Newspapers / The Carolina Times (Durham, … / Dec. 11, 1982, edition 1 / Page 1
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oming Next Week: for two days this week, more than 800 peo- \imet in Raieigh to discuss andpian for North ftolina’s future. Peopie in the discussions ,fge from politicians to business peqpie, pro- jsionais and Just ordinary citizens. Th( irolina Times was there and next week wih \iiyou an in-depth, comprehensive and hard- llitig look at N, C. 2000: The Future and You 0’t miss it! X u Part III ,^[1 con games don t happen on street corners, money for jalfcon artists aren’t fast talkers. ;onie con artists are slick writers, and they get 1 through the mail, and through advertisements some of your favorite publications, or often on ;vision and radio. Consumer con artists have turned the current ■jssion into an economic boom. According to a jnt survey of Better Business Bureaus, con- :ied by U.S. News & World Report Magazine, fe is a rash of schemes in the marketplace, all jgned to cheat consumers, caught in the grips of recession. [nNew York, a company offers consumers credit (Is without credit checks, provided you pay them Oil-refundable fee of $100 to $150. You pay the and they send you information on a company doesJn fact provide credit cards without credit cks, if you put the credit limit in escrow in the it The company with the cards doesn’t charge fee. [he “company” that charges the fee has run ads [nany major newspapers around the country, jre is no way to determine how many people t hey e bilked out of how much money, fyour credit rating is on the downside, and you in the market for a major appliance purchase, careful, because there is a consumer fraud me going around with just you in mind, nthis scam, a “company” promises to sell you appliance at a good discount price for cash, in 1 installments. The merchandise t-e- be ered when you finish paying, na letter to a New York state Better Business reau, a consumer bitten by this scam,-writes: “! l(a New York firm) $1020 in cash for the pur se of one General Electric refrigerator and one washer. The condition was that these items ltd not be delivered unless full sum was paid, amount was paid toward the end of December, QCH-A Wilson Library N C Collection UNC-CH ChapeLhliii NC 27514 ]»Can UME 60 - NUMBER 49 (USPS 091-380) DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA - SATURDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1982 Words Of Wisdom Decision and determination are theengineer and fireman of our train to opportunity and success. —Burt Lawior * * * * * It takes hard work to make easy living. —Anonymous TELEPHONE (919) 682-2913 PRICE: 30 tENTS Consumer Fraud is a Con Game Don’t Be Marked By Milton Jordan Executive Editor sjt by January, 1982, when the consumer check- after the appliances had not arrived, the iness was not located at the address it had given, phone was disconnected, and there was no sign lie business or the money. ,nether hard times scam, often advertised in s circulation magazines, offers you big money easy work at homes. The “companies” offering se deals charge you $10 or $15 for a kit tha» w'i you how to make the money, hi one insianceV ’ envelope stuffing business, the “kit” explains you can place an ad, and bilk other unsuspec- and often desperate folks with the same ne. the Triangle area, one of the biggest consumer id schemes is solicitations, particularly during season of “giving”, according to Joe Bowling, ctor of the Triangle Better Business Bureau. For the next 30 days or so, we will be bombard- mlh calls about solicitations,” Bowling said, id we encourage that, because it’s too late to :k once you’ve given your money away.” liese solicitations, according to Bowling, come lie consumer from a lot of different directions. letimes it’s a person, complete with l.D. badge license standing in front of a store, collecting missionary” work. In most instances, acconding to consumer fraud specialists around the country, the only benefactor of the missionary zeal is the person collecting the money. Mail order fraud is also big in the Triangle area, Bowling said, not unlike most urban areas where people make better than average salaries. Mail order frauds will offer you everything from get rich quick schemes to vacations and mail order courses in non-existent computer and other high technology industry schools. “What consumers have to realize when they pick up these letters, flyers or whatever,” Bowling ex plained, “is that they have a responsibility to “sleep on it.” Bowling warns that the consumer should never be rushed into a decision about spending money. The more the push to buy now, the greater the possibili ty that you’re being conned. “Generally speaking,” said Bowling, “people should be extremely careful of any deal that re quires you to send the money first.” But this holiday season is not the only time of the