Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / June 19, 1986, edition 1 / Page 12
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12TheTar Heel Thursday, June 19, 1986 'Martini taunsM life's lessons 0 Star Mnl Everyone's favorite insurance salesman moved on last weekend. At the age of 8 1 , Marlin Perkins died of lymphatic cancer. The New York Times obit notes that Perkins went from being a laborer at a St. Louis zoo to becoming one of the nation's best known zoologists. Furthermore, he was said to have "worked to enlighten people about animals that are feared or killed because of superstitions and to protect endangered species." But for many members of today's college-age generation, Perkins was a lot more. Many of them as children had their late Sunday after noons ritualized. With soup and sandwiches, they made themselves comfortable in front of the television to watch parentally-approved shows "Disney" and Mutual of Omaha's "Wild Kingdom." Perkins was a de facto leader in the ecological consciousness movement in the late '60s and early 70s. After watching he and Jacques Cousteau, everyone wanted to be vets or oceanographers. But "Wild Kingdom" was more than a consciousness-raising eitort. DriMdm g age Most students returning to UNC in the fall won't be able to drink alcohol on campus, and on Sept. I, nearly 90 percent of UNC students won't be able to drink anywhere legally. Prohibition was revoked because of the government's inability to enforce it. If you can't prove to the majority that its actions are unhealthy and unwise, they have no tangible reason to stop except fear of prosecution. If that threat of enforcement isn't made very tangible, then people will continue to behave as they always have in spite of rules and regulations. The North Carolina General Assembly, in order to preserve the state's federal highway funds, has decided that it is possible to prohibit a small majority from enjoying a pleasure that the rest of the populace may still enjoy. That minority, those between ages 18 and 21, may be singled out for prohibition because they do not use their votes to influence the political process, and therefore present no threat to the elected officials creating this discriminatory legislation. Accidents will be substantially decreased by increasing the drinking age to 21, but by using that same logic, it is clear that alcohol-related accidents would be nearly eliminated if that age were hiked to 65. The voting populace would not stand for that, as has already been evidenced by Prohibition. It is therefore-much easier to Write letters The Summer Tar Heel, like its counterpart The Daily Tar Heel during the regular academic year, welcomes leaders to write letters and submit guest columns. There are only a few stipulations one must follow in exchange for this extraordinary amount of editorial freedom. Please triple space, or at least double space, letters and columns for the typing and editing ease of our exceedingly efficient editorial team. A letter must fit the exact specifications mandated by our own paragons of journalistic greatness to facilitate the precise mechanical process involved in transforming it into printed type suitable for the editorial page. Letter writers and columnists must submit their names, years in school, majors, phone numbers and bars of soap firmly imprinted with the shape of their car keys (just kidding). For one, the show was amusing. Perkins often pronounced in his narrative squeak, "Jim will have to move fast now; the African anaconda can crush a man in matter of seconds," as Jim's face turned blue. Besides Perkins' observations from the chopper, "Wild Kingdom" had its serious side with an underlying message that man lives in a global village. Perkins began every show pointing out on his world map the range of the week's featured critter. His map reflected the way he saw the world mere continents separated by pools of seawater with no man imposed boundaries. Instead of indoctrinating his young viewers with the premise that the Earth was made up of segmented populations of people, Perkins gave his vision that the world was connected with the common denominator of animals being everywhere. Perkins once wrote that "by knowing animals I understand people better." By the sharing his knowledge of the animal kingdom in a gentle grandfatherly manner, Perkins made a gener ation want to understand. dins criinniiniatt e target the self-disenfranchised whose status as equal citizens is regarded with some doubt by lawmakers, in spite of constitutional protections. People over 18 have the right to vote, sign legal contracts, be drafted and control their own lives, but they are still regarded as kids in need of governmental "protection" by their elders in the legislature. There are pitfalls to the law, especially in the Chapel Hill area. Nineteen- and 20-year-olds are . not going to become completely abstinent overnight. Their access to alcohol will only be impeded slightly. They were able to drink while they were in high school by appropriating the ID's of older brothers and sisters or obtaining "fake ID's." Club owners uninterested in the spirit of the law need only see a picture with a date before September 1965, not minding if that ID has any relationship to the person presenting it. Twenty-one year-olds on campus will also be encouraged to procure alcohol for "minors" since fear of prosecution will be outweighed by the alternative being able to party with the 10 percent of those on campus who are legal. In Chapel Hill, the law may actually