Newspapers / The News-Journal (Raeford, N.C.) / Feb. 4, 1982, edition 1 / Page 2
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'Zhe'^n eu??* - journal 0Mo&tUL NATIONAL NEWSPAPER association ASSOCIATION PablislMd Every Thursday at Rat ford, N.C. 2SJ76 119 W. Elwood Arcaac Subactlptioa Rale* la Advaac* Per Year? M.M * Moaths? S4.25 3 Moatfcs-$2.25 LOUIS H. FOGLEMAN, JR PAUL DICKSON Editor HENRY L. BLUE ' Prodactioa Saperrtsor ?ILL LINOAU Asaodate Editor MRS. PAUL DICKSON Society Editor SAM C. MORRIS Coatribatiag Editor Secoad Class Postage at Rat ford, N.C. (USPS 3M-2M) ? THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1982 | Rockfish Road disgrace What happened on Rockfish Road near Scurlock School the night { of January 23 was a plain disgrace to the county. We can't comment on the details or personalities involved since / the matter at this writing has not yet been heard in court. In essence, i a large-scale fight broke out after a Hoke County Sheriffs officer j attempted to arrest a man for allegedly drunk driving. The officer reported he stopped the car when he saw it was weaving. ^ An unknown number of people joined the battle against the officers after it started. They dispersed, the sheriffs department reported, after other officers arrived to help the three deputies ?X involved. The three deputies are white, the four who were in the ^stopped car are black. The people in the crowd who got into the brawl are black. Blacks later gathered around the county jail and a doctor's office. ^5 In brief, they showed hostility toward the law enforcement officers, ^though they did not get violent or otherwise try to interfere with officers performing their duties. The result was the three officers and two people in the car were $ hurt in the fight. One in the car was hospitalized, not for injuries ?X suffered in the fight but because he started vomiting at the jail after ?? being treated by a doctor for cuts. He was taken to a hospital, in serious condition at the time. None of the others treated needed hospitalization though one deputy would have to have more treatment later. The two men in the car have been charged with assault on officers, and the driver additionally with driving under the influence and ?:??? resisting arrest. On the other side, racial accusations have been made, and the . Hoke County NAACP was trying last week to get affadavits from ij- witnesses to see whether the accusations could be corroborated. The whole matter is expected to be aired in court. This should reveal the reasons why so many people other than the officers and the two civilian men became involved in a fight which spread from a . routine case of an officer stopping a car on suspicion the driver was operating under the influence of liquor. This may bring action not only on the part of law enforcement offices but on the part of private citizens to prevent such a disgrace from happening again. Only dumb luck prevented a killing or at least injuries far more serious than those the five suffered that night. Dumb luck is something that can't be counted on. Preventive measures can be. --BL Better reason needed A Cumberland County lawyer, William R. Davis of Hope Mills, has filed for nonlawyer Joseph E. Dupree's job as a District Court judge. Davis says; "I feel that all judges should be lawyers and I am." A candidate for judge ought to have a better reason than that to give the voters. Formal technical training in the law in a law school is important. But formal school training doesn't necessarily instill in the student integrity, compassion, and fairness. A nonlawyer can have these qualities, which are most important for a judge. Knowledge of law can be acquired by actual experience on the bench, as Dupree has acquired it: 16 years as a District Court judge, and two years before that as a Recorder's Court judge. Besides that, he acquired more knowledge of the law by working as a State Highway Patrolman for 14 years before becoming a judge. Davis's court experience has come from service as Fayetteville Police Department attorney and in private law practice. He has had no experience as a judge or a magistrate, according to information published about his back ground. This isn't an endorsement of Dupree's candidacy, though it probably will be interpreted by some as such. It's merely intended to point out that being an attorney doesn't necessarily qualify someone to be a better judge than an experienced judge who isn't an attorney. --BL Offshore oil From The Los Angeles Times Can it be that Interior Secretary James G. Watt has traded in a bundle of his big sticks for a bunch of carrots? State government officials are not quite ready to bite down hard; there is always a chance that Watt simply painted