tOThe Daily Tar HeelWednesday, April 18,
98th year of editorial freedom
Jessica Lanning and Kelly Thompson, Editors
JENNY CLONINGER, University Editor
Jennifer Wing, Forum Editor
Cameron Tew, City Editor
MYRNA MILLER, Features Editor
Jamie Rosenberg, Sports Editor
EVAN ElLE, Photography Editor
Steve Wilson, News Editor
MELANIE BLACK, Layout Editor
James Claude Benton, Ombudsman
Better business needed
New buildings may be unnecessary
, OneofUNC'sgreatestcharmsandassets
is the physical beauty of its campus a
physical beauty that is now endangered by
shortsighted planning and construction.
The UNC Building and Grounds Com
mittee decided last week to postpone the
selection of a site for the new School of
Business until more information can be
gathered. Based on the discussion, how
ever, it is clear that the proposed Kenan
Center site is the most reasonable solution
and that Whitehead Residence Hall should
be removed from consideration. The entire
decision process has pointed out an even
more severe problem that UNC must deal
with: the conflict between the need for new
academic facilities versus the limited and
valuable campus greenspace.
A new building review committee, ini
tiated and galvanized largely by students,
should help to alleviate many of these
problems. The committee is made up of
key members of the administration, and it
will consider all proposals for building
construction and space allotment. Two
students, including the student body presi
dent and one of his appointments, will
make sure that student concerns are repre
sented when new facilities are proposed.
Students will finally have an avenue to
initiate their own facility, use proposals
and respond to forthcoming ideas. Most
importantly, the committee makes students
part of the process rather than its victims.
This committee is a positive and essential
step, but there are many considerations it
must address.
A very limited number of open spaces
large enough for new buildings still exist,
and most of them are exceedingly impor
tant as recreational facilities: Ehringhaus
Field, Battle Park and Carmichael Field.
These are also sites that the committee was
considering for the new business school,
along with Whitehead, a North Campus
dorm. To eliminate any of these spaces
would be unfair to all members of the
University community. The committee
should declare sites like these off-limits to
any potential growth.
The most serious problem that the
Deadly dilemma
Capital punishment discriminates
Although capital punishment has gone
through years of legislation like other
controversial issues such as abortion and
drugs, it is undoubtedly the "elder" of the
group. Death has been used as a punish
ment in some societies but not in others,
and in 1990, it seems like America is no
closer to a final, absolute solution.
Monday, the Supreme Court, in its infi
nite wisdom, turned down the final appeal
of a man who killed a Louisiana state
trooper as a teenager. Black and 31 years
old, Dalton Prejean has been on death row
since 1978, longer than anyone else in the
state. Not only does the fact that he was a
teenager separate this from other cases
involving capital punishment, but also the
fact that he had the mental capacity of a 1 3-year-old
when he fatally shot the trooper.
Considering these factors, the Supreme
Court is allowing a grave injustice to oc
cur. : What is the justification? What was the
rationale of the Louisiana jury when it
sentenced a retarded citizen to death? What
was Louisiana Gov. Charles "Buddy"
Roemer's rationale when he rejected the
state pardon board's recommendation that
he commute the death sentence to life
imprisonment? And what was the ration
ale of the Supreme Court when they de
cided not to uphold this man's final ap
peal? , In Louisiana, the answer apparently lies
in a sea of black and white. Louisiana,
known for electing a former Imperial
.Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan to the United
States House of Representatives, has a
Jong tradition of discrimination by the
government. Although the all-white jury
(four black prospective jurors had been
.barred by the prosecution through peremp
Editorial Policy
The Daily Tar Heel's board opinion editorials are voted on by the board, which is composed of
the co-editors, opinion editor, forum editor and three editorial writers. The opinions reflect the
board's majority opinion. Signed editorials do not necessarily reflect the entire board s opinion.
1990
NANCY WykLE, University Editor
Crystal Bernstein, Opinion Editor
STACI Cox, State and National Editor
CHERYL ALLEN, Features Editor
ALISA DeMao, Omnibus Editor
PETE CORSON, Cartoon Editor
JoANN RODAK, News Editor
ERIK DALE FUPPO, Design Coordinator
committee must address is where to put all
the other new buildings that are necessary.
Already the JournalismCommunications
School, the Nursing School, the School of
Social Work and the Black Cultural Center
are working to find sites for new facilities.
Without this committee, the lack of any
central planning to coordinate new sites
for these or any other campus facilities
(e.g. the Student Recreation Center, the
Alumni Center) could irreparably damage
the aesthetic quality of this University.