increase incidents of driving while impaired. Students once able to walk to Franklin Street will now have to drive or ride to off-campus parties where their ages won't be scrutinized. Students unable to procure beer will be able to obtain other drugs from sellers unregulated by the government. All campus parties will be eliminated on or near campus, but the resourceful students will find areas outside the city accessible only by car. There is one bright spot in the midst of so many negatives Aug. 30, the night before the law changes, will be the biggest party Chapel Hill and the state has seen since the 2 National Championship. Franklin Street will be shaken by its foundations as 20,000 students and an equal number of residents will converge on the street and party until the oppressive law comes into effect. Hopefully, the morning after the bash will bring hangovers so severe as to promote those under 21 to hop on the wagon until their 21st birthdays. Jo Fleischer, Jill Gerber co-editors Linda Causey news editor i Scott Greig city editor Eddy Landreth sports editor Chris Shearer arts editor Staff Mike Berardino, Robert Carver, Catherine Cowan, Jean Dobbs, Nancy Harrington, Beverly Imes, Bill Logan, Matt Long, Shirley Nesbitt, Randall Patterson, Julia Ritchey, Michelle Tenhengel, Linda Shealey, Toni Shipman and Julia White. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR CASH'S tactics irresponsible To the editors: It has been disturbing to follow the recent public discussion on the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant in local newspapers. The Coalition for Alternatives to Shearon Harris (CASH) has deliberately attempted to scare the public into protesting against a nebulous and exaggerated nuclear threat. Examples of the overheated rhe toric being produced by CASH and other nuclear power opponents are quite common. For instance, the June 1 issue of the Raleigh News and Observer contained a column by Clyde Edgerton which was admit tedly designed to frighten the public. Near the end of the column, which was devoted primarily to his unease of having a nuclear power plant nearby, Edgerton wrote, "But fear can be good. It can keep us alive." He seems to be calling for a primarily emotional response to the issue, rather than rational decision making! In the June 6-19 issue of The Independent, CASH took out a full page ad which included the statement "Cheaper, safer, non-nuclear alterna tives can get us all the energy we need for a healthy economy and a healthy people." It is not entirely clear what these alternatives are, but CASH is high on them. CASH does not explain how it is going to be cheaper to convert a completed nuclear reactor to a fuel source. Nor does it discuss the environmental costs of the chemical pollutants produced by other fuels. As it becomes obvious that public discourse was not going to educate anyone about the economic, envir onmental and public health issues, I decided to expend a little effort in the library to educate myself. One book that had direct bearing on the health issue was "Energy Risk Assess ment," published in 1982. The body of the text was a risk analysis performed by Herbert Inhabler for the Atomic Energy Board of Canada. Dr. Inhabler calculated all of the known risks incurred generating power from each of the 1 1 energy sources using contemporary (late 1970s) North American data. Exam ples of risks included in the study are hazards associated with mining, fabricating, and transporting fuels and construction materials; risks due to building and maintaining power plants; risks incurred during radioac tive waste disposal; the public hazards of breathing sulfur oxides; and the dangers of catastrophic accidents such as dam failures or reactor core meltdowns. Some of the risks excluded due to a lack of reliable estimates are risks due to air pollu tants such as carbon monoxide, trace metals, or nitrogen oxides; risks incurred during power plant decom missioning; and the indirect health effects of long-term environmental degradation due to pollution. The results of Inhaber's study may surprise you. He found that burning coal and oil had by far the greatest negative impact on human health. In other words, they were the most dangerous forms of power studied. Nuclear power was tenth on the list, and burning natural gas was found to be the safest method of power production. Bear in mind that Inhaber used data for North Amer ican technologies. His report dealt with contained light-water nuclear reactors, not the uncontained gra phite reactors common in the USSR. Nuclear power opponents joined with proponents of unconventional energy sources to denounce the Inhaber report as a sham, claiming the author was pro-nuclear. Cur iously, no one accused him of being pro-natural gas. You may not trust this study. Inhaber himself never claimed it was the last word on energy safety, or that safety should be the sole criterion for selecting methods of power production. Still, 1 feel this demon strates that the issues under discus sion in this area are more compli cated than CASH would have you believe. Before you sign an anti Shearon Harris petition or go disrupt a town meeting during a moment of activist fury, go to the library and learn both sides of the issue. Our energy policy is too imporant to be decided by the ignorant. Thomas C. Spencer graduate physics
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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June 19, 1986, edition 1
12
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