Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / April 21, 1987, edition 1 / Page 10
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ular lisri 5i year of editorial freedom Jill Gerber, Editor Amy Hamilton, alumim Editor Sally Pearsall, nim Eor Jean Lutes, university Editor EX)NNA LEINWAND, State and National Editor JEANNIE PARIS, City Editor James Surowiecki, sports Editor FELLS A NEURINGER. Business Editor JULIE BRASWELL, Features Editor Elizabeth Ellen, Am Editor Charlotte Cannon, Photography Editor KATHY PETERS, Omnibus Editor Readers' Foranm Editorials Upwardly mobile well-rounded for liberal arts majors has been getting better. In 1986 itvas predicted that they would have 20 percent more job opportunities upon graduation than the previous year. An Indiana Univer sity survey found that 90 percent of liberal arts graduates of the 70s yuppies were satisfied with their jobs. A similar survey at University of Virginia revealed that 20 percent were earning more than $50,000. It also seems that in the business world, liberal arts majors may be gaining the competitive edge. They are now sought after by monster corpo rations like AT&T and IBM, where the liberal arts background has become necessary for managerial promotability. And presently, 17 percent of GM's top managers have a liberal arts foundation. The job market still wants over two times as many business and engineer ing as liberal arts graduates, but employers are clearly getting tired of teaching their managerial employees how to think and communicate. They want their decision-making positions filled by well-rounded human beings. In the face of a erudite-friendly job market, graduating liberal arts majors should stop sweating. They Ve got it made in the shade. M.K. The marching band drones through "Pomp and Circumstance and the sun beats down on Kenan Stadium. While business students sit calmly, smug with the knowledge that "they got jobs," those blessed with the glory of a liberal arts degree sweat through their gowns - and it's not the heat. It's not even the humidity. By sheer numbers, the baby boo mers have put a crunch on the job market, making it a war zone where six-digit salaries and unlimited upward mobility are the prized conquest and where the best ammunition is a resume bulging with internships and power references, a full interview schedule, ; that hungry look and, of course, a business degree. Amidst the fury, the liberal arts have : lost their credibility as a realistic field of study. Carroll Hall initiates snicker . as hopeless idealists trudge to and from Hamilton, Greenlaw, Saunders and other such dens of non-marketability. : History and English majors speak with despair about having to go into : teaching because all other alternatives : are closed. For most in the liberal arts, panic' dread and apathy all strike at : some time as the real world gradually peeks over the horizon. r, -But.all of their fretting may be : unnecessary. In recent years, the news Just say 'yes' to Jolt Youve been shut in a study room L all day. The library's pale Easter egg colored walls and quiet humming lulls you into an infant-like state. Your finger traces the white rivers of space through the columns of grey copy. The words are incomprehensible. Your brain synapses are broken. Your neurons are misfiring. You need a jolt. And you can pour one out of a red and yellow, lightning bolt embellished can. It comes in the form of a soft drink, but it doesn't claim to contain any real fruit juices, carve inches off of your waistline, or keep your heart beating at a regular rate. It's Jolt Cola, the junk food that dares to be unhealthy. Laden with caffeine and thick with sugar, this fizzy beverage will peel the skin off your tongue. To the bleary-eyed final exam crammer, it's like Superman's anti kryptonite juice encased in aluminum. And its manufacturers make no bones about it. Tlie Jolt Company, Inc., lauds its product as containing "all the sugar and twice the caffeine" of regular soft drinks. In 1979, father and son masterminds Joseph and C.J. Rapp of Rochester, N.Y., decided they were r diSgdsTed with wimpy tasting sodas. They concocted a variety packing a non ssqiraur - Surf roughs up a weary hero hearty 7 1 .2 milligrams of caffeine per can, which squeaks by the legal limit of 72 milligrams. Seven years later, Jolt was on the market, quickening pulse rates and boring holes in tooth enamel nationwide. After conquering the open market, the sticky stuff apparently has become a college fad, as students at Cornell and elsewhere find it the perfect complement for grain-fermented sub stances. The "Al Joltson" rum and Jolt and the "Jumpin' Jack Flash" Jack Daniels and Jolt reputedly have become barroom staples in some parts of the country. rew companies in mainstream America have enough marketing chutzpah to produce consumables that prove detrimental to the health of consumers. Jolt's manufacturers should be applauded for revealing society's battle for good health as the mockery that it really is. During this exam period, unlikely academicians should trade their orange juice for the wallop-packing burst of the sugary cola. As a Uni versity of Texas student said after continued use, "I think I've gotten thinner, and my hair seems to be "growing back." Good health, it seems, lies in the eyes of the beholder. J.G. 