Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Oct. 22, 2008, edition 1 / Page 14
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14 WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2008 lathj (Ear Mrri Established. 1893, 115 years of editorialfreedom rs\ SARAH GILBERT Sarah Gilbert is a junior journalism and political science double major from Mooresville. E-MAIL: SRGIL@EMAIL.UNC.EDU Lace up shoes for 5K to fight trafficking I don’t really like running 5Ks. I don’t like getting up early, I don’t particularly like to get sweaty, and I’m a little scarred from venturing out of my North Campus habitat freshman year to run one, only to get so caught up in the music blasting from my iPod that I ran right past the helpful sign with the arrow GUEST COLUMNIST on it and became hopelessly lost among the dark and twisted coils of Manning Drive. I ran back and forth for 20 minutes before giving up and hopping on an RU bus to arrive at the post-5K cel ebration in style. This Sunday, however, I will lace up a pair of running shoes that I bought during a very tor rid but short-lived affair with Funk Class at the SRC, and I will try my hand at taking on a 5K once more. Whether or not I will finish the race without the help of the kind folks at Chapel Hill Transit remains to be seen. There is really only one thing that could pull me out of my cozy apartment and into what promises to be a chilly Sunday morning: helping out a worthwhile but somewhat neglected cause while scoring a T-shirt. Luckily, “Beat the TYaffick: The 5K Dash for Freedom” promises to deliver both. The Coalition Against Sex Trafficking and Tri-Sigma Sorority have teamed up to organize a sKto raise money and increase awareness about sex trafficking around the world. CAST, anew organization that is affiliated with the Carolina Women’s Center, was founded by junior Priya Desai, who attended a CWC conference in April and was inspired to cre ate an organization that focused exclusively on sex trafficking. CAST has also found support from the owners of local busi nesses such as Cluck-U Chicken and Townsend, Bertram and Company, who have donated gift certificates and other items. “We’ve had a great response from the community,” said junior Ben Flitter, the CAST 5K coor dinator. “We’re setting up an auction at the end of the race, so it’s been great to have these busi nesses donate items for that.” While the auction and the 5K are designed to raise as much money as possible, education is also a primary goal of the event. CAST and Tri-Sigma volunteers will stand along the 5K route to direct runners, holding signs fea turing facts about sex trafficking. “I’m really excited about getting the chance to help educate people about this issue,” said Tri-Sigma member Morgan Eberle. “We do philanthropy through Sigma all the time, but this is a chance to help bring attention to an issue that isn’t necessarily as high pro file as the work we do for causes like the Children’s Hospital.” Sex trafficking is an issue that the average person does not con sider to be a significant domestic problem, though cases have been recorded in all 50 states. A fact sheet published by CAST states that an estimated 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders every year. Of these individuals, approximately 80 percent are women and approxi mately 50 percent are minors. The 5K will begin Sunday at 9:30 a.m. at Graham Memorial. You can register now at ffeewebs. com/castsk or in the Pit for sl7, which includes that T-shirt that I am so excited about. So please consider hauling those sneakers out from the bot tom of your closet and coming out to support a group that’s fighting an issue that affects our commu nity more than most of us realize. ALLISON NICHOLS EDITOR. 962-4086 NAUISONOEMAILUNC.EDU OFFICE HOURS: MON.. WED. 2-3 P.M. ERIC JOHNSON PUBLIC EDITOR ERKJOHNSONOUNC.EDU EDITORIAL CARTOON By Alex Harrington, achcttsl ©email.unc.edu fl|(sL /wKKTHfc teM ( mini ( OFWMEIXA on cccAawfl W® 11 1 take: -this AKrispc Application troubles Study abroad process should be tweaked to allow students more options for credit, programs The University’s Study Abroad Office should allow students to apply to multiple study abroad pro grams. This can be done without extensively expanding the appli cation process. UNC’s Study Abroad Office offers more than 300 programs in 70 countries, yet students rejected from their first choice will find themselves in a bind. The process for studying abroad requires a comprehen sive 10-page application. This year, the Study Abroad Office only had two weeks to review 163 applications. While applying to study abroad is a detailed and strenu ous process, only a small part of Money in the right place Grant to fund mental health program is promising We commend anew grant from two national charities to fight substance abuse and improve mental health care in Orange County The $270,000 grant will be used to implement the Reclaiming Futures program. This national initiative helps teenage substance abusers by screening and providing treat ment to those entering the juvenile justice system. In the short term, the grant provides generous, much needed funding for the area’s substance abuse and mental health clinics. In the long term, it has real potential to fight drug addiction in Orange County and help criminal drug users get their lives back on track. Embrace intellectual debate U.S. Rep. Robin Hayes, R-N.C., said at a rally in Concord on Saturday that “liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve and believe in God.” His rhetoric is along the same lines as Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s remarks in Greensboro about “pro-America” parts of the country and Rep. John