Lu Ann Jones
The Daily Tar
lan
82nd Year Of Editorial Freedom
ouiimiier
Heel
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, All unsigned editorials are
individuals.
Founded February 23, 1.893
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President Ford's Monday "fireside chat" and his
Wednesday state-of-the-union message pointed out the
main weakness of our democracy: complete inability to
take decisive or concerted action on complex issues. In
economic matters our failing is especially obvious, since
so few of us know anything about
The most we can do is smile winningly when the keeping our checkbook instead of keeping up with
President mentions a tax cut (one of the few reforms we national policy.
would at least understand, if not appreciate), hope he We have allowed the reach of our political power to
knows what he's doing when he quotes the other exceed our grasp, and if we don't watch what we are
statistics and pray. We are vaguely glad that he is no neglecting, someone will be sure to relieve us of our
longer preaching "old-time religion,'" but his new, more democratic responsibilities. Whether it is a man on
daring, remedies are equally mystifying. horseback, an Arab chieftain, or a shy economist,
When the President is not discussing war or politics, someone is waiting in the wings. As Richard Heilbroner
he might as well be speaking French, our comprehension pointed out in "The Human Prospect," no democracy
is so slight. We were annoyed when the commentators has ever lasted longer than five years with double-digit
criticized him in Watergate fashion after his speeches, inflation.
but more because we liked his mannerisms than his All sections of UNCs economics courses should make
ideas. For once he looked and spoke as a President an effort to gain some stature and respect in the
should, and that was almost enough to satisfy us. university. Our economics experts should continue
The Democrats will certainly challenge his proposals their research but also simplify their learning for their
in the coming weeks, and months, but even our fellows, whether it takes using newspapers, magazines,
representatives will only be playing politics with or soapboxes. They are the . new seers, sybils, and
numbers. They simply do not have the group expertise soothsayers of our generation, and they must share their
to decide whether gasoline should be taxed at the pump, art with the people. After all, if we are some of the most
on the dock, or at the drill-site, or whether fuel should be educated and privileged people in the country, what
rationed, controlled, or decontrolled. Therefore, the hope is there for rational national policy?
best solution is trial and error, not in decision. We President Ford did a commendable job of explaining
should try President Ford's program for a while in order his proposals, and some of their implications, to the
to give at least one coherent program a chance to work, nation. But he still gave us far more credit than we
And even if it doesn't, we will, know more than we do deserve. Even our elected representatives know only
now. porkbarrel, not oil-barrel, politics.
CGC
J. .
Probably the vast majority of
students are not aware of a
constitutional referendum coming up
this Tuesday, Jan 21. Two proposals
being submitted for consdieration
involve changes in the Publications
Board structure and a name change to
the Media Board.
The third question on the ballot was
set up by a November 1972 referendum
in which the student body voted
overwhelmingly (78 per cent) in favor of
an amendment to the Student
Constitution. The amendment set up a
massive reorganization of the legislative
arm of Student Government. The most
noticeable change was the reduction of
the number of representatives from 55
to 2 1 . The Student Legislature (SL) was
also renamed the Campus Governing
Council (CGC). The Student
Legislature had become such a
cumbersome body, which took an
extraordinary amount of time to
accomplish the most miniscule
objectives, that most observors had
President Ford has announced the
imposition of a new tariff to discourage
oil imports. Various members of
Congress have proposed similar
measures. The one clear result of these
measures will be higher prices for
gasoline and other pretroleum product?, i.
One might reasonably wonder why, in
the face of an already monstrous
inflation, anyone would want to drive
the price of oil even higher.
One reason, of course, is that Henry
Kissinger can't give a proper
performance as Metternich if he's
tethered to a fragile Arab oil pipeline.
The United States, as policeman to the
World, Defender of the West, etc., etc.,
cannot afford to have its foreign policy
moves dependent on the whims of Arab
-sheiks.
