10The Daily Tar Heel Wednesday, October 12,
Uaily
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, Gty Editor
Kelly Rhodes, Am Editor
CATHY McHUGH, Omnibus Editor
DAVID MINTON,
Putting UNC students on hold
Today, the
195th anniversary """
of the laying of the D 0 ard
STST-Sr option
appreciate the
University's past, enjoy its present and
contemplate its future.
As the thousands of folding chairs
that stretch from South Building to
Wilson Library attest, a key figure in
that future, Paul Hardin, will be
formally installed as chancellor today.
In the midst of the throng of faculty,
administrators, students and visiting
dignitaries, a reporter from this
newspaper will scurry about.
That reporter is lucky. He or she
will be assured of getting quotes from
Hardin because the chancellor is
making a public appearance. Chances
are, if that reporter had to ask the
chancellor a question about a policy
or an issue, there would be no quote,
no answer, no response.
In his three months here, the
chancellor has not returned a phone
call from any University news reporter.
The editor was granted an interview
at the beginning of the year, and
Hardin answered questions twice when
reporters called him at home. That's
the extent of communication between
the student newspaper and the leader
of the University.
One of the silliest lines the DTH
has ever printed appeared in a story
about possible tuition increases, a
subject Hardin made an issue by
discussing it with faculty members and
mentioning it in an interview published
in the Carolina Alumni Review. After
informing readers that the chancellor
was considering the increase, the
reporter wrote: "But his (Hardin's)
Dr. Ruth doesn't work here
We had a disturbing report last
night. Apparently a man is calling
UNC students and telling them that
he is doing a sex survey for the DTH.
This is not true. While the information
gathered would no doubt be interest
ing, we don't have much use for
random samplings of campus sex lives
at this time.
For the curious folks making the
calls, however, we have some sugges
tions on how to satisfy their voyeuristic
urges:
a Take an anatomy class.
a Live vicariously through your
Have a responsible rally
On any given Tuesday, most stu
dents at UNC would do anything to
forget their homework and head up
to a party on Franklin Street and bask
in the crisp autumn air. Unfortunately,
due to automobile traffic and school
work, "Tuesday night hedonists" often
go home alone and watch "Moonlight
ing" and Morton Downey.
Be not sad. Thanks to the Carolina
Athletic Association, a Homecoming
Pep Rally a throwback to those
woebegone days of high school is
planned for next Tuesday. Plans were
finalized after the town council
approved two special ordinances on
Monday night. The council voted to
close the length of Franklin Street
between Henderson and Columbia
streets and also agreed to waive the
noise ordinance, allowing bands to
perform.
The party's planners realize that this
decision sets an important precedent
for future parties on the street. They
are taking no chances this time, for
they hope that the rally will be a family
affair. This format could be a novel
solution to a problem that has plagued
past Franklin Street student gather
ings. The mood of the masses was vicious
on August 31, 1986, the eve of the
drinking-age change. An adolescent
mob stormed the town to protest an
unfair law the only way they knew
how: by consuming superhuman
quantities of drink.
1988
(Jar Heel
KAARINTlSUE, 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
Photography Editor
secretary said Monday that Hardin
told her he had no comment because
he does not see it as an issue now."
We quoted his secretary. Roger
Mudd, one of those receiving Distin
guished Alumnus Awards at today's
ceremony, certainly would laugh at
that. DTH editors of days past
probably looked down from above
or up from below and shook their
heads in commiseration at the blatant
slap in the DTH's journalistic face.
The chancellor is a busy man. Most
Would agree he has more pressing
things to do than return a phone call
from a frantic student journalist. And
Kevin Martin, student body president,
has praised Hardin for his accessibility
to students.
However, by ignoring the student
press the chancellor is ignoring a large
part of the student body the part
that reads the newspaper on the way
to class but doesn't fit into the select
group of student leaders with whom
he comes into contact. Perhaps the
DTH staff was spoiled by Hardin's
predecessor, Christopher Fordham,
who frequently returned phone calls
from reporters.
The Daily Tar Heel's staff members
take their work seriously and endeavor
to maintain professional standards of
accuracy and presentation. We expect
members of the University community
to treat the student newspaper fairly,
and most do.
Administrators usually cooperate
when approached by reporters. Of
course, there's a measure of self
interest involved as well speaking
to the student newspaper is the best
way to reach the most students.
