Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Jan. 24, 1990, edition 1 / Page 10
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10The Daily Tar HeelWednesday, January 24, 1990 ' Z know HETXmft fffiM&yf plfif .A czTTte,ne 97 th year of editorial freedom Sharon Kebschull, Editor JUSTIN McGl'IRE, University Editor KAREN DUNN, State and National Editor TOM PARKS, Business Editor Jamie Rosenberg, Svrs Editor MELANIE BLACK, Design Editor Julia Coon, News Editor EVAN ElLE, rholograyhy Editor AMY VVAJDA, University Editor James Burroughs, Editorial Page Editor Jessica Lanning, City Editor CARA BONNETT, Arts and Features Editor KELLY TllOMI'SON, Omnibus Editor Steve Wilson, News Editor PETE CORSON, Cartoon Editor Release the records UNC must let public see police reports board opinion Late last semester, " The Daily Tar Heel asked Chancellor Paul Hardin to open - campus police incident reports to public scrutiny, as is required of police depart ments by North Carolina's Open Records Law. Hardin's legal counsel, Susan Ehring haus, requested guidance from the state attorney general's office on how to handle this request, and this week the answer came back: The records will stay closed. This is unacceptable. For the good of the campus and the safety of all students, fac ulty and staff, these records must become available. UNC's police now release a "daily summary" of the police log, which gives only a few details of the calls to which the police respond. Granted, if the press has further questions about an entry in that summary, the police are generally willing to elaborate, but that is not the issue here. The open records law is supposed to make it possible for anyone to go to the police station and read the details of each inci dent. In Chapel Hill, residents may go to the town police station and find those de tails, but at UNC, this is not possible. To keep the records closed, Ehringhaus and Deputy Attorney General Andrew Vanore rely on the "Buckley Amendment," part of the 1 974 Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which says a school may not release any "education record" that would identify an individual student. Administrators argue that because police records are often shared with the chancel lor or other University divisions, they become part of an educational record and must be closed to public view. But the law is too vague to apply to police records and supersede state law; therefore, UNC should follow the Open Records Law. At some universities, the restricted access has created such a severe problem that major crimes have gone unreported or released with the scantiest of details. At UNC, there is no proof that the police are withholding information. Then again, without access to the original records, there's no proof that they're not. John DeVitto, who took over late last semester as acting public safety director, argues that this is simply a matter of trust, but trust is difficult when one party keeps secrets. Trust is not the issue here the law is. DeVitto also said last semester that we need to trust the police to do what's in the best interest of the students. But that pa tronizing position suggests that everyone from 18-year-old freshmen. who may think this campus is safer than it is to 42-year-old graduate students too old for such kid-glove treatment needs to be pro tected from the details of campus crime. Clearly, that's precisely the sort of protec tion we never want from the police. The University and police have little to gain by withholding information, espe cially considering how confidence has eroded following discrimination com plaints against the police department. The ongoing stories about officers filing griev ances against their superiors make the public nervous about how efficiently and effectively the department is operating. To keep from the public the details of those operations only further damages the department's credibility. And this is not, by any stretch of the imagination, solely an issue of the press having access to these records. Students, employees, parents of students and pro spective students and residents of Chapel Hill should be equally concerned with what the police do not tell them. We should all be angry with University administrators and with Vanore for their attempts only to make this campus look good and their lack of concern for our safety and our right to know. It's hard to understand how, at a university dedicated to teaching the ideals of America, this right cannot be upheld. In time, bills that have been introduced in Congress making it clear that the amend ment does not apply to campus police records may become law. The University and the state, so concerned with public relations, should realize how much better it will look if they stop stalling and open the records before a mandate comes down from the federal government. An antagonistic relationship between the University, police and the public bene fits no one. But the disdain the University shows for the public's right to know in withholding these records demands an tagonism