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Wednesday, June 3, 1981 THE PILOT—Southern Pines, North Carolina “In taking over The Pilot no changes are contemplated. We will try to keep this a good paper. We will try to make a little money for all concerned. Wherever there seems to be an occasion to use our influence for the public good we will try to do it. And we will treat everybody alike. ” — James Boyd, May 23. 1941. Not Cuts But Shifts Most people would like to see the federal budget reduced, but what they are seeing in the Reagan administration is not so much in the way of budget cuts as in shifts in spending. It’s true enough that the administration is pushing through Congress some heavy cuts in federal spending for such things as social service programs, including food, health and education. But it’s also true that the administration is pushing through Congress some heavy increases in spending for so-called defense programs, including a stock-piling of more nuclear weapons. It’s a big shift in spending and not ei^ryone agrees with that shift. '-'The shift will mean big profits for the munitions makers, but losses for a great many Americans who will not fare as well as they had been faring. Those budget cuts for social service programs will affect millions of people in every part of the country. In Moore County, for example, in one program-school lunches-there is the likelihood of federal funds being cut by as much as 44 percent next year. Last week the Board of Education was told that the schools may have to charge as much as $1.25 for lunch, almost double what is being charged this year. Supt. of Schools R.E. Lee commented, “I question how many will eat at that price.” For many poor children that school lunch is the major meal of the day, and for some perhaps the only real meal. Arrangements may be made to provide free lunches for the very poor, but that will mean charging more for all the rest of the children, and those charges can hit hard at the budget for a great many families. There will be cutbacks in service for the elderly as well as the young. Medical care will be affected, as well as many other programs which have helped to make life easier for older Americans. The full extent of these budget shifts will not be known for some mon&s, but state and local officials already are worrying over the loss of federal funds which have helped with public services in the past. The point of concern for a great many people is not about budget cutting as such, but the shifting of spending for people to spending for more bombs and more ways of killing people. Somehow things are getting out of kilter. Are We All Lemmings? George F. Kennan, a respected voice in foreign affairs for many years, made a powerful plea for America and Russia to move off a “collision course” with oblivion when he spoke recently in acceptance of the Albert Einstein Peace Prize. Columnist Tom Wicker of the New York Times wrote about the Kennan speech in a recent column and said: “Seldom if ever has there been so great a need for such a clarion call to common sense, from a man whose wisdom and experience gave him the right to make it and the ability to be heard.” Kennan called for the immediate reduction by 50 percent of American and Soviet nuclear arsenals instead of die announced further proliferation of nuclear arms. Increasing this nuclear power was called “a form of madness,” no longer a deterrent but being built up to the point where one side or the other may be tempted or deluded into using it. Wicker quoted Kennan as saying, “We have gone on piling weapon upon weapon, missile upon missile...helplessly, almost involuntarily, like the victims of some sort of hypnosis, like men in a dream, like lemmings heading for the sea.” Kennan believes “we’re getting very close to the point of no return.” Probably President Reagan and the warlike people around him in the State and Defense departments will not pay any attention to what George Kennan said, and the veteran diplomat is not confident that his proposal for a 50 percent reduction in nuclear power will be accepted as something worth talking about. But somebody should listen and steer us away from that collision course with oblivion. Surely we are not all lemmings head^ for the sea. Tests Proving Value It is not yet known how many Moore County seniors failed to pass the competency test required for receiving a diploma, but school officials can point to tremendous achievements in the remedal program which it launched two years ago. Last year this county ranked near the top in the state in its testing scores, and in the competency test for seniors. The number who were awarded certificates and not diplomas was extremely small, and this year’s experience with the competency test is not expected to show much change. A few years ago there was a cry all over the state for schools to get “back to tosics” but in Moore County the educators insisted that here they had never left the basics. Nevertheless, when the testing program was put into effect under a new state law this county, along with others, started remedial programs in the basics, and the results have been good. There were some questions and disagreements when Governor Jim Hunt made an issue out of the competency tests, but there were few who would argue with his belief that any person graduating from high school in North Carolina should able to read and write and do simple arithmetic. As things turned out the competency test has not