Laura Yandell g (liar 81 Years Of Editorial Freedom Opinions of The Daily Tsr Heel are expressed on its editorial page. All un.iined editorials are the' opinion of the editor. Letters and columns represent only the opinions of the individual contributors. Sunn Milkr, Editor January 17, 1974 alb oil's A T"3 ! i Sen. Jesse Helms may be a rookie senator but he sure isn't sitting quietly on the sidelines watching the goings-on of the Senate unfortunately. Helms has taken up the cause of what he calls "unborn children," introducing various amendments that fly in the face of the Supreme Court decision last year that legalized abortions under certain conditions. One amendment, introduced last week, would grant full constitutional rights to the unborn child from the moment of conception. As the letter to the editor pointed out in Wednesday's Tar Heel, such a law is as ludicrous as a law protecting the life and death of sperms. When conception occurs is not clear and that conception has occurred cannot possibly be detected until medical examination. "The moment of conception" therefore cannot be legally determined, so the Helms CD o quorum twice speaks ill Sometimes we wish, like last year's student body presidential candidates David Boone and Pitt Dickey, that Student Government would go jump in a lake. The latest reasons for doubting the credibility of SG are the two meetings in a row of the Judicial Committee of the Campus Governing Council that failed to have a quorum. Because of the committee's failure to meet to act on the Judicial Reform bill, the bill was not considered at Tuesday night's CGC meeting. This bill has had many, many hours work and just as many problems in its formation. Reform of the student court system has been attempted for five years without success. Now that the minority court controversy has been Mike Rierson asy college founinni "It was the winter of our discontent." Times were hard, cash was short, and 1 wasn't about to decoupage Christmas presents again this year. Cheap, but it wears the fingerprints off. So, I'm faced with no other choice. I've got to obtain what is known as A Part-Time Job During The Christmas Holidays. It's the price 1 must pay for squandering my money on wine, women and song. A friend of my uncle's half-brother knew a neighbor that had a cousin who worked at what will remain a large, unnamed industrial plant. Just wait. This gets better. "Sure, he'll get ya a job boy. Home for Christmas, huh? Well, we'll put ya to work. Haw, Haw!" This is barely 24 hours after my last exam that filled up two blue books front and back. Haw Haw. Word leaked out in my neighborhood that I had a job pending. My parents rejoiced. They called my grandmother in Burlington just to tell her that 1 might get a job. My father tried to persuade the local paper to run a headline reading "Lazy College Bum Seeks Employment." So, off I go to seek my fortune in the world of steel-toed shoes and never ending coffee breaks. 1 report at the crack of dawn to the front door and what appears to be the original "Lurch" from television's old rz. Stlyp Hath Cuzzn f.tlSfer, Editor Winston Cavin, Managing Editor DIE! Welch, Hews Editor Dsvid Eskrldg, Associate Editor Ssth Effron, Associate Editor Kevin McCarthy, Features Editor Elliott Warnock, Sports Editor Ted Stawart, Photo Editor Emto Pitt, lzh ZCAor icy amendment would be extremely hard to enforce. In addition, Helms amendment for legal right to the unborn completely ignores the constitutional rights of the woman carrying the fetus. These rights were upheld in the Supreme Court decision. Another amendment offered by Helms to the Foreign Assistance Act would have prohibited the use of U.S. money to pay for abortions or abortion research in foreign countries. Helms' amendments are based on the unproved belief that life begins with conception. This belief should not be the basis for U.S. laws that would deny any woman the right of life and liberty by forcing her to carry through with nine months of pregnancy. Students should write their senators and congressmen to make sure Congress is not as ridiculous as Helms is, by making his amendment law. for SG settled at least in the making of a bill to present to CGC, it is unfortunate the judicial committee could not get enough members to a meeting to report that bill out of committee for action by the council. One member of the committee has said he was not informed of any meeting of the group. Perhaps more fundamental problems, such as more politicking about the problem sections of the bill, encouraged some members of the committee to stop action temporarily on the bill by not showing up to discuss it. Whatever the reason, failure to get quorum on such an important thing as judicial reform does not speak well for the judgment or dedication of SG members. "Addams Family" calmly rises from a desk of monitors. He is what is known as a Security Guard. He keeps things secure. In their place. "What'cha doin' here boy?" "I say what you doing here boy? There is a boy under that hair ain't they?" Two other Lurches enter and begin to laugh uproariously. The Stupid College Bum laughs also. This is known as trying to get started off on the right foot. Haw Haw. "I'm supposed to report to Building 31. I'm the part-time help. For the holidays." "Well, O.K. Sign this sheet." It was a security roster. Name, age, time of arrival, and country of birth. Everyone before me had initialed U.S.A. Every day when they come in they attest to their patriotism. 