Rio Bravo review
5
Weekend Weather: Check out our new weafher column on page 8.
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Camping with sweaty
people 6
Student escort service
planned 10
The Blue
Volume 25, Number 5
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT ASHEVILLE
October 3, 1996
BOOK THEFTS IN ROBINSON ANGER, SURPRISE STUDENTS
■ The first annual community ser
vice fair will be held on Thursday,
Oct. 3 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the
Highsmith Center plaza. Sponsored
by the Office of Student Develop
ment. Call 6588.
■ A Veritas Faculty-Student Lun
cheon will be held on Thursday, Oct.
3 from 12-1 p.m. in the Owen Con
ference Center. The speaker will be
Dr. Thomas Schmidt, and the topic
will be “All Blessed and No Place to
Go: Can Jesus be Saved From
Postmodernism?” The third Veritas
lecture on Thursday, entitled “The
Big Bang, Stephen Hawking, and
God,” will be given at 8 p.m. in
Lipinsky Auditorium by Dr. Fritz
Schafer.
■ Theatre UNCA’s production of
“Arcadia” will be performed at 8 p.m.
in Carol Belk Theater on Thursday,
Friday, and Saturday (Oct. 3-5). There
will also be two matinee shows on
Saturday, Oct. 5 and Sunday, Oct. 6
at 2 p.m. Tickets are $10 for adults,
$8 for senior citizens, and $6 for fac
ulty, staff, students, and children. Call
253-5778 for reservations.
■ A Veritas forum lecture, entitled
“Renewing American Compassion,”
will be given on Friday, Oct. 4 at 8
p.m. by Dr. Marvin Olasky. The
lecture is in Lipinsky Auditorium and
is free.
■ UNCA’s Center for Creative Re
tirement (NCCCR) is hosting the “Be-
hind-the-Scenes Forest Tour” all day
on Saturday, Oct. 5. Tickets are $40,
which includes transportation and a
catered lunch. Call NCCCR at 6140
for more information, as well as to
register.
■ The men’s soccer team will play
Charleston Southern on Saturday,
Oct. 5 at 2 p.m. The game will be
played at Greenwood Field, and is
free to all UNCA faculty, staff, and
students with ID.
■ “Opening Doors: A Dialogue on
Organizational Racism,” will be held
from 6-8 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 7 at
the MAHEC building on Biltmore
Avenue. Questions? Call Carolyn
Briggs at 6671, or Ed Katz at 6411.
■ The World Affairs Council pre
sents “Bosnia: A Case Study of Balkan
Ethnicity and Nationalism,” on Mon
day, Oct. 7 at 7:30 p.m. in the Owen
Conference Center. The lecture will
be given by Clifford Lovin of the.
Western Carolina University history
department. If you have any ques
tions, call Tom Sanders at 252-6327
■ “Sunjata,” a shadow puppet show
that uses colorful visuals, dance se
quences, African drumming and
songs, will be performed at 7:30
p.m.on Wednesday, Oct. 9 in Lipinsky
Auditorium. Tickets for the show are
i 10 for general admission and $6 for
children under 14. If you have any
questions, call 6584.
■ Keith Ray will hold a fitness work
shop on Wednesday, Oct. 9 in
Highsmith Center room 37 from 1-3
p.m. Topics include diet, exercise,
mental outlook, and more.
Trish Johnson
Staff Writer
Three UNCA students and a profes
sor had books stolen Sept. 17 around
1 p.m. from Robinson Hall, accord
ing to a UNCA Public Safety report.
The larcenist has not yet been caught.
“If we catch him, he would probably
be found butt-naked (at) about 8 a.m.,
hanging from the flag pole at a point
to where his own mother wouldn’t
recognize him,” said senior Cameron
McKeel, a biology major.
UNCA students Brook Bowers,
Cameron McKeel, Cheryl Stokes, and
visiting assistant professor of chemis
try, Bruce Burnham, had around $400
worth of books stolen alltogether. “It could be an individual either try-
The books were taken
out of the chemistry
research lab, the en
vironmental science
break room, and out
of Dr. Burnham’s of
fice in Robinson Hall,
according to McKeel.
Only “low-lifes” are
people who steal, ac
cording to McKeel.
He added that not as
many books would
have been stolen if
this was a personal
issue. He added that
he has no idea who stole
"If we catch him,
he would prob
ably be found
butt-naked (at)
about 8 a.m.,
hanging from
the flag pole."
—Cameron McKeel
the books. dollars a semester
mg to support a
drug habit, or just
trying to get some
money,” said
McKeel. “In no
way am I point
ing a finger at any
fraternity, at any
sorority, or at any
organization here
on campus, but
you’d have to be
an idiot not to see
that this would be
one way to make
several hundred
for whatever fund
ing. It would be a hell of a way to fund
a keg fund.”
“It would be so convenient for four
or five people to pick up any shiny
new books and sell them back at the
end of the semester for a party fund. If
I were looking for a way of bringing a
little extra cash into some kind of
organization, and I didn’t mind bend
ing the ethical rules, then this is an
incredibly viable way to make extra
cash.”
“I was pissed about it ,but I just
bought the two books again,” said
McKeel. “Whoever it is, is brazen. It
is that kind of brazenness and stupid-
THEFTS cont. on pq.8
Yogic flying aftracts onlookers and skeptics at demonstration
Jennifer Thurston
Sports Editor
First, they meditate.
Then, they hop. And they
promise that if 7,000
people join them, they
can change the harmonial
balance of the world by
tapping into the natural
energy field of the uni
verse to effect positive
changes in everyday soci
ety.
