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12The Daily Tar Heel Wednesday, September 14, 1988 if? Satly ular Mnl 96th year of editorial freedom Jean Lutes, Editor KAREN BELL, News Editor MATT BlVENS, Associate Editor KlMBERLY EDENS, University Editor JON K RUST, Managing Editor Will Lingo, c$ty Editor Kelly Rhodes, Arts Editor CATHY McHUGH, Omnibus Editor KAARIN TlSUE, News Editor LAURA PEARLMAN, Associate Editor KRISTEN GARDNER, University Editor SHARON KEBSCHULL, State and National Editor MIKE BERARDINO, Sports Editor LEIGH ANN McDONALD, Features Editor KlM DONEHOWER, Design Editor DAVID MINTON, Photography Editor , Discrimination disgraces UNC You get to a point in life, you "either fight or you accept life the way it is. And I can't accept life the way it is . . . because it's just not right" Keith Edwards After almost a year of getting the runaround from University officials, campus police officer Keith Edwards has decided to go over their heads. She is taking her charges of racial and sexual discrimination to the N.C. State Personnel Commission. Edwards, along with seven other officers, filed a grievance last Sep tember against the University for discrimination in hiring. The grievance stemmed from promotions in which some officers were passed over in favor of several other officers with less seniority. Now, she complains that Chancellor Paul Hardin upheld an earlier decision against the officers without first hearing a significant portion of her testimony. In July, UNC's Employee Grievance committee ruled in favor of the University. The three-member panel contended that there was no sexual or racial favoritism involved in the reassignment of police officials. The panel's decision had to be confirmed by the chancellor. All testimony was sent to Chancellor Hardin, whom Edwards contends was unfamiliar with the situation. "Chancellor Fordham was here all last year when this was going on, but he did not do anything," Edwards said. "They (the panel members) gave the report to a person who did not know anything except for what they gave him. He only heard one side." The panel's actions in this case are ; at best questionable Edwards' complaint was not groundless. The University police have hired only one minority female in the past 14 years. The panel was required to send a transcript of all its proceedings to Hardin, but instead chose to briefly summarize the officers' testimony. Outside of mentioning her name in the opening paragraph, the report devotes only 12 lines to Edwards' testimony. Working from such biased informa tion, Chancellor Hardin had little choice but to uphold the committee's decision. When queried about the matter, William Campbell, chairman of the panel and a professor at the Institute of Government, responded: "We do the best we can. As far as I'm aware nothing was omitted." Chancellor Hardin could not be reached for comment. The damaging effects of the panel's decision are already being felt among Edwards' peers. While often forced to put their lives in danger, they feel they have little chance of being promoted. Morale, Edwards contends, is lower than ever. Now the matter will be left to the state. To Edwards, this struggle is merely one battle in a lifelong war against prejudice and bigotry. For the University, it has so far been an embarrassment. With luck, Edwards will find her fate in the hands of more principled examiners. ' Dave Hall Student Congress wants you What's a noor student like vou to do? The path from your residence hall to campus is under water and you have to swim to class. You spend a fortune in student activities fees each semester and you are dissatisfied with where the money going. You want to have a campus wide party in your area, and you need someone to help plan it. About half of the students at UNC can turn to a Student Congress representative for help with these and other concerns. What happens to the other half? Where do they turn? The answer is nowhere, because right now, 12 out of 29 Student Congress seats are vacant. One area in which students are sadly underrepresented is South Campus, where more than 2,000 students live. Now there is only one representative for all four residence halls on South Campus. Also, five graduate districts have empty seats. Student Congress Speaker Neil Riemann says graduate districts are notoriously difficult to fill. Problems arise because graduate students are often too busy to bother with .student government and they eckmg in t It could be down in your basement. It used to be frightening to think that the Boogeyman or alien body snatchers were waiting quietly for unsuspecting victims in the crawl spaces beneath the house. Now these fictional fears have been replaced by a very real danger underneath our feet, radon gas. It's invisible and odorless, but it can kill you just the same. Radon is a naturally occurring gas that forms as uranium breaks down in the soil. Normally, the gas dissipates harmlessly in the