Not only does the committee need to
coordinate possible new sites long before
groundbreaking, but it also needs to estab
lish priorities for locations. The committee
needs to decide what should primarily be
located on North Campus on-campus
student housing, classrooms, or admini
stration buildings. The committee also
needs to decide how the University is going
to handle expansion over the next century.
These problems have not been dealt with
in the past and are largely responsible for
the hodge-podge nature of the physical
layout of UNC. In order to prevent new
administrative buildings from taking over
student housing, to establish "off-limits"
areas of campus greenspace, to allow opti
mum use of existing facilities and to estab
lish some sort of coherence in the physical
organization of the University, such a
committee should be one of the highest
priorities of the new UNC administration
and the new student body president.
Some members of student government
are discussing the possibility of moving
the Journalism School into Carroll Hall,
which will be vacated by the Business
School, and moving the BCC into Howell
Hall. This would keep the construction of
new buildings to a minimum and would
allow optimum use of available facilities.
It is an interesting idea, and should be
explored further by the building review
committee. This could be an example to
everyone else on campus who needs more
space: let's make the best use of what we
have, before we start building and de
stroying any more. Kimberly Edens
tory challenges) argued that death was
justified because a state trooper was mur
dered, a more in-depth analysis would
suggest that the real reason was that the
murderer was black and his victim was
white. One has to question whether the
jury would have been so quick with a death
sentence if it was a white retarded citizen
killing a black state trooper.
In Washington, the answer is an unfair
interpretation of the Constitution. Last June,
over the protests of Justices William Bren
nan Jr. and Thurgood Marshall (who also
voted to stay Prejean's execution), the
Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution
did not forbid executing murderers who
are either mentally retarded or were teen
agers at the time of the crime. Unfortu
nately, this same Constitution does not
specify any legislation towards mentally
retarded citizens. Contrary to popular be
lief, not all men are created equal some
are born with mental deficiencies that
exclude them from several aspects of a
normal, healthy, American life. This is not
to say that punishment should be avoided,
but it is to say that in all cases punishment
should be fair. Would anyone put a child in
the electric chair? If a 13-year-old does not
belong on death row, Dalton Prejean
doesn't either.
The issue of capital punishment is stil
complicated. But in the case of Dalton
Prejean, his youth and mental capacity
should have an effect on his punishment.
On the day that Prejean takes his fina
breath, many will mourn the loss of the
state trooper as well as his killer. But after
looking at the entire case, many more
should mourn over the deterioration of
America's values. Tim Little
Lifestyles of
used to pride myself on being the only
pseudo-journalist on this branch of the
Proto-Indo-European language tree that
never, ever used the Andy Warhol quote about
everyone being famous for 15 minutes; under
stand that I tried as hard as I could for all these
years not to do so, but I just sort of slipped into
it this week, helplessly kind of like how old
men slip into saying stuff like "over yonder"
and "why you little ..." and have big fat hairy
grandpa ears and such. Nonetheless, this week
I sought to take Andy Warhol' sl5 minutes and
stretch it out onto this entire city, so I sent out
a truckload of pioneers on Monday night in a
fit of journalistic experimentation. They were
to do exactly what they normally do anyway on
this average Monday night, except that they
were to write down exactly what happened to
them from 11:30 p.m. to 11:45 p.m., no matter
how mundane, traumatic or sexual. So here is
an itinerary of sorts, a list of exactly what
happens in 15 minutes on an average school
night at Carolina and remember, these have
been meticulously documented by a bunch of
those Time-Life Books operators.
11:30 p.m. EST, 313 E. Franklin St. Liz
Johnson sits at a desk, halfway through an
anthropology paper, chewing Bubblicious with
a Diet Coke at her side. She thinks for a minute
with her pen in her mouth, then writes: "... the
ancient dreams of the Nandi tribe may well
have significant ramifications in both socio
logical and anthropological circles." A Bronco
II speeds by on Franklin Street, and she is
momentarily distracted. Looking up in frustra
tion she says to herself, "I doubt highly that my
future employment will hinge on whether or
not I grasp the concept of the prophetic dreams
of the Nandi tribe!" Her roommate grunts in
agreement.