TKe principal reason though lies in
the realm of international trade and
finance. Until recently, international
trade has not been an important part of
the American economy. Economists
could, and often did, ignore the foreign
sector altogether, while to laymen
international trade and finance were the
least familiar and most mysterious area
of econom&s. But the growth of
international trade in the 1960s and the
approaching exhaustion of domestic
U.S
the opinion of the editors. Letters and columns represent the opinions of
T1
lines
them.
Johnny Kaleel
to
termed SL a circus. Among its problems
were the turnover of representatives and
attitudes that caused a complete
degeneration of responsible budgetary
authority and necessary legislation.
That vote also set up a two-year trial
period, at the end of which would be
held another referendum (the one this
Tuesday) to determine whether to keep
CGC or return to SL. Although most
students here today do not remember
SL, the probable consensus among
those who do is that CGC should be
retained. Admittedly, CGC has had its
share of problems, but two years is not a
long time for a newly organized
legislative body to prove itself. The
problem with turnovers (which received
so much publicity last fall) lies not with
CGC, but with students who will not
even exercise their basic right to vote in
order to influence their own welfare.
There is no way a representative can feel
a sense of responsibility to his district
when he won on a total of three or four
votes. Hopefully, the special CGC
preferable
oil tariff only way to
reserves of some crucial raw materials
have changed the situation entirely. We
live in an international economy, and we
must deal with it. Indeed we have lost
control of our own destiny as most
other countries did decades ago and
we are not likely ever to regain complete
control.
Although the high price of foreign oil
is it self disturbing because of its effect
on prices in this country, the major
concern raised by the oil cartel is the
flow to the cartel members
particularly to the Arab states of huge
amounts of Western currencies. If the
Arabs could manage to spend all their
oil revenues in the West, there would be
no major problem. We would be poorer,
and they would be richer, but the flow of
currency from the Arabs would match
the flow of currency to the Arabs..
The problem is that the Arab states,
consisting principally of sand and a few
camels, have no useful way to spend
revenues which may reach $100 billion a
year. These are not populous states and
without their oil revenues would be
desperately poor. The former King
Saud of Saudi Arabia was
internationally renowned for t such
stunts as giving a new Cadillac to a
chorus girl who . had particularly
Friday, January 17, 1975
'baffle
On a local level, the best we can do is raise our level of
economic literacy. The production possibilities frontier
is one of the last unexplored areas in the United States,
and one of the most important. But now we are
indifferent even to indifference curves and content'
ourselves with learning economy, not economics
old
Committee on Reforms will propose
some slight changes without drastically
altering the essential nature of CGC,
which has an unlimited potential for
improvement.
This year, most of the students who
have done the majority of work in CGC
are returning, and this group should be
the basis for next year's stronger
CGC. It will take its own share of
initiative in Student Government, while
relieving the Executive branch of the
excess burden of leadership it has
carried the last two years.
Most of the groundwork has already
been laid by this year's CGC after a slow
start and painful break from the
unnecessary traditions of SL during
CGC's first year. Use this chance on
Tuesday to show that you really are
concerned over the state- of affairs in
Student Government. Give a damn!
Johnny Kaleel is speaker of the .CGC
and vice president of the student body.
L.T. McRae
impressed him. If every Arab lived and
spent as did King Saud, it might be
possible for the Arabs to spend all of
their new revenues on goods from the
West. But there is no sensible way to
spend that much money.
Thus the West is doomed to watch its
currencies and a massive amount of
purchasing power flow to the Persian
Gulf. The loss of purchasing power from
Western economies can be offset by
appropriate stimulatory government
policies and is not in itself a major
problem. As long as the Arabs are
willing to trade oil for paper, we can go
on! We can burn the oil and the Arabs
can bury the dollars in the desert.
Unfortunately, we cannot expect the
Arabs to indefinitely continue trading
oil for paper, particularly when the
worth of that paper is being daily eroded
by inflation.
Indeed the Arabs are already refusing
to accept certain types of paper,
including the Italian lira, the British
pound, and practically all of the
undeveloped countries currencies.