from the University community until administrators change their tune. The fear that many students have over the number of crimes on campus, especially rapes, makes opening these documents an absolute necessity. Chancellor Hardin, it's time for you and this state to stop hiding behind a law that doesn't apply anyway and open the records now. The perfect story Media capitalizes on Boston tragedy It was the kind of story you see on a movie of the week or read in a best-selling paperback. On Jan. 4, a tale of murder, greed and racism opened a new chapter when Charles Stuart threw himself into the cold waters of Boston's Mystic River. As the ripples of Stuart's crime continue to rock Boston, the media has seized the opportunity to cash in on tragedy. Friends described the Stuarts as "the perfect couple," but the fairy tale ended on Oct. 23 when Charles Stuart made a frantic call from his car phone to the police reporting that he and his wife had been shot by a black assailant. Boston and the nation were shocked by this crime, which the media originally portrayed as another example of inner city violence. While the public mhmbbmhhhm cried for justice and a police manhunt scoured black neigh borhoods for a suspect, the media swallowed Stuart's role as the tragic victim and a model husband. Stuart's image as a martyred saint was "i tarnished when his younger brother confided to family members that there was more to the murder than a simple mugging turned night mare. Police suspicion forced Stuart to take his own life, leaving a city in racial turmoil, a nation in shock and the media ready to feed on the tragic story. From the beginning, the networks and re porters across the country played on the fear and prejudice caused by Charles Stuart's story to win ratings and sell newspapers. With Stuart's death, the sensationalism shows no signs of easing. CBS has purchased the film rights to the story for an upcoming mini-series, and book publishers are shouting for someone to put the tale to print. As the media scrambles to turn tragedy into big ratings and even bigger reve nues, the real issues should not be trivialized for Real issues should not be trivialized for the sake of commercial prime-time melodrama. the sake of commercial prime-time melodrama According to national statistics, almost one- third of all women who are murdered in the United States are killed by their husbands or boyfriends. It is hard to imagine a man could slaughter his wife and unborn child for an $82,000 insurance check, but violence against women is a part of life. That police and the media failed to see contradictions in Stuart's story proves how unwilling American society is to recognize acts of violence against women If any real solution is to be found, this problem must be explored rationally and not dramatized for a CBS Movie of the Week. When Charles Stuart described his attacker as a black man in a jogging suit, he tapped into hbmmmm the fears of white soci ety and created a racial smoke screen that helped cover the holes in his story. The ques tion that now confronts ourconscience is why it is easier to point an accusing finger at a black man than to real- ize that evil can also be a white yuppie in an expensive suit. Finding an answer requires serious examination of our selves and the society we have created not a 15-minute segment on A Current Affair or a paperback tell-all novel. When the police pulled Charles Stuart's body from the Mystic River, the media saw a golden opportunity. American society is fasci nated by the misery of others and the Stuart story is a perfect combination of murder and tragedy. The temptation to win the public's eye was too great to pass up and a responsible media quickly degenerated to graphic depic tions of violence. It is important that newspa pers and the networks inform the public, but society is the loser and truth is the victim when sensational images and dollar signs determine the news. Charles Brittain Ag uide to growio g old To be honest with you, I ain't feeling so young, spry and chipper these days. Sometime, maybe it was last year, I re alized that I couldn t eat seven Zagnut bars, a large Coke and a pink Hostess Sno-Ball and expect to have normal sleeping patterns. Sta tistically speaking, I apparently have only 49 years left to live, and almost a third of my life is already over sobering news, let me tell you, for someone who still has Green Eggs and Ham memorized and Garanimal stains left on his butt. Perhaps this apocalyptic viewpoint was brought on by a date I had with a girl a couple of semesters ago. It was sort of a blind date, more like a partially obscured date where I knew who the girl was but didn't really know anything about her. We got along fabulously well, and after dancing at this cocktail party, we walked outside into the moonlight. "So how long have you been here at school?" I asked. "Oh this is my first year," she said, and smiled. "Really? How old are you?" "17." Urp. I could see flashing red lights and concerned parole officers. "Yowza," I said, in a moment of verbal