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8The Daily Tar Heel Thursday, February 5, 1987 FP vr , r.! latin ular Unl 94 th year of editorial freedom Educators, get When education follows a straight and narrow, restricting path, instead of a constantly widening and tolerant one, students are on the rocks. And UNCs School of Education, where creative ideas and flexibility should reign, has instead some inflex ible policies. Unlike other professional schools, such as the business and journalism schools, the School of Education does not allow students to freely take courses in its department. "For majors only" is stamped over all courses except Education 31 (Career Explo ration) and Education 41 (Education in American Society). These courses, so general in nature, cannot possibly give non-majors a chance to delve into this major. Those interested in education can't test the educational waters as prospec tive journalism majors do; they have to plunge right in. And many students, talented ones with varied interests, ones who possess diversity and that sense of limitless possibilities, the true investigators, aren't ready to narrow their paths. Administrators say the culprit of this problem is funding, but compar able schools, such as the School of Journalism, with 463 majors (25 fewer Sustaining Aquino ascension In a time when liberal democracy too often appears an anachronistic mirage, a dream crushed by the realities of totalitarian or authoritarian rule, events like those earlier this week in the Philippines serve as refreshing reminders of a day gone by. The reference, of course, is to the ratification by national plebiscite of a new Filipino constitution. Although the official voting returns will not be in until next week, an unofficial count showed support for the constitution running as high as 80 percent through out the nation. President Corazon Aquino appears to have gained an overwhelming victory, a victory which in a real sense represents a vote of confidence from the Filipino people. Aquino, of course, became presi dent last February after the overthrow of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos. A month after her ascension to power, Aquino abolished the 1973 constitu tion under which she had been elected. She then named a commission to draw up a new document, and it was the commission's 24,000-word proposal which was endorsed by the public Monday. The new constitution would estab lish a bicameral legislature and would extend Aquino's tenure until 1992. At the same time, it would set tight limits Like rice, Ed goes There it was. Lying in the DTH mail, a letter from the Publisher's Clearing house. It began "MR. D.T. Heel of Chapel Hill, N.C., you could already have won $10 million." Next to these words was the face of Mr. Sweepstakes himself, Ed McMahon. Ed was wearing the constant "that's what they used to think" grin. Like everyone else, DTHers are obsessed by the roots of celebrity. And so we decided to bring you the Ed McMahon story. Why Ed? Esteemed by his peers, loved by millions, and the fantasy of countless lust-crazed teenage girls, Ed is one of the few legitimate superstars. From Alpo to Star Search to Budweiser to health insu rance, the range of Ed's work is astounding. Ed brings a personal warmth and animal magnetism to each project he undertakes. Well, minutes of sloppy investigation combined with outright fabrication takes us to the humble origin of Ed McMahon's story. It begins at the Barney Rubble Institute for Harmless Sidekicks just outside Zanesville, Ohio. It was here that Ed polished the form that would later lead to his groundbreaking work on the Tonight Show. The gregarious persona, and heart felt laugh that have drawn critical raves were all originated here. We spoke with Ed's Jim Zook, Editor Randy Farmer, Managing Editor KATHY NANNEY, Associate Editor TRACY HlLUNeus Editor Grant Parsons, University Editor LINDA MONTANARI, City Editor DONNA LEINWAND, State and National Editor Scott Fowler, sports Editor JULIE BRASWELL, Features Editor ROBERT KEEFE, Business Editor Elizabeth Ellen, Arts Editor DAN CHARLSON, Photography Editor smart than the School of Education) manage to allow non-majors in their classes. Another constraint is that, while education students may be certified in more than one area, they cannot double major. Some other profes sional schools also don't allow dou bling, but the rule is most detrimental for aspiring teachers. Perhaps a prospective math teacher is interested in psychology (one field without a certification program). He can get a degree in math education, but his incentive to study psychology is now virtually non-existent, even though psychology could be as bene ficial for him as calculus. This problem has been researched by administrators, but they need to push for change; sadly, they can't assume that all students will be overcome by desire to take classes with the potential for no pay-off in the realm