6The Daily Tar HeelTuesday, September 15, 1992
Established in 1893
100th year of editorial freedom
PETER WaLLSTEN, Editor Office hours: Fridays 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.
ANNA GRIFFIN, University Editor
Dana Pope, City Editor
Yl-HsiN CHANG, Features Editor
ERIN RANDALL, Photography Editor
AMY SEELEY, Copy Desk Editor
ASHLEY FOGLE, Editorial Page Editor
REBECAH MOORE, State and National Editor
WARREN HYNES, Sports Editor
David J. KUPSTAS, SportSaturday Editor
David Counts, Layout Editor
VlCKI Hyman, Omnibus Editor
ALEX De Grand, Cartoon Editor
JOHN CASERTA, Graphics Editor
A lesson in service
" ' It's becoming increasingly difficult for students to
receive need-based scholarships and financial aid to
attend college. The federal government has a respon
sibility to help ease restrictions and eliminate the
burdensome bureaucracy to ensure easy access to all
students to obtain financial assistance.
: Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton
has proposed the development of a plan to make it
easier for students to receive college loans. Under his
plan, students would be allowed to borrow more
money for school and to repay the loans after gradu
ation in one of two ways: by deducting payments
from income tax returns or by taking a job in public
service immediately after graduation. Both of these
proposed methods are feasible.
The federal government has had numerous prob
lems with students defaulting on their college loans.
Without question, a great number of graduates dem
onstrate poor responsibility and lack of commitment
to the financial assistance programs by not paying
the loans back.
But under Clinton's plan, it would be difficult for
graduates to default on their loans primarily because
repayment conditions allow no room for default. If a
student chooses not to take a job in public service, his
or her loan payments will be deducted from income
tax returns. No matter what, the loan will be paid
back.
In the UNC system, the N.C. Teaching Fellows
Program operates similarly to the public service
aspect of Clinton's plan. Teaching Fellows provides
scholarships for students to attend school for four
years with expenses paid. Upon graduation, these
Teaching Fellows must teach for a specified number
of years in public school classrooms across North
Carolina. Additionally, the armed services provide a
similar assistance in their ROTC programs. Service
programs do work.
Naturally, this plan requires more debate and in
vestigation. But on its face, the proposal provides an
alternative means by which students may pay back
loans. The feature of public service is a long-term
investment. And perhaps most important, it is en
couraging to those who would not otherwise attend
college for fear of unemployment and inability to pay
off loans after graduation.
Don t leave family out of family values
President Bush proclaims himself to be the "fam
ily values" president. The U.S. Congress is calling
him on it.
Last week, Congress passed the Family and Medi
cal Leave Act, which would allow employees to take
as much as 12 weeks of unpaid leave for medical
emergencies. Bush has vowed to veto the bill, just as
he did in 1990 to a similar bill.
For Bush, whose campaign made family values an
issue in this year's election, a veto would not only be
presidential suicide, but also hypocritical. How can
someone travel across America preaching about the
importance of keeping the family together and op
pose a bill whose aim is to do just that?
The facts are simple: As more and more working
women enter the work force, job security becomes an
increasingly important issue. And as more profes
sional women decide to take a step toward mother
hood, first-time parents should be able to enjoy their
new arrival.
The Family and Medical Leave Act does some
thing that both President Bush and Vice President
Dan Quayle have failed to do provide a concrete,
systematic solution preserving the American family.
Under the act:
Workers could take as much as 12 weeks of
unpaid leave to care for a new or adopted child or for
a serious illness affecting the employee, a spouse,
child or parent.
Companies with fewer than 50 employees would
be exempt.
Workers must give 30 days notice for non
emergency leave and must have worked an average
of 25 hours per week during the previous year to be
eligible.
The argument by President Bush and other oppo
nents of the bill that a government-mandated policy
would be costly and lead to job losses is unfounded.
The Family and Medical Leave Act only would
affect about 5 percent of U.S. employers and half of
this country's work force. And for an employee who
has rendered years of valuable service to a company,
the legislation is only a small thank you; so much
more is deserved.
It's time for the president to put the family back in
family values.
Admit it: A generally good policy
The character of Carolina football games has been
changed for students and changed for the better.
The Carolina Athletic Association has a new policy
for distribution of tickets: All student tickets are
general admission, except for those groups who opt
for block seating. If a few minor bugs are ironed out,
the new policy should enhance an already awesome
experience.
With general admission there will be:
No more great seats going unused because ticket
holders are too hung-over, lazy or unmotivated to get
there before halftime,
No more people who don't like the mikeman's
enthusiasm forced to sit in the lower level. They can
sit in the upper deck (where such lackluster, no spirit,
"Why don't you just stay home, you sorry excuse for
a Tar Heel?" fans belong) and not feel compelled to
vandalize the public address system,
More support for the team in the early part of the
game since true fans will be brought in early by the
incentive of great seats,
Fewer intoxicated students having to figure out
difficult concepts like the order of the alphabet in
order to know where to sit, and
No more students being relegated to end-zone
seats because they want to forgo an extra trip to the
Smith Center a week early for a ticket.
