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Scott Hicks
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
Katie Abel
UNIVERSITY EDITOR
Jacob McConnico
CITY EDITOR
Board Editorials
Keep It Close
The Orange County Board of Commissioners should take a stand
on an outlying site proposed for an expanded IFC shelter.
;The Orange County Board of
Commissioners has a golden opportunity to
stpp up and voice its opinion on homeless
ness in Chapel Hill.
I That’s because they will soon vote on a
resolution that could affect where the next
Inter-Faith Council shelter and kitchen are
located.
The resolution suggests removing a piece
of county property on Homestead Road
from a list of possible sites for a revamped
and expanded IFC shelter. A task force is
currendy looking into viable sites - including
the Homestead site - for the larger shelter.
The task force has been looking into the pos
sible relocation of the shelter since July.
The commissioners need to make the only
logical decision and vote for the resolution,
taking the Homestead property off the table.
; Because of its lack of access to public trans
portation, the shelter would be extremely dif
ficult - if not impossible - to get to for those
who need the IFC’s assistance most.
; The homeless rely heavily on the central
ity <)f the current 100 W. Rosemary St. loca
tion.'For most, the shelter is their best friend
iri the stmggle to get back onto their feet and
slide back into a stable life off the streets.
Many have jobs washing dishes and
Cockeyed Caucus
Early primaries and caucuses mean that other states
-don't get an equal voice in-deciding who gets tobe-president.
To most people, the state of lowa conjures
up images of cornfields, pig farms and little
else. But every four years, the Hawkeye State
hosts the nation’s first presidential caucus.
This is the first real contest for candidates
vying for their parties’ nominations.
Unfortunately for the other 49 states, it’s also
the last important contest in many respects.
By the time North Carolina holds its pri
mary May 2, 35 other states will have held
primaries or caucuses, and the race for the
nominations will be all but over.
Although some states have always held
primaries late in the election year when most
of the suspense has dissipated, this year’s
political season is even more accelerated
than previous ones.
By mid-March, 25 states will have held
primaries, effectively excluding voters in
other states from the nomination process.
The problem of a front-loaded election sea
son is sufficiently serious for both the
Democratic and Republican parties to estab
lish commissions to study the effects of the
problem and recommend possible solutions.
; “There has been increasing concern that a
frpnt-loaded nomination system that ends
alpiost as soon as it begins raises barriers to
alj but the best-connected and well-funded
candidates,” according to a report by
Student Government Wannabe? Then Listen Up!
The Daily Tar Heel editorial board endorses candidates in all student races. The DTH will not
consider endorsing any candidate who fails to fulfill all the requirements in the endorsement process,
wjiich might include an interview, a questionnaire, a platform or any combination of the three.
Candidates should be aware that they need to be able to provide that information to the DTH at any
time until Feb. 8. For more information, call Editorial Page Editor Scott Hicks at 962-0245.
Readers' Forum
‘Two Cokes a Semester’
Not Too Steep a Price
For Benefits of USSA
TO THE EDITOR:
! It is important for students to under
stand concretely what the U.S. Students
Association does for the 3.5 million stu
dents it represents nationwide and why it is
important for UNC to join through a ref
erendum. USSA is the nation’s oldest and
largest students organization, the board is
made up of students from all over the
country, and each member school gets a
number of votes determined by the size of
the school and the level of membership.
! The foundation of USSA is built upon
the idea of student self-governance - that
students should learn to represent them
selves, to organize campaigns on their indi
vidual campuses and to use their own voic
es to make changes in local, state and
national policies. USSA lobbies in
Washington. D.C., and wins concrete vic
tories for students - like a S4OO increase in
Rob Nelson
EDITOR
Office Hours Friday 3 p.m. - 4 p.m.
Matthew B. Dees
STATE & NATIONAL EDITOR
T. Nolan Hayes
SPORTS EDITOR
Leigh Davis
FEATURES EDITOR
sweeping floors for the multitude of busi
nesses that line Franklin Street. A location
such as Homestead Road, then, which is
miles away from the main hub of business in
Chapel Hill and has no public transportation
outlet, seems ridiculously inadequate to serve
the needs of Chapel Hill’s less fortunate.
The board should be commended for tak
ing the initiative in recommending that this
unsuitable site be knocked out of contention.
There are other sites on the IFC task force’s
list, such as Chapel Hill police headquarters
off Airport Road or an office building on
South Elliott Road, and simply expanding
the current Rosemary Street location
remains an option.
The focus of the IFC shelter’s new loca
tion should not be based on how far away
from visibility the county can push its home
less residents. The paramount question of
importance is which location can best utilize
its services and promote the interests of those
who use the IFC shelter.
Homestead Road is as far from being the
best piece of land for the IFC’s relocation as
a shelter there would be from Franklin Street.
Orange County commissioners: use logic
as well as compassion and vote to table the
Homestead Road location.
