6 The Daily Tar Heel Wednesday. October 5, 1977
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85th year of editorial freedom
Free-floating anxiety
Parking predictions faulty
The reasoning behind the adage, "What has happened twice will happen
three times," is as antiquated as the saying itself. Nonetheless, that sampling
of wisdom can be applied properly in situations where reasoning doesn't
seem to exist.
In the summer of 1976, the Morrison parking lot was taken from students
and zoned for staff use. The action was taken after predictions were made
that a serious parking problem for hospital employees could result from
construction. But a survey by Morrison residents proved the predictions
were unfounded and that over 100 spaces on the lot remained empty every
day.
The survey was presented to the Traffic Office. Parking administrators
admitted the rezoning was a mistake, and a portion of the lot was handed
back to students during the fall.
This summer, the lot was again zoned for staff use because of a projected
parking shortage for hospital employees. Again, the sight of empty parking
spaces welcomed Morrison residents when they returned from their long
walk from the Craige and Ramshead lots.
Another survey was presented to the Traffic Office and 55 spaces on the
lot were regained by the residents.
Actions stemming from faulty predictions have been replaced twice by
ones sparked by reality.
What has happened twice will happen three times.
In light of the accuracy of past predictions, future decisions concerning
the Morrison parking lot should be based on actual situations, not projected
ones. UNCs parking problems are only complicated by bad judgments.
For two consecutive years, the zoning mistake has been corrected and the
Traffic Office's willingness to admit its errors should be applauded.
But' we hope a lesson has been learned and future inconveniences for
Morrison residents can be avoided.
Gas pricing
Filibuster had no impact
Senate opponents of natural gas deregulation who expressed outrage and
amazement Monday over the effort led by the Carter administration to end
the 1 3-day-old filibuster must be saying, "We told you so" today. The Senate
voted yesterday 50-46 in favor of a bill to phase out price controls on natural
gas a tough defeat for Carter.
Though the administration wants to keep controls on natural gas, it
joined with Senate leaders Monday to try to quash the filibuster. Senators
accused Majority Leader Robert Byrd of establishing a "dictatorship" in the
Senate after he and Vice President Walter Mondale methodically threw out
all amendments designed to delay a vote on the bill.
The Carter administration, however, was correct in stopping the silly
filibuster which had no real clout anyway. The energy bill supporting
deregulation faces the same Senate-House conference committee that a bill
approving controls would face. The filibuster was simply producing a
stalemate that could have jeopardized the rest of Carter's energy program.
The House, which approved Carter's plan for continued regulations, and
Senate now will work out a compromise bill for the President's
consideration. Thus any bill for or against deregulation was bound to face a
tough fight in the compromise committee. The filibuster was simply putting
off the inevitable, for it's dubious that several more days of foolish delay
would have changed the Senate vote yesterday.
Give Coffee Klatch a look
Students and faculty polled in a recent survey on undergraduate
education expressed concern over a lack of communication between
students and professors. One doesn't need a survey, however, to realize that
opportunities for personal conversations between students and faculty don't
abound on a campus of nearly 20,000 students.
But there is an organization on campus that does provide an informal
atmosphere for students to see the other side of their professors. It's the
University YM-YWCA-sponsored Coffee Klatch, held every Tuesday and
Wednesday in the Pine Room from 9 to 1 1 a.m.
Professors from every department are issued an invitation, and each week
one department receives a special invitation. Coffee Klatch guarantees
faculty participation, but obviously students need to show up to make the
affair a success.
Coffee Klatch began last spring but suffered from a lack of student
participation. Give Coffee Klatch a look this fall you may be surprised to
discover that your history professor can talk about more than ancient
Rome.
The Daily Tar Heel
News: Tony Gunn, assistant editor; Mark Andrews, Mike Coyne, Meredith Crews, Shelley
Droescher. Bruce Ellis, Betsy Flagler, Grant Hamill, Lou Harned, Stephen Harris, Kathy Hart,
Nancy Hartis, Chip Highsmith, Keith Hollar, Steve Huettel, Jaci Hughes, Jay Jennings, George
Jeter, Raraona Jones, Will Jones, Julie Knight, Eddie Marks, Amy McRary, Elizabeth Messick.
Beverly M ills, Beth Parsons, Chip Pearsall, Bernie Ransbottom, Evelyn Sahr, George Shadroui,
Vanessa Siddle, Barry Smith, David Stacks, Melinda Stovall, Robert Thomason, Howard
Troxler, Mike Wade, Martha Waggoner, David Watters, and Ed Williams.
