Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / April 11, 1989, edition 1 / Page 12
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yr 12The Daily Tar Heel Tuesday, April 1 1, 1989 latlg uFar JIM 97t year of editorial freedom Sharon Kebschull, Editor WiLUAMTaGGART, Managing Editor LOUIS BlSSETTE, Editorial Page Editor MARY Jo DUNNINGTON, Editorial Page Editor JVSTlNMcGuitt, University Editor JENNY G.ONINGER, University Editor TAMMY BLACKARD, State and National Editor CHARLES BrITTAIN, City Editor ERIK DALE FlIPPO, Business Editor DAVE GLENN, Sports Editor CaRABoNNETT, Arts and Features Editor JAMES BENTON, Omnibus Editor VUA COON, News Editor DAVID SuROmiCKl, Photography Editor Kelly Thompson, Design Editor To endorse is not the question Endorsing candidates for public office has been a traditional task of our nation's newspapers, but the student body president at UNC Charlotte has taken issue with the tradition. He's threatening to freeze the funding of the university's student newspaper, The Forty Niner Times, if the paper's editors do not establish a policy against endorsements. This threat clearly violates the paper's and the students' First Amendment rights. It's ironic that the paper's first foray into the world of endorsements has caused such a furor. This was the first year the FNT ever endorsed a student body president candidate because it was the first time the editorial board reached a unanimous decision. The members felt that one candidate, Michael Wilson, was far more qual ified than the rest. Wilson easily won the election. But after the election, Student Body President Tom Goins announced that if the FNT didn't enact a policy against endorsements, he would freeze the paper's funds. Goins claimed that since all students paid the same amount in student fees, it is unfair for the paper to endorse one student above the other, and he said that most UNCC students didn't believe the paper should endorse candidates anyway. A newspaper's right and responsi bility to endorse candidates is pro tected under the First Amendment for good reasons. The editorial page is the most available and accessible source of information for students. And the turnout for the election was a record 38 percent of the student body, illustrating another reason why news papers should endorse candidates: motivating people to participate in the political process. But whether a paper should endorse is not the point. The student govern ment has no right in any situation to tell a student newspaper what to do. Just because a newspaper receives student fees does not mean that the paper can be editorially controlled; this principle has been established by the long history of editorial freedom of such student newspapers as the DTH. The FNT can afford to publish without student fees for a while anyway, but it shouldn't have to. Goins dispute is more than a question about the newspaper's purpose it's a threat to its survival. This is censorship at its worst: financial blackmail. Regardless of whether students believe newspapers should print endorsements, the FNT editorial board members are to be commended for fulfilling their editorial responsi bility and endorsing a candidate for the first time. They should make it a habit, even if they don't reach a consensus. Students may disagree about the policy of endorsing candi dates, but at least now they can choose to make their own decisions. If Tom Goins gets his way, the students will have no choice at all. Kimberly Edens the plug on unsafe water Most people will agree that it's important to protect the environment. Human nature, however, dictates that without laws requiring such protec tion, the concern for the environment often gets lost in the endless quest for material gain. Fortunately for North Carolinians, the General Assembly has at last begun to recognize the importance of regu lating environmental quality. Among the many bills it is considering is the watershed protection bill, which awaits Senate action after nearly unanimous approval by the House. The bill is an important step toward guaranteeing safe drinking water for citizens of this state, because it would require the N.C. Environmental Man agement Commission, not local governments, to set minimum stand ards to protect watersheds. But Raleigh Mayor Avefy Upchurch has said he is concerned that even with this measure, protection for water quality could remain inade quate. He noted that the EMC could set low minimum standards, and there would be no impetus for local govern ments to adopt any stricter standards. Upchurch's fear is not unfounded. When federal lawmakers chose to leave environmental protection up to the states by setting only minimal environmental standards, N.C. offi cials not only failed to adopt policies stricter than those established by the U.S. government, but they passed the Hardison Amendments prohibiting tougher standards. (A bill to repeal the Hardison Amendments is now being examined by a House subcommittee.) Environmental lobbyists are pleased with the watershed bill. A lobbyist for the Conservation Council of North Carolina called it a "good, solid first step" as the legislature realizes that the protection of water supplies is the only way to ensure clean drinking water. Only time will tell if Upchurch's pessimistic predictions are accurate. While the