16The Tar Heel Thursday, May 29, 1986
Holding hands is not enough
Hands Across America turned out to be the
spectacular event it was promised to be, in spite
of gaps in the line and the participation of certain
individuals.
When it was first announced, it seemed
incomprehensible that 5 million Americans
would turn out and link hands to unite themselves
to raise money for the poor and homeless within
our shores. It was perhaps too much to ask that
they pay S10 for the privilege to stand abreast,
1,300 per mile for 4,000 miles, to call attention
to the darkest aspect of our society the fact
that certain Americans do not have enough to
eat or lack basic shelter.
Whether Americans stood in the line and held
the hands, of strangers in order to feed the
starving, to be part of a "historic" media event,
or to partake of such a fine warm Sunday
afternoon in the United States that they were
lulled into believing that no one could ever starve
again, thanks to their 15 minutes or their $10,
is irrelevant. The question that should be is asked
is why America, the richest and the greatest
nation, allowed people, any people, to starve for
so long.
There were well-intentioned participants in the
hype-line that was "Hands." There was Don
Johnson standing in the middle of New Mexico
to help attract even more handholders than the
17 percent of the state's population that showed
up. But good intentions have to be backed up
by some kind of effort. The United States has
learned by now that money, even the projected
$50 million of "Hands," can't solve a problem
as profound as hunger. To solve that problem,
we have to confront it directly. The starving have
to be faced if they are to be fed. The problem
cannot be glossed over with one afternoon of
"We are the World" choruses and thought to
be solved. We are not the world, we're a very
small part of it, and in other parts of it, vast
numbers of people are starving.
The most distressing part of the day was the
participation of President Reagan. It was only
a short time ago that Reagan told America that
the only people in the country who were starving
were those who were too "ignorant" to seek out
the services available, at least those still available
from an administration willing to deem ketchup
a good enough vegetable to satisfy the dietary
requirements of school children. Any educational
materials concerning the food stamp program
were cut out of the Department of Agriculture's
budget in 1981 by" Reagan.
The words, or at least the intentions of
"Hands," were made clear when its organizer,
Ken Kragen, told participants that Sunday was
only a first step and an effort would have to
be made in the future to go into every community
to face and fight this abominable situation over
a prolonged period in order to defeat it.
Only if the situation is confronted by people
where they reside, or don't reside in the case of
the homeless, will those truly seeking an
American society be free of misery. That people
starve in this nation is the greatest and saddest
failure of our society. If we treat Sunday's
extravaganza as a communal pledge to do
something significant and go on to face and defeat
the situation, then we can claim a-victory.
If this is done, Americans can feel good about
lining up for a similar event to be held on the
same date a year from now "Patting Ourselves
on the Backs Across America."
Martin's mesuniiiislessness'
North Carolinians' lives are a little more
significant each day, week and month of the year,
thanks to that paragon of public relations, that
master of meaningless gestures, Republican Gov.
James G. Martin.
Martin has made it a routine practice to make
proclamations such as Dental Assistants Week,
Foot Health Month, Bicycle Month, Older
Americans Month, Hurricane Awareness Week,
Manufactured Housing Month, as well as the
Year of the Family, the Year of the Prinicipal,
and the Year of the Native American.
Virtually any group or organization around
the state can get the governor to publicize its
cause by merely asking for a proclamation. Most
requests are honored, according to an official
in the governor's office, and the proclamations
are sent out on semi-official looking stationery
with a genuine photocopy of Martin's seal. For
example, an excerpt from the Older Veterans
Week proclamation reads, "In witness whereof,
I have hereunto set my hand and affixed the
Great Seal of the State of North Carolina at
the Capitol in Raleigh this twenty-fourth day of
April in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred
and eighty-six and of the Independence of the
United States of America the two hundred and
ninth."
State taxes, highway maintenance and other
gubernatorial concerns must be petty annoyances
when so many proclamations must be read and
processed. There are speeches to be made,
photographs to be taken; who has time to sit
through those typically long-winded executive
sessions?
Although it may be considered part of a
governor's job to take part in such good will
activities, Martin has gotten a little carried away.
State funds are being extravagantly squandered
on publicizing proclamations such as Cornbread
Week and Vitiligo Treatment Week (a skin
disease characterized by white spots on various
parts of the body). These items are of little interest
to anyone except the group members who pushed
for their recognition.
Eventually, Martin will make so many
proclamations that they will begin to contradict
each other. Vegetarian Appreciation Month will
coincide with Beef Producers Week; the Year
of the Tobacco Growing Industry will conflict
with Lung Cancer Awareness Week; the absur
dity of the entire situation will escalate.