'j "Schools of menhaden bubble out of the swells like popcorn in hot grease. Packs of scavenger gulls squawk and dive for the tasty morsels. Skin squeeks on a waxed board. A wave approaches. The surfer paddles forward and becomes part of the momentum of the moving wall of water. He twists and dances on the foaming crest and then skies down the tunnel. Like a hit of Aqua Velva. Totally rad, catdaddy. Tubular. , This was the vision Non had of surfing before he plunged into the choppy Nags Head surf.- His first encounter with a wave was not artistic or refreshing. It was not even slightly pleasant. The wave crashed on top of his head, sending him into a temporary dizzy spell. When he snapped out of it, he was being towed underwater by his board, which had caught the wave without him. This is when Non discovered that a wetsuit is weighty garb. He grasped for a breath when he finally made it to the surface, but instead of fresh ocean air, he received a lung full of salt water and sea plankton. He choked and mounted his board, reepmposed. After bravely withstanding a few more violent thrashes, Non improved his" technique. He held onto his board and dived straight through the oncoming waves. Surfing was starting to be fun. With a cocked chin, he paddled faster and avoided punishment, skimming his board smoothly over the swells. Non was really digging the scene. When he stopped paddling, Non noticed that there were no sounds of crashing water. He turned around to see how far he had come. It was only during this moment that he realized he had been paddling out to sea for the past 20 minutes. He rested, but his board was still moving out to sea. Non had been caught in an undertow, and he started to paddle in a state of panic. Suddenly, he heard a rumble behind him. A giant swell approached. Non kicked and paddled with all his might. The wave lifted him up in the air, higher and higher, and Non looked down the nose of the board to the water below. Non took a deep breath and rode the falls. He felt like he was in a dryer, being tossed and tumbled as the ankle cord pulled him to shore. A battered and bruised Non returned to his friends. He stared at. the cold beverage on the table next to him, but he just didn't have the energy to lift it up. He went to sleep but couldn't escape thoughts of the day. The surf would still be up in the morning. 5 CGLA funding is a sacrilege for no one Editor s note: The author is a Student Congress representative from District 19. To the editor: John Hood's column of April 15 ("CGLA funding is student tyranny") calling the Student Congress' funding of the Carolina Ciay and Lesbian Association "coercion" exemplifies some of the very best double standards 1 ve ever seen. I applaud him. If, as Hood says, forcing students to fund the CGLA is coercion, then why does that apply only to the CGLA? There are Klansmen on campus; I'm sure they oppose the Black Student Movement. A lot of students probably never go to see plays, yet the congress gave the Lab Theatre with about the same membership size as the CGLA more than three times as much money as the CGLA. Many students never listen to WXYC. yet the station receives guaranteed funding of more than $19,000 4 percent of all Student Activities Fees. The North Carolina Student Legislature directly benefits fewer than 40 students, but the group receives nearly as much as the CGLA. whose actual membership alone is five times that of NCSL, and the number of students the CGLA directly benefits. homosexual and straight, is at least ten times as many as that. Why does Hood not propose the elim ination of all Student Activities Fees? If it's coercion .to fund one group, it's coercion to fund any. II it's simply the idea that some of his money is funding the CGLA' that gives him a problem, let me match CGLA member Philip Parkerson-Ripley's offer and reim burse him. Next year, the CGLA will receive about .4 percent of Student Activities Fees. That's about 8 cents from each undergrad uate. I'll dig deep and find it, if that will ease Hood's moral sensibilities. The fact of the matter is more than half of every student's activities fees $18 for undergrad uates, $16 for graduates is automatically allocated: the Carolina Union gets 33 percent, or $6 of every $18; The Daily Tar Heel gets 16 percent, or $2.88; WXYC gets 4 percent, or 72 cents nine times what the CGLA gets. Think of it this way, we could fund the CGLA in proportion to its membership. If gays make up just I percent of the student body, as campus conservatives claim, and not the 10 percent the CGLA claims, then they deserve I percent of Student Acitivities Fees, nearly $5,000. Funding the CGLA with fees paid by people who disagree with the group is no Sorry about word use To the editor: In the April 16 edition of the Omnibus magazine in The Daily Tar Heel, 1 was quoted in an article about graffiti entitled, "They can see the writing on the wall." I was quoted in this article because I have been studying graffiti a bit to find trends in and differences between male and female graffiti. One of the lines quoted from me, however, unfortunately contained the word "fags." To anyone who was offended by this apparently careless use of a degrading term, please understand that it represents no personal prejudice. When I used that word, I was trying to convey the tone of the graffiti as well as its content; not just the latter, in which case 1 would have shown some respect and used "homosexuals" instead. If "fags" had been in quotation marks in the original article, the quote would have been more accurate. For one reason or another, this did not come across to Beth Buffington. the author. I am very sorry this mishap occurred. I would never use the word "fags" when talking about homosexuals to me the careless use of that word is as offensive as the careless use of "nigger" to describe blacks or "spic" to describe Hispanics. 1 am entirely against prejudice based on sexual preference. Again. 1 apologize to anyone who was offended by my poor choice of words. MARK BURNISTON Freshman Chemistry South Campus9 needs ignored To the editor: I am aware that South Cam pus is a long way from the administrative offices of the University; however, that is no reason for the residents to be continually overlooked and abused. Yet another incident showing the insensitivity of planners to the needs of South -Campus-has--surfaced?" This incident is the proposal to pave our tennis courts below Hinton James Residence Hall and more stripping people's freedoms and treating their opinions as "sacrilege" than is the federal government sending my money to buy supplies for Nicaraguan contras or a warhead for a missile. Student Activities Fees are allocated by students who are elected by students. The fact that 14 of 22 Student Congress representatives favored full funding and only six favored full defunding of the CGLA should tell everyone how small Hood's self-proclaimed "major ity" is. One representative. Brock Dickinson (Dist. 13), had in his election platform the funding of the CGLA and won by the widest margin of all the contested races. On the other hand, Jim Wooten (Dist. 19), who ran on a platform of the defunding of the CGLA. won re-election by a slim margin over the third-place candidate in his two-seat district only after a manual recount. It's called democracy, and those who believe in the system and work through it, rather than through letters and threats to stop paying fees, find it generally does OK. If you feel persecuted, welcome to the club. That's the point of the CGLA. GUY LUCAS Senior Journalism l&yprte raQDDS THREE &TCOSE5- - V " 1 - I convert that space into a park ing area. The one .bright spot of the proposal was that they did feel the need to reimburse us in some way. They seem to think that adding two more courts to the ones at Cobb Residence Hall will make up for the destruction of eight courts at Hinton James. Besides the obvious difference between the numerical values of eight and two, there is a difference in the convenience for South Campus residents in the location of the courts. Even if eight courts were added on North Campus, we would still be forced to travel all the way up to Cobb. South Campus residents deserve the same convenience that North Cam pus has always enjoyed. Instead of taking away what we have, planners should be working to see how they could give South Campus residents more of the niceties presently enjoyed by the rest of UNC. JOHN RUBLE1N Freshman Chemistry The problem is obvious To the editor: It appalls me that it is actu ally stated as a purpose of the soon-to-be-formed Housing Advisory Boards hat this group will "gain support and cooper ation for the department's mission from all segments of the University community." That doesn't sound like a very appropriate task for a group that should be advising the vice chancellor about student needs and resident life. The Food Service Advisory Committee does not work to garner support for the Marriott Corp. Its job is to advise and make recommendations about how to improve the campus' food service. The vice chancel lor's Parking and Transporta tion Committee doesn't seek support for the Traffic Office. It makes recommendations about how to improve parking and transportation at UNC. The Department of Univer sity Housing by no means or stretch of the rational imagina tion has a monopoly on know ing how to improve residence life. Perhaps it's because the housing department has failed to earn the support of the University community that it has to invent a group that will support it. I think the problem here is obvious. RAY JONES Senior