atmosphere. How ever, it can seep directly into homes through the foundation and remain trapped there. Over time, the concen trations become hazardous. It is estimated that radon exposure is responsible for 20,000 lung cancer deaths each year. In a recent Environmental Protec tion Agency study of seven states, radon levels were found to be much higher than had . been previously estimated. In some states, more than one in four homes were found to contain levels greater than the max- Ch have less interaction with each other than undergraduates, Riemann said. The congress is most concerned about filling the empty graduate seats. This is where everyone on campus comes in. Whether you choose to run for a seat in your district or to campaign for a candidate or just to vote, you will make a difference. Until you get involved, however, you can't complain about what's not getting done. The qualifications for a Student Congress representative are simple to meet, "A person should be willing to devote time to the job," Reimann said. "They should be pragmatic enough to not want to change the world, yet ambitious enough to know not only what they want to do, but how to get it done efficiently.'' Petitions for congressional seats are available and should be turned in by 5 p.m., Sept. 5. So if you're sick of swimming to class and tired of not knowing what happens to your hard earned dollars, stop complaining. Do yourself and your district a favor and run for Student Congress. Laura Pearlman asement imum safe exposure recommended by the government. Living in this envir onment for an extended period of time is comparable to having 200 to 300 chest X-rays a year. More than 200,000 of the 15 million homes studied were found to have levels that were significantly higher than maximum safe exposure. In these cases, exposure levels were greater than those found in uranium mines and comparable to smoking an entire pack of cigarettes daily. Preliminary research indicates that radon exposure is a national problem, but nationwide testing is necessary to accurately assess the situation. For those who do not want to wait for the government to take action, a $10 device is available to determine radon levels. If dangerous levels are found, homeowners can make their homes safe by providing additional ventilation and sealing cracks in basement walls. Until these steps are taken, stay out of the basement. Bill Yelverton he b From Shakespeare to Freud in a Porsche ften I wonder what kids our age did to vent their youthful frustra tion, back before the time of cool guys like Leif Garrett and Andrew Ridge- ley, back before Kerouac, balinger, and L. Ron Hubbard, long before movies like Sorority House Massacre" came along. I guess around the Paleolithic era, delin quent Neanderthal teens hung out in bad caves and smoked funny ferns in Roman times, I can see a few college-age decurions in a vomitorium discussing the best way to skin Christians in Elizabethan England, post-pubescent courtiers swapped plague gossip ("Didst thou see Miles yestermorn, friend? Aye, 111 bet a shilling those rashes be not saddle sores But above all, these guys had a real sense of art, folklore and storytelling; they were kept riveted to their seats by songs that told of their father's battles, and plays that " depicted the social, and moral inequities of the time. Now we have no more bards to sing of brave warriors, and the folklore that links us to our ancestry is all but dead. So what is the new grand medium that hits us at the primal level, the one thing. we still travel for miles to experience? What is Shakespeare's replacement? That's right, the very glop that wafts out of your FM radio day and night. When Noah Webster's grandson or grand-nephew, or gardener or whoever it is that carries on the proud and no doubt thrill-filled tradition of updating the dictionary every few years took the giant leap for mankind by inserting the term "rock'n'roll" next to robusta coffee m his dictionary, I doubt he knew how hard he hit the nail on the head. "Rock'n'roll," he says with a gleam in his eye, "is a form of popular music usually played on electronically amplified instru ments, characterized by persistent heavy beats and much repetition of simple phrases." Of course, rock'n'roll isn't supposed to be a forum for deep philo sophical musings, it's supposed to be fun, which is great for us young ms but usually an excuse for the worst verbal art ever to be dished up on the planet. So what's a columnist to do but list some of the worst song lyrics in his collection? Actually, this is a lot harder than last semester's list of Top-40 crud, because thinking of bad song lyrics is like shoveling snow in a blizzard the minute you think of one, twelve more come to mind. 10. "All I Need" Jack Wagner This is the only song bad enough to make it to both lists. With heavy heart do I reprint its lyrics: Ian Williams Wednesday's Child This may be a chance we're takin' but it always comes down to this If this isn't love we're makin' then I don't know what it is. 9. "I Cant Hold On" Squeeze I pour the milk into the cat's saucer, I'm John Wayne as I'm walking towards her She'd like to dance, but not this minute she's the fish I'd love to filet ... Now we all know what you have to do to make "minute" and "filet" rhyme, and I'm afraid Squeeze did just that: Notice that this song was not a big hit in France. 