They are the yogic fly
ers of the Natural Law
Party (NLP), and they
arrived at UNCA on Sept. _
24 to demonstrate the
first level of transcenden-
tal meditation (TM),
which is the basis of the ■
Natural Law Party’s po
litical platform. Joining
the two yogic flyers,
Michel Teboul and John I
Butler, were a slate of the
party’s candidates run- si
ning for North Carolina
offices, including UNCA
student Scott Lamb, a
candidate for Buncombe County commissioner.
“If we want perfection in government,” Lamb
said, “we need look no farther than nature itself.
I really believe our political process can bring
about change. The government should teach
individuals how to self-govern in accord with
natural law.”
Lamb said the NLP offers three things to
voters: hope, prevention-based solutions, and a
proven method of change that is rooted in TM.
The hopping demonstrated by the yogic flyers at
UNCA is only the first stage of the process.
John Butler exhibits his yogic flying technique in front of Ramsey Ubra^ during a rally for the Natural Low Party last week.
Photos by Jennifer Thurston
human development and
the goal is enlightenment.
Harmony and order radi
ate to the entire society.
It’s not a question of an
interesting philosophy,
but a scientific reality.”
But Barry Markovsky, a
professor of sociology at
the University of Iowa,
said the claims of TM
practitioners are not valid.
“It’s not truthful at all,”
Markovsky said. “Scien
tists never say they have
proven anything. It is dif
ficult to get highly reli
able evidence. (Their stud
ies) all have methodologi
cal flaws in them. This is
one reason they can’t
claim the Maharishi ef
fect.”
Pardo said the first ob
jective of the party, if
elected into power, would
be to gather 7,000 people
to use TM to case the
world’s problems. 7,000
is the square root of one
Lamb said.
Victor Pardo, the party’s U.S. senatorial candi
date for North Carolina, explained that TM is a
method for accessing a powerful, expanded con
sciousness that forms the basic source of the mani
fest universe’s energy. When many people use the
method collectively, Pardo said, TM can neutral
ize stress and the root causes of social problems
throughout the world, also called the Maharishi
effect.
“The point of access is our own consciousness,”
Pardo said. “(TM) represents an advanced form of
percent of the world’s population, and when this
number of people gathered together in Iowa to
practice TM in 1983, the world’s crime rate and
health problems decreased, Pardo said.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,”
Markovsky wrote in a letter to the Daily Iowan, the
University of Iowa’s student newspaper, after the
Natural Law Party visited that campus. “The case
for the NLP’s and TM’s paranormal beliefs is far
from conclusive. The results are questionable.”
YOGIC FLYING cont. on pg. 8
Weekend rally to bring music, timely message to UNCA
John Hodges
Staff Writer
The Student Government Associa
tion (SGA) is conducting a “Rock the
Vote” campaign to get students out
into the polls on Election Day, ac
cording to the appointed legislative
liaison.
“We have the ‘Rock the Vote’ cam
paign to encourage students to vote
and to provide entertainment as a
reward to those who participate in the
‘Rock the Vote’ program,” said sopho
more liaison Jonathan Freeze. “We
are trying to get as many students as
possible to register and participate in
the elections.”
The campaign is attempting to assist
students to register to vote, obtain
more information on absentee bal
lots, and get more material on the
candidates running for office.
“Voting is very important,” said
Freeze. “We want to get students reg
istered to vote so they may be able to
voice their opinion in the community s
politics.
Freeze said that he remembers read
ing some statistics that said only about
30 percent of college students voted
in the 1992 elections.
“Through our ‘Rock the Vote’ cam
paign, we hope to draw out as many
students as possible,” said Freeze.
Some students said that ihey are
already registered to vote and that
they, too, feel that it is something that
everyone should take time to do. They
also said they hope that UNCA’s
“Rock the Vote” campaign will get
more students into the voting booths.
“I am a registered voter and I plan to
vote,” said junior Shelly Stone. “I feel
that it (voting) is important because
when you vote, you are voicing your
opinion. I also think that it is the duty
of every citizen to vote for their poli
ticians.
“This is a democracy,” said Stone.
“Our government was set up for the
people to vote, so we all need to. I
hope that the ‘Rock the Vote’ cam
paign will get more students to vote
this November.”
Some students said they are unsure
about the steps in receiving absentee
ballots. Absentee ballots are available
for those voters who know they will
be away from the state or county in
which they are registered to vote on
election day.
Many students said they want to
vote, but are afraid they may not be
able to since they are registered in
their hometowns and not here in Bun
combe County.
“I am a registered voter, but in my
hometown” said sophomore Abby
Ijames, a drama major. “I want to
vote, but I am not sure on what I need
to do so that I can vote on election
day.”
Freeze said that UNCA’s “Rock the
Vote” campaign can assist students
who are unsure of the necessary steps
needed in order to vote on Election
Day.
“Overall we want to make sure that
UNCA’s ‘Rock the Vote’ has three
parts to it. They are registration.
education, and mobilization,” said
Freeze. “In the registration step, wc
want to make sure that we register as
many students as possible, and wc
want students to know the steps in
requesting absentee ballots if they need
them.
“The second part is education,” said
Freeze. “We want to make sure that
the students know about the candi
dates that are running for office.
“In the mobilization step, we want
to reach out to students before elec
tion day and make sure that they arc
going to vote,” said Freeze. “We will
provide transportation for students
on election day if they do not have
cars, or if for some reason, they can’t
get to the polls.”
Some students said it is important
that those .people who will be voting
in the upcoming election know the
history of the candidates who are run
ning and their platform.
VOTE cont. on pg.8