Murtha’s, D-Pa., comments about how west ern Pennsylvania is a “racist area.” These comments depress me, both as an American and as a college student. They are a symptom of the total failure of public politi cal discourse to engage ideas and confront the challenges we face like just how we’re going to unfreeze the credit markets so our economy can grow; or how we’re going to fix a broken health care system; or how we’re going to achieve energy inde pendence. And the list goes on. We can’t let this trend of anti-intellectualization extend beyond discourse. The problems our generation faces require Opinion HARRISON JOBE OPINION CO-EDITOR HJO6EOEMAILUNC.EDU CREG MARGOUS OPINION CO-EDITOR MARGOLIS.GREGOGMAILCOM the application process itself is location-specific. The application process can be tailored to allow students the ability to indicate program preferences in their application and include shorter written explanations of these choices, in addition to a basic study abroad essay. If studying abroad main tains such a high interest, and UNC is as committed to study abroad programs as it claims, then the University must ensure that student demand is met through proper fund ing and staffing of the Study Abroad Office. Also, current Study Abroad policy only allows students to receive credit for officially A well-tested model to com bat drug use like Reclaiming Futures is exactly what our community needs. Private men tal health clinics in the county have struggled to accommo date demand since reforms in 2001 cut spending on state programs. Higher prices have left many substance abusers without options for treatment. We hope Reclaiming Futures will go a long way to bridge the gap between our county’s men tal health needs and its cur rent capacity of treatment. We especially appreciate that the grant comes from two charities well-known for their strong philanthropic record in North Carolina: the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Triist and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. GREG MARGOLIS OPINION CO-EDITOR Greg Margolis is a junior political science major from Chapel Hill. E-MAIL: MARGOLIS.GREG@GMAIL.COM ideas, not demagoguery. And that’s where we as mem bers of a university community come in. Institutions of higher educa tion are the bastion for the intel lectual development of our coun try and our political parties. It’s on university campuses where the ideas that will solve climate change, confront poverty and propel American ingenuity are bom. And it’s also the place where our political parties’ phi losophies grow. Asa result, when we hear our leaders resort to making incendi ary comments that do nothing to advance the political and intel- EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS LISAANDRUKONIS YANIV BARZILAI BEN BUCK ANDREW STILES SARAH WHITWORTH JAMES DING sanctioned UNC-Chapel Hill programs. But UNC’s study abroad pro grams represent a tiny portion of the opportunity for students to study abroad worldwide. And, while the quality of study abroad programs must always be evalu ated, it is hard to imagine that UNC maintains a monopoly on these quality programs. While students may peti tion the Study Abroad Office to receive credit for other programs, UNC could offer a wider range of programs to complement the diversity of the world. Studying abroad is an invalu able opportunity for all students and ought to be granted to any one interested. “Breaking the cycle of drugs, alcohol and crime among our young people in North Carolina is an important priority for our organization,” said Susan Richardson, program officer of the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, in a press release. “Reclaiming Futures offers a tested tool that can make a huge difference in our communities.” This grant is especially poi gnant now because of the tragic death of Joshua McCabe Bailey, a Chapel Hill resident found shot to death earlier this year. Bailey suffered from both mental health problems and substance abuse, and it is speculated that his death was drug-related. We hope that Reclaiming Futures will do a world of good in helping those like Bailey. lectual dialogue, we should be outraged. We need to rededicate our selves to being people of ideas and solutions, rather than those obsessed with partisan bickering. It’s great that campuses are hotbeds of political activity. But, at the same time, we should be careful not to get sucked into the petty and divisive politics that dominates the national scene. As Derek Belcher, president of the UNC College Republicans said, “we should definitely get back to a stronger focus on ideas and issues.” Because if we get stuck on divisive rhetoric, there is the “danger of disengagement with each other,” said Vivek Chilukuri, president of UNC Young Democrats. And if that happened, we’d be neglecting our responsibility to engage our country’s problems in an analytical, creative and productive way. It’s up to us, the educated elite liberal and conservative to turn the focus from cultural divi sion and wedge politics to intel lectual development. QUOTE OF THE DAY: “We realized that this fund and only this fund would galvanize this class to act in ways that other funds wouldn't ” JAMES SHELLY, SENIOR CLASS PRESIDENT FEATURED ONLINE READER COMMENT: “Students have enough smarts to understand you need an experienced person to he vice president ... Let us have a vote!” ON "SPLIT TICKET" EDIT LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Complaining about TAs' grading is not productive TO THE EDITOR: Zack Holland complained in his letter to the editor (“Grades are unfair when TAs have vary ing standards,” Oct. 21) that it was unfair when TAs did the grading for assignments