Page Six
THE DAILY TAR HEEL
October 1, 1970
Tony Lentz
Opinions of The Daily Tax Heel
unsigned editorials are the opinions
columns represent only the opinions
Tom
Rush. Should Not
Halt:
Article 4, Section I of the
by-laws of the Student Legislature
state:
"The legislature shall meet in
continous regular sessions every
Thursday night except during the
first week of the fall semester and
the last two weeks of both
semesters, fraternity and sorority
rush weeks, and any session which
falls during recess."
Sorority rush began on Tuesday,
September 22, and will end on
Friday, October 2. Fraternity rush
will begin on Monday, October 5,
and will continue until Friday,
October 9.
Consequently, Student
Legislature is forbidden from
meeting in regular session for the
next two weeks. Legislature has
already been forced to call one
special session in order to meet
during the first week of sorority
rush.
At that special session, SL
refused an amendment to the Open
House Agreement, passed a vital
amendment permitting the print
shop to continue functioning, filled
five vacancies to the Publications
P
78 Years of Editorial Freedom
Tom Gooding,ditor
Rod Waldorf Managing Ed.
Mike Parnell News Editor
Rick Gray Associate Ed.
Harry Bryan Associate Ed.
Chris Cobbs Sports Editor
Glenn Brank Feature Editor
Ken Ripley Nat. News Editor
Ken Smith Night Editor
Doug Jewell Business Mgr.
Frank Stewart Adv. Mgr.
Mike Parnell
Leg
R J's: A Good Place
There were a lot of fables running on
this page last week concerning the recent
controversy in student government.
Unfortunately, not being a student of
the political activities in Suite C of the
Union, this author was unable to
contribute a fable on that subject.
However, being a great lover of fables
and a great lover of food, a story came to
my attention concerning the two subjects
which may be of interest to students
here. So here is the great food fable of
the week:
"Once upon a time, Ray and Paula
were Carolina students who, like most
Carolina students, went out on dates and
enjoyed all the various activities of a
college campus.
"After their dates, the couple always
liked to go out and get a bite to eat
somewhere in the small college town.
However, after several months of dating,
there didn't seem to be anywhere in town
to eat where the couple could get good
food and good atmosphere and have a
good time.
"They had eaten everywhere and had
just gotten tired of the same old food and
the same old restaurants.
"So Ray and Paula began to think and
dream and they decided, after graduation,
that they should build a restaurant in the
small college town where people could go
and get good food and good atmosphere
and not get tired of the place.
"Ray's father was in the food business
and Ray had grown up working in
restaurants and he thought he could run a
restaurant as good as anybody.
are expressed on its editorial page. All
of the editor and the staff- Letters and
of the individual contributors.
Gooding, Ecfitor
isl&faire
Board and elected a chairman
to
the Finance committee.
This meeting had to be called as
a special session because of the
social antics of nine elite clubs with
a total of about 400 members.
UNC student politics used to be
controlled by political hacks
comprising the upper echelon of
certain select fraternal
organizations.
The political hacks may be
inherent to all government
organizations.
Fortunately, the power and
influence of the fraternal
organizations upon campus politics
has been drastically reduced in the
years since the SL By-Laws were
written.
We reccommend that SL call a
special session to abolish this
antiquated regulation.
Hair-rassment
From the Charlotte Observer
After watching their football
team clip a couple of opponents,
some Chapel Hill alumni have
allowed as how they would like to
see a barber clip one of their
cheerleaders (male variety).
What with the lion-like manes
that are sticking out of football
helmets these days (check Joe
Namath's neck line), we thought
football fans were at the point of
accepting long hair as just another
part of the stadium scene.
The alumni variety of fan in
Chapel Hill still believes,
apparently, that long hair belongs
on the second violinist, not a
second-fiddle cheerleader.
Since the cheerleaders at
UNC-CH are agents of the Athletic
Department, which is mighty
beholden to alumni, there will soon
be rules to clip the Sampson of the
rah-rah squad and put him back in a
style favored by old grads.
