8The Daily Tar HeelFriday, January 31, 1992
SPRING- 3 CDMUfa.
98th year of editorial freedom
Jennifer
Steve Politi, University Editor
CULLEN FERGUSON, Editorial Page Editor
Neil Amato, Sports Editor
CHRISTINA NlFONG, Features Editor
ALEX De GRAND, Cartoon Editor
MlTCH Kokai, Copy Desk Editor
GRANT HALVERSON, Photography Editor
Wing, Edtor
Amber NlMOCKS, City Editor
ERIC LUSK, State and National Editor
MONDY LAMB, Omnibus Editor
Jennifer Dickens, Layout Editor
JoAnn RODAK, Managing Editor
AMY SeELEY, Copy Desk Editor
KATHY MlCHEL, Photography Editor
Getting their wires crossed
Sadly enough, the high-voltage charge
of racism has been brought up once again
on campus.
However, this time it doesn't concern
statues or the Homecoming queen. This
time the parties involved are the Student
Environmental Action Coalition and Caro
lina Union officials. And the subject is
University housekeepers' involvement in
a cookout for their benefit sponsored by
SEAC.
Conflict arose because the cookout was
held in the Pit, which is regulated by the
Carolina Union. Because University house
keepers participated in the event, Carolina
Union officials charged that SEAC had
violated the Facilities Use Policy, which
states that only members of student organi
zations can use University facilities. The
group was summarily suspended from fa
cility use.
According to SEAC members, all of the
housekeepers who participated in the cook
out were indeed organization members.
(Non-students are permitted membership
in student groups if the number of students
exceeds the number of non-students.) How
ever, Union officials assumed that the
housekeepers were not members and ac
cused SEAC of violating the policy.
While this assumption might have been
unfair to the housekeepers, it was not alto
gether unreasonable. Carolina Union offi
cials knew the housekeepers were not stu
dents and incorrectly assumed they were
not members of SEAC. After all, Carolina
Union officials are responsible for the en
forcement of the policy, and without re
quiring every member of every student
organization to carry proof of member
ship, this policy is difficult to enforce. This
sometimes, as in this case, allows Union
officials subjective judgment in determin
ing who is, or is not, a member of an
organization. However, they must operate
largely on a system of trust in this determi
nation.
Acknowledging this degree of trust.
Union officials should have allowed SEAC
the opportunity to explain that the house
keepers were indeed members. What fol
lowed was a series of poorly communi
cated messages among SEAC members,
Campus Y officials and various Union
officials. SEAC and Campus Y members
received conflicting messages from differ
ent people in the Union hierarchy, and this
caused confusion and some ill will.
While the poor communication by Union
officials is inexcusable, SEAC's charge of
racism seems to be unfounded. The idea
expressed by SEAC'sco-chairmen "Our
support of the housekeepers is perceived as
a threat to the power structure which keeps
the white men on top has no basis.
The recent events have done serious harm
to relationships among SEAC, the Campus
Y and the Carolina Union relationships
that were once strong and rewarding. Union
officials' suspension of SEAC from using
University facilities because of the involve
ment of alleged non-members house
keepers in the cookout should have been
investigated before such a drastic action
was taken. Poor communication by Union
officials only served to further complicate
the matter. However, SEAC members'
charge of racism is equally condemnable
and serves only to stoke a fire that should
be extinguished and not fanned by inflam
matory rhetoric.
Failing already low standards
Pending approval from the N.C. Board
of Education, the state Department of Pub
lic Instruction will take control of five
public school districts because of the dis
tricts' poor marks in North Carolina's 1 99 1
Report Card hardly an honor in a state
with an educational system which pro
duced the second lowest Scholastic Apti
tude Test scores in the country last year.
According to state school board mem
bers' guidelines, school districts are sub
ject to takeover if they fail to meet 75
percent of the state's accreditation stan
dards, produce student performance in the
bottom 23 percent of all districts and boast
a dropout rate of 4.86 percent or higher for
grades seven through 12.
Education in the United States is becom
ing increasingly important as students
across the nation fall behind their peers in
other industrialized countries. The current
economic situation demands that U.S. tech
nology regain its ability to compete with
the advances in countries such as Germany
and Japan a goal that can be achieved
only if education is improved from the
bottom up.
