1 6The Tar Heel Thursday, July 3. 1 986
Court's verdicts 5 to 4
am
A couple of courts held the spo
tlight this week the Supreme Court
and the World Court.
Chief Justice Warren Burger's last
days on the court will be remembered
for a while to come. In a 5-4 decision
that is somewhat difficult to under
stand, the court held that an insane
inmate on death row may not be
executed as it may be considered
cruel and unusual punishment. Of
course if there is anything that is
cruel, or at least unusual, is the twist
in the law, which maintains that when
and if the inmate regains his sanity,
then he gets back in line for the chair,
chamber or gurney.
In a related decision upholding
Victorian morality, the same court
decided 5-4 that the right of consent
ing homosexual adults to engage in
sodomy is not protected by the
Constitution. The same court did not
say whether the same law could be
used to prosecute heterosexuals for
doing the same act.
Writing for the majority, Justice
Bryon White rationalized the move
by referring to the "ancient roots" of
English common law where such
activity was considered criminal.
Some folks got on a boat going across
the Atlantic to get away from those
"ancient roots."
Mayoe Justice White thinks we
need to get the pillory and dunking
stool out of the museums and back
onto Main Street. While we're at it,
let's lock up people who think that
the Earth is round and think that it
revolves around the sun. Tradition
for tradition's sake, yeah buddy.
Seriously, the court by failing to
rule on the Georgia law for people
of both sexual preferences, left the
door wide open for discrimination
against gays and lesbians. The scant
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enforcement of sodomy laws in the
24 states that still have them gives
one reason to believe that such laws
are only on the books in order to
place a degrading badge of second
class citizenship on homosexuals in
a manner that the notorious Plessy
vs. Ferguson "separate but equal"
case did for the American black
population.
President Reagan complained this
week that Senate Democrats were
playing a partisan game with his
nomination of ultra-conservative
Daniel Manion for U.S. Court of
Appeals in Chicago claiming that
they oppose him merely on ideolog
ical grounds. I take that statement
to mean that Manion should be
approved regardless of what he
believes if he has a presdential cachet
on his resume a resume full of
grammatical and spelling errors at
that.
Ideology suddenly became of
paramount importance when the
World Court handed down its deci
sion that the United States was liable
for $378 million in damages to the
Nicaraguan government because of
the U.S.-sponsored contra war the
Reagan administration so dearly
loves. The World Court has no place
in judging the United States,
announced a State Department
spokesman. After all, he said, they
have a Soviet and a Pole on the court.
I move that the Senate accept the
Manion nomination with the pre
condition that Reagan pay the
damages to the Sandinista govern
ment and end support to the contras.
He gets his ideologue which he will
get a version of eventually anyway
and we stay out of a war.
One of the latest controversies has
to do with the insurance companies'
wishes to set limits on the amounts
awarded to plaintiffs in lawsuits. This
scheme has pain and suffering max
ing out at $500,000 and punitive
damages going for theame in North
Carolina. That cases differ from each
other makes no difference under this
proposed law. It gets more interest
ing, though.
Shearon Harris, everybody's favor
ite nuclear reactor, has a total of $665
million of coverage, just like every
other reactor in the country. Now
there is legislation to increase that
coverage in the U.S. House of
Representatives. The nuclear indus
try favors a bill that has maximum
liability set at $2.1 billion, while
others in the House favor $6.3 billion,
while still others favor unlimited
liability.
The way I figure it right now,
CP&L would be able to pay for 665
peoples' increased chances of cancer,
etc., if there was an accident, or 6,300
people's injuries and suffering under
the more liberal bill. But something
tells me that there might be more
people and more injuries if there were
an accident. If the nuclear industry
is so sure that an accident can't occur,
then why don't they and the insu
rance companies go for unlimited
liability? Unless of course, they know
something we don't.
John de Ville, a senior philosophy
major from Highlands, is now pho
tography editor for the Summer Tar
Heel.
