12
Thursday, February 15, 2001
Concerns or
comments about
our coverage ’
Contact the
readers' advocate at
oaibudsman@unc.edu
or call 933-4611.
Jonathan Chaney
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
Kim Minugh
UNIVERSITY EDITOR
Ginny Sciabbarrasi
CITY EDITOR
Board Editorials
Making Room
To alleviate overcrowding within area schools,
the two local school boards are right in considering bonds.
Local school boards looking toward the
future see that school overcrowding will con
tinue to be a hot issue. And with more plans
for area growth and expansion, something
will have to be done to secure resources for
additional schools to alleviate overcrowding.
The best way to take care of present con
cerns and prepare for the area’s future school
needs is to support the school bond propos
als in Orange County.
The Orange County Schools’ bond pro
posal - $24 million -and the Chapel Hill-
Carrboro City Schools bond proposal - ten
tatively $71.i8 million - will provide the
finances needed to build new schools and
renovate existing ones.
The Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system
is reaching one of the highest growth rates in
the state, pushing overcrowding numbers to
an almost unacceptable level.
Many area schools are already at their
capacity. Middle schools use trailers as class
rooms. Plans are already under way to build
two more elementary schools, one at
Meadowmont and another at Calvander,
north of Carrboro. With the addition of those
two schools, it will bring the area’s elementary
school total up to 10. But more are needed.
Wes White Editorial Notebook
Ode to Our Heels
The exceptional performance of our Tar Heel basketball players
over the second half of the season deserves serious props.
It happened this past Saturday during the
UNC-Maryland basketball game. The UNC
mascot, Ramses, was ejected at halftime.
Along with Ramses, any trace of the infa
mous “wine and cheese” crowd also left the
building. It was the culmination of something
special that had been developing since a
home loss to Kentucky on Dec. 2.
The Carolina basketball team is back;
back, some say, from the dead. The home
crowd knew it, and they were not to be
silenced. This was the Carolina of old; the
Carolina of my boyhood days.
They took the court last Saturday, in a his
torically usual, if somewhat surprising, posi
tion as the number one college basketball
team in all the land. They played like it, the
crowd cheered like it, and Maryland took its
ass-kicking like it was supposed to. It has
been a wonderful season so far. But I have a
favor to ask the team, and to all fans of
Carolina basketball: Don’t get complacent.
Brendan Haywood: Keep blocking those
shots, and every now and then, give us an
earth-shattering dunk.
Jason Capel: Keep doing all those little
things. You are definitely not a role player,
but if you keep up the phenomenal play, you
Readers' Forum
LGBT Coalition Members
Clarify Misconceptions
Around Resource Center
TO THE EDITOR:
The co-chairs of the Lesbian, Gay,
Bisexual, Transgender resource center
coalition would like to address the misin J
formation in the previously published edi
torial notebook by Jon Harris “Center
Split” (Jan. 26) and clarify some details in
the article “Campus GLBT Organizations
Work for Own Space” (Jan. 23).
First of all, by “following the footsteps of
the Sonja H. Stone Black Cultural Center,”
(as stated by Harris) we are trying to estab
lish an official administrative department
recognized by the University. Our vision of
the LGBT resource center has at least one
paid staff member, who can handle certain
issues and situations better than the mem
bers of a student organization.
The student organizations are neither
trained nor equipped for handling crises.
And furthermore, there is no institutional
response plan for handling LGBT issues.
The Department of Minority Affairs does
not include the LGBT community,
although we can safely say that there is a
sizable LGBT population at UNC.
Recently, the administrative need was
noticed by Student Congress, which gave
money for the part-time employment of a
LGBT liaison. While the job description is
to unite the LGBT student groups, this
Matt Dees
editor
Office Hours Friday 2 p.m. -3 p.ra.
Alex Kaplun
STATES NATIONAL EDITOR
Rachel Carter
sports editor
Jermaine Caldwell
. FEATURES EDITOR
And the possible development of the
Horace Williams tract on Airport Road, an
aspect of the Master Plan, will generate an
influx of about 25,000 workers and their fam
ilies that will ultimately put extra strain on
the public schools.
While the new development will most
likely fill up gradually, it is a smart idea for
area school boards to start preparing for
future growth now. Plus, the implementation
of a school bond might quiet fears and hesi
tations to support the Horace Williams Tract
due to overcrowding.
This bond, which could appear on a
November 2001 ballot, is the first to address
the needs of the whole school system. There
has been support for school bonds in the
recent past - East Chapel Hill High School
was built on a bond, as well as Mary Scroggs
Elementary School in 1999. Smith Middle
School, which is being built now, also was
financed through a school bond.
Support among area residents for school
bonds is evident. They have responded to
school growth with bonds in the past.
The community should continue to
endorse school needs through these sys
temwide bond proposals.
are going to roll yourself right into a spot on
first-team, all ACC.
