Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Feb. 28, 1989, edition 1 / Page 8
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8The Daily Tar Heel Tuesday, February 28, 1989 Death by Tupperware: not a pretty sight; 97th year of editorial freedom Sharon Kebschull, Editor WILLIAM TAGGART, Managing Editor LOUIS BISSETTE, Editorial Page Editor JUSTIN McGUIRE, University Editor TAMMY BLACKARD, State and National Editor ERIK FLIP!), Basinets Editor , CARA BONNETT, Arts and Features Editor JUUA COON, News Editor SHELLEY ERBLAND, Design Editor MARY JO DUNNINGTON, Editorial Page Editor JENNY CLONINGER, University Editor Charles Brittain, aty Editor Dave Glenn, sports Editor James Benton, Omnibus Editor DAVID SUROWIECKL Photography Editor Kelly Thompson, Design Editor Name-calling hurts profession Bob Windsor is back, accompanied by all the controversy of his previous days of publishing. With The Land mark 89, a revival of his earlier publication which ran from 1982 to 1986, Windsor hopes to give conser vatives a stronger voice in the media. Windsor is the man who created quite a scandal during the 1984 elections with his scathing attack on the Democratic candadate for U.S. Senate, former N.C. Gov. Jim Hunt. Using words such as "sissy," "prissy" and "girlish," Windsor mercilessly criticized Hunt, even going so far as to question his sexual orientation. In his latest publication, Windsor con tinues to draw upon his flair for name calling, as he refers to "demon queers, dykes, abortionist and humanist liberals" in the Democratic Party. - Windsor is entitled to his views; indeed, the Constitution guarantees his right to believe and publish what he chooses. His practice of name calling, however, must be questioned. Surely Windsor could present his opinions without resorting to the nastiness of mud-slinging. Such tac tics, although undoubtedly appealing to the emotions, do not make for good journalism. , The American public needs to demand high standards of the media, regardless of what ideology they may present. Such standards should include a commitment to ethics, accuracy and truth. Sensationalism, while it may sell papers, does not serve any purpose; it does not enlighten, and it can cause unnecessary embarrass ment and pain. Windsor says he is committed to telling the truth. However, he admits he does not care whom he tramples in the process. Having been threatened in the past with lawsuits which never materialized, Windsor blatantly chal lenges people to sue him. His readiness to publish insulting words is of questionable merit. His attack on Hunt, for example, centered on Hunt's sexual preferences, rather than his qualifications or the issues. Such an approach to reporting does not pro mote respectable journalism. Windsor says he will use his paper to call attention to the poor quality of education in North Carolina, an admirable project. His journalism will only be worthwhile, however, if he focuses on the issues. Mary Jo Dunnington Losing the war against guns Our nation's capital has become a battle zone. Washington, D.C., is on a pace to top 500 murders for 1989, after already posting the highest murder rate in the nation in 1988 with 372, more than one per day. Thirteen people were wounded or killed by gunfire in one day Feb. 13 on the bloodiest day in memory. On the same day in Bethesda, Md., a Washington suburb, an angry bank employee killed three co-workers in the bank and then shot and killed himself. The violence is not restricted to drug pushers and their customers in the poorest sections of the city, although there the problem is much worse. One woman was shot by errant gunfire while standing in her kitchen. The problem has reached epidemic proportions, and some residents and local officials have called for National Guard members to patrol the city in an effort to stop the rising tide of violence. Obviously something must be done. Opponents of gun control legisla tion cite Washington as a perfect example of their argument that creat ing obstacles to buying firearms is not a solution, because it is illegal to sell handguns in the city. What those opponents neglect is the quick and easy availability of guns in Virginia and Maryland. People can drive five miles out of the city to a nearby gun shop in either state, and walk out in minutes with