the 12 sororities on
campus have to process 906 girls in less
than two weeks." Hours of effort during
the summer months and the first week of
school also go into finding out about
potential rushees.
"Different houses have different systems
but most houses use alumni references to
collect information on rushees," said Gina
Whichard, the president of the Tri-Delta
house.
"Every girl fills out a poop sheet on
herself explaining what are her interests,
her ambitions, and her hobbies," said
Monica McCarty , the president of the Phi
Mu sorority.
Each of the five rounds that are held
during sorority rush has a different focus
and purpose: Round one is to get ac
quainted; round two is to portray the
reputation of the house; round three con
centrates on introducing the rushees to in
dividual sisters and their interests; round
four is an opportunity for the sororities to
show the rushees around the interior of
the house; and round five allows one last
look for the rushees and the rushers. The
first round is only 20 minutes while the
last round allots 45 minutes to visit the
houses the rushee is seeing that evening.
To the fratty-bagger, these contrived
appearances and constraining rules might
seem unnecessary; to a non-Greek they
might well seem absurd. But in many ways
the system is fairer than that of the frater-.
nities and for that matter, some college
admissions processes. While the rushees
get to see all 12 houses, most fraternity
rushees limit themselves to just one or
two, often depending on sterotypes and
advice of friends to make the decision.
One fraternity member confided that he
had to pick up a rushee at his room so
that another fraternity would not steal
him the night they had a rush function.
Fraternities can set up dates for rushees,
take them out to dinner, and paint bad
pictures of competing houses. Because of
the "limited silence" rule, girls in sororities
are not allowed to talk with rushees outside
of rush rounds.
The sorority rush process unfortunately
fosters conformity in an attempt to make
the atmosphere more relaxed. Brady ad
mitted that girls are encouraged to wear
certain types of clothing to be more com
fortable. " We have had a great deal of ex
perience with rush and we are simply trying
to share what we have learned," she said.
However, one sorority girl who asked
to remain nameless said, "During the
first two rounds you depend heavily on
judging girls by their appearance." And in
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the 1981 Guide to Carolina Sorority Rush,
there are suggestions on what type of
shoes to wear, what kind of perfume to
wear, whether or not to smoke cigarettes
and chew gum and what to talk about.
. "The pamphlet is to help the girl who is
nervous and unsure of how to handle the
pressure of rush," Brady said.
Although Brady's arguments about
conforming rushees are perfectly under
standable when considering the UNC
rush schedule, many problems with soro
rity rush could be avoided if it were not
held at the very beginning of the year. On
other college campuses such as Duke and
Vanderbilt, sorority rush is held during
the second term of the school year. By
having rush later in the year, the
sororities have the opportunity to learn
more about the girls who are rushing and
conversely the rushees have more know
ledge about the houses. Though this has
been rejected by former rushees at UNC
in two surveys in the last two years, the
option of a second term rush should be
reconsidered.
Tri-Delt Rush Chairperson Caroline
Webb said, "It might be good to hold
rush in the spring term but as long as girls
have another charice if they drop out of
fall rush, we might just as well not change
the system. If girls felt hurried they could
always come back the following fall. Un
fortunately, a girl may not get a fair and
in-depth look at all of the houses during a
two-week fall rush and might well make a
wrong choice and never realize it," Webb
said. Hplly Griffin, president of Zeta Tau
Alpha said that she would also prefer
second-term rush to the present system.
Many other problems with sorority rush
could also be solved by having rush later
in the year. A rush guide would not have
to be put out containing so many sugges
tions since the rushees would have time to
consult friends in sororities.
Sorority rush at UNC has many rules
that make a good basis for many jokes.
They also provide a fair system for mat
ching approximately 900 girls to one of 12
houses. The most criticized parts of rush
could be eliminated by moving rush back
to the spring term. The Panhellenic
Council could thus face the charges of
superficiality head on. They might
simultaneously avoid becoming part of a
sarcastic, though funny, radio show.
Jonathan Talcott, a sophomore history
and political science major from Litchfield,
Conn., is a staff writer for The Daily Tzi
Heel.