Italy is the extreme example. It is
totally dependent on the Middle East
for oil, but the Arabs will not accept
payment in lira, so the Italians must use
other currencies dollars, German
SL
It was Friday night and John sat in his
dorm room waiting for this outta sight
chick, Suzy, to show. The past week had
been a real bummer and John was really
up for a quiet, hassle-free night. You
know?
The atmosphere was carefully
adjusted to suit his frame of mind.
Candles illuminated the room and a
Joni Mitchell album was playing. While
John rolled a couple of joints he
occasionally glanced at his most prized
poster the one of a child in a meadow
with the motto, "Tomorrow is the first
day of the rest of your life."
Then he began to think of Suzy. 1
mean, like, wow, she was a super, hip
chick. It was just amazing the way she
could always figure out what was going
on in John's mind. Freaky even. Far
out. And she never handed John any
bullshit. Suzy was an out-front chick, all
right.
At 8:30 Suzy still hadn't made the
scene so John started flipping through a
heavy new book he'd just bought on
Transcendental Meditation. Like, he
was really getting into this guru stuff.
After reading about all those Eastern
philosophies, John was beginning to
realize how messed up in the mind he.
was. I mean, like really fucked up.
Finally he heard a light knock on the
door and Suzy slipped in.
"Oh, wow, you look super tonight,"
John said. "I mean like, wow, like . .
"Thanks," Suzy said. While she took
off her coat, she looked around the
fStKMBUtsr
n
Clems on
To the editors:
Upon reading John Dunlap's article, "An
Opinion on Clemson's Locke," 1 feel
compelled to give "An Opinion on the
077f s Dunlap." As is so often the case with
"sportswritersT a great deal of emphasis is
placed on a coach's ability to put aside his
own emotions. He is frequently called upon
to make this nearly impossible separation
immediately after a bitter defeat. In the
particular incident cited. Coach Locke was
confronted not only with the heartbreak of
losing a game that his team played well
stabilize economy
marks or Swiss francs to pay for oil.
As a long-term proposition, Italy can
acquire a stock of these so-called "hard
currencies" only by running a positive
balance of trade with the United States,
Germany, Switzerland, or the Arabs;
that is, by selling more to these countries
than she buys from them. This outcome
is unlikely since Italy hasn't enjoyed a
positive balance of trade since World
War II.
Italy is broke and living on credit
extended by West Germany. This
solution may hold up for a while, but
ultimately it must collapse and the
Italian economy with it, since Italy will
abruptly find itself unable to pay for any
imports at all. Even if Italy performed a
miracle and achieved a positive trade
balance, it is impossible for all the
world's countries to simultaneously
enjoy a positive balance of trade. Thus if
the Arabs cannot spend their revenues
in the West, we are all looking down
Italy's road.
If the Arabs do continue accepting
paper for oil, there remains another
problem. The existence of huge liquid
reserves of currency in the hands of a
few Arabs creates a potential for chaos
on the international currency
exchanges. If the Arabs decided to
room and spotted the new lamp John
had bought that afternoon. "Hey, this isj
great," she enthused.
"Yeah, but 1 got ripped off. No big
deal though," John said. "Hey, are you
up for getting stoned tonight? 1 just
bought this really good dope and 1 want
you to do a couple of numbers with me."
"Awright, I can dig it," Suzy replied.
As John lit up the first I J, Suzy
continued, "You know, it's really
strange, but this room is just what I
pictured it would be like tonight. Like
wow, this is far out. It's freaking me out.
It's as if we read each other's minds."
John took the first hit and riassed the
joint to Suzy, sayingOh, Jeezus, what
a rush. Oh, wow, this is really good
shit."
John and Suzy smoked for a while,
not saying much to each other but really
getting into the candle flickers and the
music. The mood was mellow when
suddenly Dan, an old friend pf John's,
and two dudes John had never seen
before, barged into the room
"Hey man, what's happening?" Dan
asked. j
"Not much. What're you doing up
here?" John asked. j
"My friends and 1 just camelup for the
weekend and thought we might crash
here. What d'ya say?" j
"Sure," John said a little hesitantly.