their very own handgun. What Washington does prove is that banning handguns on a state-by-state level is completely ineffective. It must be done on a national level if it can ever have a chance to work. In the meantime, people are dying. The problem becomes even greater when considering local leadership, or the lack of it: Mayor Marion Barry is undergoing another of his infamous personal crises, and his ability to govern is at a new low followirig allegations of his involvement with a known drug dealer. He claims the city is no more violent than before. Unless Barry can't count, he is dreaming. Either is entirely possible. It is essential that the City Council move quickly. Washington already has an understaffed police force, which is half of the problem. The council should step in immediately, appro priating emergency funds to the department and sending the National Guard in to assist the police. A curfew could also be effective in the short term, at least until the violence subsides. The irony in this situation concerns the national government's control of Washington. Congress was quick to step in and exercise its responsibility over the city a few months ago by nullifying several city laws, including one allotting government funds for abortions. Why hasn't Congress stepped in just as quickly to rectify an equally terrifying, even more dangerous problem? If no one takes control soon, our nation's capital, which has already lost the battle, will lose the war. Kimberly Edens The Daily Tar Heel Editorial Writers: Kimberly Edens, Chris Landgraff and David Stames. Assistant Editors: My ma Miller, features; Andrew Podolsky, Jay Reed and Jamie Rosenberg, sportr, Anne Isenhower and Steve Wilson, news. News: Craig Allen, Crandall Anderson, John Bakht, Kari Barlow, Maria Batista, Crystal Bernstein, Heather Bowers, James Burroughs, Sarah Cagle, Brenda Campbell, James Coblin, Staci Cox, L.D. Curie, Blake Dickinson, Karen Dunn, Jeff Eckard, Karen Entriken, Deirdre Fallon, Lynn Goswick, Susan Holdsclaw, Jennifer Johnston, Jessica Lanning, Tracy Lawson, Rheta Logan, Dana Clinton Lumsden, Helle Nielsen, Glenn O'Neal, Simone Pam, Tom Parks, Elizabeth Sherrod, Nicolle Skalski, Will Spears, Larry Stone, Laura Taylor, Kelly Thompson, Kathryne Tovo, Stephanie von Isenburg, Amy Wajda, Sandy Wall, Leslie Wilson, Jennifer Wing, Katie Wolfe and Nancy Wykle. Sports: Mike Berardino, senior writer. Neil Amato, Mark Anderson, John Bland, Christina Frohock, Scott Gold, Doug Hoogervorst, David Kupstas, Bethany Litton, Brendan Matthews, Bobby McCruskey, Natalie Sekicky, Chris Spencer, Dave Surowiecki and Eric Wagnon. Arts and Features: Cheryl Allen, Randy Basinger, Clark Benbow, Adam Bertolett, Roderick Cameron, Ashley Campbell, Pam Emerson, Diana Florence, Laura Francis, Jacki Greenberg, Andrew Lawler, Julie Olson, Joshua Pale, Lynn Phillips, Leigh Pressley, Ellen Thornton, Anna Tumage and Jessica Yates. Photography: Steven Exum and David Minion. Copy Editors: Karen Bell, B Buckberry, Michelle Casale, Yvette Cook, Joy Golden, Bert Hackney, Kathleen Hand, Angela Hill, Susan Holdsclaw, Karen Jackson, Janet McGirt, Angelia Poteat and Clare Weickert. Editorial Assistants: Mark Chilton and Anne Isenhower. Amy Dickinson, letter typist. Design Assistants: Nicole Luter and Susan Wallace. Cartoonists: Jeff Christian, Adam Cohen, Pete Corson, Bryan Donnell, Trey Entwistle, David Estoye, Greg Humphreys and Mike Sutton. Business and Advertising: Kevin Schwartz, director; Patricia Glance, advertising director; Joan Worth, classified manager; Chrissy Mennitt, advertising manager; Sabrina Goodson, business manager; Dawn Dunning, Beth Harding, Sarah Hoskins, Amy McGuirt, Maureen Mclntyre, Denise Neely, Tina Perry, Pam Strickland, Amanda Tilley and Joye Wiley, display advertising representatives; Leisa Hawley, creative director; Dan Raasch, marketing director; Stephanie Chesson, Alecia Cole, Genevieve Halkett, Camille Philyaw, Tammy Sheldon and Angela Spivcy, classified advertising representatives; Jeff Carlson, office manager and Allison Ashworth, secretary. Subscriptions: Ken Murphy, manager. Distribution: David Econopouly, manager; Newton Carpenter, assistant. Production: Bill Leslie and Stacy Wynn, managers; Anita Bentley, Stephanie Locklear and Leslie Sapp, assistants. Printing: The Village