been the educational bugaboo which some people claimed it would be. Instead it has been a good measuring rod and it certainly has increased the desired accountability which was being demanded of the public school system. Moore County can, in fact, be proud of its accomplishments, and the resulte speak for themselves. Toxic Waste Law ..At long last it is beginning to look like North Carolina will have a law on the book to deal with the growing problem of dis posing of toxic waste. The bill setting up a law on toxic waste Published Every Wednesday By The POot, Incorporated Southern Pines, North Carolina Sam Ragan Marjorie Ragan Florence Gilkeson Patsy Tucker Liz Huskey Mary Evelyn de Nissoff Woodrow Wilhoit Charles Weatherspoon Peggy Marsh Phillip W. Kiser Russell J. Lorenson Gloria B. Fisher Kathy Lawrence Marilyn M. Bridgeman Thomas H. Mattocks Editor and Publisher Associate Editor News Editor Reporter Reporter Pinehurst Euiior Carthage Editor Advertising Mgr. Advertising Asst. Advertising Asst. Auditor Office Manager Office Asst. Office Asst. Production Manager Production Department: Glenn M. Sides, Beverly Van Dyke, Sandra Willoughby, Glen Matthews, Darlene McNeill, Billie Sue Clippard, Jim Kirkpatrick. Member National Newspaper Association and N.C. Press Association. Subscription Rates Moore County: One year...$7.50. Six Months... $4.50. Three Months...$2.75. Outside Moore County: One Year...$9.00. Six Months...$5.50. Three Months...$3.50. Send Change of Address to The Pilot, Box 58, Southern Pines, N.C. 28387. disposal was introduced at the urging of Governor Jim Hunt after several studies and conferences had been held on the issue. One of the provisions of the bill gives the governor the authority to over-ride local officials and zoning ordinances in the designation of sites for waste disposal. This provision has raised questions and objections from several areas, and an amendment has been added to the bill which provides for judicial review of a governor’s decision. That should make the bill more palatable and it certainly will make the governor’s office more careful in designating disposal sites. Looking at the matter realistically, it makes sense for such authority to be granted the executive branch of state government, because the governor is elected by the people and responsible to the people. Experience has shown that without a state law on toxic waste disposal the problem will continue to mount. This is a state problem but it is not one confined to the state of North Carolina. Other states are having to face up to the same problem, and in time a national policy will have to be made into law. This state is responsible for a great amount of toxic waste, and it is necessary that the state start doing something about it. Most people will hardly welcome having a toxic waste disposal site placed near their homes, and certainly the governor will be conscious of the feeling of people about these matters. This new state law may have some onerous side effects, but it is something which is needed, and the bill before the legislature should not be delayed in its passage. AMERJCMS FOREIGN RIICY TAKES S«APE Distnbiitad by King Featurti Syndic*!* Death And Dying BYTHADSTEMJR Death and dying are still printed and the words occur in spoken conversations. But hardly anyone dies today. The person may be as lifeless as James A. Garfield, but we say he > has passed on, has gone to his reward, has been raised to glory, or has left us. About the only feature that hasn’t changed is Samuel Butler’s (1835-1892): “It costs a lot of money to die comfortable.” Nor is there a radical social change since the late George Ade said a funeral may be only a traffic nuisance in the city but a funeral is still big drama in the town and country. When an ancient Roman died it was said, “He has gone to join the great majority.” But today more people are living than are dead. James M. Barrie got tons of publicity from having Peter Pan say “To die will be an awfully big adventure.” And many of us share secretly Cicero’s dictum, “I don’t want to die but I wouldn’t care if I were dead.” And Samuel Butler seems on the mark with “death, like life, is an affair of being more frightened than hurt.” But most us see death as the province of others and not of ourselves. The mind concedes the inevitability but the heart denies, it, just as the late Edna Millay said: “Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave. Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind. Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave. I know. But I do not approve and I am not signed.” Many of us, unsure about our fate, find grim consolation in Marcus Aurelisu’s observation: “Death reduced to the same condition Alexander the Macedonian and his muleteer.” And no one ever expressed the ultra democracy of death better than Shakespeare in “Hamlet:” “Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay. Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.” Most of us really share Mark Twain’s feeling: “When news of my demise comes, I hope I am out of town.” And as yet no one has improved upon Sir Thomas More’s crack as he was being lead up the steps to the scaffold: “I pray you, Master Lieutenant, see me safe up and for my coming down let me shift for myself.” Antics On Human Rights The New York Times If you can’t argue the law, argue the evidence, and if that won’t work, invoke God and motherhood. That old legal adage describes the Reagan Administration’s shameful squirming on human rights. Facing a law it dislikes and evidence it finds embarrassing, it is reduced to arguing that torture in Christian societies is less dreadful than in Marxist lands. But the human rights argument turns not on religious doctrine, free elections or political liberties. It turns on a transcendent regard for human life. The point needs stressing, because it is being insistently distorted by Ernest Lefever, the president’s unworthy nominee to run human rights policy. His grudging testimony implies that Jimmy Carter somehow lost ground to the Soviets by trying to foist the American Constitution on friendly countries with different traditions. Concern for basic human rights is a global cause. There is nothing uniquely American or Western in denouncing imprisonment without trial, government-sponsored torture and political, religious or ethnic massacres. Abhorrence for these outrages is so widespread that even governments that permit them are ashamed to confess it. To its lasting credit, the Carter Administration reaffirmed America’s dedication to human rights. And even before Mr. Carter came to office. Congress ordered annual evaluations of human rights conditions abroad from the State Department. What Congress intended was accurately expressed by Secretary of State Haig in January: “I do not believe we should, other than in the most exceptional circumstances, provide aid to any country which consistently and in the harshest manner violates the human rights of its citizens.” Mr. Haig also held that public censure of offending regimes was often unproductive. He said he preferred quiet but firm diplomacy on the issue. But what might have been a prudent and quietly effective diplomacy now bodes to be neither. The nomination of Mr. Lefever was the worst possible signal. He is much too worshipful of governments that profess anti communism and clearly intends to acquiesce in their abuses of human rights. Now the Administration wants to sell arms to Argentina and Guatemala, the hemisphere’s main delinquents in respect for human rights. Unmistakably, the Reagan team aims to remove the restraints of conscience from collaborations with “friendly” dictatorships. Favored tyrannies are thus desribed as merely “authoritarian” whereas Marxist ones are branded “totalitarian.” But however much national security requires collaborating with tyranny, this distinction obscures the essence of human rights. The real world is not neatly divided into free-market or God fearing friends and Marxist enemies. There is more respect for human life in Communist Yugoslavia than in Christian Argentina. And why is Po land’s externally imposed totalitarianishi more hdteful* than South Korea’s home-bred authoritariansim? As the Carter team discovered, the United States will occasionally find itself sacrificing concern for human rights to some overriding strategic ambition. But inconstancy does not invalidate the cause or diminish its achievements. Thousands of people have been saved by the world-wide campaign for human rights, and some have risen to prominence bearing gratitude for America. An even handed approach to human rights does the Soviet Union no favors; it focuses on what is ugliest in Communism and gives a genuinely moral dimension to American diplomacy. For the Reagan Administration to excuse the abuse of basic human rights-in merely “authoritarian” societies—violates a cherished American faith. Not so incidentally, it also weakens the effort to counter Soviet influence. President Reagan needs urgently to reassert the nation’s ideals and to prove he means it by withdrawing the Lefever nomination. 4 »ySAM The building is not completed and it will be a year before it is opened a^ the new North Carolina Museum of Art, but officials decided to go ahead and dedicate it last week. This was formally done by Governor Jim Hunt on Thursday afternoon, but it was the night before when all of the people who had been involved wiUi the museum and its new quarters celebrated the event with a big black tie party and banquet at the Velvet Cloak Inn in Raleigh. It was really a night to honor Tom White, the former State Senator from Kinston who was appointed chairman of the Museum Building Commission in 1967 by then Governor Dan K. Moore. The commission hosted the party and banquet, and it was a commission member and the present chairman of the museum board of trustees, Gordon Hanes of Winston-Salem, who as master of ceremonies paid tribute to the dedicated work of White over the past 14 years. Hanes recalled when he first went to the State Senate he had been told and quickly learned that Tom White was “the most powerful man in the Legislature.” The two of them, he said, would go to the legislative building'at 5:30 in the morning to start the day’s work. “Tom White was able to get all those bills passed, or killed, because he knew what was in those bills, and most of the other members did not.” Hanes then called on Secretary Sara Hodgkins of the Department of Cultural Resources who unveiled a bust of White after recognizing the young sculptor, William Hipp, a graduate of the University of North Carolina who has won acclaim for his sculptures of other noted North Carolinians such as Paul Green, Thomas Wolfe, Albert Coates, Sam Ervin and Justice William Bobbitt. White acknowledged the standing ovation given him and thanked all those who had worked with him in bringing the new museum to its near completion. It was a splendid occasion and