Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Dec. 6, 1984, edition 1 / Page 12
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12The Daily Tar HeelThursday, December 6, 1984 Jin HinAY.;y..r Jon Broaoway. i-Jm.r Mark Stinni:iori.mj iJn-r VtVK IMRKOVC'SKI.. I. .,;.,, I.Atnr Ki t I.Y SlMMONS. t'uhx-nitr Editor Van i; Tri.i i.thi n. sun- and National Editor Ml l.ANIF. Wl.l.US. City Editor Dan Tii.i.man. .cit Editor Lynn Davis. n vjtmr Frank Kennedy, sports Editor Jeff Grove, Arts Editor Sharon Sheridan. Features Editor JEFF NEUVILLE, Photography Editor Taking a byte out of business A pending lawsuit against a UNC institution its Student Stores raises some necessary questions about its function as a University-operated retail outlet. The lawsuit, filed by Chapel Hill based computer firm Pascal and Asso ciates, alleges that the Stores engage in unfair business practices by underpricing Apple and IBM computers and related software, to the point of sustaining a $9,000 loss on retail computer sales last year. The suit further charges that, to make up for these losses, the Stores dipped into profits earmarked for the scholarship trust fund. These are serious charges. But do they compute? By selling such wares, and at an allegedly outrageous discount, is UNC engaging in unjust competition with area merchants? It should surprise no one that Student Stores 'with sales in excess of $10 million annually is the largest retail outfit in all of Orange County, boasting some 22,000 students as well as faculty among its core consumer audience. Founded more than 50 years ago, it operates under the Umstead Act, which prohibits sales of most merchandise to those outside the UNC family. By most accounts, the Stores faithfully adheres to this policy. Still, Pascal and Associates raises the issue of unfair competition. It's an idea that has gained some support within the Chapel Hill community most notably from Jim Heavner, president of the Women's soccer: Media types are often characterized as a rather egotistical and self-righteous bunch. In editorials and just around town (bullying officials for quotes, hounding celebrities for glamour gossip, etc.), the media are often seen as sporting a cynical, smug know-it-all-ness. The sheer power of the media in today's society probably has a lot to with this criticism. When people feel power less in the face of larger forces, they get frustrated. Jesse Jackson loves to talk about how, no matter what he did in the campaign, he just couldn't get any good press "If I walked on water, they'd say I couldnt swim." Well, the UNC women's soccer team must be wondering the same thing. After capturing their fourth consecutive national championship, they've gotten more abuse in the media than praise. Abuse for being a tyrannical powerhouse in women's soccer? No. Abuse for their victory slogan. At least three major newspapers and sports magazines have labeled the team insensitive in its use of the word "napalm" as part of its rallying cry during the NCAA tournament last month. "UNC women love the smell of napalm in the afternoon," went the beleaguered motivation slogan. To an extent the fuss is understan dable, considering the nation's raw sensitivity to the Vietnam War; napalm, The Bottom Line There are probably a number of Scrooge like souls whoVe had their fill of the holiday season already. They're about to toss their lunch over the tinny Chistmas Muzak in the jammed malls, the fake smiles of those gift grubbing worms who are absolute grouches the rest of the year and the late night TV ads claiming that the cap snaffler is "the perfect Christmas gift." When "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" delighted millions of Americans last night, these spoilsports either rooted for the bad creature or turned over to "The Fall Guy." Well, donl look now, but Santa seems to be showing a negative reaction to Christmas this year. OK, it's not really Santa but one of his omnipresent helpers. Michael Kinsel, director of the American Heritage Museum in Omaha, has been in the habit of putting on a red Santa suit during weekends in the holiday season. But this Santa was not such a jolly sort when they brought in a 55-foot fir tree just before Thanksgiving. It seems the tree gave Santa an attack of the hives and frequent sneezing dim Saiig (Bar iHM 92nd year of editorial freedom Village Companies, which owns WCHL radio, The Village Advocate and other Triangle-area media. Heavner suggests that restrictions or changes are necessary to govern Student Stores sales. But now Heavner is catching heat from Student Body President Paul Parker, who supports Student Stores policy and has labeled Heavner "a knight in shining armor for the businesses of Chapel Hill." Parker maintains, con trary to Heavner, that the Stores are healthy for area competition. Student Stores has come a long way from its humble origins, but only in keeping with the University's growth. Just as the neighborhood grocery has given way to the supermarket of today, so would the Student Stores be sub standard without reflecting changing times and new technology. And as any student who has worked out on a word