V
10The Daily Tar Heel Thursday, September 22,
uHje Satlg
96th year of editorial freedom
Karen Bell, News Editor
MATT BlVENS, Associate Editor
KlMBERLY EDENS, University Editor
JON K. RUST, Managing Editor
Will Lingo, city Editor
Kelly Rhodes, Arts Editor
CATHY McHUGH, Omnibus Editor
DAVID MINTON,
Check this gift
Liberal arts and cultural opportun
ities are a proud UNC tradition. In
keeping with that tradition, the Uni
versity system's Board of Governors
recently asked for and received
$450,000 from the N.C. General
Assembly to plan a new performing
arts center.
The University, choosing not to
look this gift horse in the mouth, has
happily begun mapping out its newest
showcase.
Although the project is only in the
planning stages, Jay Robinson, UNC
General Administration vice president
for public affairs, said the $450,000
stake represents a commitment of sorts
by the Legislature. In Robinson's
words, "I would question the wisdom
of putting forth money and then
changing your mind. Once they (the
legislators) have agreed that the project
is worth consideration, it would not
be wise to say, 'We didn't really need
that.' "
Unfortunately, we don't really need
a new arts center at least not as
much as we need other costly projects.
The Smith Center holds 22,000
people, and plans to install a special
curtain that will make seating com
fortable for smaller crowds of 15,000
or even 7,000. Memorial Hall has a
1,600-person capacity; Hill Hall's
capacity is 700. Off-campus, the
Carrboro ArtsCenter has two audit
oriums, one that holds about 400 and
one that holds about 150.
An eighth auditorium would be
nice, of course. It would even fill a
void, especially if it held, say, 4,800
people. But keeping in mind that the
$450,000 is a pittance compared to the
landslide of money the actual con
struction will require, consider some
Go on, take my
Students complained about
parking.
Students complained about being
left out of the University's decision
making process.
So, student leaders and administra
tors held two forums last night to listen
to student complaints and suggestions
about parking.
No one came to the first forum;
about 10 people came to the second
one.
Gee, that's funny. All those irate
students must have suddenly found
personal parking spaces; or maybe
they all came into large inheritances,
so they can suddenly afford to pay
Keeping degenerates in check
r O O - w--w.m
Boston University, setting a trend
for other major university campuses
across the nation, has outlawed
degeneracy.
Of course, nothing degenerate ever
goes on here. Carolina girls (best in
the world) would never dream of
having a boyfriend sleep over. And
guys at UNC are too gentlemanly to
do such a thing. Yeah, right.
Well, at Boston U, men are still men,
and women are still women, and never
the twain shall meet. Whafl
That's right, boys and girls, Boston
U administrators have found, in their
immense wisdom, a way to enforce
separation of the sexes in campus
dormitory rooms. When they
announced the new policy last week,
they said they hoped to increase the
quality of life for residents.
Last school year, John Silber,
university president, received a letter
from a student's parent that triggered
this stroke of genius. The parent was
angry maybe understandably so
that her daughter's roommate's boy
friend had lived in their dormitory
room for two months.
The school's 130 residence halls
house about 8,700 students, who will
be subject to the new rules similar to
the ones at UNC, although RAs are
to be Draconian in the enforcement
1988
afar '
Jean Lutes, Editor
KAARIN TlSUE, News Editor
LAURA PEARLMAN, A ssociate Editor .. :
KRISTEN GARDNER, University Editor
SHARON KEBSCHUIL, State and National Editor
MIKE BERARDINO, Sports Editor
LEIGH ANN McDONALD, Features Editor
KlM DONEHOWER, Design Editor
Photography Editor
horse's mouth
of the other causes the Legislature
could choose to fund. Some examples:
a Raising faculty salaries and benef
its. They are below national standards,
making faculty recruitment and reten
tion increasingly difficult.
j
' a Expanding the Physical Plant's
budget. In 1987, a report from the
Physical Plant said the University had
a $56.5 million backlog of needed
repairs. The report added that $11
million would be needed each year for
the next 10 years to properly maintain
UNC's 200-year-old campus.
n Relocating Victory Village Day
Care Center. The center's workers
provide numerous benefits to the
University community, and all they
ask for in return is room on campus
to expand. The location for the arts
center is still undetermined, but it
certainly shouldn't be placed on
campus before Victory Village gets
room to grow.
a Providing more financial aid to
students. With the cutbacks in federal
grants, many students have been
forced to hold one or two jobs, as well
as take full courseloads. Such students
dont have time to take advantage of
cultural opportunities; they're too busy
paying the rising costs of higher
education.
b Finding more parking. The
money used to build the arts center
could be better spent building parking
lots or a deck Somewhere on campus.