Jo Fleischer, Jill Gerber co-editors
Linda Causey news editor
John deVille photography editor
Scott Greig city editor
Eddy Landreth sports editor
Chris Shearer arts editor
Staff
Christopher Baroudi, Mike Berardino, Chip Beverung, Bonnie
Bishop, James Burrus, Catherine Cowan, Jean Dobbs, Nancy
Harrington, Bill Logan, Matt Long, Dwight Martin, Terri
Norman, Randall Patterson, Michelle Tenhengel, Toni Shipman,
Wendy Stringfellow and Julia White.
Travelers should fear
groceries, not guerrillas
"Should I stay or should I go?"
are not only the lyrics to a song by
The Clash but are also the words
echoed by many college students this
summer when contemplating a trip
to Europe.
I returned from the old country
three weeks ago and like most naive
students who have never traveled
abroad before, I had some concerns.
The biggest question, of course, was:
Is traveling in Europe safe? I
obviously thought that it was or I
would not have gone and I was right
to a certain degree because I made
it back to Chapel Hill alive. By
writing this editorial I am not trying
to persuade people to cross the
Atlantic, even though Margaret
Thatcher would like me to do so.
Instead, 1 merely want to provide
students interested in traveling
Europe with some information from
someone who has been there recently,
in contrast to the U.S. press' over
exposure of terrorism and under
coverage of Chernobyl.
The American press spent the
whole spring covering the terrorist
attacks in Europe and hence firmly
convinced many U.S. citizens to stay
put and travel at home. While this
is helping our own country by
keeping the dollar inside our borders,
the American press' coverage greatly
distorts the real picture of Europe.
Brace yourselves, mommy and
daddy, but Europe is safe from
terrorism.
While 1 was in Europe I never felt
threatened or scared simply because
I was American. The people I met
did not hate Americans. They were
all very friendly and quite a few went
out of their way to assist me either
my offering a place to stay or giving
directions to the nearest hotel. Of
course, some were displeased with the
foreign policies of President Reagan,
but they did not associate their hatred
for him with me. Europeans are not
afraid of terrorism. In fact, they think
Americans' reaction to it is quite
ridiculous and exaggerated.
As far as terrorism goes, I was not
worried. Being a student traveler, I
was not in a large group of Amer
icans. These huge masses of Amer
icans, namely servicemen, are the
most vulnerable to terrorist attack.
Khadafy and other terrorist leaders
James Burrus
Staff Writer
will try to kill as many Americans
as they can with one bomb. What
better target than soldiers of Rea
gan's army? As a student traveling
alone or in a small group, one does
not have to worry about being a
victim of international terrorism.
However, there is reason to be
hesitant about exploring Europe. It's
radiation. The radioactive cloud, of
Chernobyl passed over almost all of
Europe, contaminating fields of
vegetables and poisoning pastures of
cattle. The governments of these
European nations came out and said
that the radioactive level was too low
to pose a threat to food and dairy
products. This comes from the same
governments that did not even warn
their own citizens that the poisonous
cloud was overhead for fear of anti
nuclear demonstrations. Researchers
are just now learning some of the
effects of Three Mile Island and it
will take many more years before
anyone finds out the actual effects
of radioactive poisoning in large and
small dosages. The American press
should have exploited this issue as
a danger to travelers as they did
terrorism. At least this way, they
would be deterring American travel
ers for a more relevant reason.
Remember the radiation is all over
Europe; the bombs are only in a few
select cities.
For one month I avoided eating
salad vegetables and drinking milk
and water. For just one' month,
avoiding some foods was a sacrifice
I was willing to make. In twenty
years, I pray my body is not the thing
being sacrificed. The biggest question
all aspiring student travelers need to
ask themselves before embarking is
whether they are willing to risk
radiation poisoning to experience
Europe, not whether they will be
blown up by a bomb.
James Burrus is a junior from Cary
who is a staff writer for the Summer
Tar Heel.