6The Daily Tar Heel Thursday, Janaury 15,
1987
i 4
Satin
(Ear Utti
94 th year of editorial freedom
BCC suffering
It's been three years in committee
and seems no closer to reality than
when first proposed.
Until someone in the Office of
Student Affairs makes some definite
decisions, until student supporters are
willing to fight for the project, the
Black Cultural Center will probably
stay in committee.
A report by William Jones, Florida
State University black studies director
and a paid consultant, will be discussed
by the committee next week. Jones has
said he has two main criticisms of the
BCC proposal: more University
administrators need to show support
for the center, and the BCC's mission
needs to be narrower and more precise.
His comments should be taken
seriously by a committee that seems
to be mired in discussion and inaction.
Part of the problem seems to come
from two BCC concepts that commit
tee members haven't reconciled. The
Student Affairs version of the BCC
story argues that the center will have
to begin slowly, possibly with a spot
in the Union, a little money, and a
director to develop its functions. The
committee's version includes a pro
posal with a library, lounge, art gallery
and a staff including a secretary and
Legislative entertainment
First the House of Representatives
let the television cameras in, and then
the Senate followed suit. Now, North
Carolina's lieutenant governor ani
speaker of the House have developed
a proposal which would open the state
budget process to public view.
O The N.C. budget proposal, though,
involves more than merely allowing
the voters a look at how their money
is going to be used. The bill will also
expand the Budget Committee, which
presently comprises eight members, to
more than 20 members, thereby
presumably increasing debate on
; spending.
From all indications, the proposal
should have smooth sailing en route
to becoming law. It was initially
presented by Lt. Gov. Bob Jordan and
House Speaker Liston Ramsey, both
Democrats, but has garnered the
"backing of Gov. Jim Martin, a Repub
lican. Imagining its defeat is a difficult
'task.
' But guaranteed success does not
.necessarily imply a pointless proposal.
The changes effected by an open
' budget process will very likely be more
cosmetic than substantial. Indeed
Ramsey conceded that point by saying,
"It's not any better, but it sounds a
Industrial-strength cockroaches
It is of sound mind and body that The
Daily Tar Heel prints the following story.
Man, some truism must maintain, has
always been afraid of insects. Nowhere
is that more evident than in Hollywood, and
that is where this story begins.
The movie industry is up to their reels
in B-movies about insects. The most famous
is probably The Fly ( 1958). Roger Corman's
...excellent Wasp Woman (1959) is certainly
".notable. He's the same director who blessed
us with The Beast with 1,000,000 Eyes and
Jhc Attack of the Crab Monsters. But wait,
there's more. There's Patty McCormack's
"'Bug (1975) featuring a giant man-eating
cockroach.
Several bee movies (no pun intended) have
been made: Invasion of the Bee Girls The
Swarm and The Bees.
Yes, il is a safe thesis (and probably a
great honors paper) that there is an
undeniable, perhaps irrational, fear of
insects. If you're one of the older crowd
senior on up you certainly must remember
the killer bees from South America, or those
fierce fire ants from Africa.
But now there is something new. The labs
of modern science have discovered (pro
duced?) yet another fearsome insect, the
, indestructible cockroach. You know, the
JIM ZOOK, Editor
Randy Farmer, Managing EM:or
KATHY NANNEY, Associate Editor
Tracy Hill, nm Editor
Grant Parsons, university Editor
Linda Montanari, cuy Editor
DONNA LEINWAND, State and National Editor
Scott Fowler, sports Editor
JULIE BRASWELL, Features Editor
ROBERT KEEFE, Business Editor
. Elizabeth Ellen, Arts Editor
DAN CHARLSON, Photography Editor
slow death
work-study students.
Because Vice Chancellor Donald
Boulton has said the center will have
a small beginning, some committee
members suspect the BCC will remain
an office in the Union, a propaganda
tool for Student Affairs. But because
the proposal describes a dream,
Boulton has had to send the committee
back to provide details, including a job
description for a director.