Senate could alter the watershed bill to give it more bite, this would also inevitably make it more controversial and difficult to pass. The measure is at least an important first step. If it proves inadequate, state lawmakers should waste no time taking additional action to prevent good intentions from following safe drinking water down the drain. Mary Jo Dunnington The Daily Tar Heel Editorial Writers: Kimberly Edens, Chris Landgraff and David Stames. Assistant Editors: Jessica Yates, arts; Jessica Lanning, city; Myma Miller, features; Siaci Cox, managing; Anne Isenhower and Steve Wilson, news; Ellen Thornton, Omnibus; Andrew Podolsky, Jay Reed and Jamie Rosenberg, sports; Karen Dunn, slate and national; James Burroughs and Amy Wajda, university. News: Craig Allen, Kari Barlow, Maria Batista, Crystal Bernstein, Victor Blue, Heather Bowers, Sarah Cagle, Brenda Campbell, James Coblin, Staci Cox, L.D. Curie, JoAnna Davis, Blake Dickinson, Jeff Eckard, Karen Entriken, Deirdre Fallon, Mark Folk, Lynn Goswick, Jada K. Harris, Joey Hill, Susan Holdsclaw, Jennifer Johnston, Jason Kelly, Lloyd Lagos, Tracy Lawson, Rheta Logan, Dana Clinton Lumsden, Jeff Lutrell, Kimberly Maxwell, Helle Nielsen, Glenn O'Neal, Simone Pam, Tom Parks, Jannette Pippin, Elizabeth Sherrod, Sonserae Smith, Will Spears, Larry Stone, Laura Taylor, Kelly Thompson, Kathryne Tovo, Stephanie von Isenburg. Genie Walker, Sandy Wall, Sherry Waters, Chuck Williams, Jennifer Wing, Katie Wolfe, Nancy Wykle and Faith Wynn. Sports: Mike Berardino, senior writer. Neil Amato, Mark Anderson, Jason Bates, John Bland, Christina Frohock, Scott Gold, Doug Hoogervorst, David Kupstas, Bethany Litton, Bobby McCroskey. Natalie Sekicky, Dave Surowiecki and Eric Wagnon. Arts and Features: Kelly Rhodes, senior writer. Cheryl Allen, Lisa Antonucci, Randy Basinger, Clark Benbow, Adam Bertolett, Roderick Cameron, Ashley Campbell, Pam Emerson, Diana Florence, Laura Francis, Jacki Greenberg, Andrew Lawler, Elizabeth Murray, Julie Olson, Lynn Phillips, Leigh Pressley, Kim Stalling! and Anna Tumage. Photography: Thomas Clark, Evan Eile, Chuck Ellison, Steven Exum, Regina Holder, Sheila Johnston, Tracey Langhome, David Minton and Todd ScotL Copy Editors: Karen Bell, B Buckberry, Michelle Casale, Joy Golden, Bert Hackney, Kathleen HandAngela Hill, Susan Holdsclaw, Karen Jackson, Janet McGirt, Angelia Poteat and Clare Weicken. Editorial Assistants: Mark Chilton. Amy Dickinson, letter typist. Design Assistants: Kim Avetta, Melanie Black, Del Lancaster, Nicole Luter, Bill Phillips 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; Stephanie Chesson, assistant classified manager; Chrissy Mennitt, advertising manager; Sabrina Good ion, business manager; Dawn Dunning, Beth Hardir.. Sarah Hcskir:s, Amy McGuirt, Maureen Mclntyre, Denise Neely, Tina Perry, Pam Strickland, Amanda Tilley and Jove Wiley, display advertising representatives; Leisa Hawley, creative director; Dan Raasch, marketing director; Genevieve Halkett, Camille Philyaw, Tammy Sheldon and Angela Spivey, classified advertising representatives; Jeff Carlson, . office manager and Allison Aihwonh, secretary. Subscriptions: Ken Murphy, manager. Distribution: David Econopouly, manager; Newton Carpenter, assistant. Production: Bill Leslie and Stacy Wynn, managers; Tammy Sheldon, assistant manager; Anita Bentley, Stephanie Locklear and Leslie Sapp, assistants. Printing: The Village Companies. 'Doing research' on bathroom hot spots "n the interest of a column that will address everyone who reads the DTH, A have thought for a week about a topic that everyone knows something about. At last, on Monday morning I was struck with genius in the Union art gallery and rushed into the DTH office to write about bathrooms. Yes, bathrooms something we all can talk about. A friend, who in the interest of discretion and my fear of possible public retribution will remain anonymous, told me her mother constantly is using the bathroom when her family takes car trips and these frequent pit stops have become something of a joke with her father. He says that his wife is working on a thesis about public restrooms or else that she's writing a book for the AAA about the best rest stops in the United States. Their euphemism for going to the bathroom is "doing research." In my family, we really don't talk about the bathroom that much except for Mom's Cardinal Rule, which was impressed upon me at a very young age. We never sit on the seat in a public restroom. Ever. Period. And we do not simply put toilet paper over the seat because germs can pass through toilet paper (they breed extra-strength, superhu man germs in gas station bathrooms). Now that I have been brainwashed by a well intended parent, this business of squatting as opposed to sitting has become part of my psyche. For 21 years, the Cardinal Rule has preyed upon my mind, evolving into a crippling neurosis. I have mastered the art of using a public restroom while touching absolutely nothing. With a paper towel in hand, I open the door and proceed carefully avoiding the seat at all cost. After flushing with my foot, I go to wash my hands turning the water on and off with said paper towel. Guilt free, I leave the bathroom as germ-free as I was when I entered. Those of you who have been in the new wing of the Charlotte airport know that Laura Pearlman