8 The Daily Tar HeelFriday, January 27, 1989
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Bittersweet memories of the Reagan years
96 ih year of editorial freedom
Karen Bell, News Editor
MATT BrVENS, Associate Editor
KlMEERLY EDENS, University Editor
JON K. RUST, Managing Editor
Will Lingo, city Editor
Kelly Rhodes, Am Editor
CATHY McHUGH, Omnibus Editor
SHELLEY RBLAND, Design Editor
Jean Lutes, Editor
KAARIN TlSUE, News Editor
Laura Pearlman, Associate Editor
KRISTEN GARDNER, University Editor
William Taggart, State and National Editor
Dave Glenn, spom Editor
Leigh ann Mcdonald, Features Editor
BRIAN FOLEY, Photography Editor
Keily Thompson, Design Editor
Hardin cares for day care
UNC faculty, staff and students with
children can be heartened by Chan
cellor Paul Hardin's recent pledge to
improve day care. Hardin's promise
indicates his recognition of the impor
tance of making quality child care
available to members of the University
community.
The University has not yet revealed
any concrete plans for improving day
care, although some administrators
have toured Victory Village, a
University-funded daycare center
housed in a 48-year-old building on
Mason Farm Road.
Because of the age and physical
condition of the building, focusing on
short-term improvements would be
easy. Although $9,000 was spent on
maintenance last year, the center still
needs paint, new floors and doors and
a better fire alarm system. The center,
struggling to meet its physical needs
while maintaining decent employee
salaries, has accumulated a substantial
deficit.
. Hardin could decide merely to
allocate more money to the existing
center to improve and expand its
facilities. While Victory Village is a
good place to start because of its 35
year experience serving the University
community, looking closely at long
term alternatives would make more
sense.
The center presently serves 64
children; another 120 are on the
waiting list. With more than 8,000
employees on campus, as well as a.
significant number of students with
families, the University's ultimate goal
should be to substantially increase the
space available. Turning away qual
ified professors, competent workers
and bright students just because they
have day-care needs does a disservice
to the University.
At the same time, because the
quality of the care must be of the
highest standards, the center should
not become too large. One logical
but expensive proposal is to build
several different centers, ideally con
nected to satellite parking lots. Parents
could park their cars and drop off their
children at the same location and then
take a shuttle to campus.
Of course, any option that requires
extra funding could raise the high cost
of day care even further, and keeping
costs as low as possible must be a
priority. Providing quality care at a
price which excludes parents on
limited budgets would not improve the
situation. While the chancellor's
pledge is a good start, a serious
commitment of time, money and
resources must follow. Mary Jo
Dunnington
Telling ourselves where to park
Starting this fall, students will no
longer be able to blame a faceless
administration for problems with the
allocation of student parking permits.
Student government leaders finally
have been given the power to allocate
student parking spaces. But while the
action is a positive one, student leaders
must realize the complexity of the task
which now lies ahead.
Next semester, Student Congress
will distribute parking permits in
accordance with its own allocation
process, rather than through the
existing administrative one. The
student body will be treated like any
other University department, receiving
a fixed number of permits to allocate
as the congress sees fit.
The creation of a new and improved
allocation process will indeed be a
lengthy undertaking. The student body
president will appoint seven students
to comprise the Student Parking
Committee. This committee will
propose a process to the student body
president, who will then make a
recommendation to the the congress.
The ultimate decision will rest with the
congress.
Members of the Traffic and Parking
Advisory Committee and the chancel
lor's ad hoc committee on parking
should be commended for their deci
sion to relinquish this power to student
control. The action was an appropriate
response to student complaints that
the allocation process was unfair.
But students must realize that they
now have an awesome responsibility
on their shoulders. Constructing an
allocation process that is fair and
responsive to student needs will not
be easy, and student leaders should not
underestimate the difficulty of the task.
The parking crunch won't lessen next
year the total number of available
permits will actually decrease due to
construction of the Craige parking
deck.
Active student participation in the
process will be vital to its successful
completion. Unfortunately, not eve
ryone can park on this campus, and
now the tough decisions will have to
be made by students. Louis Bissette
Real student representation
To understand whv the University
administration makes its decisions is
to understand the bureaucracy that
can produce them. This means com
mittees, lots of them, devoted to
addressing campus issues and finding
solutions that can satisfy students,
faculty and administrators -alike. Of
these, the most important are the
chancellor's advisory committees, and
students comprise a fair share of the
memberships.