All of this could bring a lot
of
grumbling about the greybeards.
But they deserve a little
understanding if they think winning
teams should be cheered by
short-hairs. That was the style the
last time they had a winner to
cheer.
"His father wanted him to come home
to the small town in the western part of
the state and take over the family
restaurant but Ray decided, being a
philanthropist of sorts, that the small
college town needed a good restaurant
worse than his father needed his help.
"One day, just after Paula had
returned to school from summer
vacation, Ray drove her out to a bowling
alley about five miles from town.
" 'Look at that and tell me what you
think,' said Ray.
"Paula just looked at hira funny and
asked if anything was wrong.
"Now RAy was nearing graduation
from law school and he had finally
decided he really didn't want to be a
lawyer just yet.
" 'After I graduate,' said Ray, 'That's
going to be our restaurant.'
"Paula got very excited and she and
Ray began making exciting plans about
their restaurant.
"The bowling alley was rented and
redecorated to be a modern, but not
plastic, restaurant with a kitchen all set to
serve good food.
"So Ray and Paula graduated, got
married and settled down to run their
restaurant.
"Ray and Paula were very happy and
so were all the people in the small college
town because they finally had a
restaurant with good food and good
atmosphere.
"And so, in the tradition of all good
fables, everybody lived happily ever
after."
V'o o n n o
ismcanou
It is a fixed rule with the wise never to
defend themselves with the pen.
Biltasar Gracian
Being caught with your pants down is
painful.
I know.
But what really hurts is when you
realize that someone took a picture and
printed it on the front page of
Look-And-See Magazine.
This is roughly what happened to the
Lentz column of September 29.
Late the proceeding day the editors
called me down and told me to cut my
lengthy column so they could squeeze it
into the edit page. I sliced out about six
inches of copy and went home, secure in
the knowledge that at least part of my
argument would get across.
Well, somehow another another six or
eight paragraphs got chopped. And, as
letter-writer Bob Singer of Granville
Ken Ripley
Ideas
Today is the day of the masses.
If we are to believe all we are told, we
can't help but see this. The simple
presence of large numbers of people
surrounding us burns the idea of
"mass-ness" into our minds.
Here, safely at
only one person
my typewriter, I am
among approximately
To Eat
But there is one catch to this fable. It's
all true.
Ray and Paula are Ray and Paula Goad
and they run a restaurant out at Eastgate
known as RJ's.
Ray and Paula are young and they
have tried to make their restaurant
young, too.
RJ's (which stands for Ray, junior,
Ray's father being of Ray's hamburger
chain fame) is divided into three parts.
There is a sandwich and beer
department (the Volkskeller) which is
designed to attract the customer who
wants a good, quick meal cheaply.
There is the Smorgasbord, a buffet
which is designed to attract the customer
who wants a lot for his money
And there is the After Five Room,
designed for the customer who wants a
nice place for his wife or date, with
plenty of soft music and all the refineries
of good service.
Vc, , 10 do something
people, said Paula, "We want
ractoiinnt n. want
for
our
1"lo,"aui lu rcuect us but we wanted
people in Chape! Hffl ,o have " pUce o
ttaHS? " m"e bit afferent from
"We would like o iv ,
traditinn " - J s to become a
tradition, she continued, "But I pp
any restaurant if it k 1 guess
seXi u' lfU has good food and
th; cme a Edition
That's
.1U restaurant we're
provide." e re
trying to
Watch out "FranH-Es,abnshmet.Theyd-kgl'angrb:
XP rrfA dot, tow i f f7?7y7 ) (L,
Ma
Towers pointed out, my conclusion just
didn't make sense.
Answering a letter based on an
inaccurate representation of my argument
would be ludicrous at best. So I will
attempt to restate my reasoning, and
trust to whatever gods may be that the
backshop (bless 'em) won't pull my pants
down again.
The so-called Student Government has
had a miserable reputation among its
constituents as long as I can remember.
