Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Feb. 21, 1995, edition 1 / Page 8
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8 Tuesday, February 21,1995 Satlg ©ar 3M KeDy Ryan EDTTOfI Thanassfc Cambann managing editor World Wide Web Electronic Edition: [ A 1 http://www.unc.edu/dth/indexJitml iw Established 1893 BHB 101 Years of Editorial Freedom One More lime: Please Vote Students didn’t exactly flock to the polls in droves last Tuesday, but there’s still time to make a difference in campus elections. Don’t sit out today’s elections, even if you didn’t vote for the candidates vying for student government posts in today’s runoffs. The most qualified candidates are still in the running in each of the elections, so remind yourself of the issues and choose the leaders best prepared to make their platforms reality. Cunningham for SBP The Daily Tar Heel en dorses Calvin Cunningham for student body president in today’s runoff election. Cunningham clearly is the only candidate who possesses the political know-how to lobby the Board of Gover nors and the General Assem- bly effectively in this crucial time of budget cuts and tuition hikes. Cunningham’s rapport with legislators and administrators is his biggest sell ing point and gives him the particular expertise needed to advocate student concerns. A vote for Cunningham in today’s election is a vote for the candidate most capable of repre senting the needs of the student body at both the campus and the state level. On campus, Cunningham is prepared to get his nose into any issue that affects students, whether it’s taking action or just looking for answers as to why UNC does what it does. For thorough, experi enced representation, vote Cunningham for SBP. Johnston/Marin for Senior Class Officers The Daily Tar Heel endorses Nick Johnston and Mark Marin for senior class president and vice president for their combination of creative ideas and realistic goals. They are the candidates with the greatest diversity of experience to effec tively lead the class of 1996. The most impressive and innovative part of Don’t Re-Count Your Chickens... Duhhhhhhhh... What is the Elections Board thinking? Then again, perhaps they aren’t. These enlightened individuals have kept Anthony Reid and Wes Galbo on pins and needles all week—or at least until 7 p.m. Monday when they finally decided there would be a runoff today for the Carolina Athletic Association presidency. The Elections Board has done a deplorable job handling this election. The problem with the election results was that Galbo did not receive a majority percentage of the votes after the write in candidates were considered. This problem was not discovered until the votes were counted not once, not even twice, but three times. There is, however, a good reason why the Write-in candidates were counted in every other race but this one. As Erin Lewis, elections chairwoman, puts it, “We just made a mistake.” Now, because of this mistake, every CAA write-in candidate must be contacted to have the “legitimacy” of the votes they received checked. This “legitimacy” check, the epitome of elec toral logic, involves asking the individual write in candidates who received a vote in Tuesday’s election if they “thought” they were a legitimate candidate. Got An Opinion? Join the Editorial Board The Daily Tar Heel is seeking new editorial board members. The board meets at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. Members will be expected to write editorials two or three times per week. We are looking for informed Johnston and Marin’s platform is their proposed START program, which would build class unity while making a difference in the community at large. Of the slates, this ticket is the one that will give seniors the most opportunities to get involved. Vote Johnston/Marin for senior class officers. Galbo for CAA President The Daily Tar Heel endorses Wes Galbo for Carolina Athletic Association president. Galbo has clearly displayed the organiza tional skills necessary to run the Carolina Ath letic Association in a fair, organized manner for all students. His commitment to mak ing the CAA inclusive by cre ating a fair ticket distribution policy and by opening up the Homecoming queen selection process are backed up by a solid implementation plan. For effective, organized rep resentation, vote Wes Galbo for CAA president today. Charles Walters for Student Congress, Dist. 21 The DTH endorses Charles Walters in the runoff for one more seat in Dist. 21. Among his other good ideas, Walters would like to see students interested in government as freshmen and a more effective student affairs committee. How credible is a system that asks a candidate if the votes they received were legitimate or not? Lewis’job is to count the votes, not to judge their validity, and it doesn’t even seem she is capable of doing that. The criteria for “legitimate” is also extremely ambiguous considering the fact that Lewis has decided to count any candidate who could not be reached as legitimate. Reid and Galbo have been kept in the dark about whether they were still running and have been given inadequate time in which to continue their campaigns. The problem is that both candi dates will have wasted valuable funds and time while the Elections Board struggled to make this simple decision. If the Elections Board hopes to retain some amount of dignity after this embarrassing de bacle, it will return the results of the runoffs for student body president and senior class presi dent/ vice president with accuracy and efficiency. It is way too late to remedy the situation that was created in the CAA presidential election without inconveniencing one or both of the candidates, but there is still hope that the remainder of the elections will finish up relatively smoothly. Without completely ousting Erin Lewis, the Elections Board is urged to proceed with cau tion, and hopefully some intelligence. individuals who like to debate current issues, get in the last word, and, of course, write. If you have any questions, please contact Edito rial Page Editor Tara Servatius or Editor Kelly Ryan at 962-0245. Tin Servatius editorial page editor Adam Gusman university editor Ryan Thornburg city editor Jenny Heinien state a national edttor Justin Seheef SPORTS EDITOR Jon Goldberg FEATURES EDITOR Alison Maxwell arts/diversions editor