Martin's justification for making so many
proclamations would probably be that he is
honoring the requests of his constituents. Perhaps
he is, but it cannot be denied that serving public
interest groups is directly correlated with
receiving votes, which may be a concern to
Martin if he is considering a bid for re-election
in 1988.
There are several new proclamations that
Martin should consider:
Ribbon-cutting, Champagne-bottle-breaking,
and Other Such Nonsense by the
Governor's Office Prevention Week
Stop Government Waste in the Capitol
Month
The Year of Curbing North Carolina
Officials from Politicizing on State Time
Ulljp (3af- ik?l .
Jo Fleischer, Jill Gerber
Co-editors
Jamie Cobb photography editor
Linda Causey news editor
Philip Gitelman sports editor
Scott Greig city editor
Staff
Robert Carver, Cathy Cowan, Jean Dobbs, Nancy Harrington,
Beverly Imes, Eddy Landreth, Bill Logan, Matt Long, Shirley Nesbitt,
Jonathan Parker, Randall Patterson, Julia Ritchey, Michelle
Tenhengel, Chris Shearer, Toni Shipman, Alexis White and Julia
White.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Comments, don't reflect
the complete situation
To the editors:
I was pleased to read your report
of a recent emergency town meeting
on the Shearon Harris Nuclear Plant ,
in your last issue. At the same time,
however, I was confused by your
reporter's concentration on a few
comments of mine, which repres
ented only a very minor part of that
program. There is much more to the
nuclear plant issue than the ques
tions of utility rates which I dis
cussed. The most important issues
are those of public health and safety
in event of a nuclear emergency.
These were the concerns of six of
the eight speakers that evening, and
ought to be concerns of your
readers; one hopes that your report
would have reflected these serious
and substantive concerns.
Speakers at the meeting were Dr.
Harriet Amman, an environmental
pollution researcher; Dr. Gerald
Drake, a physician and internist;
Norman Aamodt, a mechanical
engineer and specialist on the Three
Mile Island accident; Wells Eddie
man, an energy conservation con
sultant who has studied construction
flaws at the Shearon Harris plant;
Dr. Phyllis Lotchin, chair of the
Chapel Hill Mayor's Evacuation
Task Force; Jane Sharp, former
chair of the Consumers Council of
North Carolina; and Jackie Brock
man, a housewife and mother who
survived the nuclear "accident" at
Three Mile Island.
Many people who attended the
meeting felt that Jackie Brockman's
account of nuclear disaster was the
most powerful part of the program,
since it was clear that hers could
someday be our experience as well.
I hope that your readers will be
interested in a recounting of the
message she brought to Chapel Hill.
Jackie Brockman, survivor of
Three Mile Island, did what most
anyone would do if their local
nuclear plant. Went haywire. She.
drove to the school to get her
daughter and then to get the hell
out of Dodge. Only the schools had
their own evacuation plans, and held
up release of the kids. And the gas
station man, reluctant to stand in
radioactive rain to cashier, even for
above-minimum-wage in the rush of
the decade, shut down and locked
the pumps. And the tow-truck
drivers and some of the emergency
deputy marshalls and the grocer and
the banker took off too, figuring the
evacuation meant "evacuate now,"
and not "direct traffic and make
change and sell supplies." "There
was one thing you felt whenever you
heard the siren go off," she said, "and
that was fear, knee-shaking fear."
One knows that Jackie Brockman
still fears, like other survivors who
have witnessed the world going over
the abyss of panic, and that she is
still putting the pieces together, ten
years afterward.
Ms. Brockman told about the
breakdown of civilization in the
midst of a nuclear emergency in
terms which were so vivid, and so
frighteningly everyday, that one
knew they were still present dangers
to her. The knowledge that her
husband died of cancer, and that her
daughter suffers from developmen
tal handicaps ascribed to days of
nuclear fallout exposure, made her
account chilling to consider.
There are many issues connected
with the question of use of nuclear
fuel at the Shearon Harris Plant, but
the human issue, as represented by
the tragedy of Three Mile Island,
is for me the most profound issue,
and the one desrving the greatest
consideration. We may resent
increases in electricity charges to pay
for wasteful projects like Shearon
Harris, but we need to stand and
fight when the safety, health and
integrity of our communities are
threatened as they would be nuclear
emergency.
Lightning A. Brown
Dental Research Center
Chapel Hill