8The Daily Tar Heel Thursday, February 2, 1989
Readers9 For em
96th year of editorial freedom
Karen Bell, News Editor
MAT1 BlVENS, Associate Editor
KlMBERLY EDENS, University Editor
JON K. RUST, Managing Editor
Will Lingo, cuy Editor
Kelly Rhodes, Am Editor
CATHY McHUGH, Omnibus Editor
Shelley Erbland, 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, Sports Editor
LEIGH ANN McDONALD,. Features Editor
FOLEY, Photography Editor
. Kelly Thompson, Design Editor
University needs to shift gears
Paying more and getting less no
intelligent person would accept such
a deal, but that's exactly what the
chancellor's ad hoc committee on
parking has offered students.
a The chancellor has a proposal on
his desk that calls for a trial parking
program that would allow free parking
on North Campus after 7 p.m. for
faculty and staff who frequently work
late. Everyone else would have to pay
$2 to park on North Campus at night.
It means students you know, the
ones who do silly things like drive to
the library at night would have to
pay $2 to park anywhere near the main
libraries on campus. Two dollars every
time a student who lives off-campus
needs to look up a source in Davis
Library or check a quiz file in the
Undergrad. Hefty price to pay for
being a conscientious student, don't
you think?
b The chancellor's committee on
parking also wants to eliminate 350
student parking spaces. And students
are already slated to lose hundreds of
spaces on South Campus when con
struction of the Craige parking deck
begins this fall.
The committee says limited central
campus parking is hurting the Univer
sity's ability to attract and retain
faculty and staff. "Reducing the
number of spaces used by resident
students will help improve the situa
tion," the proposal states.
Do they mean prospective faculty
members are saying no to Chapel Hill
because they won't be able to park
right outside their offices? Are the
academic stars of the next decade
saying, "Okay, okay, I've heard
enough about the low salaries, the
dismal benefits and the lack of a
sabbatical policy at UNC. Let's get
down to the nitty-gritty: Where will
my parking space be?" If administra
tors want to slash student parking,
they can certainly come up with a
better excuse.
a The committee also suggests
charging all students a $25 annual
transportation fee to improve the
campus shuttle system. This may be
the most worthwhile proposal of all
if administrators get their way, it
seems like no students will park within
three miles on their classes or the
library. Well need shuttles.
The safety of students who must
park at night should also be consi
dered. Faculty are inconvenienced
when they have to park far away, but
most go home around nightfall.
Students, in contrast, often stay on
campus to study and participate in
extracurricular activities. Denying
them parking near central campus
could cause safety problems, especially
for women.
No administrators' will comment on
the proposals until two public infor
mation sessions are held on Feb.
10 at 3 p.m. in the Old Clinic Aud
itorium and Feb. 13 at 3:30 p.m. in
100 Hamilton. Mark your calendars.
Jean Lutes
In search of a snack bar
There's an old quote from Robert
Burns about how the best laid plans
of mice and men oft go astray. Proof
positive of these words of wisdom can
be found in the latest addition to the
Marriott food trust on campus the
Union Station.
It's a great idea: a convenient
location that stays open late at night
and accepts meal cards. What more
could a hungry, hurried student want?
The food in the Union Station is even
pretty good sandwiches (they even
have my favorite, peanut butter and
jelly on whole wheat bread) and salads
and those soft cookies that make
coming to campus worthwhile. But no
one can find any of these exotic
delicacies without a compass to
navigate the floor plan.
Is this what students waited for all
last semester? Is this why construction
workers were sequestered behind
plastic bags and tape that read
"Beware Asbestos"? Who designed the
Union Station because he or she
didn't have a very tight grasp on the
term "efficiency."
The layout of the place renders its
well-intended purpose useless. No
obvious traffic pattern exists, and the
unwitting student could easily find
himself wandering in what is surely the
smallest labyrinthine structure in the
Western Hemisphere.