1 was the type kid who colored outside the lines for the sport of it, so I had a deep yearning to scrawl USSR or Bulgaria on the crummy check-in sheet with a red Bic Banana. Normalcy overtook me. "O.K. kid, go down this corridor to the next building. And here, put this security badge on and display it prominently." "Well, how you doin', how you doin'? You must be the guy Arch told me about. Ready to go to work? Let me welcome you to Greenhouse Janitorial Services. We clean up around here." And 1 have just been taken to the cleaners. irlm Ell" cairn Life can be hard for a Carolina basketball fan, especially if he's in hot pursuit of something several thousand other students on campus want a ticket to the UNC-State game. Rising Monday before the sun, Mr. Fan notices that half his dorm is already up. He can guess why so he beats it on down to Carmichael. It is 7:30 a.m. and a few hundred students sit sleepily inside the gym. Mr. Fan sees sleeping bags and pillows and wonders how anyone could have spent the night in the cold, even if this is the biggest game of the year. He climbs into the stands and claims three seats on the third row: one seat for him and two for friends Fanny and Franny. Together they will brave the long day. Although they are in good position for tickets, Mr. Fan continues to worry. The night before, the three carefully had designed an unbeatable plan for saving seats while taking turns attending non-cuttable classes. But Mr. Fan has seen failproof plans fail before. UNC ushers (students hired out by the Athletic Department) possess magical powers capable of charming students into moving whatever books or coats might be occupying a "saved" seat next to them. No saving seats under any circumstances whatsoever, these bouncers say. Required classes to the wind. It's here or there. Make your choice. Mr. Fan has seen such incredible actions occur before. Students, glassy-eyed from playing too many hands of spades or repeatedly trying to conquer the world at Risk, oblige the ushers' orders. Mr. Fan vows that no one will take his saved seats. He and his henchwomen will beg, cheat, fight, steal, bribe and maim to keep them. At 8:15 Franny arrives and with her support Mr. Fan tries to solicit crowd opposition against the ushers. "Listen. People have to go to classes, too. It's not fair for us to have to sit here all day. So let's all make an agreement not to move in when the ushers say to. Ok? What do you say?" A lot of sleepy faces look back at Mr. Fan as he stands hands on hips, smiling, waiting for a response. He receives several yawns, some nods, a few neutral stares and then the put-down. Letters to the editor Reader To the editor: The appropriate label may be left to your readership. Call it "yellow journalism" or simply "protagonistic," your January 15 editorial entitled "No civil rights progress seen since death of King" betrays the truth. Much in fact has been accomplished in the years since King's untimely death in moving this nation toward his goals. This is true in nearly all spheres of human activity. What do you want as evidence? The influx of blacks into the political life of our communities? Access to institutions of tells, off holiday job I had expected a desk job an executive position. Instead, I'm about to join the Mop and Bucket Brigade. "Come on in. Don't be shy. My name is Lester and I'll sort of be watching over you. But you'll more or less be on your own You'll be cleaning up the bathrooms down in the Forge Shop." Haw Haw. The Lazy College Bum Gets His. So Lester and I made our way around the Forge Shop and he showed me the duties of the "Keeper of the Stables." That was his title, not mine. He kept letting out this big horselaugh. I kept turning pale. They made turbine blades in the Shop and consequently, graphite floated around in the air and machine oil dripped from everything. (Including Lester, but that's another story.) He was rather detailed in his explanation of my duties. "Now ya gotta keep these bowls clean. Make sure there's enough soap and paper towels, and above all keep 'em flushed. Sometimes..." I got the picture. As he was about to leave, Lester seemed to make a small concession toward reverence as he whispered "Oh yea, here is the key to all the towel dispensers. You'll be