At least one administrator on this
campus hasn't learned that lesson yet.
roommate instead of some stranger on
the other end of the phone line.
d Call 976-DATE for some heavy
breathing.
And if you happen to be on the
receiving end of such a call, you can:
d Ask the caller for the name of his
or her editor at the DTH, and call
the office to check the survey's
authenticity.
a Tell the caller to get a life.
o Tell the caller you'd like to meet
himher. Set up a rendezvous and then
notify Chapel Hill Vice about where
it will go down.
"This was nothing but an excuse to
get drunk," Roger Whittemore, then
the manager of the Subway sandwich
franchise, said at the time. "As
midnight approached, people were
mad."
Whittemore's shop was among the
most severely damaged when stores
were shelled with , an assortment of
rocks and beer bottles. The demon
stration started when some students
tried to attract the attention of some
TV cameras that were shooting above
the store. Thousands of dollars in
damage resulted.
The attitude of this year's crowd
should be far removed from that of
1986. CAA president Carol Geer
worked hard to get the party approved
and her organization is intent on
making this rally a success.
Unlike past affairs where drinking
was allowed, the Franklin Street rally
zone will be alcohol-free this time. This
should deter the riff-raff from other
schools, who according to arrest
warrants were responsible for most
of the damage in 1986. There will also
be 400 student monitors present. The
students probably will arouse less
hostility than the presence of the
Chapel Hill police corps.
The CAA won a major victory when
it was given permission to hold the
party, for the town has not been most
cooperative with students in the past.
Please don't spoil it this time. Oth
erwise, Franklin Street will be closed
to mixers forever. Dave Hall
A few skewed
Meedless to say, I hope everyone had
a splendid fall break, and I shall
JL N make a solemn pact with God that
I shant ask a soul how theirs went "How
was yer break," like "How are ya" and
"Whassup," is one of those hypothetical
Styrofoam question statements that you
can yell at friendly pedestrians while going
60 miles an hour in your car, so that you're
halfway to Pittsboro before they open their
mouths to reply. But I forget, we're in the
South, and such pleasantries are the gentle
chocolates of a North Carolina
conversation. -
To keep things interesting around here,
I'm writing this particular little ditty
thousands of miles away from the clanging
blue DTH boxes, the stark morning
linoleum of Hamilton Hall, the sterile
claustrophobic carrels of Davis Library
. . . yet unlike my other columnist friends
who get to travel to other hemispheres and
have wise conversations with natives who
know better, I am drifting 37,000 feet over
Barstow, California with Lenny, an organ
salesman from San Bernardino. Cub Scout
Jamboree capital San Bernardino is
famous for all its little boys, and so is
Lenny, if you know what I mean as
sexually open-minded as I am, I could see
a few people not standing in line to swap .
plasma with this guy. I know his name's
Lenny mainly because he told me, and also
because it's embroidered on his shirt.
"But my friends call me Big Al," he said,
which confused me, since he seemed to be
neither, He works at the keyboard store
in the mall, and his job is to play cheesy
tunes on the organ to attract people to
the store sort of a Pied Piper of Crud.
He says that all the ladies at the yogurt
shop turn off the Oreo crusher just to hear
him play "Born Free" with the Rhumba
button on.
In a sense, Lenny represents what
California is all about no one there cares
enough to want to mold you into a social
norm. Which, basically, is a good thing.
Racism (despite the occasional Chicano
skirmish) isn't a horrendous problem, and
the populace is generally nice and relaxed
but no "bad taste restrictions" also
means you can get away with anything.
Red Tide
on the rise
To the editor:
A strange dichotomy exists
at UNC; it seems that some
students are willing to believe
anything negative about the
United States, but will believe
nothing negative about
communism.
I have spent over 25 years
studying the programs used by
the Communists in "educa
tion." Beginning in the 1920s
and '30s, Marxist-Leninists,
realized an easy way to destroy
America was through misedu
eating its youth.
I had hoped that today's,
college students were better
informed and more knowledge
able about politics, foreign,
affairs and history than my
generation was. Yet as I sit here
on campus as a graduate stu
dent once again, I am looking
at no fewer than six " posters
advertising seminars by Com
munists. Oh, they dont say
they are Communists they
claim to be land reformers,
humanitarians, lay religious
workers, clergy and Third
World medical personnel
but do not be mistaken, they
are Communists bent on the
destruction of freedom and
Crowded days
Chapel Hill's animal control officers
don't need a calendar to know when
the students at the University leave
for breaks. That's when once-loved dogs
and cats hit the streets, to be picked up
and taken to the shelter.