11:32 p.m., Top of the Hill. Cashier John
Dubis opens a roll of quarters, gyrating behind
the register to the song "Between the Sheets"
by the Isley Brothers. A horrendously filthy
man wearing a tattered jacket and a "Skoal"
cap limps in, goes straight to refrigerator door
No. 4 and pulls out a bottle of Richard's Wild
Irish Rose. He then goes over to the cashier,
plops down 87 cents in pennies and nickels,
and slurs, "I don' think I have enough ... can ya
spot me 20 cents?" John Dubis sits back on the
cashier stool and sighs.
11:36 p.m., 302 Pittsboro St. Patricia
Monmouth and Carol Howe are standing in the
sorority house bathroom; Carol is brushing her
teeth while Patricia grimaces in the mirror.
"Jesus!" Patricia says, "My hair is so dis
gusting!" Carol is foaming with Crest. "Shut up, it
looks fine."
Collective effort key
to saving Earth
To the editors:
We still have time, but there are
still some of us who think that the
Earth and its resources are infi
nite. I think you all are in for a rude
awakening. It is time to get in
volved not because Earth Day is
this week, but because what you
VP gladly passes on his title to
ljuuui a iiuic. k fie uuinui it me uuiguirig
student body vice president.
A Daily Tar Heel headline this Monday
(April 16) read "Vice President choice
under fire." More accurately, Jeffrey
Beall, former student congress member, ques
tioned Grant Vinik's selection for the position.
According to the Student Code, the student
body president shall "appoint a vice president,
secretary and treasurer of the student body
from the pool of nominees for each position
from the search committee." The search
committee deemed Vinik qualified for the
position as they forwarded his name to Bill
Hildebolt for consideration. After careful and
methodical consideration, Hildebolt selected
Vinik from the pool of nominees.
To offer some historical perspective, the
search committee was devised by (former SBP)
Kevin Martin's order to remove political im
pediments. An appointed, campus elected, or
an independently elected vice president pre
sented serious political problems. The search
committee eliminated some of these obstacles.
This year the search committee was pre
sented with a large number of qualified candi
dates. I do not envy the members of the search
E si n u s st 'I 'It st si t t s h s Si s s
the normal and others
lan Williams
Wednesday's
Child
"This guy at the salon went at me with a
razor blade ... maybe it's just PMS. No, in fact
I'm sure it's PMS."
'That's stupid, Pat. I'm PMSing twice as
much as you, and I couldn't care less about my
hair."
"What?"
11:37 p.m., Davis Library Second
Floor. William Randolph sits at his table with
medical school pathology notes spread out
like a grand feast for the dead. Halfway through
a delightful photograph of a woman suffering
from "mucinous adeno-carcinoma of the
ovary," some dude down the study row with a
crewcut and horn-rimmed glasses sneezes like
a possessed water buffalo all over his poli sci
paper. The guy prances around, holding his
face in a desperate search for a Kleenex, and
William watches him secretly wipe his nose
on a convenient back issue of Field and Stream
from 1975.
11:40 p.m., Molly Maguire's Irish Pub
136 Rosemary St. It is a slow night at
Molly's, folks exchanging eclectic ditties over
Bass Ales, when flashing blue lights light up
the entire bar from outside. Their faces pressed
against the glass, the bar patrons witness a guy
getting pulled for DWI. About three squad
cars full of policemen with nothing better to do
get out to make the humiliation public, and
several in the bar make bets as to whether he
will pass the breathalyzer. John the bartender
stops making a B-52 long enough to hear the
victim shout at the police officers, "Please! I'll
do anything!" Eyewitnesses report that the
incident gave everyone enough bar conversa
tion material to last them until 1 1 :57.
11:42 p.m., 412 Connor Residence Hall.
Laurie Hadler sits at her computer terminal as
a pair of giggling girls gallop down the hall.
Her roommate Sarah lounges on a futon,
searching for the last decent kernels of mi
crowaved popcorn.
"Listen to this," Laurie says, "There is this
chemical called Tetrodoxin, which is an anes
thetic derived from a South American frog,
and it's 160,000 times more powerful than
cocaine. The voodoo doctors use it to turn
people into zombies."
"And they get it from toads?" Sarah asks.
if A-
FORUM
and I do today to our environment
will somehow affect us later.
What can you do? Recycle
aluminum cans, paper, plastic and
glass; all can be used again. It
takes little effort to do it it is just
a decision, yes or no. When you
are not using something that re
quires electricity, turn it off
another easy choice. Try to use
deodorants and hair sprays that
don't require aerosols which con
tain chlorofluorocarbons, harmful
molecules to the ozone layer. Air
conditioners also contain these
molecules, so open a window when
you can. These are just some of the
things you can do to save our
planet. If you want to get more
involved, there are many environ
mental groups protesting various
issues, but know what that certain
group you choose is protesting
about. There are too many groups,
Joe Andronaco
committee. The decision to forward the pool
of three nominees was not an easy one. But the
decision was made.