In fact, the only real drawback to general admis
sion is that the battle for prime seats led some
students to sit in blocks that had been reserved ahead
of time.
But, according to CAA officials, that problem
will be corrected for next week's game as spectators
will see ropes marking off the location of the block
seating.
The only other problem with the new policy is that
it makes it slightly more difficult for UNC students
to get free tickets for friends who are visiting from
home or other schools.
While technically improper, the practice of smug
gling in non-student friends is as old as football
games themselves and should not be too much im
paired. On a more serious note, the new general admission
policy is a boon for students who go to Kenan to
watch the game and doesn't hurt those who go only
to socialize.
Rah, rah, CAA.
Go Heels!!!
Go to hell, State.
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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 seven editorial writers.
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Speak up! Respect the power, beauty of words
Peripheral filtering is how behav
iorists describe what we higher
animals do when our senses are
numbed by boredom. When we become
accustomed to a steady tone or a con
stant buzzing, we inevitably ignore it
and eventually tune it out. Simple, mo
notonous stimuli fade away as we focus
our attention on the immediate and the
complex.
We become aware of the classroom
air conditioner's steady hum only when
someone turns it off. Suddenly the room
seems quiet, and yet it was never noisy.
On a busy street garbage trucks are
beeping, cars are speeding by, and the
masses are walking, eating and talking.
Again we do not notice the commotion
until it's gone, when the street is still
and silent.
Our daily routine is, of course, a rush
of emptiness, performed mechanically
and without thought. No one really pon
ders the shower in the morning, the key
in the door, the walk to class or the trip
to the bank machine. These tasks are
rote and fade easily from our thoughts.
As with the air conditioner and the
noisy street, we pay attention to the
commonplace and the routine only when
they are disturbed or disrupted. Other
wise our attention is with the problems
of the day, with things exciting and
momentous.
But ironically, it is the most common
aspect of our daily routine that we should
not ignore or tune out, on which our
thoughts should, in fact, be focused. I
speak, of course, of speaking, of writing
and of listening: the basic tools of lan
guage. Language is our cultural cur
rency; its value far exceeds the context
in which it is so commonly used.
Paint and canvas do not together make
a painting without the artist's vision,
the direction of her brush strokes and
the mood of her soul. Music without
skill and style, without the composer's
sensitive ear and the rhythms of his
heart, is nothing but a random collec
tion of noises. Likewise, language is
empty without forethought, without di
rection and purpose. Its everyday usage
becomes bland and mechanical, vulgar
Eric
Wagner
Mind's Eye
and crude.
Perhaps be
cause we use it
so much, and so
mundanely, we
become less
aware of the
flow of lan
guage, its intri
cacy, its com
plexity and its
elegance. As
with the aircon
ditioner and the
noisy street, we are reminded of the
presence and power of language only
when its steady flow is disturbed, when
average words become extraordinary.
Vladimir Nabokov knew this well
and responded brilliantly. In the open
ing paragraph of his book Lolita,
Nabokov seizes his reader's attention
with simple words arranged in a delib
erate, perhaps lustful rhythm. He wrote:
"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.
My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the
tongue taking a trip of three steps down
the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth.
Lo. Lee. Ta."
Nabokov was able to turn rote to
rhythm, and style to success; he dis
rupted the commonplace to his advan
tage. But his is a rare case; many others
disrupt language negatively, to their
great disadvantage.
Excuse me for juxtaposing mastery
with, shall we admit it, mediocrity, but
consider if you will these remarks by
our president, George Bush. Of his op
ponent, President Bush said to a group
of newspaper editors: "Judy, listen, why
should I say something nice about a
man I like, which I do? But, listen, he's
not without redemption. ... But in terms
of personal kind of guy, nice fellow."
George Bush's political speech is
faltering and shaky. He is a terrible
extemporaneous speaker because his
presidency is without direction and pur
pose. More crisis manager than vision
ary, more steward of his office than
leader. Bush does not have any of the
clear, firmly held beliefs of his prede
cessor. Consequently, Bush lacks
Reagan's clear oration skills; his con
fused sputterings announce loudly: "I'm
a loser.
Language's political power goes far
beyond George Bush's silly gaffes. The
issue of "politically correct" speech has
been addressed, and rightly criticized,
in this space and elsewhere. To be fair,
the PC issue has received much more
attention than its original proponents
had ever intended, or probably deserved.
After all, none of the PC maestros are
seriously proposing, say, a radical re
distribution of national wealth, a shift
ing of American foreign policy or an
end to speeding tickets. At the heart of
the argument are not the issues that
matter, but rather the words we use to
describe them.
A large number of Mexican nation
als have crossed the border into Califor
nia, without, to be polite, permission
from the state. And although this illegal
immigration has strained California's
schools, hospitals and welfare system
tremendously, the debate seems to cen
ter not so much on the issues as on how
to refer to the issues. So Californians
are asking: Is that uninvited guest an
illegal alien or an undocumented mi
grant? Both euphemisms describe the
same person, of course, but one sup
poses guilt and the other innocence.