Newi Desk: Reid Tuvim, assistant managing editor. Copy chief: Keith Hollar. Copy editors:
Richard Barron, Amy Colgan, Dinita James. Carol Lee, Michele Mecke, Lisa Nieman, Dan
Nobles, Melanie Sill, Melinda Stovall, Melanie Topp and Larry Tupler.
Sports: Lee Pace, assistant editor; Evan Appel. Dede Biles, Skip Foreman, Tod Hughes, Dave
McNeill. Pete Mitchell, David Poole, Ken Roberts, Rick Scoppe, Frank Snyder, Will Wilson
and Isabel Worthy.
Features: Jeff Brady, Zap Brueckner, David Craft, Debbie Moose, Dan Nobles, Lynn Williford,
Peter Hapke, Tim Smith, Etta Lee, Kimberly McGuire and Ken Roberts.
Art and Entertainment: Melanie Modlin, assistant editor; Hank Baker, Becky Burcham. Pat
Green, Marianne Hansen, Libby Lewis and Valerie Van Arsdale.
Graphic Arts: Artists: Dan Brady, Allen Edwards, Cliff Marley, Jocelyn Pcttibone, Lee Poole
and John Tomlinson. Photographers: Fred Barbour, Joseph Thomas. Michael Sneed and Sam
Fulwood.
Business: Verna Taylor, business manager. Claire Bagley, assistant business manager. Mike
Neville, David Squires and Howard Troxler. Circulation manager: Bill Bagley.
Advertising: Dan Collins, manager; Carol Bedsole, assistant sales manager; Steve Crowell,
classifieds manager; Julie Coston, Neal Kimball. Cynthia Lesley, Anne Shernl and Melanie
Stokes.
Composition Editors: Frank Moore and Nancy Oliver.
Composition nd Makeup: L'NC Priming Dept Robert J.isinkicwic. supervisor, Robert
Streeter, Geanie McMillan, Judy Dunn. Carolyn kuhn, David Parker. Joni Peters. Sieve
Quakenbush and Duke Sullivan.
UNCs myopic prophet seeks his own little vision
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By JOEL CHERNOFF
"What's bothering you, Joel?"
I laboriously raised my head off my chest and
reconnoitered the inquisitive green eyes of Melanie Short, a
fellow supplient of the history department. Her eyes were as
green as my Heineken bottle but nowhere as satisfying.
"What's wrong, Joel? You've been moping all week long.
Do you miss your girlfriend that much?"
I returned to the quiet contemplation of my Heineken.
"Joel! I'm talking to you!"
I decided that it would be in my best interests to placate the
woman. 1 looked into the highlight of her jade-colored eyes
and said, "There are no more heroes."
"What?"
"A society without heroes is like tequila without the
sunrise. No cherries, just the pits."
"How many beers have you had?"
"Just this one. The two of us were getting along fine until
you came along."
"Do you want me to leave?"
"No, you've already destroyed our little tete-a-tete."
"What's all this about heroes? Have you been reading
Carlyle again?"
"No, Melanie. It's that I feel I'm failing my calling."
"You're not going to bring up that prophet business again.
Haven't you milked that for all it's worth?"
"Obviously not. And there's no reason to scotch it now.
But it's true, Melanie. I have a moral imperative, and I'm not
living up to it. Sort of a mission."
"I thought that you were Jewish."
"It's not an evangelical role, Melanie. I want to reach out
to the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe
free."
"You want to take New York City to the beach for the
weekend?"
"Melanie, is this why you disturbed my quiet, harmless
reverie? To abuse me?"
"I'm sorry. I haven't been very fair, have I?"
-Afld stop art those damn interrogatives. You're driving
the typesetters bananas."
"Okay. Now tell me why you're so down."
"My vision eludes me. I can't see when I'll ever become a
prophet. And far worse. I'm losing my faith that 1 will ever
become one."
"Joel. I think that you're letting a temporary setback
develop into monumental proportions."
"If it were temporary, I wouldn't be so concerned. I just
don't see any signs of progress at all. No valley of bones, no
burning bushes, not even a holy grail. And if there's no future
for me in prophecy, wherever will I go?"
"Joel, you're getting archaic. You know I can't stand it
when you get archaic."
"I'm sorry. The problem remains, however, 'hat 1 have
committed myself to a goal, and now I am finding that dream
"A society without heroes is like
tequila without the sunrise. No
cherries, just the pits."
impossible."
"Have you spoken to Dulcinea about all this?"
"Oh, Sue tries to be encouraging. She says that I should
keep my feet on the ground and my eyes on the stars."
"You're not very encouraging."
"My point is how can you be a leader if you have no one to
lead?"