thoroughly enjoyed by all those present. No one explained why the museum was being dedicated even though it is not finished, but the opinion was expressed that it was because the Legislature is in session now and will not be when construction work is completed in the Fall. After all, it was the Legislature which appropriated the money for the building~$10 million of the $15 million cost coming in 1973. Many legislators were present for the party. Controversy has surrounded the new art museum over the years. There was controversy over the site, and Gordon Hanes defended the choice of the site on Blue Ridge Road on the Western outskirts of Raleigh, saying it was done because there was room to grow. In the early days, however, there was strong sentiment for locating the new museum near the State Capitol in downtown Raleigh, and some of the downtown supporters even went to court over the issue. They lost and the building commission and Tom White had their way. This dispute over the site is now a thing of the past, and at last Wednesday night’s party there was nothing but good feelings about the new museum. It will be a year or more before the works of art are hung and the museum is opened to the public, and even though there will be some who will not like the architecture (such expressions already have been heard) most North Caro linians will be proud of the museum. * After all, as Tom White said the other night, “North Carolinians love art.” * * * ♦ Every writer-in-residence who has been at Weymouth has written a poem or a special essay about the place. They insist there is a compulsion to do so. One of the recent writers who spent a week at Weymouth was Mae Woods Bell, director of the Children’s Museum at Rocky Mount, who wrote the following poem, “Weymouth-Easter Week”: The rosy, once ocean-tossed sand Undulates in hills of waves Preserved in time. Where playing dolphins broke the spray A bluejay flashes from perch to bough. In morning breezes Treetops echo surges of Archaen seas- Their whitecaps, dogwood blooms. Their spongy depths the boxwood shrubs- dark, cool, green. It is good to be at Weymouth. For a while I can forget Yesterday’s preoccupation with brittle sciences And for tiie now Pretend at poetry. The Public Speaking Do Not Destroy To the Editor: In the so-called interest of saving labor costs, the Town of Southern Pines is contemplating a system of curb side collections of trash and garbage to be enclosed in plastic bags. Far from saving money, it seems that this idea could prove to be far more costly in the long run for the following reasons: 1. There is no known trash bag that is immune to destruction by dogs, raccoons, rats, etc. The packs of wild dogs that inhabit our area will be attracted to the town, leading to fights and pollution of our streets. 2. There is no more unsightly vision than a yard or property that is strewn with the contents of someone else’s tra:^ bag. Should the owner or resident be elderly, lame or ill, who will clean up the mess made by marauding animals? Will the town assume this responsibUity? 3. Prospective residents who are contemplating a move to our beautiful Southern Pines will be discouraged and “turned off” should they be looking around on trash collection day. Trash bags. lining the streets, be they intact or not, are not a pleasant sight at any time. We, the members of the Garden Club of The Country Club of North Carolina, strongly suggest that the officials of the Town of Southern Pines reconsider their recommendation for curb side collections. Please do not destroy the tranquility and beauty of lovely Southern Pines. We feel sure that there are other alternatives for satisfactory (Continued on Page 3-BV A letter comes from Dr. G. McLeod Bryan of the Department of Religion at Wake Forest University commenting on a recent tribute here to Paul Green. He sent along an excerpt from a letter he had received from his old friend Green last November. It read: Dreams that often get fastened down in steel and concrete, ritual and rote may prove obdurate and evil, cruel and oppresive, but we must keep at the business of awakening the sleeper, mustn’t we?” ♦ * * He didn’t say if he was speaking from experience, but a reader sends along this observation: “Life can be pretty grim when you pass 80-and a cop’s right behind you.” Randy Arnold of Southern Pines was the winner of the student poetry award from The Lyricist, the literary publication of Campbell University. Here is one of his prize-winning poems-“Achilles”: There’s always that vulnerable spot. You were held by the heel Achilles. She meant well; but not letting go is not the same as love. If she could have seen her reflection as she dipped you in the water, she would have seen her heart strained with its own desire. The arrow was not loosed by cunning but by your mother’s hand. A true blessing always has the arms raised to the sky. • * * * The 17th annual Tar Heel Writers Roundtable will be conducted in Raleigh by the founder and director, Bernadette Hoyle, on August 14-15. Information about this year’s Roundtable may be obtained by writing Ms. Hoyle at Box 5393, Raleigh, N.C. 27650. * ♦ * ♦ And from Mae Woods Bell we get this observation: If you are annoyed by potholes Relax and look at it this way: They’re one of the few things on the road Still made in the U.S.A.
The Pilot (Southern Pines, N.C.)
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June 3, 1981, edition 1
17
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