which require subjective grading since “there’s typically a disparity in the average grades” in large classes with multiple TAs. While he discounts the pos sibility that one TA might have better equipped or achieving students than another, I don’t believe that can be ruled out. More importantly, however, whining about fairness will not serve Mr. Holland well later in life. As John Kennedy once said, “Life is unfair.” Perhaps if Mr. Holland were complaining about dying on a flood plain in an underde veloped region of the world instead of his difficulty in get ting lower grades than another student while being sheltered, warm, and well fed in a won derful school he might have a point. In school as in life, Mr. Holland will go much farther playing the hand he is dealt rather than attempting to obtain a different deck. (By the way, I do not believe I have ever taught Mr. Holland.) Robert M. Hamer, Ph.D. Professor of Psychiatry and Biostatistics UNCAB ’72, Ph.D. ’79 Though probable, hikes in tuition are unacceptable TO THE EDITOR: Every few weeks, there is chatter of raising tuition. Though we have representatives speaking on our behalf, we the people need to express ideas ourselves. Raising tuition all the time overburdens students, the young minds of America’s future. Regardless of whether you are a freshman or senior, in state or out of state, government official or patron: This issue matters to everyone. When the mass public con sciousness gives voice to an issue, the established order must pay attention. Is there a place for moral consciousness in our soci ety? Several, if not most of the students are already struggling to pay for the costs of college. Throughout the nation, this is a problem for academic insti tutions. Just like our parents ask where our taxes are going, we the students must question where the tuition goes. What we need to do is use our resources more efficiently. Is this not what is asked of the individual? Our intuitions must be accountable to this principle as well. There are viable alternatives to jacking up prices for those who are get ting an education. The budget must be used for necessities which are impera tive. Science promotes the con cept of efficiency where you try to get the most out of what you are putting in. Business needs to incorporate that into its pro SPEAK OUT WRITING GUIDELINES: > Please type: Handwritten letters will not be accepted. > Sign and date: No more than two people should sign letters. >• Students: Include your year, major and phone number. > Faculty/staff: Include your EDITOR'S NOTE: Columns, cartoons and letters do not necessarily represent the opinions of the Daily Tar Heel or its staff. Editorials reflect the opinions of The Daily Tar Heel edito rial board. The board consists of seven board members, the associate opinion editor, the opinion editor and the editor. Slip lailg (Ear Mrrl ceedings as well. Every system has to achieve sustainability. Otherwise, it shall cease to exist with harmonic balance. We can find a better solution, one that sets a precedent nationally as well as at a local level. Our leaders need to hold a proces sion which precisely informs officials of how our spending is divided. In addition, the people should have a say in the finan cial process, especially when you take into account where the funding comes from. Such people include the students at UNC. If the powers-that-be deem that a raise in costs at the expense of the students is acceptable, then the public conscious must realize that our University must in the very least give back to the students in some way. If not, then future students will be paying more for the same academic and social experience. Piran Jadali Senior Psychology Voting straight ticket is not an intelligent move TO THE EDITOR: Regardless of your choice for president, senator, or governor, voting straight ticket is undem ocratic. The efforts being made by local political parties to get people to vote straight ticket do not help you, the voter, make an informed decision it merely takes advantage of blind party loyalty. If you support Barack Obama, then vote for him. If you support John McCain, vote for him. But there is no require ment that you then vote straight Democratic or Republican on the rest of the ballot. Be aware of what you’re getting into. In an election when change is the driving motivation for voters, try to take into account who the incumbents are, what their voting records may be, their individual platforms, their campaign contributors, and whether they have actually done the job for which they were elected. Asa case in point, David Price, the Democratic con gressional incumbent of this district, would automatically receive your vote if you vote straight ticket, but be aware that he has repeatedly voted to fund the Iraq war, voted for the PATRIOT Act without actually reading it, supports the National Bio and Agro- Defense Facility, and he has even implied that he supports an invasion of Pakistan. One of his biggest campaign contribu tors is the defense industry. Is this who you want to represent you? Do not assume that because you vote straight ticket you are getting the candidates that will represent you. Choose each can didate carefully believe me, it doesn’t take all that much time to fill out the ballot carefully rather than voting straight ticket. William Harris Sophomore Political Science, History department and phone number. ► Edit: The DTH edits for space, clarity, accuracy and vulgarity. Limit letters to 250 words. SUBMISSION: ► Drop-off: at our office at Suite 2409 in the Student Union. ► E-mail: to editdeskOunc.edu ► Send: to P.O. Box 3257, Chapel Hill, N.C., 27515.
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