This is only a partial list. Just about
every school and, department on
campus could put a barrel of money
to good use: Chancellor Paul Hardin
and the BOG should ask the Legis
lature to drop the arts center and
earmark the money for more pressing
projects. Matt Bivens
parking space
hundreds of dollars in parking tickets.
There's one forum left, today at 7:30
p.m. in Morrison Rec Room. If no
one comes to that one, either, then
well know for sure UNC students
don't care about parking. They won't
mind if all parking for dorm residents
is eliminated. They won't mind if all
commuter students are forced to park
in P lot. They wouldn't even mind if
parking ticket prices went up to $50
a shot.
That's okay. After all, the summer
Olympics were on television last night;
Pakistan was playing Argentina in
men's field hockey. Wouldn't want to
miss that. Jean Lutes
the "early hours" rules at Boston U.
Students will be allowed to have
visitors from 8 a.m. to 1 1 p.m., Sunday
through Thursday, and until 1 a.m.
Friday and Saturday. No overnight
guests will be permitted, with the
exception of some same-sex visitors.
Some student leaders at Boston U
have had the courage and common
sense to oppose the new rules. Warren
Binford, vice president of student
affairs of the Student Union, said the
rules were a "violation of personal and
moral freedom." They are more
stringent than visitation policies have
been at Boston U or at most other
U.S. universities since the 1960s. The
plans have also spurred protests from
some student groups on campus, and
have drawn at least two letters
protest from parents concerned their
daughters' fiances will have to rent
motel rooms during weekend visits.
But Silber is convinced the new rule
will clean up the nation, or at least
Boston U's little corner of it. "I think
Mr. and Mrs. America are sick and
tired of institutionalized degeneracy,
he says.
Mr. Silber obviously intends to
change the situation by turning his
school into something more like a
correctional institution than an edu
cational one. Sandy Dimsdale
Automobile
suppose it's a manly thing to be
knowledgeable about cars but I must
Jiadmit, rather shamefully, that I know
absolutely nothing about them.
This is not all my fault. Early on, I did
try to subscribe to "Popular Mechanics,"
but through some error of address I
received a year's worth of "Tiger Beat"
instead. When my parents hinted that they
might be willing to buy me a car for my
16th birthday, the most specific response
I could get was, "something blue." Two
weeks later, after the tire incident, they.
began to realize that maybe I wasn't quite
ready for a car. I had gotten a flat tire,
and somehow managed to change it. It was
originally the right front tire, I switched
it around to the left rear one.
In my reckless high school days, when
someone looking to race would ask "What
ya got that under dat hood?" clearly
wanting an answer in metnes, I would
respond, "An engine, stupid!" and speed
off, thinking I had won the confrontation.
For years I have faked my way through
tune-ups and alignments, grease jobs and
oil checks. Any time a mechanic would
explain what was going to be done to my
car, I would nod in definite agreement but
argue every fourth item mentioned, as if
I were being suckered into something. I
quit the practice last month when I found
myself violently debating the suggestion of
CIA actually
very mundane
To the editor:
In reference to the recent
articles and letters concerning
CIA recruitment at UNC, it
appears that little is understood
about the CIA or about intel
ligence gathering in general.
The CIA does not exist for
'terrorism and assassination"
as one letter incorrectly stated.
The CIA chiefly employs
meteorologists to study global
weather patterns, linguists to
read technical journals and
foreign newspapers, political
scientists to analyze policies
and directions, and so on. .In
short, most employees of the
CIA are' engaged in the very
boring, but necessary, gather
ing of data on a global scale.
With oversight committees
in the executive and legislative
branches and judicial review
and trials for anyone suspected
of breaking the law, the U.S.
CIA is the most hamstrung and
restricted intelligence agency in
the world. Sure, excesses might
occur, these also occur in any
organization made of human
beings. But, in the United
States, such actions are
handled by the courts not
by persons who wish to deny
the rights of others just because
they do not agree with the way
things are in the world.
I'm sure it would be a sur
prise to those people who are
sure the CIA is behind every
thing that happens in the world
to learn that the CIA really
consists of people who love
freedom and justice just as
much as they, and who are
working hard to save suffering
people of the world from
communism.