year that consumer fraud proliferates in this area. During the Spring and Summei months, consumers can be ripped off by vacation scams. In some of these scams, you’ll get a newspaper or magazine ad offering you an out.standing vacation — three days and two night — in some exotic place such as Reno, Las Vegas or Los Angeles for an amazingly low price. According to the scheme, the low price is made possible because the airlines and the hotels are cooperating. Well, you send off your $50 or so, and find out when you get to the airport that they don’t know anything about you. And if you grit your teeth and take the trip anyway, you’ll find that the hotel people don’t know you either, and the promoter has your “fee” and is long gone. So believe it or not, just because you appear to be making a legitimate purchase or taking advantage of a deal, doesn’t mean that you aren’t being conn ed. It is just as Bowling said: “Any time you hear about a deal, just remember, you’re only going to get exactly what you pay for, and you owe it to yourself to sleep on the decision.” -NAACP Election Mill Howard Law School’s Graduate Louis Rothschild Mehlinger, center, the oldest living graduate of the Howard University School of Law, was honored recently at his alma mater. The first black lawyer admitted to the Federal Bar Association, who will be 100 years old on Depmber 20, was graduated from tbe school in Washington, D.C., in 1921. Joining in the honc^rs are Howard law school Dean Wiley A. Branton, left, and Pro fessor J. Clay Smith, who has written an article about Mehlinger that wili be published in the dedicatory issue of the Howard Law Journal in late December Phol. b, llarlee Ultle Bring No Surprises, Few Changes The Correct Times ithis space every week. The Carolina Times will :ect errors of fact, typographical mistakes and srmiscues that appear in the newspaper. If you my that we miss, drop us a line and we will cor- them. -In a front page headline in the December 4 we substituted the word “black” for ock”. -On Page 13 in the Dec. 4 issue, we ran the mg picture of four St. Augustine’s students with lory about the Black Child Development In- ^le. -In a headline on Page 16 in the Dec. 4 issue, we the word “Run” out of the headline for the le Power bus system story, tie Carolina Times regrets these errors. By Donald Alderman Almost nothing in the local NAACP hierarchy will change following elections here next week. According to insiders, practically everyone cur rently holding official positions in the local branch of the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization will continue to hold them. There will be, however, some minor shifts in titles, and a few new names will join the upper echelon. Elections will be held December 19 from 1-6 p.m., at the NAACP of-. . fice, 3019 Fayetteville St. Installation ceremonies will be held on January 24 at Ebenezer Baptist Church, 2200 S. Alston Avenue. In current action, a NAACP nominating committee recommended last Sunday that all cur rent officers be reelected. There were no nomina tions from the floor. About 60 people attend ed the meeting. “Without opposition they’re basically in,” noted George Frazier, Durham NAACP branch president, “but someone has to go vote because we have to send a report to the nation2f! office in New York.” What this all means, in a nutshell, is that Frazier and the branch’s other officers will lead the local group for two more years. Frazier, 54, who was recently described as “reckless in his freedom fighting,” weathered a couple of self-made storms during the past year before apparently securing his third two- year term as Durham branch president. Frazier^s controversial- endorsement of the civic center bond referendum, a tactic which many saw as being manipulative, plus his efforts to “con fuse” voters during the sheriff’s runoff election in July, had appeared to jeopardize his presiden cy. But no opposition sur faced, and so following an election that is little more now than a for mality, Frazier and his slate will sweep into of fice for another two years. On balance, many NAACP’ers believe Frazier has been a good president, noting the long, hard hours he works on behalf of the organization, the fact that the group’s books are balanced, and Durham is one of the few branches in the state with a full-time office. Frazier supporters also cite im provement in the annual Freedom Fund dinner, one of the organization’s two major annual fun draisers. So Frazier not only will retain his office, bar ring unforeseen cir cumstances, but he will also retain most of his team, though there will be some minor shifts in positions worth noting. Ms. Alice Wilson, for example, current chair man of the Freedom Fund Committee, will be the group’s new secretary. The current .secretary, Mrs. Louise Weeks, will be the organization’s third vice president. This position has been vacant for the past two years. The coming elections will also bring a new member to the organiza tion’s executive commit tee, the policy-making group, expanding the committee from 23 to 24 members. The new member is Theodore Mit^ell. 