Casting Pearls I have been relieved of my extensive restroom duties by some clever scientist with an infrared beam. The bathrooms in this wing of the airport are completely sanitary. I know this because when I was there I didn't have to touch anything. When I looked to see how to flush, the toilet flushed itself. I am being perfectly serious here. Then I went to wash my hands and there was nothing on the sink except for a faucet. I looked around for a way to turn on the water and miraculously triggered the water to start. It was amazing. Unfortunately, when I left the Charlotte airport, I embarked upon a trip that took me to the most hideous bathroom I've ever experienced. This bathroom would make the Texaco on 1-40 in Morganton look like a palace. My companion Kristen and I were waiting to catch a boat that would take about five hours to reach its desti nation. We had just gotton off a five-hour train ride, and I really needed to "do some research." So at the port, I went to what I assumed was the bathroom, but there were no toilets, just showers. I was perplexed. I went back to Kristen. "There are no toilets, just showers," I said. "I am perplexed." "Are you positive?" she asked. "I know that's the bathroom go look again." So I went back and looked again. I looked down and saw .what looked like the floor of a shower, but when I looked up, there was no showerhead. There was a cord hanging from the ceiling, but no showerhead. I decided that I would put off my research until a later time, and left the Turkish toilets for those of heartier composition. Other bathrooms far from home that interest me are those portable bathrooms found in airplanes and buses. In seventh grade, we took a field trip to Raleigh and Chapel Hill on a bus. We could tell it was a real field trip because our bus had a bathroom on it, and we passed the entire trip trying to figure out if it flushed right onto the highway. I believe it probably did A variation on this theme is the bathroom in an airplane, which I also believe gets flushed out at 35,000 feet. These bathrooms lire reserved for the heartier of composi tion, too. Back home in Chapel Hill, things aren't much safer. The bathroom at our house used to be characterized by a gaping hole right outside the shower. We jokingly called it the doorway to the pits of hell But I know it really was the doorway to the pits. We had to step several feet over the yawning chasm or risk being sucked into the inferno located right beneath our own bathroom. Then the repairman came to permanently seal the doorway, and the excitement has since gone out of taking a shower. The thrill just isn't there any more, knowing that I'm not risking my life anymore when I get out. Besides falling into the hole outside the shower, there s also the nsk of falling into the toilet, which I have done twice now. Sharing a bathroom with two males keeps me on my proverbial toes because they insist on leaving the seat up as a booby trap for unsuspecting females. My shrieks of indignation usually supply them with a week's worth of chuckles, so this little game continues at my expense. -It's only been through extensive "research" that IVe been able to present such a thorough exposition of bathrooms around the world. If this column has offended anyone, I dont apologize. It's something we all do, and there's no use denying it. Laura Pearlman is a junior English major from Asheville. Readers9 Foram i m iMii i mm i ii i an i r Carolina girls take care To the editor: Miniskirts and anoraks ... white socks and tennis shoes ... it's April and the "Carolina Girls" have reappeared with suntans from the long winter. Yes, the thousands of UNC women have somehow been melted into this huge stereotype of the Southern Woman, by the men, the faculty and by some of the women themselves. There's the bumper sticker that reads "Carolina girls have the most fun!" which inspires thoughts of cute, southern, pony-tailed girls with bows in their hair, a beer in hand, and boys on each elbow; modern Scarlett O'Haras laughing and teasing all the surrounding southern men. Recently, a UNC professor mentioned, mid-lecture, the joke about the Southern Wom an's Mating Call: three words, "I'm so drunk!" Admit it . . . it's funny. The joke conjures up an image of our above mentioned "Carolina Girl" batting her eyelashes at a boy at a party or bar as she trips over her Tretorns. If Chapel Hill were fairyland, our hero would laugh, take our friend home, and ask her out on a date. Wouldn't that be nice? Unfortunately, this is not always fairyland, and all cute boys are not heros. Imagine the scene over: she trips, he laughs, and he takes her back to his apartment and rapes her. This is date rape. It's not cute, it's not funny, and it happens, here, and not just to other people. Drinking is such a sport in this town that I just want to offer a friendly warning. When you go out on the town, espe cially if you're drinking, watch out for yourself and for your friends. Be aware of your actions and theirs, and make sure you know who's hanging out with whom and how eve ryone's getting home. Myself, IVe been known to 31 WAS G OMNIA DO IA CARTOON SUPPORTING! i ADAM COHEN'S f SUE ME, BUT J THOUGHT IT WAS Bf? ILL ANT. BRAVO, ADAM. IT'S ALWAYS DIFFICULT FORI 5ATRCAL CARTOONISTS TO APPROACH "TA600" SUBJECTS. I THINK THAT ADAM WAS I I