Students often assume their animals will
be fine alone for a few days, according
to Elma Rae Johnson, director of the
Orange County Animal Control program,
which works hand-in-hand with the
Orange County Animal Shelter. Some
times they trust their pets to friends or
roommates who aren't careful or caring.
Before long, the animals end up loose
roaming the streets looking for food,
attention or adventure. Tragically, if they
are picked up by animal control officers,
the pets are often put to sleep before their
owners return to school to reclaim them.
Students are not the worst offenders.
Many people desert their animals for a
week or two, or allow them to roam the
neighborhoods freely.
Law requires that all strays be kept at
the shelter for at least three working days
before being put to sleep, and the shelter
workers have set their own standard of
waiting five to seven days: But the shelter
has become terribly overcrowded, with
dogs and cats doubled up in cages, making
this standard harder to keep. According
to Pat Sanford, who runs the shelter, staff
members have had to start putting to sleep
strays that might be adopted, given a few
more days.
Not all is lost, however. An Orange
County referendum on a $30 million bond
issue will go before voters on Nov. 8. In
addition to improving school buildings and
water resources, the bond sets aside
$300,000 for doubling the size of the shelter
a project that seems long overdue. In
1979,-when the shelter was built, 2,851
animals were impounded. The shelter was
views from the ionosphere
Ian Williams
Wednesday's Child
A developer who sells sandwich deli meats
will build his store in the shape of a giant
bratwurst, girls will violate the environ
mental mousse impact ratio in vain
attempts of self-expression, and guys get
facial massages when they feel their karma
slipping. All these millions of people
primping for no one. . . as Raymond
Chandler said, "California is the depart
ment store state; the most of everything
and the best of nothing."
In the seat in front of me, a little girl
named Clarissa chants the Twinkle Twin
kle song and discovers something most
adults never realize:
"Twinkle twinkle little star
H,I,J,K,L-M-N-0-P.
Up above the clouds so high,
W,X: . .YandZ. . ."
Lenny returns to his seat from the
bathroom, and tells me that he always wee
wees mid-air because bladder eruptions are
the number one cause of airline deaths.
Mulling that heinous thought over, I decide
that I have no choice. Stepping into the
tiny bathroom, I realize that airline
lavatories join roller skating rinks as the
worst places for a guy to' urinate. Girls .
can zero in and fire, but one patch of good '
turbulence and a guy is writing his name
on the ceiling.
Out the latrine window, I can see the
rolling plains of Iowa, and I reflect that
no matter when I look out the window
on a plane flight, I'm bound to have lived
somewhere within seeing distance. Under
stand that I spent the years 1970-77 in
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, so my whole pre
pubescent period is lost in a haze of Nehru
jackets and Donny and Marie. But I was
still cognizant enough to remember being
miserable. From October to April, you
might as well be living in Pt. Barrow,
Alaska, and the rest of the time, you slog
through crippling humidity. To counter
this, Iowan non-farmers stay inside, watch
TV and become belligerently unadventu-
Readers9 Forum
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democracy.
Recent speakers from the
Philippines and Central Amer
ica appeared at the School of
Public Health. They were ded
icated pro-Communist propa
ganda' agents who twisted facts
and even blatantly lied. Yet no
one questioned their "facts" or
criticisms of America.
I have visited or lived in
several countries that faced
internal "liberation revolu
tions" or exterrlal Communist
threats. Many people who
supported these revolutions
thought that they would find
Utopia in therr homelands when
the Communists took over. But
if you ask the refugees from
Vietnam, Nicaragua and Cuba
or the people trapped in East
ern Europe, you will hear a
different story one of
crushed dreams and miserable
lives.
UNC students who gleefully
swallow the propaganda of
these so-called humanitarians
and reformers will someday
find they were just as wrong as
the people who welcomed those
Communist revolutions in
other countries.
for the doggies
Matt Bivens
Associate Editor
built to handle roughly that many in a year.
But in 1987, the total number of animals
reached 7,007, and Sanford predicts that
figure will reach 8,000 for 1988.
The bond issue, if approved, will
obviously help. But new construction is a
long way off, and unhappy cats and dogs
are still packed into small cages, courting
disease. What can the average citizen or
student do to prevent overcrowding here
and now?