Companies. r Ve witnessed many kitchen disasters in mv time some of which have been Lmy creation and many others IVe stood back laughing as someone else deals with the wreckage. There was the time that I made potato pancakes that turned green when exposed to the air for 20 minutes. And then there was the time that a lovely souffle I created collapsed out of the oven and was served instead as a giant crepe. My mother expenenced one catastrophe while baking a pound cake last year. She stuck her head in the oven to check the cake and promptly singed off her eyelashes. People without eyelashes look pretty funny. I hate to be sexist or engage in male bashing, but just indulge me this once. IVe rarely seen a man who can cope in a kitchen. My-father, the Great White Hunter' keeps our freezer stocked with enough quail, venison and elk to feed us until the spring thaw, which is great. Until it's time to cook the game. Dad makes it to the kitchen long enough to wreak havoc and break at least one appliance. Then the football game starts or he's got a date for golf and the womenfolk are left to re-establish some semblance of order. It's never surprised me that we subsisted on Spaghetti O's and tuna fish until the spring thaw as the game suffered third degree freezer burn tucked behind my grandmother s brisket. But without a doubt, the most dangerous person in a kitchen is my housemate, John. In his afterlife I think John should be sent to the Great Kitchen in the Sky glued to the floor in front of the sink with melted Tupperware and forced to wash dishes for all eternity. He s not a slob in the kitchen (he cooks everything in aluminum foil and then recycles it), but washing dishes is the Laura Pearlman Casting Pearls safest place I could think to put him, and after every effort he's made to burn our kitchen down this year, I think he deserves to perform some kind of penance. ' Twice now he has left Tupperware on the stove to burn up. Only Tupperware doesn't really burn up, it smolders filling the house with noxious fumes forcing innocent victims into the street gasping for breath. The whole street has grown accustomed to our pouring into the yard gagging and forbidding John to enter the kitchen again.. We're also the only house in the whole neighborhood furnished with oxygen masks and a fire extinguisher that's actually been used. Only two burners on the stove work now the other two, encrusted with Tupperware, have been given an honorable discharge and put out to pasture on top of the refrigerator. John has since been sent to the appliance store to enlist new soldiers for the war zone that is our kitchen. Another kitchen disaster sponsored by John, which he denies to this day, is the mysterious death of the house teapot. It was one of those that your grandmother always has sitting on the stove the kind that whistles when the water is ready. It was a charming teapot and added a nice, homey touch to the kitchen. Unfortu nately, it suffered a long and painful demise at the hands of John (and I am positive it was John) when he left it burning all night. No one really noticed that the pot had gone from a shiny silver to a matte black overnight, until the next time someone boiled water in it, when they ended up with flakes of rust brewing with their teabag. Besides exposing us to some kind of dread lung disease from inhaling Tupperware fumes, he also has also tried to kill us off with tetanus. Actually, these fiascoes are only a side show to his actual cooking process. John spent the past summer in the Middle East and returned as a gourmet specializing in chickpeas, lentils and rice. Because he possesses little or no sense of proportion, he brews up a vat of gruel on Sunday night and eats the dish for the rest of the week claiming with every forced bite that he could eat it every night of the year. This week's selection is a lentil and wheat rice dish. John will .be out of town from Wednesday until Friday and has graciously offered the leftovers to anyone who would care for them. But John doesn't only specialize in main courses. Hie also dabbles in desserts, and as the lone Julia Child of the Apocalypse, he makes a mean peanut butter cookie. And I do mean mean. After dislodging a tennis-ball-sized lump of cookie from my throat, I managed to ask him for the recipe such a tasty