of academic requisites. In a discipline filled with the scars inflicted by the recent report on Japanese education and statements by the outspoken Secretary of Education William Bennett, it's very difficult, but so important, to get the best students. And campus educators won't do that until they stop playing the bureaucrat and start playing flexible. on presidential powers, removing many of the office's current prerog atives and calling for new legislative elections in May. The document also includes comprehensive civil rights protection and would restrict members of the military from any political activity save voting. This last provision is symbolic of the major problem Aquino still faces. The challenge of Communist insur gency has led many in the military to argue for a more severe response to the rebels, and the army's support for the president has been deeply eroded. Indeed, it appears as many as 60 percent of voters on military bases rejected the constitution. To be sure, the clear mandate given Aquino by the people will have an impact on the disgruntled Filipino officer corps. But Aquino is caught between left-wing revolutionaries and right-wing reactionaries, an all too familiar trap for fledgling governments. In order to escape that trap, Aquino must act on her mandate, and act rapidly. The Filipino people broadcast a clear message to the world Monday, casting a vote en masse for democracy and the peaceful exchange of power. Let us hope their message will be heard. with everything The Bollom Lin mentor, Institute Director Dr. Fuzzy Strasberg. "Although the Rubble Institute was founded to study the vice-presidency, as soon as Ed came to us, it became obvious our work had applications in the entertain ment industry. The same technique can be used whether one is trying to save a bad monologue or manage a foreign policy crisis. Just laugh heartily, and pretend nothing's wrong." Strasberg said. "Of course, like any great artist, Ed quickly became bored, and branched out into the challenging medium of television commercials. This also sprang from our vice-presidential work. It's a short leap from selling supply-side economics to a skeptical public to hawking beer and dog food to glassy-eyed, late night TV watchers." Strasberg added. Well, gentle readers, there you have it. Fill out the entry blank today, and who knows, you could have already won $10 million. Racial unity essential in The author is chairwoman of Black Women United. Oi n Saturday, Jan. 24 there was a (march for brotherhood in Forsyth County, Ga., a stance for justice and tolerance reminiscent of a not-so-distant past. j All the ingredients were there, ithe thousands of marchers, black and white; the hatred of the antagonistic white mob -and the television cameras that brought the earlier struggle home to millions of Amer icans. Many of the faces were the same in the crowd of 20,000, familiar to the endless path of civil justice, including Andrew Young, Benjamin Hooks and Coretta Scott King, among others. The racial slurs of the white supremacist hecklers were the same. "Nigger" seemed the buzzword of the day. One woman was curious as to who would pay for the police protection for the niggers, and another exclaimed that the county was and always would be a white community, that Atlanta was for "niggers". Only the police played a different role: on this occasion they were keepers of the peace rather than incitors of violence, but beyond this significant change, the parallels to the Civil Rights Movement were eerie. The march revealed how closely tied we are to our past, and that issues of yesterday remain of utmost importance today. Racism is alive and well, still living in the United States. What has been described by some as the 4new wave" of racism in this country is neither new nor a wave, but a debilitating disease that has yet to be diagnosed. We live in a society that is inherently unequal, in which segregation as found m Forsyth County, Ga. and Howard Beach, N.Y. is more the rule than the exception. To listen to the rhetoric of the Reagan Administration and the power brokers of our nation is to be swayed to the belief that there is no longer a need for the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act or any policy Xeroxing Dookie cheers To the editor: Were we mistaken or were all the other Tar Heel fans at the Georgia Tech game just pretending not to notice what the band was doing? Every time Dave Popson hit ' a nice shot, the mental midgets in the band made that silly, arms-extended bowing motion as if in worship of Big Dave. Worshipping Big Dave is fine, but do you realize who first used that gesture of affection in a basketball arena? DUKE students, for crying out loud! Somebody has to put a stop to this now. We find it hard to believe that 40 or so members of a band at this fine institution cannot muster the intelligence and creativity to invent an original salute for Big Dave. We think Big