Since public education continues to be a
power and responsibility left to individual
states in this country, it is vital that the N.C.
state government get involved in review
ing and improving the educational prac
tices of the five troubled districts: Durham
city, Hoke County, Robeson County , Vance
County and Goldsboro city. By providing
the districts with workers to concentrate
specifically upon developing and facilitat
ing school improvement plans, the state
finally is taking some concrete steps to
improve the worst of the worst.
After two school years of state assis
tance, the districts will be re-evaluated and,
if sufficient improvement has not been
made, the state will replace the local super
intendent andor school board a move
that, although it may infringe upon the
rights of the people who elected these offi
cials, will be necessary to bring failing
schools up to par.
Once these school systems are improved
to meet the standards of the remaining
"acceptable" (according to Department of
Public Instruction standards) systems in
North Carolina, the state can begin work
ing on raising its educational standards to
the point of competition for No. 1 among
the best rather than the worst.
Editorial Policy
The Daily Tar Heel's editorials are approved by the majority of the editorial board, which is
composed of the editor, editorial page editor and four editorial writers.
Business and advertising: Kevin Schwartz, directorgeneral manager; Bob Bates, advertising director; Leslie Humphrey, classilied ad
manager; Allison Asnwonn, ousmess manager.
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Classified advertising: Amy Dew, Becky Marquette, Lorrie Pate, Leah Richards and Jennifer Terry, representatives CbiA Campbell,
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account executive; inanone weaver, nicki biair, prootreaoers.
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Editorial writers: Karen Dietrich. David Etchison. Adam Ford. Shea Rioosbee and Will Spears.
University: Michael Bradley, John Broadfoot, Megan Brown. Shannon Crownover, Soyia Ellison, Kathy Ford. Heather Harreld, Valerie
roioerr,, i eesna Honaaay, Kathleen Keener, tnanara McLean, jenny Mcinms Marty Mincnin. Mancia Move. Jennifer Mueller, uatny liberie,
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City: Tiffany Ashhurst, Jennifer Brett, Andrea Bruce, Kim Cable, Maile Carpenter, Andrew Cline, Carol Davis, Julie Flick, Chris Goodson,
Christy Hardee, Jackie Hershkowitz, Grant Holland, Wendy Perrell, Emily Russ, Kelly Ryan and Brendan Smith.
State and National: Josh Boyer, Tara Duncan, Brandy Fisher, Gillam Hall, Vicki Hyman, Karen Lakey, Laura Laxton. Brian McJunkin,
Rebecah Moore, Lars Munson, Adrienne Parker, Jason Richardson, Bruce Robinson Pete Simpkinson and Chris Trahan.
Special Assignments: Alisa DeMao, Anna Griffin, Mara Lee, Jennifer Mueller and Gillian Murphy.
Arts: Layton Croft, Ned Diriik, Beth Formy-Duval, Laura Guy. Grant Halve rson, Ashley Harris. Melissa Mankowski, Charles Marshall, Rahul
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jonnson. uavta j. Kupstas, Mary Laiterty, John c. Manuel, Amy McCaffrey, Bobby Mccroskey, David Monroe, Jay btrooie and Carter Toole.
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layout: Shane Klein, Ian Leong, Heather Modlin. Teresa Rucker and Sheila Terrell.
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Bibbs: Record must be set straight on bid for SBP
When I took my oath of office in 1990, I
swore to uphold the Student Government Code
for life or for as long as I was a student at the
University of North Carolina. Two years later,
I still am upholding that code, yet outspoken
critics, such as Brad Torgan, feel that I am
violating the sacred precepts of democracy and
destroying the credibility of student govern
ment by running for student body president
while retaining my position on the Student
Supreme Court. Considering all of the public
ity I have received for the retention of my
position, I feel the need to state publicly my
reasons for not resigning.
There is no term length for members of the
Student Supreme Court, assuming they remain
at this University. Were I to be so unfortunate
as not to win the student body presidential
election, I would like to serve out my term as
Student Supreme Court justice. For this reason
only am I not resigning. If I win the upcoming
election, I will step down formally from my
judicial position at once.
It should be noted further that I have re-
Mark Bibbs
Guest Writer
moved myself from Student Supreme Court
cases for the duration of my campaign. Idid this
because I recognized the possible conflict of
interests between my judicial branch position
and my executive branch aspirations. Depend
ing on the outcome of the election, I will either
return my full attention to the court or resign
from it immediately. Until the election, how
ever, I will not hedge the system of checks and
balances by hearing any Student Supreme Court
cases and campaigning for student body presi
dent at the same time.