needing it." Ah, I see that he recognizes responsibility. That's Class. My own key the symbol of penetrating masculinity. I opened the door of the First bathroom. There is no possible way to describe the sheer, unadulterated filth that stared back at me. Those bathrooms had been laying for me. Word had gotten around that The Lazy College Bum was coming. As I made my way around the Shop with mops, buckets, and all the paraphernalia of my new trade, I actually felt some of the long, cold stares that were sent my way by a few of the people 1 passed. I couldn't really tell at first what the men working in the Shop werefeeling.Contempt? Were they jealous at the opportunities I had that they had been denied? Yet I still felt like arookie. Unlike Lester, 1 found that I could never quite get the "handy Glad trash liner" to fit over the rim of the iillSlE 'Li A blond on the front row looks boring'y up from her cards and say's, "I don't think that plan will work and besides they aren't going to move me anywhere. I'm on the front row, you know." Mr. Fan looks for help from Franny but gets only a one word summmary of the situation: - "Bitch." she says. But Mr. Fan can't except just that. "Why are some people so selfish," he asks. "Why so self-centered? Why can't everyone help everyone else out?" "1 don't know," Franny says. "1 don't ask that question anymore." Several pick-up games of basketball later, Mr. Fan notices Fanny, who has arrived. T vn ; WRUEH't 'SEEH HART RDVeRTTSirv PLOT THcLjKfc. thU M says King higher learning? Job opportunities? You name it and evidence can generally be produced to document the strides made by blacks in recent years. While no one would claim that the "goal" has been reached (as measured in terms either of equality of opportunity or equality of results) and although the movement has not progressed as rapidly as some of us might like to see, it seems a bit outrageous to claim so blindly that nothing is being done or has been done in the past five years. If you have any historical perspective at all, just look can. Instead, I always ended up ripping one end of the liner and then, completely exasperated, 1 would blow the damn thing up, tie it off with the "handy twist-tie," and then jump down from a toilet seat and create an explosion that rebounded off the tiled walls. The rush hour in the stables came just after lunch. I found that my best recourse was to retire back into the little room that housed all the wares of a "Maintenance Engineer." 1 would scrunch up in the corner beside the Ajax cans and bemoan my fate, crying out for justice to be inflicted on those who had perpetrated such a travesty as this upon me. The saving grace of the entire job came each afternoon. I would stack six rolls of toilet paper into a pyramid, and then hurl "New Improved Comet Cleanser" bottles at it. At the time, it seemed a novel way to rid myself of hostilities. I managed to pick up one of the rarer janitorial diseases Washerwoman's Knees. They became stiff and waterlogged from being down around the wash bucket for so long. An occupational hazard was what Lester called it. So, around the beginning of the New Year, I finally learned how to slide a mop bucket across the floor without spilling a drop. 1 also picked up the art of slapping toilet paper (Which Lester called at various times checkbooks, diplomas, and Wipe Outs) into stalls while reading the graffiti. (Under "Jesus Saves," someone had penciled in "and Pogo Joe Caldwell taps in for two points.") The most unbelievable thing of all was the accidental discovery that when you flushed in a certain order, the rushing water gushed out the William Tell Overture. I supplied the "Hi Yo Silver Away!" After a few spats, Lester and I formed a warm, endearing relationship I gave him back the key to the towel dispensers and Tie was happy again. We learned to flush a duet and he even asked me to come back and work in the Forge Shop bathrooms all summer. I told him to go grease his soap dispensers. " " UN i J waving desperately from the stands. A lone usher has appeared and stated that the Athletic Department doesn't like people down in the gym this early and what's more these seats are going to close in at 10 o'clock. M r. Fan leaps into action, waving his arms wildly about as he argues loudly with the usher. People begin to stare and to take note of the guy. That joker actually plans to defend the saved seats policy. "What do you mean it's not fair to save seats? Who're you to say what fair is? Just who interprets fairness, buddy, come on tell me. who?" By now, Mr. Fan, who stands a foot shorter than the usher, is giving the usher's YT&TTEU iU TA- J Mc lo I edit unflattering around. I would think your editorial would be particularly disheartening and unflattering to those, both black and white, who have made substantial personal investments, and with some degree of success, in the civil rights movement. 