'This is the highest number of ex ecutive committee members who can be elected. Others must be appointed by the presi dent, and he can appoint up to 19 additional (Continued On Page 7) FREELON Philip Freelon Joins Architectural/ Engineering Firm Philip G. Freelon, AIA, has joined the Durham-Chapel Hill ar chitectural/engineering firm of O’Brien/Atkins Associates, P.A. Freelon received his Bachelor of En vironmental Design degree with honors from North Carolina State University and his Master of Architecture (Continued On Page 4) In 30 Years, Howard McAllister Has Seen Schools ’ Ups and Downs By Pamela Banks lore than 30 years, Howard ter has watched three things in Durham City Schools believes have had significant on education here, are: e improved ability of the to educate children with ; problems. : diminishing level of paren- lidance, which has also ed the level of involvement, rents have with the schools, e ever-growing level of peer e which makes students Ives harder to reach, ssence, McAllister, recently tfd Assistant Superintendent sonnel, believes the schools accept and meet today’s ges In education just as they : challenge of how to teach ts with learning disabilities, the first point — teaching ts with learning problems — ister believes the city schools ich more responsive to these ts than when he started his ig career in Durham 33 years e do more individualized in-' struction now than we did years ago in order to meet their needs,” said McAllister. “We pay more attention to students who have various (pro blems) than we did years ago.” A major reason for this improve ment, according to McAllister, is the schools’ testing; program that allows teachers and administrators to identify “exceptional students” early and tailor programs matched to their abilities. As educators use the term, “ex ceptional students” range from those who are well above average to students who are educably retarded. Though so-called gifted children were always special in the schools, McAllister recalls that in the early years of his career, mentally retard ed children, or youngsters with serious learning problems were not allowed to attend school. He is glad to see that change. “Every child ^should have a right to an appropriate education.” McAllister said. “Therefore, we are addressing that in the system now.” Despite federal and local budget cuts, McAllister believes the schools would be femiss if they reduced the level of services to exceptional McALLlSTEK students. But other changes McAllister has, watched in the Durham City Schools over the past 30 years have' not been so encouraging. “In my judgement, 1 feel as though the climate for teaching in the 1950’s and 1960’s was much more conducive,” he said. “For one thing, I feel as though students didn’t have the peer pressure that they have now in the communities.” Calling teaching a pleasant ex perience during the past two decades, McAllister notes that students have many more outside pressures buffeting them today than they had then. In his conclusion, this has seriously affected the learn ing process, and the ability of the schools to produce top students. Decreasing parental guidance has added to the problem, McAllister believes. “I feel as though youngsters are permitted to stay out later at a younger age than in the past,” McAllister said. “I feel as though with the parents working more they don’t have the time to really check on their children as in past years.” In analyzing, the problems, and suggesting possible strategies for solutions, McAllister pinpoints two chief components. One would be a return to the home visitation program that was a mainstay of local schools two decades or more ago. According to McAllister, the visitation program enhanced parental cooperation and involvement with the schools. School integration, along with the end of the neighborhood school concept, killed the home vistation program. But McAllister believes that the climate might be right to reinstitute it, since Durham’s elementary schools in the city system are going back to the neighborhood school concept. The other weapon to fight outside peer pressure, and a general decreas ing interest in education from to day’s students, is topnotch teachers. According to McAllister, good teachers possess four basic characteristics, in addition to other skills. They are: * A very good educational background. The ability to be compassionate toward students. * Outstanding teaching abilities. * The ability to communicate ef- (Continueo On Page 9)
The Carolina Times (Durham, N.C.)
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Dec. 11, 1982, edition 1
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