ANYWAY, THE POINT I L00K FOLKS, THIS S TRYIMG TO SHOW THAT, IS, W NEED TO RACE RELATIONS WEEK. AND NOTHING MORE: a STOP GETTING PLEASE TAKE ADVANTAGE m -MSfe. ANGRY AT EACH B-SLL SBi?Z. uri7 ii ' WANNA TALK ABOUT IT CALL Mt AT 933-2257 drink a beer or three, and I may have been wearing the miniskirt uniform with a bow on my ponytail at the time. I've tripped and IVe said "I'm so drunk!" But I didn't mean it as a mating call and if you don't either, have fun, but be careful. SARAH RECKFORD Junior Education Officer's point unclear To the editor: We would like to respond to the comments made by Sgt. Ned Comar, spokesman for the University police, in the April 7 article, "UNC Student Victim of Rape." Comar said: "There are a lot of ways to handle a sex matter without a penis entering a vagina. Unless it boils down to something like that, I don't think it can be called rape." If Sgt. Comar's intentions were to state that rape, by law, is defined by intercourse, he should have clarified this. This blatantly sexist statement di minishes the seriousness of the attack the UNC student suf fered. Sgt. Comar seems to imply that as long as there is no intercourse, the matter is one of a minor assault. How ever, sexual assault and rape We goofed In the April 10 letter, "Hellfire sermons don't emphasize truth, " a sentence incorrectly capitalized the word catholic. The sentence should have read, "First, their concept of salvation has a distinct "them and us" flavor which is totally counter to the shoiild be taken more seriously catholic claims and nature of and such a personal violation nrist i.e., a year ago i was just like many oj you. The Daily Tar Heel regrets the error. Letters policy . n Students should include name, year in school, major, phone number and home town. Other members of , the University community should include similar information. u All letters must be typed and double-spaced, for ease of editing. We will not print handwritten letters. should not be defined in terms of intercourse. Safety is a problem on our campus, especially for women. The fact that this statement was made by a police officer is especially disappointing and alarming. SONIA ABECASSIS Graduate ' French LEANNEWARD Junior International Studies N.L. West preview wrongs Giants fans To the editor: The DTH often prints objectionable commentaries and editorials. I can sit idly by as DTH writers express controversial attitudes on many sensitive religious, moral or political subjects. However, one of your writers has exceeded the bounds of my forgiveness by desecrat ing one of the things that I hold nearest and dearest to my heart the San Francisco Giants. Mike Berardino's National League West predictions in the April 6 DTH ("Padres outgun rest of West") are "supported" by various miscon ceptions, untruths and silly statements. Let me start by acknowledging what is right with the article as Berardino suggests, the N.L. West is indeed the toughest division in baseball. This nugget of wisdom, offered in the first sentence, is virtually buried under the manure that comprises the rest of the article. Consider Berardino's statement that the San Diego Padres have "the league's best batting order this side of New York." Last year, this awesome lineup (admittedly minus Jack Clark) scored fewer runs than any other team in the National League except the Atlanta Braves. I don't know how Berardino defines a good batting order, but it would seem that any definition of "best" should include the ability to score runs. Perhaps Mr. Berardino is unaware of the fact that in baseball, the team with the most runs at the end of the game wins. Incidentally, it is commonly accepted that the Cincinnati Reds have the best batters in the division. Which brings me to my next complaint ... Berardino predicts that the Reds are destined to finish second, bolstering the prediction with the argument that "some people . . . are just meant to finish second." This "bridesmaid" argument is surprisingly common among sports reporters, perhaps because of the repeated blows on the head they no doubt received while playing high school sports. This is a silly, silly argument. And now to the section of the article which prompted me to compose this vitriolic memorandum . . . The San Francisco Giants, Berardino asserts, have tumbled from contention in the division because Manager Roger Craig (a Durham native) cant "stop teaching that awful, elbow-shattering split-fingered fastball . . ." Berardino cites Giant pitchers Dave Dravecky and Mike Krukow, .both currently disabled, as victims of Craig's elbow demolition. In fact, Dravecky had a cancerous tumor removed from his biceps muscle, and Krukow had shoulder surgery. Neither ailment, one might notice, involved anyone's elbow. Now, unless Berardino is suggesting that the split fingered fastball causes cancer, or that shoulder problems are limited to pitchers that throw that pitch, it seems .that these two examples were ill-chosen. I realize that this is basketball country, but please have some respect for knowl edgeable baseball fans like myself. Ernest Valenie is a graduate student in psychology from San Francisco, Ca.
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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April 11, 1989, edition 1
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