Kris Lang: Keep knocking down those
hook shots, left or right, it doesn’t matter.
Ronald Curry: Keep being our floor leader.
Julius Peppers: Keep having fun and keep
dunking. Hard.
Max Owens: Keep hitting those deadly 3-
pointers off the bench. I’ve got a feeling we’ll
need a few more before it’s all over with.
Joe Forte: Well, Joe, what can I say? Before
it’s all over with, you are going to go down as
one of the greatest to ever wear “NORTH
CAROLINA.”
Just keep improving, and if you need any
motivation, remember that there is a team
eight miles down the road that thinks it is the
best. On March 4, remind it that it is wrong.
Coach Doherty and staff: Keep up the
hard work. You’ve brought the fire back into
the heart of the University.
To all my fellow Tar Heel fans and former
“wine and cheesers”: Cheer for the Heels
every minute of every game. Come early.
Stay late.
And when Shane Battier and company
come into town on March 4, don’t forget to
let him know who his daddy is.
position does not meet the needs of the
LGBT community at UNC.
The resource center will provide room
for this position to grow and work to edu
cate the entire University community about
LGBT life. The center could also help cen
tralize the effort to create a queer studies
major program through the Cultural
Studies Program, which is currently being
developed.
In closing, we want to clarify the issue
about the LGBT resource center coalition
being a student organization that automat
ically includes all the LGBT groups on
campus. The coalition is not an “umbrella”
organization of the student groups but
rather a group of individuals who feel that
the needs of the LGBT community have
not been addressed.
Kevin C. Brown
Junior
Biology and German
lamie L. Sohn
Senior
History
Cartoon Linking Ashcroft
To Ayatollah Khomeini
Unfair and Unjustified
TO THE EDITOR:
I am writing with regards to the editori
al page cartoon found in The Daily Tar
Opinion
SaiUj (Far lirrl
Established 1893 ■ 107 Years of Editorial Freedom
www.dailytajheel.com
Ashley Atkinson
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR
Carolyn Haynes
COPY DESK EDITOR
Sefton lpock
PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Cheers to ‘Over the Hill’ Holden
H olden Caulfield tells us at one point in
J.D. Salinger’s “The Catcher in the
Rye” he thinks some of his fellow
characters act so phony they can’t possibly be
real.
You ever feel the same? Meet people so
phony you can’t believe they’re real?
Me too.
That’s why Salinger’s characters are so
believable. They’re real. Or better - they’re
phony. Holden merely points out things we all
know intuitively.
Still it’s always amazed me how I and just
about everyone else relate to Holden on such
a personal level. The kid’s insane - at least
that seems to be what the other characters in
the book think of him.
He is in a mental hospital after all.
But maybe that tells us something about
the phoniness in all of us.
Maybe Holden expresses for us something
we all feel but don’t say because we fear other
people will make fun of us - or worse, that
we’ll end up in mental hospitals.
Does that make us phony and Holden real?
Are the only real people characters like
Holden who aren’t afraid of pointing out the
obvious, aren’t afraid of bucking a path laid
out for them, risking insanity?
Holden’s book was published 50 years ago.
Here is a creature trapped between the
brusque thousands passing in their frowning
black suits and the massive, sky-scraping
buildings of New York City that all look the
same, the sprawl, the gas, the noise.
Here is a world so immense and indifferent
this creature feels alone in it, as though he is
standing outside of it, detached from the
machinery of existence.
Has anything changed?
Naught but the speed - we’re faster, more
efficient beings. We compact energy, informa
tion, the days of our lives.
Heel on Feb 8. It is appalling to me that our
University’s news publication could
demonstrate such ignorance as was dis
played by this political cartoon. Anyone
who truly and honestly believes John
Ashcroft to be some sort of mullah waiting
to enforce his views on any who disagree
with him is willfully ignorant of political
realities.
For nearly a month, fringe radicals in
this nation have propagated the falsehoods
that John Ashcroft is racist and zealous to
impose his beliefs on the nation. His
record, when viewed with an open and
intelligent mind, clearly debunks both of
those accusations. One needs only to look
at his ‘yea’ votes in favor of confirmation of
23 of 26 black judicial nominees who came
before the Senate during his tenure in that
body to see the troth of what I say.
Similarly, one can look at Mr. Ashcroft’s
record of support for civil rights initiatives
and minority judicial officials in Missouri.
One also can look at the well-testified
respect which those of other faiths who
have worked for the man say they have
received from him (and returned to him),
despite their difference in beliefs. Truly,
your editorial cartoon was startlingly
shameless in its mendacity and in its slan
derous nature.
Asa Missourian expatriate, 1 have first
hand knowledge of Mr. Ashcroft’s charac
ter and virtue as he served my state as attor
ney general, governor and later as senator.
Your comparison of him to the late
Beth Buchholz
DESIGN EDITOR
Jason Cooper
GRAPHICS EDITOR
Josh Williams
ONLINE EDITOR
PAUL THARP
CUISINE BOURGEOISE
We hurry, and we wait.