William Brock, chairman of the Republican
National Committee. “Perhaps more impor
tantly, it may not allow voters adequate time
to consider the quality of various candidates
and their views on the issues.”
The process is also flawed because it
places more importance on voters in large
states with early contests. This causes candi
dates to tailor their positions to voters in
those states, even when those voters are not
necessarily representative of the country.
lowa, for instance, is a predominantly
white state with a large number of farmers.
Candidates therefore spend a lot of time dis
cussing ethanol subsidies and other agricul
tural issues that have little meaning for voters
in Hawaii or Washington. Thus, George W.
Bush and A1 Gore’s victories Monday should
hardly be considered an accurate predictor
of the entire nation’s political preferences.
Several solutions to the lack of participa
tion in the primary system have already been
suggested. Among them are a rotating series
of regional primaries and a primary system
that allows the smallest states to go first and
the biggest states last. The primaries would
also take place over a longer period of time.
Whatever the decision, something should
be done to prevent the presidential race from
ending before most people have their say.
the maximum Pell grant (1998) and a 0.8
percent decrease in the interest rate on fed
eral loans (which will save the average stu
dent receiving federal aid $500).
But working for students on financial aid
is not all that USSA does. USSA field orga
nizers travel all over the country providing
technical assistance and organizing exper
tise to referenda schools working on cam
paigns like fighting tuition increases.
Many of the key organizers of the
Campaign for Education Access (including
Nic Heinke, Erica Smiley and others) have
been through USSA’s Grass Roots
Organizing Workshop, which teaches stu
dents to think strategically and develop
organizing skills. Currently GROW is
something that campus organizations and
student congresses have to pay for but we
would get for free as referenda members of
USSA. With this level of membership, part
of what we pay to USSA would come
directly back to UNC in to facilitate orga
nizing campaigns on our campus (like the
Campaign for Educational Access that has
been fighting the proposed tuition increase
Opinions
Zht lathj aarltel
Established 1893 • 106 Years of Editorial Freedom
www.unc.edu/dth
Robin Clemow
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR
Carolyn Haynes
COPY DESK EDITOR
Miller Pearsall
PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
m search of cold keek
Big Issues Don’t Merit Junk Mail
Since moving into my Chapel Hill address
in August, I’ve been the lucky recipient
of an impressive amount of junk mail.
Pre-approved credit cards, free carpet clean
ing, millions of dollars - all mine if I’ll just
send back the enclosed. Predictable, unre
markable and uninteresting, most of it gets
forwarded directly to the wastebasket.
Three pieces of mail, however, I reread
with great interest, even devoting a couple of
days of careful consideration to how 1 would
respond (hence this column).
The Planned Parenthood Federation of
America, the American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU) and The Washington Spectator sent
me long, excited letters full of bold print,
underlining, italics and fonts designed to look
like the scribbling of an alarmed friend.
Planned Parenthood notifies me that I need
to “resist pressure from religious political
extremist groups” that seek to “undermine
family planning.”
The ACLU warns me of members of
Congress who seek to take us back to the days
when blacks “were often lynched,” women
“basically were limited to the kitchen and the
bedroom” and “disabled people were almost
... furtively hidden.”
The Spectator offers “A Guide to Religious-
Right-Speak: Pro-Choice Advocates Are
‘BABYKILLERS.’ ” I don’t even have to
open that one; it’s right there on the envelope.
All three letters use the same strategies:
Select the worst possible example of your
enemy’s behavior. Use that example to char
acterize a group as large as possible. Frighten
the living daylights (and hopefully some cash)
out of any normal person by suggesting that
everyone except you and your reader holds
these extreme views.
Planned Parenthood’s approach seems
most purposefully dishonest. The letter focus
es on religious extremist efforts to restrict
“family planning information” and “outlaw
contraceptives," forcing women into back
alley abortions. Such a focus carefully distorts
the actual issue.
While many groups, religious and other,
oppose abortion, few if any oppose family
planning. Even the most conservative main-
at UNC since last fall).
These are some of the most important
benefits of joining USSA through a refer
endum, and none of these things would be
accessible with the limitations of a $1,500
membership. As referenda members of
USSA, UNC would be the only university
represented from the Southeast. We would
also be one of the most powerful voting
members of the organization.
With those votes, we could get the
USSA to focus on winning more federal
aid for students affected by Hurricane
Floyd or on other regional issues that are
currently not represented in Washington.
The USSA is the only national student
organization that is funded by students, run
by students and accountable to students.
Two Cokes a semester is not too much to
pay for this kind of representation.
Sandi Chapman
Freshman
History and Economics
The length rule on letters was waived.