1 simply do not understand your comment that race relations are no better off in the U.S. today. King had the courage, as you so aptly pointed out, to speak the truth wherever and whenever it needs to be spoken. Why don't you heed his advice? Do you need to be cited chapter and verse? The civil rights movement fortunately has not been and is not dead! Bruce K. Eckland Professor of Sociology Age no qualifier lor driving risic To the editor: In his January 9th response to my November 29th letter to the DTH regarding discriminatory insurance rates, Gary Thomas recognizes the absurdity of my tongue-in-cheek comparison. Regrettably, he fails to recognize the absurdity of his own case. For example, his statement that "Automobile insurance rates are based solely on a person's age rather than his MT TT '. T" ' "' " - , i ' t ' ""mi 1 tv5 r ti inn -5 Li U U Li LI J liiiiiljj imwv (in ij p M v r? fl I i I n ; ! I ! .V 1 I J l.HJU i ! mm 1 -t ! - m.iuin.Mimi.in.iMni Tho waiting lino shoulder little punches. Up in the stands, Fanny and Franny are pretending they've never seen Mr. Fan before. He follows the usher into the lobby but returns quickly. He swears he's seen Dean Smith alone in the projector room viewing films. Mr. Fan suggests they see if Smith might use his influence to waylay the ushers. Sounds like a good idea. So they bolt. But when they get right up to the door of the projector room, Mr. Fan freezes. He can't go in. That's Dean Smith in there, he says. THE Dean Smith. Undaunted, the girls enter. They decide that Smith might listen to two smiling Carolina coeds. Timidly. Mr. Fan drifts in behind them to face his idol the coach. Later. Mr. Fan can't remember much except Smith smiling and listening patiently as the girls explained the situation. He does remember Smith saying that students should be able to go to school and to the games. That was when Mr. Fan volunteered the information that personally he'd just rather go, to the games. Then to their amazement. Smith called up the Athletic Department. What a guy. thinks Mr. Fan. At one o'clock Franny comes back from class and the ushers still haven't closed in the saved seats. She learns that while she was gone Mr. Fan talked with the assistant athletic director, was interviewed on the local radio station and kissed and made up with the usher. Now, he's back playing basketball. He stas on the court the rest of the afternoon. Fanny and Franny snooze or walk around the gym. They arc careful not to stumble over TV cords or sleeping people. At 4:50. with only 10 minutes left until ticket time, Mr. Fan goes up for a basket and gets his face knocked sideways. He seems somewhat dazed but finally is able to creep back into the stands. He sits down between Franny and Fanny and begins to massage his jaw. The girls say nothing when he asks if they think it might be dislocated. As they leave the gym, tickets in hand. Franny and Fanny talk about eating and supper. Mr. Fan realizes he can't chew so he heads off in the direction of the infirmary. But nothing has hurt his mouth, despite all the exercise it's had that day. A true fan to the end, he yells to the girls: "Hey.'give you State and five!" driving record" is doubly incorrect. First, auto insurance rates do depend quite heavily on driving records. Any person with accidents and moving violations pays more for auto insurance, if he can get it at all. than a person the same age with an unblemished record. Second, Mr. Thomas' statement is incorrect because "age" and "driving record" cannot be separated. Certainly, a 40-year-old with 22 years of accident-free driving experience has a better record than an 18-year-old with a brand new license and one week's experience. Mr. Thomas also contends that "a person 50 years of age and a person 20 years of age have an equal risk of having an automobile accident." This statement is incorrect, as any statistics listed by age will show. Perhaps young people drive a lot more and thus have more opportunity for accidents, perhaps age brings caution, perhaps older people drive less at night or use safer cars. For whatever reason, the risks aren't equal. Mr. Thomas raises a much more scary issue by acknowledging that "Student Government is only interested in fighting for issues that will aid the majority of students" and by suggesting that "over-40" students look to outside organizations to further their interests. 1 wonder if he so lightly dismisses the needs and interests of students of other minority groups. I wonder also whether his statement truly reflects the Student Government's charter and policy. John L.S. Hickey School of Public Health - r - . y-j m M , f-i f ,mf r.- W) r1 '"P" rrrt 1 iiif I'tu'iim liiiii'i llll!lf l!fM - i i i1 r :!i " '' hi ...ilium,,., .ni.iiuiii.iii... 7 7 I 7 A i m mm Lr I ; A M l 1 I to g-t gnscscl

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