Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Sept. 19, 1988, edition 1 / Page 12
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12The Daily Tar Heel Monday, September 19, 1988 ullj? Satlg ufar Mtzl 96th year of editorial freedom KAREN BELL, News Editor MATT BIVENS, Associate Editor KlMBERLY EDENS, University Editor JON K. RUST, Managing Editor Will Lingo, city Editor Kelly Rhodes, Arts Editor Cathy McHugh, Omnibus Editor Jean Lutes, 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 Students deserve a free ride . "Gee, isn't this new free bus service between North and South Campus at night a great idea?" So says the student who discovers that she no longer needs to shell out 25 cents for a safe trip back to South Campus after a night of hitting the books in Davis Library. But, while enjoying the free rides this semester, students should remember the favorite saying of administrators everywhere, stated most recently by Scott McClellan of Chapel Hill Tran sit: "There's no such thing as a' free lunch." The 25-cent fee for riding the L Route, which travels from the F-lot on Manning Drive to Boundary Street from 7 p,m. to midnight, hasn't really been eliminated; it is merely being paid by someone else. For this semester, that "someone else" is Student Government, the Residence Hall Association, the Department of University Housing and the transportation department. But the student organizations intend to withdraw the funding after this year, in hopes that the University will accept the burden of funding the free service. But the University hasn't promised to accept that burden, leaving the future of the free shuttle service in doubt. Providing "fare-free" service is not as simple as it sounds. Student organizations do not have enough money to take on the full operating costs of such a service. And even if administrators wanted to swallow the costs of the service, bureaucratic barriers would still exist. According to transportation officials, some fare system must be used if the adminis tration is to continue to receive federal funds. The fare money must come from somewhere. Locating that somewhere is the hard part. Making all students pay trans portation fees, as Duke University does to fund its free shuttle system, is a possibility. However, students who don't ride the bus would pay the same as frequent users. Although such a system could create resentment, it's an option that deserves to be considered North Campus residents could view the fees as payment for the luxury of living so close to their classroom buildings. Expecting the transportation offi cials to fund the system out of the goodness of their hearts is as unreal istic as it is unfair; the department would have to make up the difference by increasing rates for all services. Students deserve a free ride between North and South Campus, especially during late-night and early-morning hours. Students and administrators should start planning next year's free shuttle service now. Otherwise, the free ride will be over just when students start depending on it. Jean Lutes Don't rush into Greek life "Is the Greek system right for me?" Hundreds of UNC students ask themselves the question at the begin ning of each school year. Many undoubtedly make their decision without a true understanding of fraternities and sororities and their role in the University community. It is easy for a freshman in particular to form a misconception of social life at UNC. A student in an unfamiliar and seemingly threatening environ ment naturally seeks security, and the Greek system may appear to be the solution. But these students should avoid making a hasty decision. New students owe it to themselves to first explore the other social outlets this University offers. At many schools, the Greek system is so dominant that there are few social opportunities for non-Greeks. On these campuses, fraternities and sor orities are too influential. Students ' either join the system or spend four years outside the mainstream of campus social life. But this is not the case at UNC. While the Greek system is a substantial force, its influence is far from over bearing. Less than one-fourth of the student body is affiliated with social fraternities and sororities. Life does exist outside the Greek system. Stu dents here do have a choice. For non-Greeks, numerous social outlets are available. Residence halls and many other "organizations fre quently sponsor parties and serve as an excellent means to meet people and find a "niche" at Carolina. Several service fraternities, usually co-ed, attract a significant percentage of students. All-campuses and court parties, arguably the center of UNC social life, are open to all. And Chapel Hill nightlife, while admittedly lacking variety, still has a lot to offer. The Greek system here has a distinct position in the University community. It is large enough to provide social opportunities for all students, yet small enough so that it does not threaten the