Words like "Mickey Mouse," "petty
politics," and "yawn" are conjured up as
I remember my first exciting session of
the Legislature.
During my freshmen year the student
body voted three-to-one in favor of a
campus radio station. Student Legislature
voted it down.
Everytime the students asked for
something it was turned down.
O
M
twenty. A nice secure figure for my own
ego and personality to flourish.
But on campus, I find 17,000 other
people.
In the nation, I'm only a pebble
among over 200,000,000 others.
And in the world, I'm only a miniscule
speck in the midst of 3,500,000,000
other specks. Somewhere, in one of those
many zeroes, there's me.
Is it any wonder that there is a "lost
generation"? Someone is bound to be
hidden in such a population.
But numbers wouldn't be so crushing
to our self-identities if it wasn't for the
fact we have enshrined a kind of "massive
mania,
"masses,
As a people, we are the
ready to revolt or not.
Newspapers
have mass circulations.
Anyone with a few bucks to spend
becomes a mass consumer. The "mass
media" engulfs us in a gooey pablum of
entertainment and digested news.
Now, a mass is defined, I an informed,
as "A large body of persons in a compact
body or array; a body ot persons regarueu
as an aggregate." in oiner wuiu,
collection of particulars formed into
'a
a
mass or sum.
There could be some hope for us
masses
in this iuncuonai ucimmuu, uui
there is
a danger wnicn o uiMujr
CUlluniiiis
particulars, of individuals, and lump them
together like a ball of clay into a sum.
From then on, the individual is
considered only as part of the mass and
his identity is squeezed into that of the
whole lump of humanity.
And as masses we are treated. We
spend our whole lives as a herd. We are
statistics; we are averages; we are
audiences. An individual is not one
among many-he is many. And from the
us.
We take a collection of
many
comes conionimy,
i m p ersonalization
insignificance, and
meaninglessness.
rr mnrcp ideally, the
University
community shouldn't be this way.. After
all isn't the purpose of the university to
help the individual in his quest for
knowledge and in the building of his
character? Never mind the fact there are
often 200 students per classroom and
that the university is increasingly m the
business of mass education.
ssue 1 hire
Parliamentary Playtime convened every
Thursday night and the students went
right on being miserable.
Those were the days, by the way,
before visitation, self -limiting hours and
bus systems.
Tom Clark, business manager cf the
Tar Heel, proposed a self-sufficient Daily
Tar Heel, one that could support itself
through advertising revenue. His proposal
was turned down.
The point being that Student
Government was a do-nothing operation
that could not command the attention of
the average student without offering him
a free beer.
And when the beer ran out, so did the
student.
During the last year, we have seen a
change in Student Government. Students
now have self-limiting hours, refrigerators
in the dorms, and better Jubilee
programs.
Ness
But how many among us ever stop to
sort out the masses we bump into and
jossle as we dart to class? How easily do
we fit ourselves into the masses at
football games and concerts? Who really
cares, anyway, about the masses around
us in class, unless some piece of mass next
to us has the notes we missed or a light?
And for a bunch of individuals who
claim the right to "wear what we want,"
it sure is easy to lose the individual
dresser in any large gathering of the mass.
See how easy it is to lose the "particular"
in the "sum"?
It doesn't have to be that way, even if
our mass mania does impress our
sensibilities. We can't help being part of
the mass, but we can quit thinking of
ourselves and others as being "masses."
Why bother with what people wear; it's
the people that count.
We know because we feel, hurt, love,
and dream that we aren't just a bunch of
"sums." We are more than a sterile
"particular"-we are people, people who
are sensitive, who can think, who can act
and react to people around them. If we
want to.
When we look deeper into the masses
around us, we recapture our feeling that
we are one among many, one with many
if you please. The smallest bull session,
the most casual conversation can break
down impersonality and encourage our
own individuality. Students living at the
International Center among people of
other nationalities find, as differences
emerge and their interpersonal contact
increases, barriers of prejudice and
misunderstanding drop away with the
growing of mutual understanding and
respect.