Peter Roybal SPECIAL ASSIGNMENTS EDITOR Kathryn Sberer COPY DESK EDITOR Amy Ferguson DESIGN EDITOR Katie Cannon photography editor Chris Anderson graphics editor Michael Webb editorial cartoon editor & EDITORIAL Feeling Tongue-Tied? Maybe It’s All in Your Head Imagine you woke up one day unable to un derstand or produce language. Every year, 300,000 people in the United States fall vic tim to a disorder known as aphasia, in which an injury to the brain deprives them of all or part of their language abilities. Sure, this might be the effect of a long night in a Franklin Street bar, but victims of aphasia can’t just sleep it off. How could this happen? The human brain consists of six pounds of tissue and chemicals, and it runs on about 20 watts, less than the light in your refrigerator. The cells of the brain are connected in electrochemi cal circuits. Like the switches in computers, each cell either fires or doesn’t fire in a single direction. Yet the brain is more complex and flexible than any man-made machine. In such a flossy and complicated system, plenty of things can, and do, go wrong. Stroke, trauma and tumors can break circuits in the brain. In the days before MR] and PET scans, science made significant progress in study ing the brain by looking at the location of le sions. Among the systems that science has at tempted to map is the one responsible for human language. As you read this paragraph, you are probably not aware of all the separate tasks your brain is carrying out. First, you have to resolve the image of the letters and put together an accurate representa tion inside your brain. Your brain recognizes words or parts of words and connects them with the meanings that you have stored away. Then you have to understand how they fit together and affect each other their grammar. If you want to make a response, your brain draws on stored words and grammar to construct it. An other part of the system controls the muscles that form the sound that comes out. When parts of these circuits get disconnected, all the mental tasks they control malfunction. This bizarre and debilitating group of disorders is known as the aphasias. Although some people lose all ability to communicate, aphasia causes more complex speech problems than an over dose of Mad Dog 20/20 would. The strangest thing about the aphasias is that they can affect one task while leaving another almost untouched. Take Wernicke’s aphasia, for instance. Usu- Hall's Right: University Can Be 'Northern Part of Hell 1 TO THE EDITOR: The column which Professor Fred X Hall wrote in the Feb. 16 paper (“Fred X Hall: Rac ism Remains ‘Sugar-Coated’ at UNC”) is one which has probably caused quite a stir among the University and the community. I was imag ining the faces of the many readers who with surprised looks commented on how the Univer sity no longer practices racist policies. I can hear some saying, “Well they are getting the BCC, what else do they want?!” The fact is, that as an African-American woman in a place far from home, UNC sure does seem like the “northern part of hell" to me also. The caretaking services that Professor Hall referred to (more specifically the housekeepers, maintenance crew, and cafeteria workers) is one example of the sugar-coated racism on this university’s campus. The daily absence of any one of these groups of caretakers would result in total disarray in the system, while the absence of a tenured professor would hardly be noticed and in some cases the absence would be praised. What I am getting at is the blatant fact that just as prosperity of the United States was built on the slave labor of my ancestors, so was this university and all of its prestige. It is the mother, father, aunt, and uncle of every person of color on this campus who empties the trash bins of the chancellor every morning at 4 a.m. which con tain our continuous appeals and pleas for jus tice. It is our kin who salt the sidewalks for the rest of the University to walk all over. I am tired of being walked all over and just being tolerated. As far as being accepted, you can save that for later also. I could care less about the “special interest” that the University has in African Americans. If that is the case, then please take no interest in me. I am not your pawn to meet quotas! I am a student who does not want respect. I demand respect! I demand respect for my kin who have no voice in their working conditions for fear of their jobs. I demand respect for Professor Fred X Hall who is sick of that saccharin taste of sugar coated racism and is ready to confront it! Broth ers and sisters, it is time to get back on that bus! Shari Annabelle Lillian Blanton SOPHOMORE SOCIOLOGY/AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDIES ally, people with this disorder have suf fered damage to the area of the brain just above and behind the left ear, which takes in sound informa tion. This poor chap can hear the sound perfectly but will have trouble under standing language— kind of like in eco- ■Jill nomics class. If the damage extends farther back, he might not understand the printed word either. Since the areas responsible for producing speech are toward the front of the brain, in Broca’s area, the person will be able to speak fluently. However, like some politicians, people with Wernicke’s aphasia say a lot of words with very little meaning. Often what they say doesn’t make sense, possibly because they can’t understand their own spoken words. They may use the wrong words, make up new words, or add syl lables to words. The "academic journal writers” among Wernicke’s aphasia patients may suffer a similar disorder known as jargon aphasia, a disorder in which speech becomes completely incomprehensible because of the stream ofmade up words. People with Broca’s aphasia have nearly the opposite problem. They can understand the lan guage they see and hear, but they have trouble producing language. Because of damage to the area responsible for producing language, they have trouble speaking in anything but key words, like simple nouns, and it’s difficult for them to construct sentences, much like students of first semester Spanish. Unlike those with Wernicke’s aphasia, they can hear themselves make these mistakes. Of course, brain damage is rarely so precise. Sometimes the damage doesn’t cover one spe cific area, but parts of several. The