However, these students are not at
the moment directly appointed by the
student body president or any other
student body representative. The
system which was maintained by ex
Chancellor Christopher Fordham
dictates that the student body presi
dent provide a list ranking recom
mended students to the chancellor,
along with a short justification for
each. From this the chancellor selects
any student he wishes, or rejects the
entire group altogether.
Student Body President Kevin
Martin may have changed all that,
however, with a proposal that the
student body president be allowed to
appoint a single student to a single
position on these committees. Martin,
who already has received unofficial
support from the administration on
the proposal, may have completely
changed the political context in which
students are appointed to the chan
cellor's committees.
Under the old plan, the chancellor
could eliminate students who might
have been too resistant to administra
tive interests, simply by choosing
another name on the list. Fordham
took advantage of this in 1986, during
a period of intense criticism of ARA,
the campus food service, when he
rejected the nomination of Marty
Leary for a position on a food service
advisory committee. He claimed that
the outspoken Leary would have been
difficult and disruptive.
If Martin's proposal becomes real
ity, such an occurrence would become
far less likely. Instead of the student
body president providing Chancellor
Paul Hardin with an explanation of
why a student deserves to be a
committee member, the chancellor
would have to explain why he believed
a nominee was not qualified, should
an appointee be rejected.
More significantly, however, the
acceptance of Martin's proposal would
make an important statement, allow
ing students to directly choose their
representatives. When an advisory
committee meets to examine an issue
such as parking or grounds develop
ment, both sides can only benefit from
the assurance that the students at the
meetings are the ones intended to be
there. David Starnes
was a little sad last week as I watched
Ronald and Nancy Reagan, the former
Jipresident and first lady, board a plane,
formerly Air Force One, at Andrews Air
Force Base to fly to their new home in
California. After all, President Reagan was
in office for over one-third of my life.
I have shadowy memories of President
Ford pardoning some criminal; I think it
was President Nixon. I vaguely remember
Jimmy Carter as a man with a big smile
who negotiated the Camp David Accords
and was afraid of killer rabbits. Then came
President Reagan. He was the first
president that I was politically awake for. '
Looking back, it was a rude awakening
on a dreary Monday morning.
I remember watching a man who held
passionate convictions and was determined
to see them acted upon. They ranged from
the off-beat to the ignorant. Less govern
ment was better government. The homeless
were not a problem; they wanted to live
on the streets. Women shouldn't decide
whether or not to abort their pregnancies.
Prayer should be said in the schools. The
contras were freedom fighters protecting
Texas from armed invasion by the San
dinistas. A nifty space shield should be
built to stop all nuclear weapons. Have
I left anything out? Oh, yes, the Soviet
Union was an Evil Empire.
This man frightened me. These convic
tions which he held so strongly seemed to
be based on simplistic fears and quirky
biases that took precedence over rational
argument and basic compassion.
I don't know what I was expecting. After
all, we had collectively elected an actor to
our highest office. This fact came through
the TV screens in every speech he made.
His message was that it was better for
America to look and to feel good than
Bill Yelverton
Notes from the Abyss
to actually be good or work to make itself
better. The Teflon surface effectively hid
the decay underneath from eyes that did
not wish to see it, especially the president
himself.
There was plenty to hide. In the early
days of the Reagan years, there were the
unique conservation efforts of James Watt
at the Department of the Interior. These
were followed closely by the Superfund
cleanup scandal at the EPA. Take the
longer view, and the sagas of Michael
Deaver and Ed Meese steal the spotlight.
But the best was yet to come. The Iran
contra scandal was waiting in the wings.
It starred the four little rascals, Oliver
North, John Poindexter, Richard Secord
and Bud McFarlane, in a story of deceit,
money and power. The plot was fast and
furious. North and McFarlane would
negotiate with the evil villain, the Ayatol
lah, for the release of American hostages
in Lebanon. In exchange, the United States
would secretly sell the Iranians weapons.
North took the money generated by the
sale and bankrolled contra operations in
Central America. They flew supplies
bought with the money down to Nicaragua
via a private freight run by retired Gen.