We climb toward the lost lane end, frown
ing not at the toil of reaching it but at the path
disappearing before us.
When I first read Holden’s book, it made
me think about the clothes I wore, the sports I
played, things 1 said to people. It was all an
effort to fit into this machine, to be some little
nut or bolt, to find my niche in the armory.
But what was it worth?
It seemed like everybody was fooling me
into wanting things I didn’t really want, living
a way I didn’t want to live.
Was everything I knew wrong?
Should one walk away from the machine
rather than find a place in it?
I’m sure I’d felt this way before, but
Holden said it. He said it for me then, he says
it now: Am I truly me? Am Ia phony? If lam
a phony, what can I do to become real?
At one point, as he is sitting in the Biltmore
waiting for Sally Hayes, Holden seems to sug
gest that people are one thing or another.
The one thing is you and me and Holden.
The other is smart girls with unbelievable
legs who marry dopey guys, he says, mean
guys who never read books and talk about
how many miles to a gallon they get in then
cars.
Some people live in that moment, and oth
ers live outside in the cold watching, wonder
ing what it’s worth being warm anyway.
It’s easy being a dope, being on the inside.
You don’t have to think much, or say any
thing more than repeats.
All you got to do, it seems, is sell your soul.
It’s harder being like Holden, wondering
what it would be like to be a dope, wondering
Ayatollah Khomeini is absolutely disgust
ing. Here you have a man, a good, solid,
loving Christian man, who truly believes
the Bible when it commands, “To speak
evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gen
tle, shewing all meekness unto all men”
(Titus 3:2). Yet, you slander him by imply
ing he is a kindred spirit to a terrorist who
truly believed the Koran when that book
says concemingjews and Christians, “Fight
against such of those who have been given
the scripture as believe not in Allah nor the
Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah
has forbidden by his messenger, and follow
not the religion of truth, until they pay the
tribute readily, being brought low” (Surat
al-Taubah 9:29, Koran).
The Daily Tar Heel’s comparison is
completely unjustified and uncalled for.
Shame on you!
Timothy W. Dunkin
M.A., Chemistry
Class of 2000
Quote in DTH Article
Gave Wrong Impression
Of Greeks Dating Greeks
TO THE EDITOR:
I am writing about the article printed in
the Feb. 12 Daily Tar Heel that discusses
Greeks dating Greeks on campus. There
were several unsavory comments and
mindsets attributed to me in this article.
After answering a few quick questions in
Lauren Beal & Kathleen Hunter
MANAGING EDITORS
Brian Frederick
READERS' ADVOCATE
Laura Stoehr
SPECIAL .ASSIGNMENTS EDITOR
if people are really dopes or if they’re fooling
you, wondering if everyone is in on it except
for you.
It’s a tough fix, but Holden is a tough kid.
He makes you crazy because he makes you
feel like the world’s got nothing to do with
you, even while you’re in it, and the only time
it’s real is when you’re by yourself and you’re
not pretending.
Who’s the real phony? Who’s pretending,
and who’s not?
Each of us, one might say, is a product of
the world in which we’re raised. Maybe peo
ple act what they know, talk what they’re
taught, and I’m just spitting Caulfield philoso
phy because it was taught to me well and it’s
what I know.
Maybe we’re all phonies, even those of us
who wish everyone else would be real.
But surely this can’t be.
Surely there must be some part of ourselves
that is real, that is purely us.
But where is it? Of what does it consist?
Toward the end of “The Catcher in the
Rye,” Holden says he doesn’t know what to
make of the thing. The thing of which he is
speaking, I think, is a personal identity, one
within and without the outer world, both a
part and apart.
It’s a strange proposition, but it could be
the one thing humans know they have is the
one thing they’ll never understand.
Maybe the searching, Holden seems to say,
is the only part of us that is real, because there
is no stopping point, no arrival, just steps.
The whole thing, being, moves forward
even when you wish it to stop. In the end all
you can do is keep on searching for yourself.
It may be the only thing you can do.
Holden Caulfield turns 50 on July 1 6, 2001.
Paul Tharp is a first-year law student. Reach him
at ptharp@email.unc.edu.
the interview, I began thinking out loud
about some stereotypical viewpoints that
might lead people in general to think that
only Greeks date Greeks.
The later comments were included in
the article as my own personal feelings.
This could not be further from the troth.
I apologize to the reporter that I did not
make it clear to her that the comments
were not representative of my own mindset
but instead me brainstorming as to why this
idea might exist. People who know me well
had a hard time believing those comments
were what I meant.
I just wanted to clarify any misunder
standings. My true mindset is not properly
reflected in the article. Like the other peo
ple in it, the only thing that has any bearing
on my interest in a girl is not her as a soror
ity girl, but her as a person. I apologize for
any wrongful impressions.
Lee Maschmeyer
Sophomore
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