his sticks orange. But there are signs of a major change in Interior's policy on offshore oil leasing. If the signs are correct, it might make it easier for the state to get its way on some aspects of a new call for bids to explore 174 oil and gas tracts off Southern California that Interior announced (last month). When Watt took office, he said he planned to lease every tract on , . the outer continental shelf that was not already spoken for, and do so as fast as the paperwork could be signed. State officials and others argued that the policy made no sense, and that Interior should concentrate on leasing the tracts that petroleum geologists thought had the best chance of yielding oil or gas. Barging ahead as Watt proposed to do, they said, could lead to ; snap judgments on environmental impacts and could increase the danger of oil spills in the rush to drill on millions of acres of ocean ? floor. S Judging from a memorandum released by Interior, Watt has decided that the critics were right and that is more sensible ? geologically and politically ? to move more slowly. The Interior Department said it plans to concentrate on tracts most likely to contain oil, and postpone calls for leases on others. The change could reduce planned lease sales by one-third. The new policy will not directly affect the size of the sale of offshore tracts between Point Conception and Newport Beach that Interior wants to conduct next June. The tracts included in the June sale are, by and large, the same ones that Watt's predecessor, Cecil D. Andrus, had planned to put up for bidding by the oil industry. But the change in policy could have an indirect effect. If the new policy is a sign that Watt now recognizes that his brute-force approach to opening up offshore tracts and onshore wilderness areas to drilling and mining is backfiring on him, he may be more willing to listen to arguments against some of the tracts listed for the June sale. The state's most strenuous objection involves a dozen tracts off the Santa Monica coast. State officials are concerned that wind and current patterns in the area might drive any spilled oil directly onto the most popular beaches in the state. They had asked that the tracts be deleted, or that Interior at least conduct further studies to determine whether the fears are well founded. Interior did neither. Sacramento has 60 days in which to file a formal protest on the Santa Monica tracts and on other aspects of the plan to which the state objects. ? When the Interior Department responds to the protefts, the state will know for sure whether those are real carrots or simply orange sticks. CLIFF BLUE . . . REAGAN. ..I have paid special attention in recent days to Presi dent Reagan's "State of the Union" address. 1 believe the President is realizing now, as never before, that it is almost impossible to balance the budget and also carry on the programs initiated by the late FDR and LBJ and those who come after them. President Johnson, evidently, thought that he could "abolish poverty" and raise the nation to a higher permanent level. It worked for a few years but now, it seems that "the chickens arc coming home to roost." Evidently, President Johnson did not realize how many addi tional government programs would be heaped on to help the underprivileged in the days to come. So many programs have been added to the FDR and LBJ pro grams that it has become impossi ble to carry the national debt and the many "do good" programs that each Congress sees fit to add, evidently overlooking the costs that must be added. Neither FDR nor LBJ ever dreamed about such an enormous national debt as we are now facing. SOCIAL SECURITY. ..Social Security is no doubt one of the finest and most worthwhile pro jects sponsored by Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal Ad ministration. But like "topsy" in the childhood reader, it is over grown and has become too expen sive for the government and the people to pay for. Between the employer and the employee, about 13.60 percent, half from the employee, and half from the employer, goes to make up the pension fund, which we are told, is insufficient to sustain the present retirement system. To hear of th- waste that is go ing on in the F^v.al Government is awful; particularly so in Food Sumps, but also in many other ways, to our fine and benevolent government. President Reagan's desire to balance the Federal Budget is now out the window, otherwise he would not have decided to hand back to the State governments the many programs he did not mention while campaigning in 1980. NEWSPAPER MEETING ... Last Friday I attended the 57th an nual meeting of the N.C. Newspaper Institute at Chapel Hill. It's a time when newspaper peo ple from all over North