Traffic problems aside, the Union
Station also presents a textbook
example of wasted space. Almost half
of the floor space is devoted to
counters where students can stand up
and eat. With a television lounge filled
with chairs and tables right next door,
the counters could have been left out
in favor of a larger area for the food
and drink selection.
If Marriott opened the Union
Station to increase revenue, its officials
were on the right track. The Station
fills a gaping hole in the food service
on campus; the crowds who flock there
between classes attest to that fact.
Unfortunately, those same crowds get
clogged in between the drink machines
and the nifty wall, which seems big
enough to house a nuclear fallout
shelter. Often students will leave the
Station without a muffin or a soda
because the food is simply too difficult
to reach safely. And if people are
leaving without everything they want,
Marriott isn't reaping the full financial
benefits of its most recent expansion.
Students will continue to use the
Union Station because of the conve
nient location and food selection, but
maybe next time the food service
officials build a new snack shop, they'll
hire a sensible architect to design it.
Laura Pearlman
The Daily Tar Heel
Editorial Writeri: Louis Bissctte, Sandy Dimsdale, Mary Jo Dunnington and David Stames.
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Printing: The Village Companies.
Choose abortion before over-population
TT think I should start this rebuttal to
1 1 Lisa Stockman's ("Definition of 'life'
llnot open for debate," Jan. 27) inter
esting article by stating a few basic points.
The population of the world at this
moment is a little over five billion people.
Only 130 odd years ago, it had reached
one billion people for the first time. That
means that the population of the earth has
grown by a factor of five in the last 130
years. Not only that, but at the present
rate of world growth, 1.7 percent, the
population of the world will double yet
again in approximately 40 years.
Yeah, yeah, so what, right? What does
this have to do with abortion, and the right
to life? Very simply, it has a great deal
to do with not only the right to life, but
the quality of it. Personally, I do not want
to live in a. world of 10 billion people when
I am 60 years old. Perhaps this is a selfish
thing, but I think the world has enough
problems dealing with five billion homo
sapiens at one time, let alone twice that
number. I also do not like the thought that
even as our ardent right-to-lifers demon
strate that abortion is evil and we should
all just adopt, there are millions of people
starving to death in countries less fortunate
than our own, and where, I might point
out, adoption is not a remote possibility.
I know that most "pro-lifers' don't think
about such trivial details. It doesnt matter
anyway, as the United States doesn't have
a population problem, right? Well, I'm not
so sure about that either. I do know that
we have a great number of people who
fall between the cracks as we so euphe
mistically call it when income level does
not meet subsistence requirements. Do
they cry o.ut that these poor people are
not being adopted too, or bother to
mention that many ethnic babies put up
Marguerite Arnold
Guest Writer
for adoption are not adopted because of
their skin color and have the unenviable
position of growing up in a home.
I would also point out that I am not
"pro-abortion." I'm not sure you can find
many people who will say they are.
Prevention is the better part of valor. I
do not think, however, that abortion is,
as you so dramatically stated, murder.
Your pat description of the beginnings of
life is not quite accurate. That statement
that life begins at conception, is categor
ically untrue. Since the sperm and egg are
most definitely alive in the biological sense,
life begins when one's mother's eggs are
first formulated (females are born with all
the eggs they will ever produce) and when
the father's sperm are formed in the
scrotum. However, if by your cavalier
description of life starting when the heart
begins to beat you mean that the individual
is formed within the womb, then this claim
is also untrue. The heart starts to beat even
before the brain, from where all emotions
and reasons emanate, has formed.
We are not sure when "the individual"
truly begins. This is something that society,
for its own good, must determine. Saving
"a life" for the sake of putting that child
on a respirator for the rest of its life is
not a very humane thing to do, nor is it
very humane to let the child be born to
a mother who will either abandon it
because she cannot or will not care for
it, or watch her child starve to death before
her eyes.