Thomas Ausman
DESIGN EDITOR
Megan Sharkey
GRAPHICS EDITOR
William Hill
ONLINE EDITOR
TARA ROBBINS
SMALL PRINT
stream religious group on reproductive issues,
the Catholic church, offers family-planning
courses in many of its parishes. Though
Catholics might disagree with Planned
Parenthood on specific family-planning meth
ods, they do not oppose family planning.
They certainly don’t wish back-alley abor
tions on anyone. In fact, they really don’t wish
any abortions at all on anyone.
The ACLU’s letter also makes some
provocative leaps of logic. First, it defines a
group of “New Puritans" who seek to control
everyone else’s morality. No doubt there are
people out there who wish to do that.
(Sometimes I do - don’t you?)
But the ACLU tells me that these New
Puritans actually control Congress. Control
Congress? Republicans control Congress. Are
all Republicans in fact New Puritans?
Apparently so, along with a Democrat or two
named in the letter. And they want to bring
back the 19505-era of lynchings.
Now, Republicans may have different polit
ical objectives from those of the ACLU, but it
is dishonest to the point of absurdity to sug
gest that any men or women serving in
Congress, Republicans or Democrats, would
actually support lynching or wish “furtively to
hide” disabled people.
Finally, The Washington Spectator writes
that the definitions printed on its envelope
were taken from an actual Washington con
vention; in other words, someone at a confer
ence once actually used the term “Baby
killer.” Not surprising.
What is surprising, however, is that the
Spectator can claim to be “a sane, well
informed, nonprofit newsletter for open-mind-
Barranger Never Quit
Her Post as Professor,
Chairman Clarifies
TO THE EDITOR:
We in the Department of Dramatic Art
were pleased to note your regretful admis
sion Thursday that several of the premises
on which you based your Jan. 19 editorial
“Silent Hatchet Job, II” were erroneous.
However, your readers deserve to know
that your correction itself was misleading.
Dr. Milly Barranger has “resigned” only
from her administrative positions. She
remains a valued and respected member of
our faculty, currently on a research leave
completing her book on the producer and
director Margaret Webster.
As she herself said in recent greetings
sent to the faculty and staff, “I look forward
to rejoining you in 2001 as a member of
the faculty and as someone who treasures
her undergraduate seminars! With best
regards to all of you in this amazing new
century ...”
Vicky Eckenrode & Cate Doty
MANAGING EDITORS
Whitney Moore
WRITING COACH
Terry Wimmer
OMBUDSMAN
ed people” while suggesting in its letter that
conservative politics as whole should be char
acterized by the use of these terms, as if no
thoughtful person of integrity could hold a
conservative point of view.
Although these examples illustrate irre
sponsible language used by liberal groups
(they’re the ones that sent me the mail), con
servatives are also guilty, perhaps even more
egregiously so on many occasions.
But everyone knows about the conserva
tives, and they don’t claim to be “open-mind
ed.” In that sense, their language is less threat
ening than that contained in these letters,
which insist on their own fair-mindedness.
The Spectator example makes the danger
ous yet commonplace suggestion that a liberal
agenda has less potential for fanaticism than a
conservative one.
The truth, however, is that by our very
nature as people, we all have within us the
potential for zealotry, ideological arrogance
and the refusal to recognize the benevolent
intent of those who disagree with us.
Every one of us feels strongly about some
things to the exclusion of others, desires some
social goals above others, wishes the world
operated differently based on our own beliefs
and wants to change things.
The difference between conservatives and
liberals is the outworking of this impulse, but
the impulse itself is neither conservative nor
liberal; it is human.
This (I believe God-given) desire to see
things change is the source of human
progress. It was the power behind the devel
opment of the rule of law, the abolition of
slavery, the end of the Holocaust and the civil
rights movement. When corrupted and
unchecked, it has also been the power behind
tyranny, slavery, genocide, and bigotry.
To harness this desire for good, we need
humility, clear-eyed vision and fair and accu
rate political rhetoric - not the kind of junk
mail propaganda used to sell credit cards, car
pet cleaning and magazine subscriptions.
Tara Robbins is a graduate student in the
Department of English from Millville, N.J.
Reach her at trobbins@unc.edu.
Your readers also should know that
Professor David Hammond, whom, in the
same editorial, you defame with innuendo
(ombudsman, take note) routinely enjoys
overenrolled classes and exemplary evalu
ations. His recent productions of “Romeo
and Juliet” and “Love’s Labors Lost” for
which, in the casting process, he had to turn
away many hopeful student actors, were
two of the most rewarding experiences for
cast and audience alike in recent memory.
Your readers may find it ironic that the
atre practitioners must remind journalists
that what “seems" should not be mistaken
for what is.
Ray Dooley
Associate Professor and Interim
Chairman
Department of Dramatic Art
Got Opinion?
Then submit a guest column for The
Daily Tar Heel’s weekly Viewpoints page.
For more details, call Editorial Page Editor
Scott Hicks at 962-0245.
Friday, January 28, 2000
F
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