Carolina get together to receive Awards and talk shop. The winter meeting is called an "institute" and the sum mer meetings are called "conven tions." About the same things are discussed at conventions as are discussed at the institutes -- just a name change. At the Institute meetings, which are held at Chapel Hill and at Duke University in Durham, prizes for the best articles, editorials, etc., are awarded. At the luncheon meeting Friday we met with new faces as well as the old. I met with some fine peo ple from nearby Raeford, Louis and Mrs. Fogleman, affiliated with The News- Journal. Louis has just been promoted to manager of The News-Journal, succeeding Sam Morris at the Raeford paper. Paul Dickson rpmains the publisher. The welcome and the after din ner speaker at the UNC luncheon was Chancellor Christopher C. Fordham, who also presided. He made a good speech on the on going and growing University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, "which belongs to the people." He praised the faculty, the medical center, the library, the grants to the institution which made us all proud of this great University of North Carolina. OFFICI ALS.. . Henry Lee Weathers, publisher of the Shelby Daily Star is president of the N.C. Press Association, James E. Willigan, publisher of the Laurin burg Exchange , is vice president. FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT ... Television did a fine job in presenting Franklin D. Roosevelt's unparalleled leadership in the dark days of 1933 last week, in noting the late President's 100th birthday. 1 It's a Small W orld By Bill Lindau Is somebody trying to tell us something? I just found a bottle of Pepto Bismol, on top of a box of cin namon buns near the office coffee pot. * t ? There's nothing funny about us ing illegal drugs. But sometimes there's a funny angle to it. It seems the old warning, "Caveat empter," ought to be followed by people who buy that kind of stuff as well as by people who buy anything else. For example, a girl at Randleman High School was taken to the principal's office once and questioned because she was acting strangely, meaning not the way she normally acted. Under question ing, she said she had bought a "joint" from another student, and had smoked it. That's why she had been acting funny. She turned the "roach" over to the principal, and the principal had it analyzed. Sure enough, the analysis found the stuff in the cigarette was "grass," as they used to call mari juana. It was real grass, the kind cows eat and which doesn't make them act funny. The kid was acting funny after smoking her grass because she believed she was smoking real "pot." The student who sold her the "joint" was compelled to give his "customer" her money back. In another case, one student paid 50 cents for a pill he was told was "speed." When the "pusher" was caught, he confessed he'd bought them from his sister, who had told them they were "speed." The pills were sent to a lab for analysis, and the kids involved were processed for automatic ex pulsion for possessing a "controll ed" substance. Then the principal was advised to forget the whole thing. The pills, he was told, were "controlled" substances, all right -- birth-control substances. ? ? ? In last week's column 1 asked whether anyone could tell me the meaning of some terms I'd heard, such as "gonzo," "smarmy," "schlock," and others. After writing the first part of this column, I received the answers in the mail Thursday morning in a letter from Phillip Wright in Pem broke. Here's Mr. Wright's letter, and I deeply appreciate it. (The blanks resulted from a little editing, but otherwise the letter is as it was written.) Dear Mr. Lindau; 1 am writing in response to your column of January 21st, when you asked about the definition of cer tain words. I will be glad to share the information I have on these words. To the best of my knowledge, the word "gonzo" can be traced to Hunter Thompson. The word was either coined by him or first used to describe him. Mr. Thompson is one of the more extreme prac tioners of the "New Journalism". Mr. Thompson's work and lifestyle involve a heavy usage of all sorts of drugs and participation in all sorts of wild adventures, which he then reports to his reading public. As a result, the word gonzo signifies a lifestyle or activity that occurs at the outer limits of sanity, without going over the line into in sanity. Mr. Thompson has been very popular since the late 60's, particularly with college students, and as a result "gonzo" has gained a fairly widespread usage. It is definitely a "hip" term to use. There is a recent collection of Mr. Thompson's writings, entitled The Great Shark Hunt. A reading of some of the pieces in this book will give