It's a shame that false anti
CIA propaganda appears not
only in Central America but
also in Chapel Hill.
R. EVERETTE LANGFORD
Graduate
Public Health
R
C,arette smokers are persecuted minonty
readi Laura SumnerV I I National Merit Scholarships, or whe
A fter reading Laura Sumner's
unfounded criticism of RJR
XlLNabisco (DTH, Sept. 19) I wanted
to go right out and buy me a box of Ritz
Crackers.
I support F. Ross Johnson's decision to
pull the RJR Nabisco advertising account
away from Saatchi and Saatchi. It has been
one of the bravest acts the man has done
to support the R.J. Reynold's tobacco
subsidary since becoming CEO. The
Northwest ads were pandering to those
who want to regulate away freedoms of
choice just because they represent an
alleged risk.
I understand what they are saying. We
all want a "risk-free society." Why do you
have to wear seat belts or motorcycle
helmets? Because Uncle Sam, through the
Congress, has your best interests at heart.
With so many greater risks out there than
smoking, the effort being spent in this
country to eliminate smoking cannot be
justified. '
Sumner's article and the associated
cartoon drawn by Pete Corson are typical
examples of the anti-smoking hysteria that
one-third of the U.S. population faces
every day. The tobacco industry is under
serious attack from the ardent supporters
of this movement. The anti-smoking
establishment is probably composed of
very well-meaning people who feel that by
eliminating smoking the overall health of
the nation would improve. With them I
have no complaint. However, I must ask
the leaders of their movement, the ones
who know better, to show me proof of
their claims.
Where is the documented, scientific
evidence that second-hand smoke is going
to cause me, a non-smoker, to get lung
of
ignorance drives me crazy
David Rowell
Pardon Me
new wiper blades. "Oh sure!" I yelled.
"Why don't I just cut my own throat."
Now I nod at everything, though A.J.
is telling me in technical terms that he's
taking out my carburetor, keeping it for
his collection and installing a can of
Campbell's soup so I can pay for a gold
chain he's had his eye on.
If there wasn't so much to learn about
the engine, maybe I wouldn't feel so
overwhelmed. Plowing through the
owner's manual is a hopeless task, though
I realize now I read the Japanese version
by mistake. From time to time, I have
marched out to my car, determined to
figure out how it worked. I have even
stayed with it for as long as an hour, but
the discouragement of not being able to
lift the hood has always brought me back
inside. Only watching kick-boxing or sumo
wrestling makes me feel secure again.
I reached the point I'm at now, which
IH relay in a minute, when my car broke
down a couple weeks ago. While driving
down 1-95, my engine started fuming
smoke,' the steering lost all power and the
radio played nothing but polka music. I
eaders' Forum
ELVIS 6 ACTUMW
DEKD
ITS
WflHglttfe 'MfftifiS E&N7 WANT ft. ftH'J '
Librarians
deserve better
To the editor:
I'm a fan of Brian McCus
key's. IVe read his column with
much pleasure over the years
he's been writing for The Daily
Tar Heel. I'm glad that our
newspaper has a writer who
appreciates Joyce and
Faulkner and Garcia-Marquez,
and who can write an affecting
personal essay as well as an
informed piece on current
affairs. I enjoyed his recent
column on the magic of reading
"Sylvester and the Magic Peb
ble." I would have enjoyed it
even more if j in the process, he
had not insulted my chosen
profession and, more impor
tantly, my colleagues.
I'm surprised that someone
so sensitive to books can be so
insensitive to the libraries and
librarians who make those
books available to him. I'm
willing to grant some artistic
license in depicting his disap
pointment at not finding a
favorite book on the shelf in
a campus library and his delight
at discovering it in the Chapel
Hill Public Library. But I
found the description of the
librarian in the Library Science
Library as "pinched-faced" to
be downright unkind. Did
McCuskey stop to think that
she might be reading his
column? Did he remember, as
he wrote those words, that she
was the person who directed
him to the public library, where
he found the book he wanted
so badly to read again?
t I'm not much happier with
the kinder characterization of
the "Grandma-and-warm-cookies"
librarian he met at
CHPL. Such a description only
helps to reinforce the stereotype
of librarians as sweet, dodder
ing old dears that is, when
they're not rushing around the
reading rooms with fingers to
their lips, shushing irreverent
noisemakers.
