10The Daily Tar Heel Wednesday, February 10, 1988
(Har Mni
95 th year of editorial freedom
Innocents housing the guilty
Imagine:
You are stand
ing in line in Stu
board
dent Stores when Opinion
the manager locks
the front doors. "A calculator is
missing," he cries. "Unless the person
who stole it confesses now, each one
of you in here will have to pay part
of its cost."
The crowd of students grumbles.
You shout, "Why should we pay if we
didn't do anything? What if the thief
stole it an hour ago and isn't even here
anymore?"
The manager shakes his head and
guards the door. "You will all have
to pay, right now!"
This scenario has been exaggerated
to Big Brother proportions, but is not
too far removed from the situation in
UNC dorms. Under the housing
contract, if a hall or common area is
damaged in any way, every student on
the hall must pay for the damage if
the true culprit does not come forward.
This policy raises a number of
questions. First, it is reminiscent of
fifth-grade classrooms where every
student sits fidgeting after school for
the actions of one playground bully.
Fining every resident for the actions
of one individual is simply unfair.
Justice is not served by punishing the
anocent along with the guilty.
Especially if the guilty are not even
Jaybirds should fly the coop
The plovers and the nudists are
quarreling, and no solution seems to
be in sight.
Actually, the piping plovers aren't
handling their side of the dispute by
themselves. The battle centers on
Moonstone Beach, a one and a half
mile strip of sand in Kingston, R.I.,
which is the only public nude beach
in New England. And since there are
only four plovers who reside on
Moonstone, and there are thousands
of nudists who use the beach, the
plovers have enlisted the aid of the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
But what exactly is a plover?
According to Webster's, the word
"plover" derives from the Old French
plovier, which means rainbird and
which in turn derives from the Latin
pluviar. A plover is a limicoline (shore
inhabiting) bird of the family Charad
riidae, especially those with a short tail
and a bill like that of a pigeon. Plovers,
then, are pigeons that really like the
beach.
Unfortunately, piping plovers are
also an endangered species, and there
are only 550 couples left on the
Atlantic coast. The problem should be
obvious. The plovers love the beach,
live on the beach, and want their
children to live on the beach. But the
nudists need a place to fulfill their
quest for the elusive all-around tan.
The Daily Tar Heel
Editorial Writers: Matt Bivens, Brian McCuskey, Laura Pearlman and James Surowiecki.
Editorial Assistants: Gary Greene, David Lagos and Mark Leeper.
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senior writers. Juliellen Sarver, wire editor. Brian Long, assistant business editor.
Sports: Chris Spencer and Jim Muse, assistant sports editors. James Surowiecki, senior writer. Robert D'Arruda,
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Features: Jo Lee Credle, Grier Harris, Jim Mock, Corin Ortlam, Leigh Pressley, Carole Southern, Ellen Thornton,
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Production: Bill Leslie and Stacy Wynn. Rita Galloway, Leslie Humphrey, Stephanie Locklear and Tammy Sheldon,
production assistants.
Printing: The Chapel Hill Newspaper.
Jill Gerber, Editor
Amy Hamilton, Managing Editor
SALLY PEARSALL, News Editor
KRISTEN GARDNER, University Editor
KlMBERLY EDENS, University Editor
SHARON KEBSCHULL, State and National Editor
Leigh ann Mcdonald, aty Editor
MIKE BERARDINO, Sports Editor
Felisa Neuringer. Business Editor
HANNAH DRUM, Features Editor
Elizabeth Ellen , Arts Editor
Charlotte Cannon, Photography Editor
CATHY McHUGH, Omnibus Editor
present. Dorm security is minimal, and
nothing prevents a vandal from
entering a dorm, doing his dirty work
and escaping. The residents can't
produce the criminal when asked,
because he doesn't live there. As a
result, they pay for damage for which
they have absolutely no responsibility.
On an exaggerated level, this is like
asking a robbery victim to pay the
police for their trouble.
Furthermore, it is not the respon
sibility of the dorm residents to patrol
their hallways. Students are here to
study, not to police. They should take
care of their rooms, but cannot be held
responsible for areas that are open to
any drunk with a can of spray paint.