you a sense of the activities which gave rise to "gonzo". "Kissy-kissy" and "kissy-face" are both terms applied to things we used to call "mushy". These words apply basically to overly sentimental romance that detracts from the plot and characterization of a piece of entertainment. "Smarmy" has the same general meaning as the above terms, but it also carries the sense of false flat tery. "Smarmy" might best be described as an informal way of saying "unctuous". "Schlock", "shtick", and "schmaltz" are all Yiddish words. Yiddish is a language that was developed by eastern European Jews. It is a mixture of German, Hebrew, and Slavic languages. All of these words originally applied to objects outside of the entertain ment area. The reason you see these words today in an entertain ment context is because during the late 19th century and the early part of this century many eastern Euro pean Jews (as in tiddler on the Roof) emigrated to the United States. These Jews and their descendents have had a tremen dous impact on the development of I# American popular culture. Their Yiddish words were applied to various forms of entertainment and over the years the entertain ment definition has become the major definition for words like "schlock", "shtick" and "schmaltz". "Schlock" originally meant "broken merchandise". Today it means something of inferior quali- % ty such as a badly written book, a cheaply made movie or television show, or mass-produced art. "Shtick" is a way or style of do ing something closely identified with a particular person. Thus, Jack Benny's shtick was stinginess and Henny Youngman's shtick is quick one-liners. However, shtick oftentimes also carries the conna tion of staleness. "Schmaltz" originally meant Mi chicken fat. Today it means basically the same thing as "mushy" --i.e., excessive sen timentality. Referring to your other terms, "G.I." of course means govern ment issue. The term originally ap plied to the soldier's equipment, then to the soldier himself. "Sad sack", as far as I can tell, is a shortened form of the expres- ~ sion "sad sack of" and refers to a * weak, unlucky, or bad person. The term was personified in the famous cartoon character. "Snafu" is an acronym of the expression "situation normal-all up". This apparently was a popular response to questions dur ing World War 11. Finally, I don't have any infor mation in "honcho" except that it i means a person of importance. Perhaps you can fill me in on its U origins. Sincerely, Phillip Wright P.O. Box 790 Pembroke, N.C. 28372 Puppy Creek Philosopher i Dear editor: Football fans who watched the play-off games on TV two weeks ahead of the superbowl, one played in finger-freezing sub-zero weather and the other on a slippery, muddy field, know that's no way to decide a division championship. Every game throughout the sea- ' son ought to be played in a domed } stadium, tans say, but there's a hitch to it. Domed stadiums cost anywhere from 10 to 100 million dollars and under the present economic situation are out of reach of most cities who haven't got enough money now to patch their potholes. - But there is a solution. Don't try to inclose the whole stadium. That costs too much. Inclose just the , playing field. For about a tenth of what a regular domed stadium costs you could build a big glass box over the field. The fans of course would be left sitting out in the open in the cold and rain but that won't matter, they'll all show up regard less and sit through the whole game so long as their team isn't too far behind, including the few nuts who show up without a shirt in sub-zero weather just to get on television. ? There are many advantages to the glassed-in field. For example, the quarterback could call his signals without trying to yell them over the angry roar of the crowd after an offical makes a wrong call. A wrong call is one that goes against your team. The fans could boo to their hearts' content and the noise would never penetrate the . glass. Furthermor, the referee ' could hear what a raging coach just called him. 1 don't know how this set-up would affect the TV announcers, but some way ought to be devised to inclose and silence them in glass too. They talk too much anyway. Football under glass is the answer. Neither rain nor sleet nor gloom of boos should stay a football team from its appointed job of earning its salary and paying a '/ proper return to its owners. Yours faithfully, J. A. VITA ? Volunteer Income Tex Assistance can help you complete your tax return Cafl your local IRS office for details * P?*?c ma mimgi Irant ?"UttmiimwiwSxv**
The News-Journal (Raeford, N.C.)
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Feb. 4, 1982, edition 1
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