processor would tell you, typewriters are fast becoming passe. We defend Student Stores' right to sell computers not on the basis that its revenues provide financial aid for needy students, but rather that to prohibit their sales would infringe on the student's ability to choose where to buy. Certainly Pasczj and Associates has a legitimate beef: underpricing makes for unfair competitibn: Student Stores needs to reevaluate its pricing policy. That the Stores' existing prices would continue bleeding red ink, however little, is bad business practice and grounds for a settlement. why the heat? the incendiary jelly used to such destruc tive success in Vietnam, is to some an instant, sharp reminder of the war's atrocities. Thus, Sports Illustrated gave the Tar Heels "the booby prize for one of the worst cheers in the history of American sport." Isn't that going a bit overboard? Granted, the slogan isn't going to win any awards for tact, but there's no reason to imply that the team used it for anything other than an innocent pick-me-up. As coach Anson Dorrance put it, "They (SI) are the ones who are evoking painful memories. It wasn't bad in the context we were using it." Indeed, rallying cries for many sports, teams have references to war, killing, obliterating, crucifying, etc. George Carlin does a very funny piece about this fetish among American sports nuts teams don't just win, they destroy. As team member Marcia McDermott explained: "We never meant to emphas ize napalm. We meant the smell of victory. It was personal, a lockerroom thing, and we never meant it to be taken outside of the team." That it was taken outside the team and blown out of proportion, to the point of overlooking the team's out standing accomplishments, is a shame. The criticism smacks more of the national sports press' self-righteousness than a justified indignation. fits. "Can you imagine that?" Kinsel asked. "Santa Claus allergic to Christmas trees." We know it's not the real Santa, but we're worried about what Kinsel's problem could do to the image of the jolly old fellow. Pretty soon, people will be saying that Santa doesn't like the smell of his reindeer and gets indigestion from all the cookies and milk kids leave out for him. Rumors will fly about Santa getting airsick from his around-the-world jaunt or suffering claus trophobia from all those tight chimneys. Still, this Christmas story, like so many others, has a happy ending. We knew Santa couldn't be allergic to evergreens since that's the native variety of tree at the North Pole. It turns out that Kinsel (which rhymes nicely with tinsel) is not allergic to the tree but the fire-resistant spray added to the branches. The doctor gave him medication to help him combat the attacks on his Rudolph-red nose. 'That should pull me through," Kinsel said. And that's the bottom line. Ethiopians need Bv GERR Y COHN So there are 100 Ethiopians starving to death per day? Sure, it's horrifying, but what do you want me to do? Send half of each meal I eat in an envelope addressed to Ethiopia? And even if I did, it wouldn't even put a dent in the problem. The numbers are enormous -hundreds per day . . . millions in danger . . , famine could last for years. The pictures are horrifying tiny children with beseeching eyes and swelled stomachs, huge masses streaming towards small aid centers which can only support a small percentage of the needy. A doctor must walk among them and mark those fit enough to survive with an "X" on the forehead, stipulating that only those chosen few will receive treatment and sufficient aid to hang in for another week. Hunger in Africa is not a new phenomenon. Food production has been declining in much of the continent in the last 30 years. This is the result of three primary factors: (I) drought, (2) migration of young people from the farms to the cities, leaving fewer able-bodied people to farm, (3) an economic and political system, inherited from the colonial days, which is not designed for self-sufficiency in food production; the credit, transport, and marketing systems all favor production of a couple of cash crops for export. Far from being a sudden catastrophe, famine is a logical result of the continent's recent history. The current crisis in Ethiopia is largely a political phenomenon. While the civil war in Eritrea has disrupted farming and hindered relief efforts, Ethiopian leader Col. Mengistu has withheld aid from that region to exert pressure on the secessionist forces to surrender. But we should not make the assumption that fault lies in Mengistu's avowed Marxism. The Eritrean war has been going on for 23 years (the longest war currently being fought on earth). For most of that period, Ethiopia was under the leadership of Emperor Haile Selassie, one of the U.S.'s staunchest allies in Africa. The U.S.