The real crime is that the housing
contract is a very one-sided document.
Students who want to live in dorms
do not agree to the vandalism clause
so much as bow to it. Administrators
would argue that if a student doesn't
like it, he can live elsewhere, but off
campus housing is often not practical
for freshmen. And even in an apart
ment or private house, the landlord
must take formal legal action to receive
damage compensation from his
tenants. The compensation is not
assumed.
Until the housing contract is revised,
dorm residents will have no choice but
to assume guilt as a group for the
actions of an irresponsible individual.
Now, since the plovers don't wear
clothes (due no doubt to the death of
domestic industry), one might think
the nudists would welcome the birds
with open arms, so to speak. The
problem, though, isn't the nudists so
much as it is the animals they bring
with them. Last year, heartless carni
vores searching for garbage cast away
by the nudists wiped out eight plover
eggs and forced the birds out of their
homes.
That's why the Wildlife Service
wants to close the beach for the
summer. The nudists say shutting
down Moonstone will cost the state
$6.5 million in lost revenue. They also
claim the plovers are merely an excuse
to remove them from the beach. But
the state originally bought Moonstone
to protect wildlife. That purchase
represented an implicit, if not explicit,
contract with the plovers, wherein the
state promised to let the species
flourish.
The advent of the nudists has
endangered that promise, has stripped
the plovers of the opportunity to watch
their children spread their wings and
leave the nest. Perhaps the nudists, as
they claim, do have a First Amend
ment right to walk sans accoutrements.
But that right is overruled by a more
pressing concern, by the right of little
plovers to live. James Surowiecki
Painful straggles blind us to beauty
Wi
'hen a 24-year-old woman less
than a year out of college pub
lishes her first novel, voune and
aspiring literati take notice. When that
woman is a recent graduate of your
university and the novel depicts life at
college, the novelist and her book are liable
to become the talk of the town. Garret
Weyr, an honors graduate of UNC's
Creative Writing Program, is the woman
who has Chapel Hill buzzing with the
words "Pretty Girls."
Weyr is hot. A lengthy essay in the
February issue of Glamour and a recent
appearance on "The Today Show" are
surely the first of what Crown Publishers
hope will be an extended publicity cam
paign. After recent best sellers chronicling
the anomic youth culture of Los Angeles
and New York, Crown is betting the
novelty of Weyr's Southern setting will
make "Pretty Girls" a hit, and so has
ordered a remarkable first printing of
20,000 copies.
For local residents and recent farflung
alumni, however, the novel holds the
special allure of being the story of our
Chapel Hill lives and not their Los Angeles
lives. How are we seen by one of our own?
For those who knew Weyr and her
friends, there is an undoubted initial
interest, even insidious pleasure, in reading
the novel as a roman a clef and trying to
discern the real people on whom the
characters are based. Whom does Weyr
lambast and lampoon? Where does she
hurt feelings, even the score or show
surprising and sympathetic insight?
All readers, however, finally come to
consider the story's interest in itself, of
these young people supposedly not so
different from, if not ourselves, then those
around us. If the characters seem both
unloved and unlovable, and strained to the
limit of their nerves, an explanation is at
hand. Over the course of the novel's writing
and rewriting, Weyr sustained both her
Mill waste
perfectly safe
To the editor:
I feel that Laura Pearlman's
editorial about the Champion
Paper Mill was very misleading
("The river of their discontent,"
Feb. 5).
Champion Paper has been
operating in Canton for the
past 80 years. The only "waste"
Champion puts in the Pigeon
River below the mill is wood
particles. It is not toxic. In fact,
the water is safe for human
consumption. Downstream,
cows and other animals drink
the water. Vegetation grows in
and around the river. For many
years, farmers have used it to
irrigate their crops. The fish
that live in the river are edible,
contrary to what Pearlman
writes.
Pearlman also says, ". . .
laborers fear that a plant clos
ing would irreparably damage
the town's economy." If Cham
pion Paper is forced to close,
it would be disastrous not only
for Canton, but for all of
western North Carolina.