brilliance. "When's your birthday?" "June 26, 1971." And then I realized that this wonderful girl sitting in front of me was bom the exact same day as my baby sister. And all the feelings I had for her suddenly became somehow incestu ous, and I couldn't look at her without thinking of my sister's dirty diapers or recalling all of her gross friends with boogers while she was in kindergarten. I remember 1971, dammit! But then I started to think about it, and I realized that I'm not all that terribly wise, and I have no reason to think myself any higher on the evolutionary ladder than half the kids out there buying Milli Vanilli albums. After all, it wasn't that long ago when I was high on the Ignorant Dork roll call, and in memory of those recent days, here are a few Things I Thought I Knew. The Police and invent-a-Iyric Most of you will remember the Police song "Spirits in the Material World" from about eight years ago. Not known for his sparkling diction. Sting would warble "we are spirits ... in the material world-" but since the lyrics weren't printed on the album sleeve I was dead sure he 3-- " -nl m " N" mm Ian Williams Wednesday's Child was singing "I'm so scared ... I can't find my cereal" over and over. Sing the song to yourself and you'll hear it. Anyway, there is a whole race of people that I call lyroneurotics, an insufferable bunch of anally-retentive goggleboxes that live to cor rect people on song lyrics, whenever the sub ject doesn't agree with the verb, whenever it doesn't rhyme, or whenever the slightest de viation from the true lyric occurs. So there I am in the car in tenth grade singing "I'm so scared ... I can't find my cereal" when suddenly my best friend Hampy, a lyroneurotic of the highest order, bonks me over the head with the tape case and forces me to listen to a 20-minute dissertation on proper Police lyrics having to do with "subjugating the meek" and "the rheto ric of failure." Boy, was I embarrassed. Milking the Masses I always like to use the most descriptive words I possibly can in an essay; it spices up otherwise dreary subjects and makes our mother tongue so much more fun but if you don't know what you're doing, you can look like a fool w ith little or no trouble. Due to some bizarre thesaurus mishap early in my writing career, I was left reasona bly positive that the word "lactate" meant "to crush, thwart, or overthrow." So enamored of this word was I that I attempted to use it in every paper all the way until my freshman year in college. There I elaborated in a history paper, "France had its first real national hero ine in Joan of Arc, who became immortal by lactating the English forces during the Battle of Orleans." Just imagine my horror a few months later when I accidentally watched a PBS special on The Miracle of Life and discovered that "lac tating" meant the time when a mother starts secreting milk. If you ask me, that made my Joan of Arc essay a little more sensual. The Wearing o' the Red About every recessive gene capable of being reproduced ended up in my body red hair, blue eyes, a blood type found only on remote islands in the ooiraotly North Sea, and color blindness. My color blind ness is only for red and green, thank god, but still an endless source of entertainment for friends with way too much free time. They hold red and green stuff in front of me until the sloths come home asking me what color they are, just for the unadulterated glee of seeing me get it wrong. My mom, who was supposed to be my friend during grade school, decided she'd have a larf or two at my expense and made me an all-red costume to wear for the third-grade St. Patrick's Day party. It wasn't until many years and many abortive Irish party attempts later that I discov ered my color-coded faux pas. Goofy mothers like mine turn innocent kids into Cuisinart serial murderers. Ordering Chinese Food the E-Z Way I suppose I can only explain this by saying I was dropped on my head as a baby or something, but I have always thought that "origami" was a kind of Chinese food, and not only that, but I ordered it regularly! So there we were, me and my blind date after the cocktail at a Chinese restaurant, and I didn't even need to see the menu. I knew what I wanted. "Yes, I'll have the origami." The waiter looked confused. "Excuse me, sir?" "I said I'll have the origami, please." My date tried to suppress her laugh. "Ian, do you know what origami is?" "Not really but whatever it is tastes really good." "Ian," she giggled, "origami is that art form where you fold up paper to make little horsies and stuff!" So this is a word to the wise: the minute you start thinking you know all there is to know in this world and you feel frustrated with all the people you know so much more than, be careful someday soon, you may accidentally write an essay about Joan of Arc's milking problems, accidentally sing the stupidest lyrics to a song ever invented or get a tutorial on grade school art from a girl whose diapers you are old enough to accidentally have changed. Ian Williams is a music and psychology major from Los