Dave deserves better than a second hand thank-you. Does anybody realize what's going to happen if they keep this up at the Duke game? The Dookies will think the band is doing that nonsense for THEM. And their fans just think how much fun all those spoiled, summer-camp types from New Jersey will have with that one when they see it on television. As far as we are concerned, it would rank right up there with selling arms to the Iranians, but worse because we would be giving them the ammunition. C'mon, band dudes, you can do better. JIM BARNETT Graduate Journalism KEVIN SCHWARTZ Graduate Journalism To the editor: 1 read Billy Warden on his upcoming book in the Omni bus ("Stepping Backstage," Jan. 22), and it reminded me that my parents didn't beat me nearly enough as a child. What a life Billy leads! Prehistoric road managers, lithe, nubile groupies, verbal slugfests, monastic pro wrestlers, and a brain like a spastic lava lamp. Hoo doggy, I feel positively sedate. Don't get me wrong ... I go to concerts, too. Since I'm not a world-class rock critic, I just stage go to dance. Unfortunately, I dance like a ilat-iooted hip potamus with poor peripheral vision and 5 o clock shadow. This means 1 slam dance well, but the babes avoid me like 1 was a Republican. Maybe if I was more like Wild Bill I'd get to go backstage pcr- s Vim LfiAUllAAJ Guest Writer of Affirmative Action, all conceived to correct the mistakes of the past. These leaders are sadly mistaken, and evidence mounts, showing how desperately such legislation needs to continue. We need look no further for evidence than to recent findings by researchers here at UNC which point to the inequity of our legal system. Findings indicate that the race of a defendant is a determining factor in whether or not the death penalty is given, with minorities outdistancing whites in such capital punishment sentencing. Non-white defendants were also found to have a 10 times greater possibility of being brought to trial for first-degree murder than whites. These discoveries coupled with the most recent figures that show unemployment levels for non-whites consistently above white unemployment levels and the rates for black teenagers more than double that of their white counterparts are themselves ominous indictments of our times. As close to home as our own campus, inequality in employment is flagrant, with minorities occupying the lowest spectrum of jobs and whites dominating the upper strata. One need only pay visits to the adminis trative offices of South Building and the cafeteria at Lenoir Hall to prove the validity of this assertion. But inequality and discrimination do not begin or end at this University; they extend throughout North Carolina, which holds the dubious distinc tion of being the most active Ku Klux Klan state in the nation and boasts a senior senator who has consistently supported discriminatory views. More frightening than discrimination and segregation in the rural South and ethnically divided cities of the North is the proliferation of racially motivated incidents on college campuses nationwide, another reminder of f ISNT IT CAUED A TV-x r-v lnx ' ... nui i 1,3, ui .- " - ji The Daily Tar Heel welcomes reader com ment. For style and clarity, we ask that you observe the following guidelines for letters to the editor and columns: O All letters columns must be signed by the author(s). Limit of two signatures per letter or column. O Students who submit letters! columns should also include their name, year in school, Absurd complaints To the editor: I am aware of the fact that Elizabeth Ellen ("Genesis bap tizes Smith Center in light and sound," Feb. 2) was simply expressing her own view of the concert, and that for each person attending there was a different perception of the performance. However, I feel that Ellen, while giving an overall good review, was very unfair in some points in her evaluation. I have a few ques tions I'd like to ask her. Do you actually feel that Collins' failure to levitate the arena was "disappointing"? Come on! YouVe got to be kidding! If you were, it didnt come across that way to me. No concert review IVe ever read has been sarcastic. Maybe youH start a great new trend that gives performers the respect they deserve. You felt that the encore was "somehow ... a bit unsatis fying," because Genesis "left a huge wealth of its own material unexplored." Considering that Genesis has been making albums for more than 10 years, what do you expect? Imagine your disappointment at a Rol ling Stones concert! I too would have enjoyed hearing some more of their own mate rial, but we have to be realistic. I wonder if you would have been disappointed had they played "Paperlate" and "Tak ing It All Too Hard," and no more. I'm glad you explained that your complaint about his "going on too long with . . . even his drum duet" was a Billy Warden: The wild thang and stick my tongue in Joan Jett's ear. But, maybe not. Violent sex