Champion is the top employer
west of Charlotte. Besides its
direct employees, it is also
responsible for the welfare of
many sawmills and loggers all
over the region.
Pearlman writes, "Instead,
Canton should develop a tour
ism industry." Tourism has
already been developed as
much as possible in western
North Carolina. Canton is
located in a fairly populous
area, making it an unlikely
choice for vacationers. People
who visit the mountains travel
farther west to the Great Smo
key Mountains National Park
in Swain County, or they go
to Tennessee.
Pearlman fails to mention
that waste is dumped into the
Pigeon River in other places
downstream. In Newport,
Tenn., where citizens are
screaming, "Close Champion,"
raw waste is dumped at several
sites. The mill is clearly not the
culprit in this situation.
Champion has met guide
lines set by the Environmental
Protection Agency again and
y
Catholic Church favors women's rights
To the editor:
Linda van den Berg did a fine job in
her feature on Rosemary Radford Ruether
("Theologian focuses on rights of women
in Catholic Church," Feb. 8), but I would
like to question her style, if not her
objectivity, in two passages of her article.
Van den Berg writes that ". . . Ruether
is undoubtedly best known for her work
in encouraging women to realize and fight
their ongoing oppression in the Catholic
Church." By writing what is clearly
Ruether's opinion without the use of
quotation marks or an editorial disclaimer,
van den Berg tacitly states her agreement.
But in fact, many other theologians, not
to mention many lay men and women,
would disagree that the church oppresses
women at all.
A second example was the statement
Readers' Foramm
Louis Corrigan
Staff Columnist
parents' divorce and, at age 20, a stroke
paralyzing the left side of her body. During
the slow process of recovery involving
endless visits to the physical therapist,
Weyr endured a strain that even her friends
could not realize. Such unusual troubles,
however, did not mean Weyr was freed
from the normal social, sexual and
academic problems afflicting most college
students.
Yet, just as we are interested to know
what the travel guide "Let's Go" says about
our hometown, so too are we anxious to
hear what Weyr says about the places and
faces that we call home.
Like Hemingway's Paris in "A Moveable
Feast," the Chapel Hill of "Pretty Girls"
unfolds with names of real places where
the characters eat, drink, make love and
just hang out. The novel includes a fair
catalog of local landmarks: The Pit, Kenan
Stadium, Molly McGuire's, Spanky's,
Breadmen's, La Residence, Morrison,
Franklin Street and Carr Street for a start.
And Alex, one of the book's central
characters (a New Yorker on a "Bullfoot"
scholarship), works as an arts writer for
The Daily Tar Heel.
There are passages of particular note.
While sitting in The Pit amidst preachers
and sorority rush banners, "Alex feels that
there are a hundred life-styles streaming
past her that she is missing: dark, exotic
bohemians and kelly-green debutantes." A
later comparison of Morrison's lobby to
the Port Authority bus terminal rings clear
and true.
Yet, in marked contrast to Hemingway's
description of Paris (a city he loved), Weyr
captures surprisingly few of these concrete
particulars that make a locale live. If the
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again. Technology does not
exist that would enable the mill
to produce crystal-clear water.
But Champion officials think a
solution can be implemented
over a five-year period, and are
willing to spend up to $200
million to modernize the plant
and clean up the river. The mill
must not close it is vital to
the economic survival of west
ern North Carolina.
It is time to open our eyes
and get a clear view of the
picture. With all the concern
about our natural resources, we
must not forget the most
important one of all: our
people.
CHARLENE HOGUE
Junior
Administrative Justice
Political Science
Non Sequitur
is nonsensical
To the editor:
The Non Sequitur author
has produced yet another unin
telligible abomination ("Send
ing out postcards from para
dise," Feb. 9). Enough is
enough. Non Sequitur has the
potential to be a space for truly
valuable creative expression.