Contrary to what Mr. Torgan would have
you believe, many past student body president
candidates have held significant positions in
other branches of student government, and the
democracy of student government has survived.
Matt Heyd, the current student body president.
held the highest legislative branch position,
speaker of Student Congress, at this time last
year. 'Mr. Torgan, would you be so bold as to
say that the credibility of student government
has crumbled under the very successful term of
the past Speaker of Student Congress, Matt
Heyd?
Clearly to say such a thing would be absurd.
By the same token.my campaigning for student
body president while still retaining a seat on the
Student Supreme Court hardly threatens the
credibility or democracy of student govern
ment. Let me state my reasons for acting as I
have one more time.
If Ido not win the presidential election, I still
would like to retain my position on the Student
Supreme Court. If I win the presidential elec
tion, however, I will step down from my posi
tion on the court immediately. Now let's focus
on the real issues in this campaign.
Mark Bibbs is a senior political science
major from Carrboro.
Candidates for SBP, DTH, CM, RHA and senior class: don't let the deadline for platforms pass you by!
Candidates for student body president, Daily Tar Heel editor, Carolina Athletic Association president, Residence Hall
Association president and senior class president should send platforms to the DTH by J p.m. today!
Platforms will be published on the editorial pages of the Feb. 3 and Feb. 4 issues of the DTH. Platforms must be limited
to 800 words. No deviation from this limit will be tolerated. Platforms with more than 800 words will be cut from the end.
SBP, DTH, CAA and RHA candidates also must make appointments for endorsement interviews by the 5 p.m. deadline.
RHA and CAA candidates will be interviewed Feb. 6; SBP candidates, Feb. 7; and DTH candidates, Feb. 8.
Letters of endorsement for all candidates must be in by 5 p.m. on Feb. 5. SBP, DTH, RHA and CAA candidates are allowed
to submit two letters of endorsement. Letters must be no longer than 400 words. Longer letters will be cut from the end.
Endorsement letters will be printed in the Feb. 6, Feb. 7 and Feb. 8 issues of The Daily Tar Heel.
The DTH appreciates the assistance of candidates during what is obviously a very busy time for them. We feel that the
paper serves a valuable purpose in informing the student body about election candidates and issues.
Bonjour kitty! French dropout turns ad genius
For reasons far beyond the limited scope
and Listcrmint of my understanding,
these past few days have rendered me
the scholastic equivalent of a chimpanzee. My
academic performanceduring the last couple of
days has plummeted so that now my average
grade is probably about the same as the last two
digits of Eisenhower's inauguration date. What
could have happened? Something I ate? Per
haps. I don t see why, though, as I ve had
nothing unusual to eat this week because so far
all I've eaten at is a burrito and about four
Triskets.
Anyway, I felt like such an academic buf
foon because of the French class I just had. As
of late, my class participation results have been
so poor that I probably would have gotten better
results if I had pursed my lips and uttered
random syllables. I realized that what I needed
was some way of testing my answers before I
said them. I had an idea of how to achieve this.
I went out and bought a hand puppet, then wrote
the N.C. State Department of Manual Textile
Figure Pseudo-Automation and got a
puppeteer's license. Today in class I tried out
my theory.
I used the small green puppet, Eddie the
Bacteria, to answer questions that I was not sure
of but thought I had a chance at. If I had been
right, then I could haveconvinced everybody in
the class that Eddie heard me say the answer
and jumped in (Who's going to believe a bac
teria over a person?), and if I had been wrong,
well, who would have cared, Eddie said it! It
was flawless.
Sadly, everybody caught on. Maybe they
saw my lips move. Or maybe I should have
disguised my voice. Oh, well. Anyway, when I
tried having the puppet give an answer, every
one looked at me with shame and disgust. After
a couple muttered suggestions that I see my
clergyman, my professor began a ranting char
acter evaluation of your humble narrator that,
save for the rather emotional assessment of me
as a "pitiable moron, causing anything capable
of rational thought to cringe" was quite deprecatory.
It was more than I could take. I attempted to
begin my standard procedure for dealing with
crises, and, though I managed to wet my pants,
completing the first part, I was unable to bolt
teary-eyed from the room as the desks were too
close together with no clear aisle, causing me to
be entangled in the center of the room under a
pile of desks. Damn. The next thing I knew I
was being pelted with all kinds of French para
phernalia: escargot.crepes, berets, striped shirts,
models of the Seine and then, as always seems
to happen in my columns about th is time, black-
JTl "j )ason Torchinsky
- id Turn Your Head
$2 and Cough
ness.