It seems committee members are
suffering from both suspicion and lack
of drive. There have been understand
able delays, but three years without
a definite administrative decision is
absurd. Something has to push the
committee and administrators beyond
meetings, or the BCC will die in the
very committee which is trying to give
it life. It may be time for students to
try to gain public attention, support
and pressure for the BCC.
And within the meetings, holders of
the dream may have to accept the idea
that the center will start small, but keep
pressure on administration to ensure
its growth.
Because whether or not the BCC will
stay in the Union will make no
difference if it doesn't come into
existence.
whole lot better. In the eyes of the
people, it will probably be better,"
But up to this point, the budget has
been drafted privately by an unofficial
committee, termed the super sub
committee by some, composed of
Jordan, Ramsey, and six other budget
chairmen. The supersub met in secret,
wrote major portions of the budget,
and then sent their recommendations
to the General Assembly. Their recom
mendations were typically passed
swiftly by both chambers.
In effect, then, eight men set the
spending agenda for the state. Even
if their proposals were amended before
the budget was voted on, those eight
men defined the field on which the
spending battle would be fought.
Jordan and Ramsey's idea seeks to
remedy that by increasing the size of
the Budget Committee. Gov. Martin
will have no more cause to complain
about the power of the "gang of eight,"
as he termed them. The proposal will
also remove the stigma of "smoke
filled room" politics and illuminate the
budget process. At a time when voter
apathy is the rule of the day and the
electorate seems increasingly separated
from the elected, any attempt to open
up the legislative arena must be
applauded.
The Bottom Line
industrial strength kind that is supposed
withstand everything. The problem is that
they are in a lab in Florida. That's a waste.
Defense Secretary Cap Weinberger said
the other day it was necessary to raise the
national defense budget to protect us from
attack. Now, we're not about to debate the
point, but we wonder whether Cappie and
his crew have looked into all the possibilities
of cutting defense costs. Namely, has he
looked into Superlnsect W
He could reduce defense- spending, we
figure offhandedly, by at least 50 percent
if he were to recruit this Superlnsect 7
the indestructible cockroach and send a
whole mess of them over to the Soviet Union
to eat the Communists out of house and
home.
We're not saying it will work, but it seems
a hell of a lot more feasible and fun than
trying to shoot down their nuclear warheads
with lasers. If it works, who knows, someday
the cockroach may get Time's Insect of the
. Year.
CD
arallel straggles over two decades
After a semester of intense activity, the
work of the anti-apartheid move
ment on the UNC campus culmi
nated in November with two days of civil
disobedience. The Board of Endowment
refused to even consider divestment of its
South African holdings, even though their
usual refrain, "fiduciary responsibility," had
been shown false: continued investment in
South Afica is indeed far riskier than it is
profitable.
When the Board continued to ignore
faculty and student opinion, students
responded by occupying financial offices.
The next day, they refused to leave the
shanty erected in front of the South Building.
The charges against the first group of
students were thrown out in December, but
13 students arrested for "trespassing" in the
shanty will be tried today.
Today will also mark the anniversary of
the birth of the Rev. Martin Luther King
Jr. Across the nation, the life of the great
civil rights leader will be honored. It is
appropriate on this day, remembering his
goal of worldwide racial equality, to consider
some important parallels between the
American civil rights movement and the
struggle going on in South Africa today.
The civil rights movement in America was
the product of an oppressed people's
outrage, just as the many student demon
strations, rent strikes and the call for
divestment in South Africa are part of the
struggle of that country's majority for equal
rights.
Budget's merit
To the editor:
Once again a Daily Tar Heel
editorialist has taken the knee
jerk approach to writing a
column.
The writer, whom I suspect
is both a liberal and a Demo
crat, said in "More budget
madness" (Jan. 12) that Pres
ident Ronald Reagan's budget
proposal was "a predictable
failure."