Instead, DTH readers are usu
ally confronted with an idiotic
stream of pseudo-intellectual
claptrap which few, if any, can
bear to read through the first
paragraph. The most recent
effort can be summed up as a
nonsensical, uninteresting
miasma of hopelessly oblique
literary allusions. Not unlike
others featured in the past, it
displays no glimmer of either
style or substance.
Editor's note
Last week, a person
falsely identifying himself as
a Daily Tar Heel editorial
writer called student activist
Dale McKinley. The caller
falsely informed McKinley
that the contra aid bill had
passed in Congress, and
asked for his reactions.
Last weekend, a person
identifying himself as the
editorial writer called
students for "a random poll"
about the upcoming student
body president election. The
caller finished by informing
the students of his poll
results so far, apparently in
that Ruether was "shocked and repulsed
by the church's lack of justice" after a
history professor told her that the church
had not opposed slavery or serfdom in the
Middle Ages. But van den Berg did not
make it clear that the alleged "lack of
justice" was merely Ruether's perception
of a problem described by a third party
who was quite removed from the situation.
Indeed, van den Berg aggravated this fault
by beginning a new paragraph with this
remarkable revelation about the evils of
the medieval church.
i agree that stereotypical attitudes do
frustrate many women seeking their role
in society. But such prejudices are not the
official position of the Catholic Church
and are actually quite common within
many avowedly egalitarian institutions.
The fact that some members of an
travelog aspect of the novel (the New
Yorker's encounter with a Southern
university) interests both local and cosmo
politan readers and of course, it is but
one element of the book it also fails
to hold them.
The single most striking quality of
Chapel Hill is that it is pleasing to a
surprising variety of people. The physical
campus often seems like a dreamer's vision
of Arcadia. To read Thomas Wolfe's
description of Chapel Hill is to see, breathe
and feel a still present beauty that, sadly,
does not make it into Weyr's novel.
Perhaps the inspired "aloneliness" of a
young man is better suited for such
awareness. But though fiction need present
neither edifyingly happy lives or the tired
phrases of born and bred Tar Heels, it
seems there should be a place for beauty
in a novel: for a clean, well-lighted Waffle
Shop with attentive and considerate
waitresses who during more than 300
breakfasts have allowed me quietly to
regain consciousness; for that sticky-sweet,
on-linoleum-tiled-floors smell of beer
wafting out the door of my Old East tower;
for Dexter Romweber, guitar in hand and
grizzly chops on cheeks, scowling and
crooning to our shaking legs; for hoops
against the backdrop of that Carrboro
sunset that so often makes our chest sink
with awe; for the Franklin Street record
stores, the friendly one and the unfriendly
one; for the night spent rolling around in
the Arboretum after a fraternity party.
It seems a pity to write about Chapel
Hill and leave out the things you love. But
Weyr's characters live under a strain that
permits no room for love or beauty. That
indeed seems to be much of the point.
Louis Corrigan is an Evening College
student from Atlanta, Ga.
Either usher in someone who
can make some enlightening (or
entertaining) use of Non Sequi
tur's purposeful lack of restrict
tion, or free up the column's
space for something more val
uable, like printing Intramural
ping-pong scores.
ROBIN BOLANDE
Sophomore
International Studies
an effort to persuade them
to jump on the bandwagon
for one candidate.
Neither the editorial
writer nor the DTH was
involved with this poll. The
DTH is not, nor will be,
taking a poll for the Feb. 16
elections.
Letters policy
The Daily Tar Heel
welcomes reader comments,
ideas and criticisms.
All letters and columns
must be signed by the
author, with a limit of two
signatures per letter or
column. Students should
submit name, year in school.
institution subscribe to opini6ns of dub
ious intellectual merit does not reflect on
the institution itself.
In any case, such attitudes should not
be replaced by more stereotypical attitudes
about some patriarchal church run by a
bunch of old men in Rome. It has been
unequivocally clear in published docu
ments that the official church is very much
concerned about women's rights, as well
as the rights of all people. To attack the
church on the basis of perceived injustices
or in terms of one's own expectations is
to ignore the evidence and to toss a red
herring into the discussion of true equality.
SCOTT CARSON
Department of Romance Languages