Secord. Poindexter's job was to keep the
president in the dark not a very difficult
assignment.
When the script fell apart it threatened
to bring down the entire administration.
Reagan seemed oddly detached from the
events surrounding him. He simply kept
repeating that he didn't know or couldnt
remember. I wondered which was worse.
He hoped to stay above the controversy
and keep the Teflon shield intact, and to
a large degree that is what happened.
Reagan will be remembered for his
administration's problems and its heartless
policies, but he will have some positive
accomplishments to look back upon as
well. The most notable is the first nuclear
arms reduction treaty ever negotiated with
the Soviet Union. The highly touted
economic, recovery will still have to test
its strength against the looming deficit and
the growing number of Americans living
below the poverty line.
Substantive issues did not seem to
bother Reagan, for he is a man concerned
with image. From his carefully crafted
speeches to his wife's obsession with
fashion and china patterns, the Reagans
exuded polish and glitz for eight years.
Reagan would very much like to see this
glitz immortalized in the history books.
Reagan has never seemed like the
bookish type. One of my favorite jokes
from his two terms was a description of
the Reagan library consisting of a "Masters
of the Universe" sticker book and a Mickey
Mouse coloring book. Now it seems he
wants to add to that library.
Originally Reagan seemed content to let
the historians chronicle his time in office.
But now he has decided to write his
memoirs to clarify the motives and
objectives of his presidency. The book will
be interesting because for eight years he
has hidden his thoughts behind a wall of
rhetoric. Fortunately for all of us, this
rhetoric is now powerless.
Bill Yelverton is a senior English major
from Darien, Conn.
headers9 For em
Inauguration
obscene
To the editor:
It was with bemusement that
I read Everett Langford's letter
to the editor in the Jan. 24 DTH
("DTH insults grand party.")
Langford's criticism of your
recent editorial on the Bush
inauguration proves only that
Reagan Republicans like Lang
ford missed the point of your
words.
The issue is not the fact that
the $30 million spent to throw
George a party he could be
proud of was raised from
private rather than public
monies. It is rather that in the
America of today, when family
farms are crumbling and thou
sands go homeless and hungry,
spending $30 million for inaug
ural balls is an obscene gesture.
If Bush really wants the kinder
and gentler nation he allegedly
espouses, he should have told
the corporations to give the
funds, to charity and opted for
a simpler affair.
Finally, Langford attacks the
DTH for its supposed criticism
of Bush the individual in its
editorial. Langford should be
reminded that this is the same
George Bush who ran the most
foul, vituperative and gutter
level campaign in modern his
tory. His character assassina
tion of a decent man like
Michael Dukakis was heinous
indeed. If George is going to
dish it out, hell need to learn
how to take it as well.
DAVE LOHSE
Assistant director
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Teach respect
for firearms
To the editor:
I support a waiting period for
the purchase of firearms
even though I am an ex
member of the National Rifle
Association and a hunter in
remission. A waiting period
only makes sense. But I feel that
Bill Yelverton's column
("Seven days could have saved
five lives," Jan. 23) missed two
important points.
First: There is no logical
reason for military weapons to
be marketed. Diehard NRAers
might disagree with me here,
but these weapons are simply
overkill in the field. Most
serious hunters wouldn't even
consider them viable alterna
tives to a more "standard"
sporting rifle. Collectors might
be the only group who should
have legitimate access to these
weapons, but this argument
might dictate the establishment
of a special "collector's license,"
entailing an intensive back
ground check and waiting
period.
Second: Since stupidity is
already rampant in this coun
try, I believe that mandatory
firearm education classes
should be developed and
administered to anybody want
ing to purchase a gun. These
classes could be on a once-and-done
level, earning the gradu-.
ate a lifetime purchasing cer
tificate, similar to driver's
licenses and hunters education
classes (which are required in
Pennsylvania I donl know
about North Carolina). This
methodology should have two
results: I) It should produce an
additional waiting period
between the decision to buy and
the actual purchase; and, 2) It
should reduce the number of
accidental deaths by firearms.
I hope you will find my
suggestions beneficial. People
should understand that fire
arms aren't inherently evil; lack
of intelligent handling is. As a
gunsmith, my grandfather saw
that guns were part of my life.