According to an editorial
entitled "There's Much Wis
dom In Reagan Budget," writ
ten by the Washington Post's
David Broder and reprinted in
the Jan. 11 Durham Morning
Herald, many budget experts
find considerable merit with the
Reagan budget. Robert Rei
schauer, an economist with the
liberal Brookings Institution,
was quoted in Broder's column
as saying that "the president's
effort to find major savings in
the farm price-support pro
grams is long overdue." Broder
also quoted Reischauer as
saying that "Reagan is right in
phasing out the Economic
Development Administration,
the Appalachian Regional
Development program and
Urban Development Action
Grants." Reischauer called
them "some of the least effec
tive programs we have."
While Broder wrote that
almost every one of the budget
experts he interviewed had
reservations about some part of
the Reagan budget, he also
noted"that liberals such as Alice
Rivlin of the Brookings Insti
tution and William Gorham of
the Urban Institute found merit
in Reagan's new budget.
Although I usually disagree
with Broder about politics, I
admire him as a columnist
because he researches topics
and interviews knowledgeable
sources before writing his opin
ion. It is unfortunate that these
practices are the exception
rather than the rule among
DTH editorialists.
BOB ELLISON
Senior
RTVMP
With courage and a little tack
r il lhe year 1986 taught me a lot of things;
however, 1 still have yet to learn what
U some people consider to be one of
the most valuable skills in college life
a respectable way to . meet strangers of the
opposite sex.
It happens a million times. You're walking
around campus and suddenly you see the
most incredible-looking blue-eyed brunette.
You'd really like to start up a conversaton
with this stranger, but you know only a total
idiot or a very courageous person would
walk right up and introduce herself. Being
neither courageous nor stupid, .you look to
see if you know anyone in his crowd. Of
course you don't.
"Next, you look to see what he's wearing.
In a school with countless social clubs,
dorms and fraternities whose members take
pains to put emblems on clothing, you pick
the one guy who isn't wearing any of these
identifiable articles.
You're left with a few choices the
personals or a tracking device. Neither seems
productive. So just how do you get to meet
this fascinating stranger?
CoivigLach
s
Guest Writers
"If 1 lived in South Africa today in the
midst of the white supremacy law in South
Africa, I would join Chief Luthuli and others
in saying break these unjust laws," King
wrote in 1961.
King also called for divestment. "The
classic example of organized and institution
alized racism is the Union of South Africa.
Its national policy and practice are the
incarnation of the doctrine of white supre
macy in the midst of a population which
is overwhelmingly black. But the tragedy of
South Africa is not simply in its own policy;
it is in the fact that the racist government
of South Africa is virtually made possible
by the economic policies of the United States
and Great Britain, two countries which
profess to be the moral bastions of our
Western world .... We have been notor
iously silent about the more than $700
million of American capital which props up
the system of apartheid, not to mention the
billions of dollars in trade and the military
alliances which are maintained under the
pretext of fighting communism in Africa."
It is sadly ironic that the same racist
arguments that were given against racial
equality in America that others knew
what is best for blacks have been hauled
out once more as a response to divestment.
Despite the fact that the call for divestment
Quality beyond
the court
to read his coaching manuals,
as one who has since witnessed
the awe in the voice or the envy
in the eyes of opposing coaches
as they talk about their Tar
Heel counterpart and as one
who sees the love for him held
by his graduated lettermen
when they flock into the hall
ways outside the locker room
after a game, l ean assure the
traditional UNC fan that Smith
is a better coach today than he
was when he began or even
since entering the Hall of Fame
in Springfield, Mass.
Much of what Mills says is
quite true, especially in regards
to basketball history, but he
overlooks a couple of points,
the least of which may be that
Smith has often backed rule
changes that have guaranteed
a more balanced NCAA field
and undercut the strengths of
perennial powers such as North
Carolina. But the yardstick
used by Smith and for that
matter, by Dick Crum to
measure success is far different
from the one used by Mills and
by many college coaches. North
Carolina will assuredly lose
some basketball games to
"hungrier coaches," even as it
must someday lose Dean
To the editor:
Assuming Everette Mills'
letter of Jan. 14 ("Coach cri
tique") concerning the "Fat Cat
Syndrome" and Dean Smith
was serious in its intent, it
would be wise for the average
University of North Carolina
reader not to respond by reeling
off statistics, won-loss percent
ages and "big wins" by the Tar
Heels since their 1982 NCAA
championship. That sort of
fan-baiting which so frequently
can be seen and heard in bars
beggars the question of what
has happened to Smith's abil
ities as he has glided through
the earthly vale of tears known
as coaching into the misty
realms of legend.