cookie should be shared around. For a cookie made from natural peanut butter, wheat flower, honey and cement it really wasn't half bad. I figure by the time John gets through reading this column, hell probably want to force-feed me hummus for the rest of the semester. Of course if he keeps the peanut butter cookies to himself and stays, away from the stove when it's on, I could think of worse fates that aren't quite as safe. . Laura Pearlman is a junior English major from Asheville. Readers9 Forum Ad not meant to offend To the editor: We blew it!! Recently, we distributed in your newspaper a "Spring Break Guide," which outlined Miller Brewing Com pany's planned activities in Daytona Beach, Fla., and South Padre Island, Texas, during March. Since its distribution, con cerns have been voiced about the 'tone' and content of the brochure. Miller's intention was to create a humorous takeoff on Spring Break. We certainly did not intend to produce material which might be considered offensive or inappropriate. Consequently, we've stopped all further distribution of the guide: As you know, Miller enjoys a long-standing reputation for creating high-quality advertis ing and adhering to responsible marketing practices. We remain committed to both. SUSAN HENDERSON Miller Brewing Company Smeal misunderstood To the editor: Last Friday's article about Eleanor Smeal's talk on abor tion rights in the 1990s ("Acti vist advocates abortion rights," Feb. 24) contained several inaccuracies and misleading quotes. Smeal neither said nor implied that if Roe vs. Wade is overturned, "all forms of contraception" as well as abor tion will become illegal. Rather, certain forms of contraception could become illegal, depend ing on how the debate over "when life begins" is resolved. Zu, 5E Nine .Dfferent f5 Hills Types of CamPwqners mtt &sqehm& : - .. I if You win, I'll be ALni&HT,puo&e.MMCTsiwiit . THAT -HE'S jJMyttA f) FOR ME TODAi run,rc? i&M? TO RW-k SOWS TO.-rC'M CHOICE. Ig-IL NEXT YBAR.... M,70Y ,T' k The Nahe-DRQPPBR The OpPokTvuftT The Coeiiav &&&RtfyR rr,r , . fWr IF THAT OTHER GUY -ff") w , ?Ht . ' STICK WfTK fjR) wins, Wll LOSE YOUR h, HEY, X USED 1 ME, B4BY7 trU'.mPARKm SPACE, mvrl TO WORK FOR I'll make Yoy l&yr yovr m will mslm' x riw- A STAR! UTS l&A, HUME AHD wB'll- k f(& OT ALL The Afefe DO LUNCH VH23bC'is NEVER WIN THE T)IDr o77 u,li! TljM UO LUNCH... jACC TDVRNMENT Omlm WM 0$ TwgPgffap CtffWsw" KwAc'g A0,AlN'" ThePbophet TheDefecwz HE'S JUST T rCdV wr wn Vrn ' v, !( K0,X'M UT CMP1 Sljfce RJAN ) fo&s llZI00y Xo YOU, IT'S ALL , Sg LOVE HIM,,, yy AfTBRNOOU. M ' The Groupie ' "fife Prone THe''Nirn&hDTH5wfEK According to Smeal, if we determine that life begins with conception, the IUD would become illegal. If we determine that life begins at fertilization, the birth control pill would become illegal as well. Smeal drew a distinction between fertilization, when egg and sperm meet, and conception, when the zygote moves from the fallopian tube to the uterus for implantation. I must admit that I was not fully familiar with the terms of her discussion of methods of birth control, but clearly bar rier methods such as the diaph ragm, cervical cap, and con dom would not be affected by the debate on when life begins. Readers of the DTH article may have thought that Smeal was trying to whip up unjus tified hysteria about the possi ble consequences of an over turn of Roe vs. Wade. The concern Smeal hoped to elicit from her audience about the future of abortion and certain forms of birth control was justified. In her discussion of RU486, the "abortion pill" recently introduced in France and China, Smeal did not say that "U.S. government officials attempted to outlaw the drug in France." The U.S. govern ment cannot make French laws. Smeal said that U.S. right-to-lifers threatened the pharmaceutical company that produced RU486 with a boy cott of American imports. When Smeal said that RU486 "is no longer the moral property of a pharmaceutical (company) or a nation (but is now the) moral property of women," she was quoting the French government officials who ruled that the pharmaceut ical company could not with hold the drug from the market despite the pressure of anti abortionists. She thus made the point that the option of abor tion is understood as a woman's right, not just by feminist