This leads me to my final point and one
that you illustrate quite well when you
contradict yourself. Yes, there are a great
deal of lives at stake, but it is the lives
of the living that I think are far more
important than those who have yet to be
born. Yes, the quality of life is rapidly
deteriorating, but why do you think this
is? Quite simply, there are not enough
resources to go around. In other words,
there are too many people already living
for the earth's environment to sustain.
It has been speculated that the number
of people who could live on this earth at
the current American standard of living
is only 12 billion. We currently have, as
I stated before, 10 times that many. While
I do not advocate mass murder, nor living
with the waste produced by our "throw
away society," I think that we have a
problem of enormous import on our
hands. While abortion certainly is not the
answer to this problem, it is certainly a
means of controlling population. Birth
control, in any of its various forms, and
there are many, is obviously the best
answer. However, until we are able to
control the exploding world population,
" abortion remains an end to a means.
Yes, I am pro-life in the sense that I
want the quality of life of those already
populating this precious jewel, spaceship
Earth, to improve. Realistically however,
I realize that it will not until we solve the
problem of over-population and environ
mental abuse that we are currently
inflicting upon our planet and upon
ourselves. And you can take that all the
way to the Bushes, with their big, happy
family.
Marguerite Arnold is a senior interna
tional studies major from Chapel Hill.
CGLA is
no joke
To the editor:
Oh, please, Mr. Sisson, win
the Student Body President
election and defund that "secret
group," the CGLA! I'm sure
then, that all "promotion of
acts that are illegal," such as
flyers depicting homosexuality,
will stop, and all gays and
lesbians will turn straight and
thank you for bringing them up
to par as true citizens. I know
that then the vigorous recruit
ing of heterosexuals to turn gay
will finally come to an end. And
who wants to be a part of their
"secret group" anyway? By the
way, I'm an education major;
I'd like to talk to you sometime
about getting into Delta Sigma
Pi. Finally, with the money
each of us saves, well be able
to buy a couple of beers when
we graduate.
But one thing would be
regrettable if we defunded the
CGLA and had homosexuality
wiped out for good: people like
you and I would have no one
to laugh at. What would we do?
Hey, I know -r- we could go
to work on getting students
kicked out of school who have
ever gotten a DWI or DUI.
After all, drinking and driving's
against the law, too.
ALICE LUTMAN
Junior
Education
A stately
lesson for UNC
To the editor:
With the news of N.C. State's
new basketball arena, which
guarantees its students half of
the 25,000 planned seats, I
could not help thinking to
myself, "Couldn't we have done
that?" I find it embarrassing
that we here at UNC cannot
manage to handle the same
affair ourelves while our less
refined neighbors to the east
have come up with a plan so
simple and fair for both the
students and the private con
tributors. Their proposal
obviously took into account the
state of our seating policy, and
AFTER AtJ EXTENSIVE- SEARCH
AM OBLIVIOUS JiW HAS BEEAI F6UMD.
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noted that a much better way
could be found. Had our stu
dent body been consulted on
the building of the so-called
Student Activities Center, I
believe that the result would
have been different.
While we struggle with our
seating problems over the next
several months, let us be
reminded of the NCSU exam
ple. Students can have the
equal seating they deserve. I
hope that we can work out our
problem in a similar fashion.
Congratulations, N.C. State
students. This is one victory
that you can have over our
basketball program.
LOUIS LAMAR
Junior
Political science English
Let's tawk
stereotypes
To the editor:
I would like to address David
Surowieki's Jan. 31 article on
gymnast Kristin Bilotta, a
senior from New Jersey. The
article rightly compliments
Bilotta but then proceeds to
obnoxiously put down "Jersey
girls." I am a native Jersey an,
and I resent being outwardly
insulted by the stereotype that
I'm supposed to be-"loud,
outspoken and rude." Believe
it or not, this stereotype does
not fit girls statewide. Maybe
you should imply that all
Southern girls are "dumb
blondes, y'aU." New Jerseyans
may "tawk" or act a little
differently, but then again who
can sing or perform better in
concert than The Boss?