I possess a healthy respect for
firearms. I wish that everybody
did.
JOHN MARTZ
Graduate
Social psychology
Definition of 'life' not open for debate
I his week marked the 16th anniver
sary of the Roe vs. Wade Supreme
Court decision and it did not pass
unnoticed. For since the debate on
abortion began, both sides have loudly
voiced their views. Pro-choice groups focus
their arguments on a woman's right to
choose to have the baby or to have an
abortion. I wholeheartedly agree that a
woman should be allowed to choose
but I think the choice should come before
she is pregnant. She has the right to choose
whether to engage in sexual intercourse
and whether to use birth control. But, if
she fails to take steps to protect herself
from an unwanted pregnancy her choice
stops there. Sure, there are exceptions
rape, incest, birth control failure, health
risk to the mother, etc. but I don't wish
to argue about the rights and wrongs of
abortion. Instead, I want to show you that
much more than the right to choose is at
stake in the abortion issue the value
of life.
Life. No other word in the English
language has come to mean so much. We
strive to protect it, to enhance it and to
lengthen it. In recent decades, however, the
definition of life has become a source of
controversy. People have decided that the
notion that life begins when your heart
starts beating and ends when it stops is
wrong. Instead, this definition has been
replaced with a list of qualifiers that
distinctly outline when life begins.
Under this new system for defining life,
a member of the human race must have
certain qualities before earning status as
a "human being." These qualities differ
slightly depending on whom you talk to,
but the following list from Beverly
Harrison's article "The Right to Choose"
summarizes the major components of this
theory: The first quality a human being
Lisa Stockman
Guest Writer
must have is consciousness of objects and
events. Secondly, one must possess the
ability to reason and the capacity to solve
new and relatively complex problems.
Moreover, the creators of this new
definition wanted to ensure that in our
society everyone does something of a
productive nature. Therefore, the third
criterium is the need to exhibit self
motivated activity. Finally, the need to
communicate is the last stipulation that
defines an individual as a "human being."
In the quest to weed out the undesirables
in our society, such criteria would only
award those worthy with the important
status of a "human being." You might think
it's absurd to test individuals who are
medically considered living beings to
determine their right to be labeled a
"human being." In fact, the advocates of
this ideology do not apply these "tests" to
people already in existence, but use them
to justify classifying unborns as non
humans. Medical evidence clearly indicates
that the fetus has a heartbeat, and brain
waves can be detected. Therefore, without
new terms in which to define life, abortions
could only be viewed as murder. It seems
impossible for an unborn to meet the
requirements to be considered a human,
when many adults in this world would fail
some of the tests. The question, however,
is not how can we adhere to such unfair
guidelines in denying rights to an unborn
child, but what right do we have to classify
life at all? You might feel as if you've been
presented with an extreme, but the
Supreme Court advocated this system
when it denied the right of life to an unborn
child by permitting murder through
legalized abortions. And people who
support legalized abortion, although they
might not have thought about it in this
fashion, must support this definition, for
without it abortion could only be viewed
as murder.
Life begins when the heart starts
pumping blood throughout the body, and
ends, when the organ ceases to function.
It is marked by the detection of brain
waves, and terminates when the brain dies.
These are age-old ideas; but for the
preservation of life as we know it, they
must be the sole determinants of a human
being. Life is not something you or I. have
the right to award those who pass a test;
it is a gift that cannot be earned. Society's
attempt to qualify the unborn as a non
human parallels the unjust treatment of
blacks before Congress granted them status
as humans. We realized the grave injustice
done to blacks and are still trying to correct
it today. The past is there to teach us
valuable lessons about our future. We
cannot overlook the injustice being done
to unborns for as long as we ignored the
problem of racial discrimination. Too
many lives are at stake, and the value of
life is rapidly deterioratingBut will it stop
there? Is it not only a matter of time before
our elitist society redefines life once again
to suit a greater purpose? Life was stripped
of all value when its definition was changed
from the view that had prevailed for
centuries. Many things in our world
depreciate as time lapses. Can we afford
to watch life lose its value? If so, then it's
not worth the hassle of living.
Lisa Stockman is a sophomore journal
ism and political science major from Cary.