-U.S.S.R., flip-flopping support for Ethiopia and Somalia, has supplied both countries with huge amounts of armaments, turning African peasants into strategic pawns in the Cold War. Finally, this is a whole lot of people we're talking about. Hitler exterminated six million Jews. This is a reasonable estimate of the number in immediate danger in Africa. Perhaps it is time we began to infer some implications of the famine in Africa. Could not such a widespread threat trigger pain and fear across the continent, creating huge hordes of refugees which would travel from country to country, exhausting food supplies and ignoring future production, losing LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Parking spaces and Indian givers To the editor: Just a note to let the campus bureaucrats know I am incensed by the fact that at least 20 S-4 parking spaces near Morrison dorm are no longer available. The resurfacing on Manning Drive is responsible for minus 16, but four more spaces have been taken up by newly posted signs reading, "for government use only." OK, these are the facts. Now here is the problem: these 20 convenient spaces are no longer available for dorm residents (myself included), yet no more spaces have been given in return. True, there is a large S-4 lot by Wrong-headed editorial To the editor: The views expressed in the edi torial "Thumbs down to buckle-up law," (Dec. 3) are just plain wrong headed. We must protect the right to endanger even recklessly one's own life and limb. But it's antisocial and un-American to force others to bear the financial conse quences if the risk turns out to be a bad one. The cost of driving and health care skyrockets because hospital wards are filled with victims Get romantic, Mark! To the editor: C'mon Mark Stinneford, where 's your sense of adventure ("Person ally revolted by classifieds," Dec. 3)? Life is a lot more fun if you take a few risks. I am one of those poor, misguided souls who answered a classified personal, and maybe I shouldn't admit it, but I haven't regretted it. No, I wasn't looking for an instant pre-packaged love or a companion for life. I just wanted to meet someone completely new, someone I didn't know anything about. Maybe I just wanted an adventure something to add a little excitement to the end-of-the-semester blues. Sure, I could have ended up with Jack-the-Ripper or Charlie Brown, but that was the risk I had to take. Offer from Twilight Zone? To the editor: Being the pizza lovers we are, we were shocked and outraged to see your antagonizing ad in Monday's DTH for $2 off on a large pizza, good through Dec. 20. The ad failed to mention where or with whom we could reedem the coupon. We think this is a cheap shot to all the pizza lovers who jumped when they saw the ads on Monday morn ing, only to feel dejected and cheated when the instigator of the prank was not revealed. What's next announcing a prominent speaker here at UNC with insufficient or faulty infor mation. We put it to you, Mr. Editor. David Strause Greg Fogleman Chapel Hill Editor's note: No, it wasn't a mean-spirited prank. As some times happens, the name of the company buying the ad fell off the page on the way to the printers. The ad, which is from Mr. Gat lis, ran again Tuesday with the restaurant s name intact. more than a check in the mail W4is 'VLLIHEARI i TWIS FfeoO AIN'T ' the hope of seeing beyond where tomorrow's meal would come from? How about the inferences we could draw from the contrast between our willingness to risk thousands of lives in 1941 to preserve a "way of life" in Europe, while hardly lifting a finger today to preserve the existence of life in any form in Africa? Racism? Or perhaps this is what some members of the Reagan administration envision when they discuss "population policy." Most of us have had time where we were a bit embarrassed to live in such a land of plenty as America. Though I may try to write heart rending articles and send my check to Oxfam, perhaps it is just a ruse to assuage my own guilt. Even we sensitive souls who fasted for world hunger could assure our stomachs that indeed the pain would be over "fast." But just like too many Emily Dickinson poems, too many heart-rending images of starving children can make for a cynical populace. Sympathy can only be extended so far until it becomes a parody of itself. After a while, it becomes just another common item that Johnny Carson can use in his monologue. I don't think there is much purpose in chastising us for our houses and restaurants. Every culture must be judged by its own standards, and our culture is marked by t At Craige dorm, but it is quite a long walk from Morrison, especially when you have to park in the third level because hospital employees have filled the upper two. I see two solutions to the prob lem. First the University could give out S-5 permits to 20 people and let them return to their S-4's. An S-5 permit will at least guarantee a space semi-close to Morrison. I feel that this is a fair solution because had I known what the parking situation now would be like when 1 signed up for a permit in April of 1984, I would have gotten a S-5 sticker. Some people might say, one should just be thankful to have any permit, that is not my point. I feel as if an injustice has been committed on the part of the University. I paid for a permit that was to be used for a certain number of spaces. I was shown a map of the spaces offered when I bought my permit. However, I was never told that many of those