As the first and out-going vice president, I
have a working knowledge of the position. I '
have worked closely with Brien Lewis and
others in the executive branch to achieve
agenda objectives.
As a junior with two strong years of execu
tive branch experience, Vinik is sensitive to
the demands of continuity. Hildebolt chose
Vinik on meritous reasons. He feels he is the
best for the position and for his administration.
With the experience I have gained this past
year as vice president, I would be very pleased
to pass on the position to Vinik and have him
expand and better the position.
Now Beall claims that Hildebolt went
against the wishes of the committee. As men
tioned, the search committee chose to forward
Vinik's name. They also chose to rank them,
an action not required by the Code.
"Yeah. Off their backs. 160,000 times
stronger than cocaine."
Sarah returns to her James Joyce novel and
throws the popcorn bag in the basket. She reads
for a few seconds and then looks up in defeat.
"I think of James here was lickin' some
toads, dude ..."
11 :43 p.m., mirrored Vanity Hall of NCNB
Plaza. Joseph Kerr, a ragged older man dressed
in a half burned-up jacket, lies on his dirty bag
of old clothes, discussing religion with another
homeless man leaning against the door to the
bank. He catches the attention of two girls and
two guys who are drunkenly running down the
hallway. -
"I had a vision," he says, "and in this vision,
the Roman Catholic church was revealed as
demonic, and the Pope himself came to me and
in his hand he carried the mark of the Anti
christ." The students sit uncomfortably by him
as he speaks.
"I have seen what will happen to America,"
he goes on, "It came to me in the most amazing
of visions while I was sleeping one night in a
California desert ... the three-horned beast will
rise and devour your children ..." ...
Trapped here, and on a very important date,
one of the students worriedly looks at his watch.
11:45 p.m., Ham's Restaurant 310
Franklin St. A line stretches toward the Trail
Shop in order to get into Ham's on 99-cent
highball and cheese-fest-o-rama night. Unbe
lieving though she is at standing in line to get
into the "K-MarJ of Chapel Hill Bars," Liza
Applegate awaits patiently her turn. A nice
young gentleman ahead of her in line wears a
flannel shirt buttoned down to the navel, six
thin gold chains, acid washed jeans and a gerbil
moustache he smiles at her menacingly, and
she returns a look of utter nausea. Suddenly,
everyone in line looks up, as Steve Bucknall
trounces down the street. Bypassing the hoi
polloi little people, Steve and his five female
harem entourage of female petroleum by-products
waltz right into the bar.
"Oh, hey Steve!" the bouncer says gleefully,
and everyone in line follows Buck as he makes
a beeline for the bar. Liza Applegate, a 5 '2"
sophomore from Charleston, South Carolina,
stares at the sky casts her gloomy eye over
the skyline on the hill and wonders how
different her life would be if she could hit the
three-point shot.
Ian Williams is a senior music and psychol
ogy major from Los Angeles who would like
sincerely to thank everybody who helped him
with this exercise in gonzo journalism ... they
will note that some of the names have been
changed to protect the easily embarrassed.
environmental and others on this
campus and in the United States
that protest without knowing what
they are actually protesting about.
Please get involved, every little bit
helps because without a healthy
and safe environment, there will
literally be nothing left to live for.
EDDIE ALTHERR
Junior
Biology
worthy choice
Beall also seems to know why Hildebolt is
discriminating. After very careful review, which
included information about the job, intent and
compatibility, Hildebolt chose Vinik on
meritous grounds.
A sophomore with political aspirations would
hamper the effectiveness of the vice president.
The position is only one year old; for it to be
mixed in political activity in the coming year
would be a travesty.
Throughout all this, Vinik's qualifications
should not be diminished. Perhaps a reason for
his ranking is his behind the scenes role. He has
made admirable accomplishments in a low-lay
fashion. Yet above all, he is very well. re
spected. The vice presidency deserves that. "
Also, the search committee process deserves
the benefits of confidentiality. The process is
intended to protect the confidence of the appli
cants and to keep petty politics and distractions
away from the selection. ; ,
Beall has questioned Vinik's selection. His
scrutinizing tactics are admirable in some re
spects. But when it betrays trust and intentions,
his tactics lose a great deal of respect. ; ,
Joe Andronaco is a senior history major
from Ocala, Fla.