areas control ling different language functions might be un damaged, but the connection between them is broken. A disconnection between Wernicke’s area and Broca’s area might leave both areas intact. It’s like trying to drive in Raleigh you READERS’ FORUM The Daily Tar Heel welcomes reader comments and criticism. Letters to the editor should be no longer than 400 words and must be typed, double-spaced, dated and signed by no more than two people. Students should include their year, major and phone number. Faculty and staff should include their title, department and phone number. The DTH reserves the right to edit letters for space, clarity and vulgarity. Send email forum to: dth@unc.edu. Racial Diversity Plan Ignores Individual Freedom of Choice TO THE EDITOR: The Residence Hall Association has done it again! In an attempt to “diversify” the living arrangements at UNC, the RHA has decided to continue its so-called “Racial Diversity Plan” that would allocate slots for African-American students in North and Mid Campus dorms. The 400 word limit on articles in the Reader’s Forum section of the DTH is not enough room to say all the things that are wrong with this plan. I will attempt to outline a few. The main problem is the issue of freedom of choice. Most African Americans interviewed in the article on this plan seemed to agree that they would rather live in South Campus dorms and intermingle within their own race. What is wrong with this? If a student chooses to live within their own race and associate with those people that understand and know their situation that is their choice. Since so many African Americans seem to want to live in South Campus dorms, why not improve the living conditions there instead of ship (yes ship as in slave trading) African Americans to Mid and North Campus dorms. And the RHA is not even considering Old East and Old West when it comes to this arrangement. In the graph shown in the article there is no mention of these two restored and requested dorms. Why is this? Because the RHA wants racial diversity on their terms. That is why we do not 2lljp latlxi 3ar Hetl can’t get there from here. The person would be able to understand language and to speak, but would have difficulty repeating things or reading them aloud. She might choose words poorly, reverse or omit words and letters, and have trouble naming things. Injuries in other areas can take away an ar ticulate person’s ability to read (alexia) or write (agraphia), or both. Some people lose the ability to name objects, or specific categories of objects, like body parts. (This could make for a very confusing evening with your significant other!) Dyslexia, a defect in the development of the language processing system, prevents the suf ferer from connecting sounds with their letters, distinguishing different letters, like p and q, and seeinglettersintheircorrectleft-to-rightsequence. Some scientists used to believe that these problems with processing language reflected a loss of intelligence. Now it’s clear that different parts of the brain are specialized for different functions. The tragedy —and the advantage of aphasia is that, while it takes away intellectual tools, it leaves general intelligence intact. Its sufferers, though debilitated, can still think just as they did before. They can also remember being able to communicate in ways that no longer come easily to them. Flakey as it is, another wondrous thing about the brain is its ability to recover at least some of its lost functions. Those cells that are still alive can extend new connections to different areas, remapping parts of the total circuit. Recovery depends on the person’s age and the extent of the injury, although few people ever recover com pletely. Meanwhile, those ofus still stumblingthrough the wretched excesses of undergraduate life can sit back in contentment, knowing that we are operating on a full circuit, alcohol and lack of sleep notwithstanding. But not so fast! In a time when we —and the rest of the general popula tion —are aging, we are bound to see more aphasias due to stroke- and tumor-related inju ries to the brain. Knowing our own circuitry should help us deal with the problems that occur when things go wrong. Monica Eiland is a senior biology major from Durham. find slots allocated for Asian Americans, Indig enous Americans, Indian Americans, Latino Americans, and so on. This is white supremacy at its best, the idea that white people, since they are the majority, can control the actions of African Americans. Well, as we all saw on Jan. 26, 1995, students will not be controlled. The RHA is producing a powder keg filled with racial tension and bias that is preparing to explode at anytime. The statement that I would love to address to the RHA is that if you don’t have anything better to do than sit around and control people’s lives and decisions, don’t do anything at all! Which is what they do anyway— nothing. The RHA needs to be introduced to the social concepts of Cornel West and W.E.B. Dußois and allow African Americans to think and live for themselves. With the money spent on trying to perfect this “plan” why don’t you put it into the United Negro Scholarship Fund, since you have already wasted your own minds. Let’s be allowed to unify together and live with one another as equals instead of having the RHA and other departments at this university (General College) force us to do so. Does this “plan” really push the idea of equality among us all? If not —isn’t that what we are trying to strive for. I think we all know the answer to that. Matt Mayse FRESHMAN ENGLISH Rasheed Wallace: Diaper Dandy to Literary Laureate TO THE EDITOR: We just have one question: Who ever said Rasheed Wallace does not go to class? He must be attending all ofhis English classes to be able to write such an articulate piece of literature en dorsing Woody & Dolby for senior class officers (“Woody/Dolby Give Seniors a Chance to Be Involved,” Feb. 13). After reading his letter, we realize that Rasheed Wallace truly “epitomizes” the concept of being a student first, athlete sec ond. Thank you, Rasheed, for representing the academic side of UNC athletics! Leigh Rohrer FRESHMAN BIOLOGY Gypsy Culp FRESHMAN BIOLOGY
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Feb. 21, 1995, edition 1
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