But merely looking at our masses is
not enough. We need the willingness to be
involved in another's life, to open
ourselves up despite fears of exposure, to
be able to accept what we find and, as
Heinlein's Mike Smith would say, to
"cherish it." People, after all, not masses,
are the common denominators and
determiners of all human activity and
endeavor. We should have the right to be
treated, and to treat ourselves, as such.
Today may be the day of the masses.
But it's a shame that doesn't have to be.
at
The Kent State crisis brought out the
best in student leadership. Tommy Beilo
spoke out for the desires and hopes of his
generation with more fire and confidence
than all previous student body presidents
combined.
The Strike Committee was
level-headed throughout the crisis, and
cooler heads prevailed whenever violence
threatened.
There have been exceptions to this
improvement. Constitutional
gamesmanship ran rampant once or twice
this semester. Legislators continue to get
inflated view of their own importance,
and the Pub Board still can't get a
quorum.
But we do have a few responsible
student leaders who are struggling to do
something for the people they represent.
The recent controversy over 24-hour
visitation, however, could have the effect
of destroying all the good that has been
done. Student Government gets its power
from the administration, and steady
oppositon from South Building could
eventually wipe out student confidence in
an impotent "self-governing" system.
I'm sure this doesn't worry the
Administration too much. A docile
Student Legislature and soft-spoken
student leaders would make it easier to
keep trustees and politicians off the
University's back.
A puppet student government,
however, will not be much help when
there are 5,000 to 6,000 students
gathered in Polk Place. Especially if they
are angry, as most students were last
Spring.
In other words, a University which
does not trust students to run their own
lives cannot expect students to trust
administrators in emergency situations.
And the responsible students who
pulled UNC's tail out of the fire last
Spring may tire of begging for crumbs at
the Administration's table.
Next time the Administrators may be
forced to go it alone.
Letter
President
"Hypocrite
Dear Mr. President:
The following open letter has been
sent to local newspapers.
May I first of all pay tribute to your
political skill. You have zeroed in on "the
social issues" with remarkable precision.
You have a good chance, despite the
surveys to date, to succeed in beguiling
blue collar workers into voting for the
party of business.
But electoral politics aside, your
campaign speeches and policies are
hypocritical and contemptible, especially
your recent speech at Kansas State. I do
not refer to the silly argument that the
way to end the war is to prolong it, thus
rejecting the advice of those within the
administration who have cogently argued
for withdrawal on a fixed schedule.
Rather, I want to remark on the oddity
of the context in which your well-taken
condemnation of violence was set forth.
A few months before the speech you
yourself invited representatives of the
hard hats to the White House shortly
after they had violently assaulted
American citizens exercising well
established First Amendment rights. Your
speech might have been read as recanting
this symbolic approval of violence. But
then only days later, the Vice
President-for the tenor of whose public
declarations you bear full responsibility,
as anyone but a political neophyte'
knows-gave precisely the same excuse
for hard hat violence that antiwar
protestors have for theirs: righteous
indignation. Sauce for the goose, Mr.
President.
I continue to believe-in spite of your
hypocritical speech-that all violence is
abhorrent. Its use by those opposed to
the war is bad tactics and worse morals.
But in the context of your own
continued violence against the people of
southeast Asia, and your own implicit
condonation of violence by those
American citizens who agree with your
views against those who do not, I regard
your Manhattan message as the merest
hypocrisy, undeserving of the respect that
we all still hope will someday once again
be merited by the utterances of the
incumbent of the highest office in the
land.
Yours very truly,
James C. Dick
Letters
The Daily Tar Heel accepts
letters to the editor, provided they
are typed on a 60-space line and
limited to a maximum of 300
words. All letters must be signed
and the address and phone number
of the writer must be included.
The paper reserves the right to
edit all letters for libelous
statements and good taste.
Address letters to 'Associate
Editor, The Daily Tar Heel, in care
of the Student Union.
......
ems