acilVlSIS oui aiau vy many governments and legal experts! LISA HEINEMAN Graduate History Letters policy a All letters and columns must be signed by the author, with a limit of two signatures per letter or column. Name, year in school, major and phone number must be submitted. n All letters , must be typed, double-spaced on a 60-space line, for ease of editing. A maximum of 250 words is optimal. . B The DTH reserves the right to edit letters for space clarity, and vulgarity:. Remember, brevity is the soul of wit. ' UNC followed state rules in epidemic To the editor: I am writing in an effort to clear misunderstandings regarding the recent large scale inoculation of students, faculty and staff for measles. Student Health was aware of the measles epidemic in North Carolina. We knew that state authorities would require large scale inoculation should a case emerge in our population and that such an action would not be called unless a case did develop. Since 1986, complete inoculation records have been required of all entering students at Carolina. For three weeks before the UNC case was diagnosed, our employees were pulled from their regular assignments during the day and also asked to work overtime in order to review the 23,000 records of current students. One of the major problems in containing this epidemic is that persons properly inoculated at 12 months of age have developed the disease. Therefore all our records had to be reviewed to insure that the vaccine was given after 15 months of age. We made every effort to keep local media apprised of the situation and the potential necessity of large scale inoculation. Meanwhile, we were inoculating students coming from affected areas of the state and students whose assignments in hospitals and clinics warranted immediate protection. Vaccine was being provided by the state and was not available from the manufacturer. Because it was scarce, we were asked not to vaccinate those students who had been vaccinated between 12 and IS months of age unless they had knowledge of exposure or came from a county where measles was considered to be epidemic. The case of measles at UNC was reported to the Orange County Health Department on a Friday afternoon. The state sent a representative to the campus to help organize the University's response at that time. The time frame for the response was set by state officials based on epidemiologic need. It was their intent that the entire university community be vaccinated, preferably within 72 hours, to prevent the second generation spread of the disease. Inoculations were given on Monday through Thursday. On Wednesday afternoon, the Director of tke Orange County Health Department issued a quarantine order banning any individual who could not demonstrate immunity or show proof of inoculation from the campus. Apparently many students and employees believe the University did not allow sufficient time for them to gather their immunization records. The University had no control over this time frame nor over the fact that some students, faculty and staff were required to miss work and class. ; Measles is epidemic in North Carolina and in several other states. By specific state statute, North Carolina has empowered public health officials to orchestrate the medical response to this problem. In my judgment, this university made a superior response to the expectations of those officials. Over 60 percent of the student body was not affected by the inoculation program because they were precleared. With the help of University staff and volunteers, letters and cards were sent within 36 hours of the diagnosis of the case and no faculty or staff born after Jan. 1, 1957, were included in that notification. The inoculation clinics were well organized and there were never long waiting lines. Instructors were notified of those in their classes not meeting requirements ' by Thursday morning. All of this required tremendous effort and coordination by large numbers of people. Far from criticizing my staff, I have congratulated them for helping to minimize the disruption of academic work that this epidemiologic necessity created. JUDITH COWAN, M.D. Director Student Health Service
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Feb. 28, 1989, edition 1
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