The first, by implication, is negative,
the latter, intuitively, is positive.
Language used to be a sign of power,
prestige and intellect. In the old days,
mastery of Latin, Greek and Hebrew
was a requisite of formal scholarship.
Yet today we do not pay attention to
language unless George Bush mangles
it or a PC advocate absurdly twists its
meaning. Sadly, we are left with lan
guage that is exceptional only when it is
crude and nonsensical. But language is
both a powerful tool and an object of
beauty; let's treat it with respect by
demanding style and substance, clarity
and direction.
Eric Wagner is a senior biology and
political science major from Jerusalem.
Rape isn't a racial issue:
Women fear all strangers
To the editor:
I take issue with Reginald O' Rourke' s
recent article ("Black men assaulted by
suspicion, fear," Sept. 8). If I carry
mace and avoid walking near unknown
men when I am alone, it is because I am
a woman who rightly fears for her safety ,
not because I am a racist. Crime cer
tainly isn't limited to one ethnic group,
even in Chapel Hill. One suspect in
multiple assaults who has his compos
ite posted all over campus is, in fact, a
white man. Under these conditions, it is
impossible for any woman to trust any
male stranger, no matter what color
they are. Mr. O'Rourke, if I keep my
distance from you on the sidewalk, it is
because of your gender, not your race.
You, as a black man, and I, as a white
woman, are both victims of different
kinds of oppression or perhaps you
are indirectly a victim of my oppression
in this case. WE should fight together
against oppression in all its forms, and
it only shows a lack of understanding
for you to accuse me, when the real
criminals are the men who commit vio
lent crimes against women.
ELIZA FERGUSON
Senior
International studies and history
Helmets, education will
enhance bicycle safety
To the editor:
I'd like to comment on and clarify
several points in your editorial "On the
road to safety." Unless I'm in error, the
youth killed was 8 years old. Your piece
implies by using the word "accident"
that some uncontrollable act took place
that led to his death. In fact, the crash
involved a specific sequence of events
that were, in this case, easily avoidable.
Prior traffic safety education perhaps
could have taught him to look both
ways before leaving the driveway.
You also imply that a bicycle lane is
a fifth lane. Please realize that a two-
way bicycle lane or path on or parallel
to a road is very dangerous and is no
longer within engineering guidelines.
What is more appropriate are bicycle
lanes on both sides of the road. Bicycles
should always ride with traffic.
Another misconception is that side
walks are safe. In fact, while they do
offer separation from traffic, they cause
their own set of safety problems due to
cross traffic and conflict with pedestri
ans. The town already has won a $4,000
grant from the Office for Prevention
and is looking into the best way to
purchase and distribute the helmets that
will be purchased.
I do agree with your basic premise
that the state and town need to imple
ment engineering efforts to ensure bi
cyclist safety. Both of these govern
ments have been receptive, particularly
Chapel Hill. But facilities take time and
money, albeit several orders of magni
tude less than is required for the auto
mobile infrastructure.
In the meantime, and in addition to
any facilities improvements, bicyclists
should protect themselves by following
traffic law, learning specific safe riding
techniques and wearing a helmet. It's
the best protection in case of an "acci
dent." WAYNE PEIN
Chairman, Chapel Hill Bicycling
Advisory Committee
Stage fright at concert
made question difficult
To the editor:
I am writing in response to Lindsay
Lowry's wonderful article about the
Veldt in the Omnibus ("The Veldt at the
Cradle ..." Sept. 10) She really did her
homework. When I was reading the
review, I felt like I was back at the
concert.
Until the end of the article, that is.
You see, I was that woman who got
pulled up on stage. I suppose I could
lecture Lindsay about how dumbfound
ing stage fright is, or how journalists
thoroughly should research their sub
jects (i.e. ask questions). I could even
complain about how the press spends
all their time informing people about
their ignorance rather than giving them
the information to correct the situation.
But the truth is that I did hesitate. I
hesitated because the question's phras
ing led me to believe that Daniel wanted
two living important black leaders. I
probably could not have named two
living black leaders that I esteem with
out about two hours of thought on the
subject.
In spite of the way Lindsay portrayed
the situation, I do agree with her that on
the subject of contemporary African
American political leaders I was igno
rant. So I went to the library and edu
cated myself. Mayor David Dinkins,
Governor Douglas Wilder, Maxine
Waters, Harvey Gantt, Mayor Maynard
Jackson, Mayor Tom Bradley.
I am sure there are many more, and I
can assure you I will look for others.
And Lindsay, I'll make a deal with you
I' 11 be more a ware of African-American
leaders and issues if you will try not
to assume that everyone else is ignorant
and unconcerned with problem's fac
ing today's society just because they
pause to think when pulled up on stage
at a concert.
EMILY WALSH
Sophomore
Biology
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