As. a former DTH sports
editor who was present at the
creation of the eight-points-inn-seconds
legend against
Duke, as one who got his
indoctrination into what really
matters in athletics as a sopho
more engaged in a 90-minute
talk with Coach Smith, as one
who has gone to some trouble
Beth Buffingfon
Staff Writer
You don't - unless you happen to get
lucky later on and meet him through fate.
It seems impossible to meet strangers in
college. -
My roommate once tried to meet a guy
at a frat court party. When he and his friends
decided to roam through the crowd, my
roommate saw her chance.
She politely asked him if he wouldn't mind
opening her drink can since she had gloves
on. Unfortunately, the guy had no idea what
was going on. He politely opened her drink
while his friends-cracked jokes. In that
incident, courage and creativity didn't pay
off.
My best introduction to a stranger was
an accident. A friend had invited me to a
fraternity party and I had decided to call
and see if the offer still stood. But I called
originated in South Africa and is supported
by the majority of blacks, President Ronald
Reagan and others feel they may decide what
is best for them.
It is a further irony that on King's
birthday, amidst the many worthwhile
celebrations planned in his honor and
memory, 13 UNC students will be on trial
in Chapel Hill for civil disobedience,
"trespassing" on a public university campus
by refusing to leave a shanty. King supported
and participated in civil disobedience
throughout his life as a traditional American
response to injustice. But perhaps this
juxtaposition is not surprising at a university
which has not chosen to observe Dr. King's
birthday, which is being observed through
out this country as a day set aside exclusively
to contemplate a great man and his end,
as well as the ways in which we can carry
on his fight.
The work for justice in South Africa and
in America, in Chapel Hill and on the UNC
campus, must be remembered on this day.
The UNC Anti-Apartheid Support Group
is asking professors to set aside a minute
of silence in their classes today in memory
of Martin Luther King Jr., and to discuss
with their students the meaning of his life
and work. It is not over.
Matthew Bewig is a graduate student in
history from St. Louis, Mo. Melanie Lachs
is a graduate student in art history from
State College, Pa.
Smith, but everyone associated
with the program will have
gained much more.
ELLIOTT WARNOCK
United Press International
. Raleigh
Commemoration
To the editor:
To the UNC Student Body:
As you are aware, today
marks the birth of the Rev. Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr., one of
the most influential men in
America's history. A week of
activities beginning today and
ending Tuesday has been
organized to commemorate
King's life and ideals. The kick
off event for the week's festiv
ities will be a rally in the Pit
today from noon to 1 p.m. The
Black Student Movement
requests that you observe
King's birthday by attending
the rally. Join us today and
throughout the week as we,
along with other campus
organizations, pay tribute to
the legacy of Dr. King.
CAM1LLE RODDY
President
BSM
the wrong fraternity. The person that
answered the phone was nice, and tried hard
to help me figure what number I was trying
to call. I never reached the friend, but the
nice stranger took a chance and invited us
to his fraternity party. We had a blast.
I'm not trying to encourage dangerous and
estranged behavior, but it is nice to know
strangers can be kind. And there are people
out there who are interested in introductions.
So the next time some girl or guy tries
to get your attention without being obvious,
give them a chance. After all, it's like my
great-grandfather says when he talks about
working for John Reese (of peanut butter,
cup fame): "There are a lot of good people
out there, and youH never know just who
you're gonna meet."
And the best things often happen by
chance.
Beth Buffmgton is a sophomore journal
ism major from Jacksonville, N. C.