8. "Slide it In" - Whitesnake David Coverdale and the boys offering their touching ode to family planning: I know what you want, I know what you're looking for V ' know what you want from me, but I'm gonna give you more. I'm gonna slide it in, right to the top Slide it in, ain 't never gonna stop. 7. "Horse With No Name" America You know I've been through the desert on a horse with no name It felt good to be out of the rain In the desert, you can't remember your name Cause there ain't no one for to give you no pain These guys write like that, and they finance a yacht I write like that, and they kick me out of the third grade. " 6. (You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman Aretha Franklin When my soul was in the lost and found, you came along to claim it I didn't know what was wrong with me until your kiss helped me name it . ... Why stop there, Aretha? How about "When my cat was in the city pound, you came along to maim it?" Where's my rhyming dictionary? 5. "I Want to Know What Love Is" Foreigner YouVe just returned from Aurora's, your date is a cute brunette from Wilmington with a bow in her hair and a dazzling smile.. You open the car door for her and, arm in arm, you escort her gently to the Cobb 1 entrance. She looks up at you in the shy moment that precedes the goodbye kiss, and you feel yourself adrift in her radiance. "I want to know what love is," you stammer, "Jeanette, I ... I want you to show me . . ." Yeah, right. 4. "Manic Monday" The Bangles It's just another manic Monday, wish it were Sunday . Cuz that's my fun-day, my I-don't-have- to-run day. Prince wrote this song, ylcnow, a man who had already proven himself with such masturbatory classics as "Darling Nikki" and "Jack U Off." Maybe even he was too embarrassed to sing this one himself. 3. "Got Me Where You Want Me" The Romantics . Fresh off their frat-rock hit "What I Like About You," lead singer Coz Canler rounds up the boys and declares, "Hey dudes, I think IVe come up with the worst lyric of our short-lived and fruitless careers!" He shows them the napkin he wrote them on: Little girl, yer such a tease every time ya aim to please Checkin' out the other fellas ya make me mad, ' Ya make me jealous . . . 2. "Love Gun" - Kiss And who out there didn't go through a massive Kiss phase around 1977? Mine only lasted for about five minutes, but it was long enough to remember their subtle mastery of a 10-year-old's libido: I really love you baby, I love what youe got . Let's get together, we can get hot! No more tomorrow baby, no place to rim You pull the trigger on my love gun! 1. "Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car" Billy Ocean I can imagine Freud driving a red Porsche through the streets of Vienna with pal Gustav Jung sitting shotgun. A hot buxom Austrian babe waltzes out of a cheese shop, and Sigmund's id gets the best of him. "Hey ' you!" he shouts, "Get outta my dreams, and get into my car!" Actually, I cant imagine that at all. To quote my little brother, "This song reminds me of ever ything that is wrong with popular music today. Now before I have rock purists accusing me of being a pseudo-intellectual bastard harping on an art form that has raised our social consciousness, let me say that I agree but that most rock songs say nothing to me except how bored and oversexed my friends and I are. Besides, if I weren't a pseudo-intellectual bastard, I probably wouldnt have a column. Ian Williams is a senior music and psychology major from Los Angeles who actually isn't, oversexed at all. Readers9 Foiriiim Drop-add rule wastes time To the editor. Why do the students have to waste their time, the time of advisers and the time of other departmental employees just to have a drop-add form stamped and signed? I could understand it if a student's record really needed to be reviewed to make sure there would be no problem with dropped or added classes. However, in many instances this does not appear to be the case. Last week during the regular drop-add period, there was a person in the Arts and Sciences department doing nothing but stamping and signing drop-add forms. The only thing this person required was an ID and proof of registration, although I dont understand why proof of registration is needed if you are turning in a drop card with your name on it. This stamping seems unnecessary. This week, a departmental stamp and signature are still required, but you must first be seen by an adviser. I was given my folder (which I believe to be. a careless way to handle records) and told to have a seat