social independence of the rest of the student body. This balance must be upheld if we are to continue to benefit from the relationship. The Greek system at UNC can be a supplement to your years at Carol ina. If you decide it's not for you, however, . don't dismay. The social opportunities will still be there. We should feel fortunate that UNC is able to sustain such a balance between its Greek and non-Greek communities. Louis Bissette 4he last word 9 I know a dirty combination of three letters. It conjures up terrible images; it makes my stomach jump and my breath come a little faster. The acronym I'm speaking of is FTR." FTR means "For The Record." An FTR means someone at The Daily Tar Heel has goofed. When that happens, a correction must be run to set the record straight hence the name. On the editorial page, which is the responsibility of myself and the other associate editor, Laura Pearlman, FTRs run under the headline "We Goofed." But we still refer to them in jargon as FTRs. Mistakes. Screw-ups. I hate them. I know I speak for all the editors and writers when I say we hate to make mistakes. It's terribly embarrassing to screw up before an entire campus 20,000 times. In print. It also undermines our credibility, which is already suspect because we're student journalists. But student journalists or not. we want people to be able to say. "It has to be true I read it in my school newspaper." This is a lofty goal, and to achieve it we have to set high standards. Our reporters get three mistakes at the most before they're fired; and even one mistake, if it is careless, sloppy or serious, can spell the end of the DTH line for a budding journalist. Like all newspapers, we also have an entire portion of our staff the copy editors devoted to proofreading all stori:- Our news editors are in charge of the copy editors, who read every story several times, looking for grammar and spelling mistakes and figuring out things that simply don't make sense. Before the copy editors see a story, it has already been edited several times by a senior member of the staff a desk editor or an assistant desk editor. Despite this brigade of nitpickers, mistakes do slip through. Sometimes big, stupid, ugly-looking mistakes slip through. There could even be a typo in this column do you see one? Rest assured, we also see it by now. The moment an editor picks up a crisp new DTH and starts scanning it, perhaps with satisfaction at a job well done, all the lurking errors leap out. The story could be worthy of a. Pulitzer prize, with a captivating opening paragraph and a boatload of valuable information, but all well see is the sentence fragment flashing in neon lights across the page. On Friday, we made one of the worst mistakes on the back page I've ever seen. We ran an editorial discussing the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Consti titution. but it was actually the 201st. Needless to say, we feel awfully silly for not catching such an obvious mistake. . In the journalism school, professors subtract 50 points from any story with a misspelled name. At the DTH, we run a correction. Given a choice between the F and the FTR, 111 take the F every time. But of course, we have no choice if we did, we'd opt for perfection every time, instead of just striving for it. Matt Bivens Campaign '88: how about some specifics? TTn November, registered voters will go to the polls to elect the next president 11 of the United States. Republican George Bush and Democrat Michael Dukakis are the major candidates for the office, and each now has close to 50 days to convince the American public that he should be the next occupant of the White House. . I have followed both campaigns fairly closely, and I often get frustrated at the ridiculous rhetoric both parties use when dealing with the "American people." My grievances with the campaigns do not follow from the gaffes or misstatements both candidates may utter from time to time, although some subconscious mean ing may lie behind , them, but rather from their obvious and intentional inconsisten cies, half-truths and superfluous frothings. My first complaint is easily illustrated by each party at their respective conven tions. Each party apparently assumes that it has the morality market cornered, and that the other is inherently evil and wrong and generally consigned to hell.