is not my forte. Actually, IVe been to two rock'n roll shows now. Not the Meat Puppets, Alice Cooper, or anything, mind you, but pretty good all the same. The first was an REM concert. I had a crazed, violently putrid time just like Billy said I would. I even dyed my hair and wore a uniquely cool all-black outfit. The problem was 1 couldnt understand what the guy on twisted party zone. Merle was easily the wickedest, grossest, meanest, pervertedess country singer IVe ever even heard of. Screaming banjos, songs about trains Qust like REM) and women! Fat women. Lots and lots of fat women, with straw hats, tight cut-offs, and tough accents, dancing like flat footed hippopotami with poor peripheral vision. Some of them needed a shave worse than 1 did. I barely escaped with my life. Awesome evening. The kind Pat Robertson has night mares about. But 1 wouldn't have had any fun at all if Warden hadn't reviewed the concert to tell me what a brain-melting expe rience it was. He's the best. Those kooky reviews make me salivate uncontrollably onto my "1 Love Joe Bob" t-shirt. dancing like an epileptic penguin was singing, so I wandered through the crowd asking people until I ' found someone who hadnt heard of Depeche Mode and became best friends for life. The second was a Merle Haggard concert. Definitely an ooze-spitting, head-banging, the fight days gone by. The episodes include the harassment of black female students at Mount Holyoke College by white male students from the nearby University of Massachusetts; the burning of a cross in front of a new black sorority house on a University of Alabama campus; a fist fight between 6 to 10 black students and 500 to 1000 white students at the University of Massachusetts; threats made by the University of Texas group called Aryan Collegiates to rid the campus of "outspoken minorities;" and at the Citadel of Charleston, S.C., an FBI inquiry into an incident in which five white students wearing sheets and carrying burning paper crosses taunted a black cadet in his room. Not since the Brown v. Topeka Board of Education Supreme Court decision and the memory of Gov. George Wallace's attempt to bar the doors to the University of Alabama to black students, has our vision of higher education as a bastion of open mindedness and tolerance been so suspect. It would be easy to dismiss these episodes as isolated and insignificant, but this would be turning a blind eye to a problem that will not disappear. The safety and security of our university environment has lulled us into a sleep in which we dream of an equal, nonracist society where persons, regardless of their physical differences, live in a state of perpetual peace. But the reality of recent incidents of racial intolerance must awaken us and we must come to grips with a tangible part of our society. If we believe in our dreams, then we should take a lesson from the demonstration of unity displayed by the participants in Saturday's march, and commit ourselves to confront such episodes of inequality and injustice wherever they arise if we truly want change. Cassandra Butts is a senior political science major from Durham. major and phone number. Professors and other University employees should include their title and department. a All letters I columns must be typed (For easier editing, we ask that they be double-spaced on a 60-space line.) a The Daily Tar Heel reserves the right to edit letters and columns for style, grammar and accuracy. "miniscule complaint." If Phil Collins wasn't a master of the drums, then Genesis would never have become anything. Of course, he didnt create the band alone, and they didn't succeed solely because of him. But his ability with the drums was definitely the backbone of the band and a key factor in their success. Now that Phil is concentrating on his singing in concert, the band takes an excellent drummer on the road with them. However, any true Genesis fan would want to hear Collins, the original drummer, at the drums, and 10 minutes would never be too much. Give Phil a break. Certainly, he's imperfect like the rest of us. Genesis put on one hell of a show. LAURA YANDLE Freshman Economics Those wild paragraphs of clever analogies curl the toes on my KISS poster. I live for wacky, drug-induced anec dotes. It's true. Just ask any one of my other personalities if you don't believe me. But all of this is beside the point. What I really wanted to say is that Warden is far larger than we mere fans. When you think about it, Billy is like a big, barf-green frog with Grate ful Dead stickers all over his neon body, sitting in a psyche delic pool of Lenoir taco sauce, and the rest of us are like helpless little edible purple flies with Rick Ocasek heads, and the only thing that brings us together is Alice Cooper's tongue. CHRIS SHEARER Senior English Biology
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Feb. 5, 1987, edition 1
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