spaces would be taken away. I don think that I am receiving exactly what I paid for. A second solution should be that the University return the same number of spaces taken away, all of which should be close to Mor- of preventable injuries. So, you say you don't mind the risk of bashing through the windshield and getting splattered on the tarmac? If you don't mind it, neither do we. We do mind having to clean up the mess. Ken Chew, Ph.D. Carolina Population Center Patricia Cahill, N.C. Memorial Hospital I guess I was just lucky. Not only was my date intelligent and polite, he was also good-looking and fun. And no, we didn't agree on many things, but the conversation was definitely not boring. And how can you say that an answer to one of these ads is a stab to romance? The very word "romance" implies mystery. What can be more romantic than a rendezvous with someone you've never met before? Personally, I thought it was very romantic. Stinneford, you'd be surprised how interesting life can be if you take a few chances. I for one would rather reach for the stars than forever look at them from behind curtained windows. Susan Lalik Northampton Plaza To the editor: As with many issues, I happen to hold a sensible and moderate view about pornography that alie nates those with strong reactions on both sides of the political debate. I am revolted by the not uncommon violence and misogyny in many skin magazines, and I might join fem inists if this is what they really opposed. But being against violence and misogyny in porn differs from being against porn, just as being against violence on TV cop shows differs from being against TV cop shows. To belabor the point, some feminists resemble the fundamental ists who, because they find objec tionable values in rock 'n' roll music, oppose rock 'n' roll music. The DTH story of Dec. 3 conern ing the sale of Playboy in the To the editor: An incident arose recently where the Campus Police were gravely needed. The N-5 parking lot had suspicious characters loitering in it. Because of reported break-ins in lot, we returned to our room to inform the police. Upon calling the police, we encountered an employee who had no comprehension whatsoever of the parking lot layout of the HEY ! EAT yflutfFDCaf should 6eWuK?U technological advance and improved living standards as indices of "progress." We might as well accept ourselves for what we are - a bunch of pleasure-oriented capitalists. I (regrettably) am one, and so are most of you. That doesnt mean that we should just accept millions of deaths by starvation as unavoidable. Though it may not be possible for us to win the struggle single-handedly, neither is it our right to desist from it altogether. If we, along with the Soviet Union, Japan, and Western European nations, began to view our industrial goals as a responsibility of production and distribution rather than merely a profit-making venture, we would be demonstrating our ability to adapt to our environment that is evolution. And while the idealist editorials drone on, the reality of the pain continues. Will we become part of the nightmarish future of Crosby, Stills, and Nash's "Wooden Ships?"; Horror grips us as we watch you die All you can do is echo your anguished cry, Stare, as all your human feelings die, We are leaving You don 't need us. Gerry Cohn is a senior peace, war and defense major from Chattangooga, Tenn. rison. 1 would like to propose that the S-4 lot above Morrison be expanded into the S-l lot to provide us with these spaces because I go by the S-l lot almost every day and each time I see at least 20 empty parking spaces. I want to park my car in one of these spaces because of its close proximity to Morrison, but I can't without receiving a $10 ticket. Instead, I head my car further and further down the hill. It is at these times I really get mad because I know what goes down, in my case, must walk up. Lynda Kay Payne Morrison -U.'U Ui V J 1 aJ ii ARE WOBEJmOFF NOIV THAW W WSRB FOUR m?$ A60 ? 'Playboy' not the real issue Student Stores ("Student Stores defends selection of 'Playboy'; group opposes sale") thus dismays me. The Association for (not "oP) Women Students protests the sale, and this is like saying you are against alcoholism and then protesting pink champagne. (It probably shows that you are really against drinking.) What disheartens me the most is that energy is being wasted on what is certainly the least objectionable sex magazine for men, while the genuinely degrading material eludes the efforts of AWS. But if we thought these efforts were actually directed at the real problem, I and many other men could become allies in this aspect of feminism. We would like to be able to. James Coley Philosophy department Lot orientation needed campus. After five minutes of explanation of the location of the lot, the employee hung up on us. With such incompetent employees, it is no wonder that there are 200 student break-ins a month, and it is no wonder people don't report such incidents! Angela Womack Maribeth Home Mclver
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Dec. 6, 1984, edition 1
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