- At the Democratic Convention, the Reagan-Bush administration couldn't do a thing right. The only person with the respect to admit the Reagan-Bush administration did a few good things was of all people Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass). On the Republican end, Bush came out of the convention firing both barrels at Dukakis and the Democrats, blaming them for all the problems of the nation. Yet at the same convention, the Republicans quoted Democratic presidents John F. Stuart Hathaway I Spy Kennedy, Harry S. Truman and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Come on, guys! How can you condemn those "liberal Democrats" on one hand and 'suooort them with the other? . Half-truths have been popular in this campaign, particularly among the Repub licans. Does George Bush really believe that Mike Dukakis is not patriotic? That Dukakis does not love this country, the same country Dukakis defended in Korea? The Pledge of Allegiance "issue" has nothing, nothing to do with the presidential race. The bill Dukakis vetoed in Massa chusetts was unconstitutional; the Supreme Courts of Massachusetts and of the United States said so. Fully knowing this, Bush beat the drums of nationalism for weeks, drowning out the truth. Bush's campaign has since admitted that Dukakis did the right thing in vetoing the bill. The Democrats must share some of the blame for this issue-less campaign. Duka kis has proposed very little in terms of concrete programs, and trusts that voters will give him the benefit of the doubt. More specifics like his student aid proposal and less generalizations should be the first order of business for the Dukakis campaign. Bush, however, needs to find himself. If he has compromised his true beliefs as vice president for the last eight years, then let's hear what he wants to do. Alter supporting the president who wanted JqJ eliminate the Department of Education;- Bush now says he wants to be known the "education president." Whoopie-dcjja:: Will the real George Bush please stand up Bush's running mate, Sen. Dan Qua$f (R-Ind.), said recently that Dukakis' idel: of an agricultural policy was flowef$ growing in Harvard Yard. And wha Bush's idea of a policy? Flowers growing in the meadows of Yale? This stuff Hs disgusting. Both presidential candidates;? attended premier universities. Is there;! something wrong with this? Today's presidential campaigns are;", nothing like the first campaigns this; country saw; they're much more tame. For; I example, Thomas Jefferson and John; Adams had a particularly nasty campaign' in 1800. "Wife-beater, aldulterer, drunk;: ard, gambler, liar, spy and murderer" were popular campaign issues. Today, the candidates themselves;! engage, to a lesser degree, in the sarhi: irrelevant and dirty activities as th;e;I mudslingers 200 years ago. Bush anaS Dukakis are the leaders of their parties' candidates for the nation's highest office? and symbols of the American democratic;; ideal. They set the level of the debate, the! issues of the campaign and the degree jf ; their,, country's integrity. We can antf should demand that from them. Let's ajt do a better job at it. . .? Stuart Hathaway is a junior political, science and history major from Chariot Readers9 Forum Streaker photo hypocritical To the editor: Just exactly what kind of a paper is this, anyway? Would you please make up your mind about which side of the fence you wish to be on? I find it astonishing that the Daily Tar Heel could print an editorial condemning the football mike man for obscenity and vulgar ity ("Don't be crass; show some class") and then turn right around and print a photograph of the Lewis streakers on the front page of the Sept. 15 issue ("Running Bared".) The editorial that Matt Biv ens wrote for the Sept. 12 issue of the DTH put the mikeman down and implied that he was embarrassing UNC. Anyone who might have been offended by what he was saying probably was not paying attention any way it is not that hard to tune a voice out of your head. But how can a person ignore a vulgar, obscene photograph taking up roughly one-fourth of the front page? I think the DTH must surely be confused about where it stands on ob scene issues. The editorial about the mikeman followed by the photograph of the streakers reminds me of George Mark ham's column on hypocrisy. ANDREW BLANTON Freshman Applied Science Don't invite killers to UNC To the editor: With great disappointment I read that UNC's placement office has once again invited the CIA to campus to interview UHfWDYoo wakt ro see ME, ABOUT THIS 'Iff' jVmi Qczr c7Dr tt- ' wwr I -"Oi WlnrY . JErKAl AuJc r WELL NOW HOLT) A SC0ND UEfeE.. 1C0PS Afc 90PflDWv TKIS CALL. 1Tb GofJrOA , KEfc-r CRACKPOTS FROM GCTTiNGGPril 'AND KiLLN& TDJDtfT UKE TUE AAV HE Looked ATME WHEW HeSAttTCBCtfqfl 2 1 UNC students for careers in terrorism and assassination, with the oppportunities to meet world-famous drug dealers and to interfere in the internal, affairs of foreign countries. ' Dean of Students Frederic Schroeder refers to the right of the CIA to recruit on campus. He says it is not his place to "differentiate between which is a good organization and a bad organization." We are not talking about rights, we are talking about invitations in making a selection and offering an invitation to the CIA, the placement office certainly is using some differentiation procedure. What are their standards for offering an invi tation? Does an organization that' wants to recruit Carolina students to perform criminal acts deserve an invitation to campus? Those that believe the CIA is just another government agency, such as Health