When I awoke I was lying in the tattered
remains of my clothes in the Pit, my body one
big ache from the intense beating given by my
French class. I rolled over to realign some
vertebrae and saw a copy of The Daily Tar Heel
lying next to me. Apparently it had been beaten
up in its philosophy class. One of the articles
said something about a new plan to make cer
tain dorms more racially integrated. Though I
haven't actually read the article, I think I heard
somewhere that the plan was that if you are in
one of the affected dorms and your student I.D.
number ends in, say, S, then you're black, at
least for as long as you stay in that dorm. If your
number ends in a 2, then you're a Native Ameri
can; a 4, you're Asian; a 3, white; and so on.
This way every dorm will have a wonderfully
diverse balance of peoples.
All right, I'm going to level with everybody.
I was trying to think of some smooth transition
for the paragraphs to follow, but, damn it, it's
no use. This column is way more disjointed
than normal don't think Idon't know that. So
to hell with some lame-o transition.
I was in my closet the other day, just looking
through some old crap when I chanced upon a
box of memorabilia. I cleaned off all the chance
and then opened the box. I found lots of old
pictures of me during the four years before my
parents decided to undress me and realized that
I was, in fact, a boy. In it were some old frilly
clothes, some toys and napkins and stuff, but,
most importantly, my old collection of "Hello
Kitty" products.
Now, I'm certain that everyone who deigns
to call themselves a human is familiar with that
trademark bloated, ribboned head and micro
scopic face that iscrypticallycalledHello Kitty.
I don't get the name, but I think the entire Hello
Kitty idea is Japanese. That's enough to justify
the poor use of English and the amazingly small
size of all those Hello Kitty products, from
those little, tiny pencil case things to little
umbrellas, to all kinds of weird, overly shrunk
note pads and miniature office product stuff
that was the mainstay of the Hello Kitty line.
Seeing all of these fine Hello Kitty products
caused me to lapse into this fantasy:
The Hello Kitty Company is in big financial
trouble. They need to expand their market, for
the government recently has restricted the num
ber of desk items 8-year-old girls can own,
cutting severely into Hello Kitty's core market.
Somehow the Kitty corporation must expand
its market without altering its product line.
How can they do this? Advertising. Image.
Researchers for the Hello Kitty company
determine that the group with the most money
to spend is the 22- to 30-year-old urban execu
tive male group. These people, they determine,
must become Hello Kitty's new market.
An intensive advertising blitz begins. A new
series of ads in magazines such as Fortune,
Esquire, GQ, Playboy and Time feature attrac
tive young men, dressed in smart Italian suits
with adoring babes hanging all over them,
writing in Hello Kitty note pads with tiny Hello
Kitty pencils. The only copy for the ad is at the
bottom, where, in bold type, it reads "Hello,
kitty."
Then the television ads begin. One has a
young executive on the go, waking up, brush
ing his teeth with two Hello Kitty toothbrushes
held together with Hello Kitty pigtail holders,
getting dressed in a business suit and Hello
Kitty pin, and putting important documents in
a small Hello Kitty duffel. Then the scene cuts
to him in a board room, drawing important
looking graphs on a Hello Kitty washable note
board with a Hello Kitty marker. After being
congratulated by the boss and receiving ador
ing looks from an attractive female colleague,
the young executive looks into the camera and
says "Hello, kitty."
Another version would feature a similarly
studly guy zooming around in a '65 Corvette
convertible covered with Hello Kitty puffy
stickers. After zooming around a corner and
picking up a dozen or so swooning women, the
young Adonis would look into the camera and
say, "Hello, kitty."
Now, I'm not exactly sure what this little
flight of fancy means, but I find the images
particularly amusing and, in fact, quite grip
ping. I am not sure of the financial status of the
Hello Kitty Company (I lost controlling inter
est after the stock crash of '89), but I still can
dream. Or maybe it's just that damn lovable,
mouthless kitty herself that makes me so
amused. I don't know. Regardless, it's printed
now, and not all of the gold in my refrigerator
can change that. So I hope you enjoyed and, I
trust, grew a little. Solidarity.
Jason Torchinsky, a junior art history major
from Greensboro, is calling Hello Kitty ad
executives right now about his brilliant market
ing idea.