and wait for an adviser. No adviser was given my name, nor the names of the other students waiting for the same reason. I finally walked into an adviser's office and asked if he would stamp, my form. This adviser stamped and signed my form without even looking at "my folder. The adviser didnt even really ask me about the classes. Modifying the policy would eliminate a lot of headaches and save time for both advisers and students. It could be changed to include just fresh men and sophomores, while allowing juniors and seniors to seek out an adviser if they feel they need one. By the time a student is a junior or senior, he or she usually knows what is necessary anyway. BLANCHE FISHER Senior Interdisciplinary Studies Remember the caribou To the editor Your Sept 9 issue included the remarks of a guest writer (Marcus Higi) advocating oil exploration for Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope of Alaska. The writer touts the income that may result from exploiting this barren waste. If I am not mistaken, yielding land is not the issue and migratory caribou is. Again, if I am not mistaken, oil cannot be sought except by disrupting important breeding grounds; no breeding grounds, no caribou. The writer men tions the key point not at all. WILLIAM BROWN Graduate Economics We goofed Monday's editorial, "Get enraptured with the issues," misspelled former NA SA scientist Edgar Whisenant's name. The editorial also incorrectly stated Whisenant's prediction. He predicted that World War III will begin on Oct. 4, 1988, not on Oct. 5, as was reported. The DTH regrets the errors. a All letters, and columns must be signed by the author, with a limit of two signatures 6E-AU-TI-RJL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD.. 1 I ' - V A BE-AJ-TI-FUL ' I DAY FOR k NEI6U60&, '. ,-0r WOULD you- .!.... (6rj ee mine ? All A . c T2 4y ' MAY&E DROP- ADO l IS A GOOD OPTION Oukak-eyed ideas hazardous to U.S. To the editor Dave Hall's editorial "Bush makes wild promises" (Sept. 2) demands a two-fold rebuttal. The recession of 1982 was the result of the disasters of the Carter years finally making their way down to Main Street, USA. When Carter left office, the prime lending rate was 21 percent, making the financing of economic expansion impossible. Thus, the economy went into recession until inflation came under control and the Federal Reserve Board lowered benchmark inflation rates. When Carter entered office, his self proclaimed "misery index" (inflation and unemployment) was 13. When he left, his legacy was a misery index of 21. Now, this index is at 9.1. Oh, and dont worry about a 5.4 to 5.6 percent unemployment rate, the ideal is five percent. One hundred percent employment would mean no new jobs are being created and nobody is looking for advancement. Take Econ 10 this is discussed during the first week of classes. If Hall "had counted the number of Libyan-sponsored' terrorist acts perpe trated since the U.S. attack on'Khadafy and company, he would have come up with zero. This result could hardly label the expedition embarrassing. The second part of the rebuttal is a friendly reminder of Mike Dukakis' promises, like his 1974 promise not to raise taxes in Massachusetts. He kept this one by not only endorsing, but authoring the largest tax increase in state history. . , Dukakis promises to be an environmentally-minded president. How ever, his proposal for cleaning up Boston Harbor the filthiest in the nation, with more than four billion gallons of polluted waste dumped into it every day was to send some of the sewage off the coast of New Jersey to wash up oh its shores. Dukakis promises to "do for America what he did for Massachusetts." Does this include allowing first-degree murderers free on weekends where they rob, rape and kill again? Does it mean increasing federal . spending at three times the current rate, as Massachusetts spending has done during Dukakis' present administration? Does it mean weakness in defense? The consequen- . ces of such weakness include: World War . I under Woodrow Wilson, World War II under Franklin Roosevelt, the Korean War under Harry Truman, the Cuban Missile Crisis under John Kennedy, the Vietnam War under Lyndon Johnson and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan under Jimmy Carter. All these events began under dovish Democratic administrations, and if you examine the list carefully, every Demo cratic president of the 20th century is represented. Does it mean falling out of the longest sustained economic expansion in history? Last year, Massachusetts ranked 33rd in economic growth out of the 50 states. The promises of Campaign 'SS: if George Bush keeps a modest number of his, we can look forward to more jobs, peace and growth. Clearly, we cannot afford to give Michael Dukakis the opportunity to keep his. , CHARLES HELD Carrboro
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Sept. 14, 1988, edition 1
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