AMY FISHMAN
Sophomore
Accounting
Long live
the debate
To the editor:
I knew that something was
wrong before I even realized the
content of Lisa Stockman's
essay entitled "Definition of
'life' not open for debate" (Jan.
27). The title alone made me
cringe. Abortion itself is only
an issue, but the way that Ms.
Stockman expressed her opin
ion on abortion implied some
thing more important: an atti
tude. Ms. Stockman's attitude
said to me: "I know what is
exactly true about an abstract
idea, and I dont care what you
think." It is fine with me if Ms.
Stockman does not care what
I think, but she is wrong to say
that "life" is not "open for
debate" because I disagree with
her definition of life, and that
makes it open for debate. I am
not going to list my reasons for
why I think that abortion
should remain legal because
they are not new, like Ms.
Stockman's anti-abortion
arguments are not new. I only
want to say that I think
"debate" is a wonderful thing,
no matter what the issue is. It
is through debate that truth is
found. However, in this case I
think that debate on the defi
nition of life can only approach
the truth, which will have to
be good enough until God tells
us exactly what life is.
DAVID SPANJER
Junior
Accounting
Culture doesn't
A
mean yoghurt
To the editor:
I am always happy to grab
a little bit of culture with the
DTH front page quotation.
However, the authors should
be properly quoted. Indeed, the
major philosopher of the 16th
century is Michel de Montaigne
and not Michel de Montagne
(I don't know this person). You
can find this quotation in his
"Essais."
Being a well-rounded person
is not an easy task!
SONIA ABECASSIS
Graduate
Romance languages
Liberal arts shunned by Career Planning
Mi
"arcia Harris of University Career
Planning and Placement Servi
ces (UCPPS), by advising stu
dents not to support the introduction of
minors at UNC and to take more business
classes instead sadly reinforces the disturb
ing notion that business is all there is in
the "real world" and that even liberal arts
must, in the end, concede to a more
pragmatic outlook, so college students
might as well begin tailoring their inves
tigations to fit the corporate cut.
While I certainly can say nothing against
making one's record as attractive as
possible to prospective employers, I think
Ms. Harris narrow-mindedly ignores the
needs of the many thousands of non-business-oriented
students on this campus
and the benefits for business majors in
having the minor option. First, if a person
of any major wants to expand outside his
or her field, the options are few. Either
1) double major, and take 'on at least
another two semesters worth of work, or
2) forget it because one major is enough
of a pain. One could, of course, claim
additional coursework as a "secondary
Dereck Daschke
Guest Writer
concentration," and have the double
pleasure of not gaining official recognition
for it and of getting to explain to an
interviewer that it is legitimate. Ms. Harris
states that this system is more "flexible"
than working for a minor. From personal
experience, I know it is not, having had
to do major replanning to incorporate a
religion major, including changing from a
B.S. in psychology to a B.A. because the
University will not let a person double
major with a B.S. degree.
Ms. Harris also suggests that "students
planning to enter the business world"
should take more business-related courses,
which makes perfect sense. But she goes
on to suggest that students should press
for more of these courses instead of for
a minor program. Which would serve more
students? The broader, more rewarding
minor option, which could be implemented
in any field and which would be recognized
by the University. Consider also a business
major who has outside interests. Is he going
to take more business courses for fun?
Maybe there are some who would like to
add some diversity to their pragmatism.
"Rarely is the effort and narrowness of
a double major (or a minor) required of
even appreciated by an employer," claims
Ms. Harris. Maybe I am just unwilling to
accept harsh, cold reality and don my
three-piece suit, but I must doubt that
statement. A double major (or a minor)
shows a broad education and broad talent,
as well as hard work and organization."
These virtues cannot go unnoticed by ait
employer. Besides, I say to the UCPPS;
maybe a student or two would like to do
something for him for once, while there
is the chance, and not for some future
faceless tyrant employer. Were not the
liberal arts once learning for the sake of
learning?
Dereck Daschke is a junior psychology I
religion major from Basking Ridge, N.J.