Journalism Political Science And have a nice day To the editor: Good morning. Here's an interesting item to begin your day. It has been estimated that the nations of the world spent around $900 billion on wea pons in 1 986. That breaks down to roughly $1.7 million a min ute, a new record. Have a nice afternoon. DAVID DOWNIE Graduate Political Science Letters policy The Daily Tar Heel welcomes reader comments, ideas and criticisms. We ask only that you follow a few simple guidelines in exchange for access to this unique public forum: B All letters and columns must he signed by the author, with a limit of two signatures per letter or column. B When submitting letters or columns, students should include the following: name, year in school, major, phone number and . the date submitted. Other members of the University community should give similar information. a All letters must be typed, double-spaced on a 60-space line, for ease of editing. A maximum of 250 words is optimal. B The DTH reserves the right to edit for clarity, vulgarity, disparity and verbositv. Sanford makes North Carolinians proud To the editor: 1 am writing in response to the letter "Sanford is an embarrassment" of April 10. I am a citizen of North Carolina who supported and voted for Sen. Terry Sanford last fall, and I am every bit as proud of him and as confident of his abilities now as I was then. His performance in Washing ton since being sworn in on Dec. 10 has been filled with success. In the first weeks of this 100th Congress, Sanford was appointed to the prestigious Foreign Relations Committee. As a member of this committee, it is his duty to explore the many aspects of American policy as it related to current issues. Yes, he did travel to Jamaica earlier this year to attend a conference on Soviet-American relations, an important aspect of our foreign policy. Yes, the senator also traveled to Central America (which, considering his position on the sub committee on the Western Hemisphere, is quite suitable). He spent six days in the area, visiting Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. In Nicaragua he met with foreign minister Miguel D'Escoto and vice-president Sergio Ramirez. In addition, he met with opposition leaders from both the Roman Catholic Church and an independent human rights commission. In Costa Rica, he attended a meeting with leaders of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, in which the president of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias Sanchez, presented a proposal for peace in Central America. The plan was well received, and when Sanford returned to Washington and presented the proposal in the form of a resolution on the floor of the Senate, his speech received a standing ovation and the resolution passed 97-1. 1 feel that efforts toward better relations between the Soviet Union and the United States and progress toward peace in Central America are meaningful causes, worthy of taxpayers' money. As for the recent controversy over the votes on the highway bill, it is important to remember that Sanford has two objec tives: one, to call attention to the allocation of funds to North Carolina and two, to ensure that the nation as a whole would receive a much-needed highway bill. Obviously, in the end, these objectives came into conflict. Because the bill initially passed the Senate by an overwhelming 79-17 (Sanford voting against it), it was fairly Obvious that the presidential veto would be, overridden. Therefore, the senator chose to continue to make his point that the bill was unfavorable to North Carolina by voting to sustain the veto. When the votes were counted. Sanford was in the position of either continuing to make his point by killing the bill or fulfilling his second objective and ensuring that the nation would have highway funds this year. Because this bill was the best deal that North Carolina could get this year, and because it was the only bill with any chance of passing in time to prevent suspension of construction and a loss of jobs, it had to be passed. Therefore, Sanford made a sound choice when he decided to reconsider his vote. And it was his decision. Sanford received no pressure from the Democratic leadership. He met with aides to discuss the situation, and it was then that he came to the conclusion that he would reconsider his vote. His arm was not, as Sen. Jesse Helms suggested, ". . . black and blue from all the political arm twisting." In his first five months as our senator, Sanford has served with perseverance, dedication and integrity. His commitment to North Carolina and the nation is strong. He is in no way an embarrassment, but a capable leader who represents us well, serving with a strength and wisdom of which we can all be proud. . V NANCY JOHNSON Freshman Political Science ' : - ' '
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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April 21, 1987, edition 1
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