Angeles, Calif, who would like to try a cheesy reader mail column next week. Please submit any thoughts, questions or out right lies to the letters to the editor box outside the DTH office by Monday. Readers' Foram Involvement shows no regard for world To the editor: I'd like to take issue with Mark Pruett's vapid, biased critique of Dale McKinley ("American in volvement is a complex issue," Jan. 22). The "tired Third World view" of an "overbearing, deceitful U.S." may not be true, but it's the only side of us they ever get to see. The U.S. acts without consulting any other government or international organization, implying that "we can do whatever we want because we know what's good for you." If we had not initially supported ei ther Somoza or Noreiga, Nicara gua and Panama would be in much better shape today. Good inten tions are not enough if our leaders are narrow and blind. Action is not enough either. We want to help, but only if we can make money at it, which is pre cisely why the Third World is in shambles. We must act by our ideals and allow those countries to formulate their own plans for improvement, instead of impos ing archaic, alien and exploitative paths upon them. We are no better than they are, but everything we do in the Third World contradicts that. Before the Panamanian invasion (obviously planned several weeks in advance). the U.S. government could have done two things: call a close meet ing of the United Nations Security Council to get feedback and sup port, or hold high level meetings with neighboring governments to justify our action. As it is, we just blustered in militarily and only considered world opinion as an afterthought. The Third World will never respect the United States as long as our policies consistently ignore opinion makers in other nations. Our platitudes about hav ing "the people's support" are not enough in today's cynical world. Mr. Pruett makes an important point about the terms of thousands of intelligent, hardworking, hon orable men and women in our foreign service, but they are use less as long as our policy is guided by the few, rich, callous and power hungry dinosaurs who continue to blight the image of the U.S. just as they always have. Until we can elect competent leadership, we will not be the bright beacon of com passion and honor in the world, but rather the locus of hypocrisy. NICHOLAS ACKERMAN Senior RTVMP United effort forced bar to close for good To the editor: Well folks, the votes are in, and On The Hill is out. For those of you who haven't followed the issue. On The Hill was a bar in Chapel Hill that began discrimi nating against homosexuals when the semester started. Employees were instructed to refuse admit tance to anyone they thought might be a lesbian or gay by citing a dress code, charging a higher cover at the door or asking for two forms of identification. Fortunately, these new policies didn't go down well with anyone in Chapel Hill. Students got mad; a meeting was called, negotiation teams were created and a boycott began. Flyers went up around town decrying On The Hill's bigoted rules. Representatives from the original meeting met time and time again with both of the bar's man agement teams during the contro versy trying to get them to change their ways. Negotiation didn't work the boycott continued. In fact, it wasn't just lesbians and gays who were angered by the whole ordeal. The alternative crowd those that wear black had been refused admittance to On The Hill. Members of Greek organizations, most of whom had never even been to the bar, felt victimized because the discrimi nation had begun, according to the bar's manager, as a way to attract them. John Hopkins, the former owner of the bar, has apparently decided that one crowd needed to be kicked out to bring in another; this didn't appeal to the Greeks at all. Thus the boycott was carried out by a wide coalition of people who felt in their hearts that dis crimination was wrong. Student Congress supported it, as did the Campus Y. So did the Carolina Gay and Lesbian Association, the Black Greek Council and the Panhellenic Council. Most impor tantly, hundreds of individual stu dents made a conscious decision to take their partying dollars else where. To all of these people and organizations I would like to ex tend a personal thank you. You have proven that a boycott can work, and you have sent a mes sage to the entire Chapel Hill business community that discrimi nation will never help their prof its. As a gay man, I am forced to live with oppression on a daily basis. I wouldn't trade being gay for anything, and your collective action has renewed my hopes for a better world. You can be sure that I will stick up for your rights if they are ever threatened. Hopkins has sold off On The Hill; here's to hoping the new bar in it's place, and the rest of the bars in Chapel Hill, will make this kind of ordeal a thing of the past. MARK BURNISTON Senior Biology t
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Jan. 24, 1990, edition 1
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