"But my point is how can 1 lead anyone if 1 have nothing to
lead him to? And the time is ripe, Melanie. People are ready
to be led. They're practically begging for one righteous
individual to raise his staff on high and point the way to the
pastures of plenty."
"Do you want followers or sheep?"
"Neither. I just want my own little vision."
"A wife. two screaming kids, a cat and a house in the
suburbs. There's a vision for you."
"Melanie, I can't believe how cynical you've become. Have
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Caffeine madness can strike anyone
Bv ZAP BRUECKNER
Oh my God. It is getting close to midterms
again. That means sleepless nights, showing
up in class and, worse still, staying awake in
class. Alas, it is an agony too great for a
student to bear. These are the days of my
caffeine existence, my southern foothills
caffeine high, when I do not sleep for days
and then eventually crash into a comatose
state for about a week.
I consume caffeine. 1 know it is not good
for my sex life and probably causes cancer,
but these are the sacrifices pseudo-scholars
make for grades.
It always starts during the time of
midterms. I stay on a continuous caffeine
high every morning before my first class I
slug down a cup of coffee. Then before going
to class I slug down a Coke. Then I have to
drink another one before crawling to my
next class. By this time my eyes are almost
open, although red lines run across them like
a Rand McNally road map. My face has all
the emotion and life of a 3,000-year-old
withered mummy pulled out of a pyramid
just this morning.
By the time 1 go for my third Coke hit of
the morning my body is occasionally
responding to motor impulses. I can finally
walk like a normal person instead of a
zombie and can answer simple questions
such as: "How are you?" and readily reply
with an effortless and fluent: "uuuggg."
You may have seen my thin, burned-out
body leaning against a lamp pole on campus.
I have a ragged mop of oily brown hair, two
thin slits for eyes and a light growth of beard
(which I call a futile attempt at manhood
because it grows an inch a year). On my
bookw orm body hangs a rumpled shirt with
faded words and a pair of beat-up jeans.
Although I look as if I have been marching
through Death Valley for a month, I am
finally feeling a light-headed, want-to-go-to-the-beach
high. Also, contrary to the Food
and Drug Administration (FDA), 1 have not
lost my sexual desires with caffeine excess.
This is because I have been sitting on the wall
in front of Greenlaw watching girls for three
hours without food or drink or any luck at
having them look my way.
In this entranced state I look upon the
multitudes for a well-basked beauty and
follow her movements until she is out of
sight. Even then I cannot take my eyes off the
place into which she disappeared.
But it really doesn't matter because 1 can
always find another. Such is the bliss of a
caffeine high.
Late in the afternoon I am sitting in the
Union where I take another hit and eat an ice
. Ml I I f
cream sandwich. A desperate soul (also on a
caffeine high) leans against the tall Coke
machine. He reaches deep into his pocket
and brings out a quarter, four pennies and
two pieces of lint. Panic sweeps over the
desperate man, and he slides down but
comes up with nothing but a gum wrapper
and some more lint.
He begins madly running down the row of
junk food machines looking for money in the
change slots, under the machines and even
under the tables. With his eyes blazing red
and his hands shaking violently, he falls on
wavering knees to passing students, asking
humbly:
"Gotta penny? Gotta have a penny."
Before they can answer he crawls to
another unsuspecting student, saying:
"Gotta have a penny. Gotta have a caffeine
high."
He asks a German shepherd wearing a red
bandana, but the dog just slobbers on the
guy's outstretched hand. He even asks me
but I tell him I just spent my last 30 cents on a
Coke. I offer the desperate soul a drink, but
he crawls under a table looking for pennies.
"Poor guy," I think to myself, "he's going
cold asparagus."
But the heavy use does not begin until
night when my eyelids try to close as I read
books which have lain under dust for a
month and a half. It is difficult to read a 600
page textbook for an exam on one night. So 1
sit in my room drinking myself into the jitters
with tea that produces gastrointestinal
discomorts. This leads to much studying in
the bathroom.
M v roommate has eaten about six caffeine
pills and runs around the room reciting
calculus problems in Old English verse.
By 2 a.m. I cannot take his insanity any
longer. So I struggle down to Breadmen's
and consume four cups of coffee in half an
hour. This leaves my tongue looking and
feeling like a burnt piece of bacon and my
eyes bulging out as if I'd just gotten out of a
horror flick.
Back in the room I study far into the dark
hours of the morning as my jitters calm down
and my eyes dry out. My eyelids have turned
into sandpaper that scrapes across raw, red
eyes. My roommate sits on his bed like a
huge calm shell which opens occasionally to
say, "I no longer exist. So says the master of
the universe. We are all shadows in the night
when there is no moon."
I close him back up as he babbles on in his
nonexistence, and hit him over the head with
The Complete Works of Shakespeare. Then,
after knocking him out, 1 do the same to
myself.