"All those books" in Davis
Library were deliberately
selected to support the teaching
and research needs of the
University community. He
shouldn't have expected to find
a children's book in Davis. He
might have found it. in the
Library Science Library
because it is part of the Library
School's mission to train child
ren's librarians. In both librar
ies, he met concerned profes
sionals who helped him locate
Randall McBride
Guest Writer
cancer? A more logical and reasonable
question would be: where are any scientific
documents from the EPA or the American
Medical Association that show what levels .
of environmental tobacco smoke actually
exist in public places?
The plain fact is nobody has any data
on the subject. None. No scientifically
reasonable samples have yet been collected
by the anti-tobacco people, and I will tell
you why: because there is nothing there
to measure. They do not do studies on
second-hand smoke because they realize
that if they did and the results became
known, the American Public would laugh
at how low the numbers really are.
When the truth becomes known about
things like air conditioning equipment
that continuously recirculates air within
office buildings, restaurants and, yes, even
on board Northwest aircrafts, all but
eliminating an average non-smoker's
exposure to nicotine and "tar" components
of tobacco smoke the hysteria of anti
smokers will be shown to be completely
unfounded. And another thing do you
realize how many people the tobacco
industry supports in North Carolina and
Virginia? And not just employees, either.
RJR Nabisco has contrib.uted millions to
the arts, to academia and to the business
communities of Winston-Salem, North
Carolina and the United States. Ask any
Deacon what the name RJR means to
Wake Forest. Ask the hundreds of students .
on this campus who are here on RJR
was able to push the car off to the side
of the road and, in a few minutes, a woman
pulled off to help. She was long-legged,
beautiful and blonde, the kind of woman
who could recharge a Sears battery with
her big toe. Before I knew it, she had the
hood up and was asking me questions that
kind of took me out of the mood. "Your
V-6 hooked up to a rotary hose or are
the alpha parts connected to the stream
. valve?"
"Yeah!" I said. "You better know it."
She just frowned and went back to work.
Within 15 minutes, not only had she
corrected the problem, but modified the
system so I could get better mileage in the
city. I offered to take her out to dinner,
but she just laughed and called me
something suggesting a part of my anat:
omy might be the size of a spark plug. -
Well, that , was humiliation enough'.
When I got home, I enrolled in a GM "Get
to know your car" class. Everyone in there
is 16 years old, except for an elderly lady
named Roscoe, but I plan to learn all about
the car now, and that's what is important.
No more locking myself inside the car.
From now on, when I run out of gas, 111
know it ... .
David Rowell is a senior R TV MP major
from Fayetteville.
. ii-ii
the book he was looking for.
Librarians are professionals,
people who work very hard to
provide you with the services
and information you want and
need, in the face of inflation in
the cost of published materials;
that i Outraces the Consumer
Price Index by several percen
tage points.
I'm still a fan. In the balance,
McCuskey's column was good
press for libraries and a testa
ment to the importance of
reading, and for that I am
indeed grateful. I just hope that
in the , future he will be as
appreciative of the librarians
who make it possible for him
to relive happy moments of his
childhood, who make sure that
there's a copy of "Love in the
Time of Cholera" for him to
check out, as he is of the books
we work so hard to provide for
him.
WILLY OWEN
Davis Library
Letters policy
D Students should include
name, year in school, major,
phone number and home
town. Other members of the
University community should
include similar information.
National Merit Scholarships, or whose
teeth have been straightened and sickness
cured with terrible, tainted, tobacco
money.
Here is an interesting question: what if
orange juice was shown to be hazardous
to your health and some people wanted
to eliminate it from being legally produced
in the United States? You cannot eliminate
a way of life for hundreds of thousands
of people just because Dr. C. Everett Koop
says you should.
Cigarette smokers are already the
highest taxed, most persecuted minority in
the modern age. (Maybe they should form
a support group and ask for student fees
to fight ignorance about srrioking . . .)
Further talk of sin tax increases, prohi
bition of smoking outside the home and
other nonsense should end.
Basically, what it all boils down to is
this common courtesy. If someone
nearby is smoking and it bothers you, let
him or her know, but do so in a kind way.
Ask simply, "Please, do you mind putting
it out? Thanks." The smokers out there
should realize that if others complain, they
should not be a nuisance. Put it out when
asked and do the rest of the members of
your minority a favor. , ;;
That's all we really need to solve this
situation, common courtesy for our fellow
man not more regulations or tax
increases or silly boycotts. What is wrong
with being considerate? Put that in your
pipe and smoke it. :
Randall McBride is a senior biology and
chemistry major from Winston-Salem.