Adopt a pet. If more people would adopt
pets at the shelter, fewer animals would
have to be euthanized.
The shelter workers encourage adop
tions; but they also have serious reserva
tions about giving dogs to homes where
they wont be happy. They don't want to
see the same dog six weeks later or
worse, 10 of her puppies. So dont run out
and adopt a pet if you cant properly care
for it. Students must decide whether they're
prepared for the large financial and time
commitment a pet calls for, and . they
should make certain their apartments
and their roommates allow pets. Of
course, dogs arent allowed in the dorms,
and the animal shelter wont let students
who live on campus adopt pets.
Ironically, the adoption rate at the
shelter is way up. More than one in three
animals brought into the shelter finds a
new home, Sanford said, a figure which
is about double the national average.
Follow the town's leash law. Dont let
your pet roam the neighborhood; that's
how they end up in the shelter. An animal
control officer eventually picks up loose
pets, assuming they have been abandoned.
rous. There's no mousse here, just spiteful
couples that gossip back and forth across
a strict fence of status quo.
Back in my seat, I see Clarissa pointing
out the window.
"What's that, mommy?"
"Hush, Clarissa, it's Indiana."
"Bandana!"
With her brusque gestures and tell-tale
accent, Clarissa's mother seems to be from
New Jersey, and an hour later, a brownish
haze can be seen just there, a few hundred
miles up north around the New York area.
Having spent a few horrific summers near
there, I can say with confidence that if the
world was to get an enema; it would be
administered in Newark, N.J. My fruitful
New Jersey years were spent with old
foaming Xerox ladies, rash-like 7-11
personnel and suicidally vindictive old men
on the freeway. It's the only place I know
where they call you "Mac" and they're not
kidding. ' .
I guess you could sum up a trip across
the country in terms of a hungry provincial
type in front of your pizza. The Calif ornian
would wait until you put it on a plate in
front of him, the Iowan would order
another one for him and his family, the
New Jerseyite would grab it and start
gobbling and the North Carolinian would
ask you about your fall break and then
inquire politely about the pizza. If IVe
learned anything in my short life span, it's
that people all over the country don't really
care about your well-being, they just differ
in how well they hide it.
Finally the lush rolling hills of Carolina
come into view, and the plane touches
lightly down amid the sharp, crackling
colors of the airport forest in autumn. The
plane lulls to a halt and the doors let in
the sweet aroma of the North Carolina
evening. Clarissa stands in her chair and
faces me.
"We in Conneticut!"
"Yes, sweetie, we are," I smile, and give
her a Kit-Kat.
Ian Williams is a music and psychology
major from Hackensack, New Jersey, we
believe.
f
In our democracy, these
Communist agents are allowed
to speak out. It is the respon
sibility of the audience to
realize what they hear is not
true.
EVERETT LANGFORD
School of Public Health
Letters policy
o Place letters in the box
marked "Letters to the Editor"
outside the DTH office in the
Student Union.
in the window
And make certain your pet has a tag
with your name and phone number on it
so the animal control officers can contact
you. As Johnson says of untagged pets,
"You know someone owns that pet. You
know it. But it has no tag, so you have
to put it down (to sleep). It's very hard."
Spay or neuter your pet. The shelter will
not give pets up for adoption without first
having them spayed or neutered. But no
matter where you get your pet, have it
sterilized. The shelter offers a cheap spay
neuter program, in which local veterinar
ians volunteer to perform low-cost surgery.
It also has financial assistance and
information on other programs available.
Spaying and neutering may sound cruel,
but it is actually for the best. The old myth
that sterilized dogs become fat and lazy,
or refuse to guard property, is just that
a myth. Sterilized dogs are easier to
take care of because they dont go into
heat, or run around the neighborhood in
search of assignations.
Dont ditch your pet. Dont even leave
it alone for a weekend, and dont leave
it with a friend unless you know that friend
is responsible and will take good care of
the animal.
It's tough , for workers at the animaj
shelter to reconcile the overcrowding and
the increased need for euthanasia with their
love of animals. They cant take every little
sad-eyed puppy or playful kitten home with
them, much as they'd like to. That means
it's up to the community to sterilize pets
and keep them out of the shelter, to adopt
those already in the shelter, and, in the
long run, to vote "yes" to more shelter
space. These are the only humane things
to do.
Matt Bivens is a junior journalism major
from Olney, Md.