and Human Services, are woefully out of touch with reality. The abuses of the CIA have been proven to be standard operat ing procedure. Congress and some past U.S. presidents have made attempts to bring the CIA back , within the bounds of J: international law and ethical behavior, and, as the last eight years have evidenced, they have failed miserably. Some have justified bringing the CIA to campus on the grounds that, if the CIA hired some good Carolina students they would be a better organ ization. What a naive view. Do they really think that a few rotten Yankee apples spoiled the CIA barrel? I think the protests of the informed and caring UNC students against CIA recruitment on campus will go further toward reform ing the agency. Maybe if the CIA was offered fewer invita tions they could stay home and reflect on the cause of their unpopularity. DIANA McDUFFEE Director Social Sciences Data Library M AWA M AWT' t - The Daily Tar Heel welcomes reader'' comment and criticisms. When writing letters to the editor, please, follow these guidelines: z D All letters must be signed, by the author(s), with a limit of two signatures per letter. , Students should include, name, year in school, major,, phone number and home town. Other members of the University community should include similar information. '"' and double-spaced, for ease of editing. ; ,. B Place letters in the box marked "Letters to the Editor " outside the DTH office in the Student Union. B The DTH reserves the right to edit letters for space, clarity and vulgarity.. Remember, brevity is the soul. UJ Wll. The Rapture, Hatcher, hardships and crime "Every prediction we made 10 years ago has come into being. We're not going to get serious about the war on drugs until we get serious about dealing with our number one addicting drug. " Rep. Coy Privette, a Republican from Kannapolis, on the state policy of allowing liquor to be bought by the drink. una "A rising tide does not lift a boot with holes. If we are going to keep from creating an alienated underclass, we have to repair those holes. " George Autry, president of the Chapel Hill-based employment policy research firm MDC Inc., describing the unemployment situation. BBB "Ya know, this is a very weird night. It could go either way. " Arlo Guthrie to a sold-out crowd at the Carrboro ArtsCenter. B B B "The old saying, 'They don't rebuild, they reload, ' was pretty obvious. But our young guys hung in there and fought 'em. " Football coach Mack Brown on UNC's 28-0 loss to Oklahoma. BBB "East Franklin Street has traditionally been considered the 'golden block, ' and there has been a preconception that all Franklin Street merchants are million aires. " Mark Fisher, secretary of the Downtown Chapel Hill Association and owner of Small World Travel. Week in Quotes B B "It's getting more attention than it deserves." Father Joseph Vetter, director of communications for the Catholic Diocese of Raleigh, on "The Last Temptation of Christ." "After about 7 p.m., we 're going to start paying close attention to who's here and who's not. After all, there are only a few spaces left. " Chris Bowman, an agitated junior waiting in line for a hardship parking permit. "Increasing tuition is a thought the chancellor has had, but he is aware that this is not a wealthy state." Dennis O'Connor, acting provost, on Paul Har din's proposal to increase tuition. BBB "I'm a pastor of one of the most conservative churches in Chapel Hill. No one that I know of takes it seriously. " Jim Abraham, pastor of the Chapel Hill Bible Church, on Rapture BBB. " told them that I support Eddie in his decision because I think he had legitimate reasons for not turning himself in." Student activist Dale McKinley on his statements before the grand jury investiT. gating the disappearance of Eddie Hatcher,. Hatcher is accused, along with Timothy, Jacobs, of holding a Lumberton news7 paper staff hostage. He disappeared Aug, J 31, the day his bond was revoked. (- ' BBB " , "He never had that kind of guts. He wouldn't kill a fly or a mosquito." Justine Bush, on her husband James Henry Bush Jr., who has been arrested in Liberia I for treason. f BBB ; "A lot of times I don't have cash on me to buy snacks with. " David Kessel, a freshman distraught over the removal of . . i j t i r: C. '. tne meai cara service irum inc ru oiop. , BBB... "Our obligation is to reserve space for liberal studies (in the larger universities)'. It can be done, and it should be done:" Darryl Gless, associate dean of General College and organizer of the education symposium scheduled for Sept. 16-18. BBB " makes no sense not to warn people. I'm not letting the students run into any danger. To me that's defeating the purpose of security." Sgt. Rodney Carter of University police on the need to inform students about.campus crime. Compiled by associate editor Laura Pearlman.
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Sept. 19, 1988, edition 1
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