Lights out.
After about two weeks of this heinous life,
1 crash into a comatose state. A week later, 1
will eventually wake up floating on a raft in
the icy waters of Clearwater or hanging
upside-down from a tree in the Arb.
This is what happens to the student who
studies too much. So think carefully before
you pull the pop-top off a Coke or pick up a
cup of coffee. Caffeine madness can hit
anyone. You may be iext.
Zap Brueckner, a senior journalism major
from Durham, N.C., Ls a staff writer for the
Daily Tar Heel.
! you abandoned your plans to go to history grad school and :
opted for something conventional like law school instead?"
Her green eyes glared glaciers at me. "That's a personal
matter."
"Oh, no! You too. 1 need another Heineken."
"Joel, there are just no jobs in history. What good would a
Ph.D. do me? And I really don't want to spend my life in
academia."
"What do you want to do. Melanie?"
"Get out of school. Get a job in an established law firm for
good money. Settle down. What does everybody want?"
"That's exactly my point. People are looking for more than
they , have settled for, in spite of their rationalizations.
They're drinking beer, but they really want champagne. Why
settle for less?"
"Tell me what's in your hand, Joel?"
1 regarded the guilty green of my bottle.
"But I'm thinking champagne," I replied in my defense.
"Even so, how do people reach this legendary champagne
bar".' We don't even have liquor-by-the-drink in thjs state."
"I wish I knew. I feel that the key to the cabinet Is within
me, but I can't locate it."
"Hush. There are people around here who would cut you
up to find it."
"Or to kill it."
"Please, Joel, no Christ imagery. I've had enough for one
day."
"Don't worry. I have no martyr complex. Besides, we live
long lives in my family. My grandfather turned 90 this
month."
"Is he a prophet?"
"No."
"Joel, take after him, and maybe you'll live to 90 too."
"And have grandchildren like me?"
"God forbid. I have to go study for my law boards. Success
summons me."
Melanie's eyes glowed dollars.
I bought another Heineken and sat on the grass.
Joel Chernoff, a senior, is a history major from Great
Neck, N.Y.
letters
Old company
is no more?
To the editor.
One of the advantages of living in Chapel
Hill is to have access to good drama. The
first presentation this fall of the new
Playmakers Repertory Company (PRC) sets
a high standard for the future.
Now that the Playmakers have become
professional, however, there appears a loss
of something very special from the
Playmakers of the past. Whereas
productions in other days were fully open for
tryouts to all UNC students, as well as
townspeople, this seems to be no longer the
case. Thus, students have lost opportunities
for dramatic involvement, and townspeople
are left without a community theater.
It seems unfortunate that the long
anticipated new building (the Paul Green
Theater) will be inaccessible to many of
those who for years have dreamed of such a
facility. Would Andy Griffith, Shepperd
Strudwick and Louise Fletcher (whose
names we point to with pride as persons who
got their starts on the Playmakers' stage)
have a chance to be included in lead roles if
they were students today?
In an educational institution, it would
appear that a primary responsibility of a
drama department would be to provide a
place for fledgling performers to "try their
wings." One of the most impressive things
about the Playmakers tradition has been the
professional quality of so many of their
productions, even though acted by local
talent on a woefully inadequate stage.
I find it difficult as a taxpayer to justify a
major expenditure for a new theater which
will not have as its primary purpose the
discovery and development of dramatic
talent from within the UNC student body.
Can we ask a parent to send a child to the
University for a degree in drama without the
promise of some experience on stage? It
would be comparable to a student seeking a
degree in chemistry but being prohibited
from using the lab bacause professional
chemists were conducting all the
experiments.
Apparently, there is some sensitivity to
this point, for the secretary to PRC was
reported in the Chapel Hill Newspaper as
saying they hoped to work through the
Carolina Union in organizing another
production group aimed at campus
participation. And she added, "We don't
want people to feel the professionals are
edging them out." This seems to be precisely
what's happening this fall, and many
students are unhappy about the new
direction.
1 hope I am ill-informed and that persons
closer to what is happening will step forward
to let me know I am in error. But from what I
understand, this is the way the Playmakers
now look. In short, the old U NC Playmakers
are no more.
Pastor, Olin T.
Robert E. Seymour
. Binkley Memorial Baptist
Church
Quit project
To the editor:
In regard to Jim Pate's letter of Sept. 28
regarding his plans to capture and mark
zoology students: I wish that you would
abandon your project. It's bad enough that
my "zoo" roommate snores, but if he also
glowed in the dark, I'd never be able to get to
sleep.
David Fox
1826 Granville W.
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