He looked over at Suzy and saw she was
getting a little uptight with a 1 the new
people around.
Catching her eye, he whispered, "You
i HtrJw;:i! i
'ANYONE CARE TO GIVE AGAIN TO VIETNAM . .'.
Letters to the editors
coach
enough to win, but also with
being
been
questioned by a writer who had
responsible for unfavorable publicity about
Clemson's freshman standout Skip Wise.
Admittedly, the momentary "tirade" by
Locke is not becoming of a coach of a major
university, members of basketball's most
prestigious conference. There comes to
mind, though; certain other similar incidents
over the history of the ACC that would seem
to warrant mention if Locke is to be labeled
as a monster that Mr. Dunlap apparently
would have us condemn. The ACC was, until
convert all their dollars, say, into marks,
the international . currency! exchange
system would probably collapse and
disrupt international trade for however
long it took, perhaps weeks or months,
to restore stability.
Since the present situation obviously
cannot continue, it is clear tKat we must
either I) stop the flow of dollars to the
Persian Gulf by ending our oil imports;
2) drive down the price of oil to reduce
the currency flow to a tolerable level; or
3) convince the Arabs to spend their
money in the West.
Of these the only practical Course is to
end orgreatly reduce our importation of
foreign oil. This is the only course
available to us that relies exclusively on.
our own actions. It is quite unlikely that
we can force the oil cartel to reduce its
price or that we can achieve any
meaningful international . cooperation
on oil. Until new sources of oil or other
energy become available, we have little
choice but to rely on ourselves and
accept the consequences for the
domestic economy.
Larry McRae is a graduate student in
economics. I
wanna split and go over to your place?
This is getting to be a drag. You know?"
"Yeah, I'm getting bad vibes."
And so they left. Far out.
-
Slang has become such a standard
part of our every day language that it has
been lowered to the level of cliches.
Granted, the above vignette
exaggerated the. use of slang, but only
slightly in many cases. We all mouth
these pat phrases, but do we really say
anything?
Often, we use slang to avoid thinking.
A storehouse of these choice phrases are
locked in our minds and roll off the
tongue with no thought whatsoever;
after a while we become so accustomed
to the jargon that we turn a deaf ear.
More and more, college English
professors are discovering that students
do not know how to write. Perhaps this
is because we talk and think in slang and
cliches; therefore, to write eloquently
and clearly requires that we shift to an
entirely new set of language. Our writing
is often stale because our everyday
speech is also stale.
We can surely think of fresher and
more lucid words to express our feelings
and actions. Our brains may have to
work a little harder, but that's what
they're there for.
Anyone can spout off cliches. And
anyone at the college level should be
able to express himself originally rather
than depending on handy, overused
words. Think about it.
defended
recent years, the home of a couple of
monsters in their own right. Until the recent
rise to prominence of Maryland and North
Carolina State University, their respective
coaches were known as "tyrants" both on the
court and immediately after the game.
Certainly, Mr. Dunlap is entitled to his
own opinion of Tates Locke, but having met
the man myself, 1 would attest to the opinion
generally held by the press that Tates
Locke is a true gentleman though he is fiery
and aggressive. It is those very
characteristics that, make Locke an
outstanding coach who has shaken up the
smugness of the Carolinas, States, and
Marylands.
It is my hope in writing this letter, that
those who know Tates Locke only through
Mr. Dunlap's "introduction" w 11 be able to
see another side of Coach Locke. I would
also encourage Mr. Dunlap to give himself
the chance to know one of America's
outstanding men, both as a basketball coach
and as a truly considerate human being.
John Dunlap, meet Tates Locke the real
Tates Locke. , .
Rick Hendricks
506 Morrison
The
ar Heel
Jim Cooper, Greg Turosak
Editors
David Ennis, Associate Editor
Lu Ann Jones, Associate Editor
David Kiinger, News Editor
Harriet Sugar, Features Editor
Elliott Varnock, Sports Editor
Gene Johnson, Wire Editor
Martha Stevens, Head Photographer
Jim Grimsley, Night Editor
Daily
T