The Charlotte Observer from Charlotte, North Carolina • 1

Metro Final (4) Sunday October 1 1995 $150 Will new term yield signal on high direction? title: But soon a majority of the justices upheld the right to choose abortion ruled against public school graduation prayers and took other steps along the road to moderation This year another highly regarded book assessed the direction under this title: Center The thesis of the author New York Law School Professor James Simon was that the conservative counterrevolution had fizzled and that moderation would prevail But a better title one legal scholar suggested would have been Center Simon believes his theory remains correct that the center is alive and well and ready to reassert itself remarkable about the triguing new clues to an underlying mystery: Where is it headed? Did the rulings last term signal a general retreat on civil rights and school desegregation a dismantling of the wall separating church and state a rights revolution or as seems likely something far less dramatic? Three years ago an excellent book summed up the fundamental trend of the Rehnquist court in its By AARON EPSTEIN Observer Washington Bureau WASHINGTON On the heels of an unusually explosive term that drove liberals into melancholy the zigzagging Supreme Court will open its term Monday with vexing issues of sex and race on its slender docket And perhaps the court in the 10th term under Chief Justice William Rehnquist will provide in Why? Because the justices in the middle Sandra Day and Anthony Kennedy are able to control or limit the outcome of significant divisive cases at last term I am not at all convinced that and Kennedy are solidly aligned with the right" Simon said just Please see Courtpage 1 7A Rehnquist court as it goes into its 10th Simon said in an interview not that more conservative than the Warren and Burger courts but that not more radically conservative than it is 10 successive appointments by Republican presidents beginning with (Warren) Burger and ending with (Clarence) Thomas one would expect a radical shift to the right But that A A 1 tj i0! 4 4- I i '-a TW' A': ml Aging pope doggedly fights on Visit may target selfishness in US By MARY OTTO Observer Washington Bureau WASHINGTON Telegenic tan he used to move through the crowds like a boxer Covered in white and gold he is old now bent but still beaming At 75 a stoic star A survivor of hard labor the bullet the tumor broken bones Nazism Communism And still the fighter When Pope John Paul II returns to the United States on Wednesday he again will face his most enduring foe It is the dark side he says of freedom It is the materialism individualism sexual decadence of the West This against as he has called it This of one of his favorite says Helen Alvare an official at the National Conference of Bishops view of the next great war is against godless secularism and says Thomas Fox editor of the National Catholic Reporter a progressive weekly coming to the United States to attack our selfishness" While he is here the pope the spiritual leader of the nearly 1 billion Roman Catholics plans to address the United Nations and to meet with President Clinton He is scheduled to make speeches and celebrate four days of masses and rosaries in New York New Jersey and Baltimore He is enormously troubled by his free-thinking followers here Even many devout American Catholics disagree with major tenets of the faith according to polls Most American Catholics believe in artificial birth control believe priests should be able to marry believe women should be able to be priests believe abortion standards should be relaxed believe divorced Catholics should be allowed to remarry in the church But they will throng Giants Sta- Please see Visitpage 1 0A ruton Smith has weathered broken partnerships bitter lawsuits IRS fines and more in building his racing empire He does what it takes to get what he wants and he care what anyone thinks about that For most new moms law apply Most health plans covered by the law effective today setting minimum maternity stays By KAREN GARLOCH Staff Writer Gina Bigham gave birth to her second son at 5:30 pm Sept 21 By the next evening she and her newly circumcised baby were home in Fort Mill SC Although nurse midwife recommended a second night in the hospital the family insurance plan would pay for only 24 hours after a normal vaginal delivery Bigham worried that little Tristan might develop problems was in distress when I was in she said heart just started dropping They had to flip me over and put oxygen on my face just wanted a little bit more monitoring 1 figure 48 hours is too much to watch a child" NC legislators agree Like lawmakers in a half-dozen states and in Congress they joined the national debate this summer over the trend to shorten hospital stays to 24 hours or less for mothers and newborns Starting today North Carolina requires insurance companies to pay for a minimum of 48-hour stays for normal vaginal births and 96-hour stays for cesarean births But the law passed this summer apply to the many health plans regulated by the federal government Congress is considering legislation that would apply to all 50 states These efforts have the support of obstetricians pediatricians and maternity nurses mothers need the time for bonding and learning about the new baby and for said Myra Holer obstetrics nurse manager at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte Hospital stays for new mothers have dropped since the 1950s when women stayed as long as 10 days after giving birth As medical costs rose and insurers looked for ways to cut costs hospital stays shortened In North Carolina the average stay after a normal vaginal delivery was 21 days in 1993 delivery or McDeliv- Please see Matemitypage 1 2A ILLUSTRATION BY AL PHILLIPSStaff RISK AT EVERY TURN Motor Speedway stock-car showcase track He has another speedway in Atlanta a fortune topping $400 million four car dealerships and backing from the third-largest bank No one underestimates Bruton Smith anymore This week speedway will be roaring in preparation for next UAW-GM Quality 500 Smith will savor every moment He has put his financial life on the line many times to get here is the only person I know who would have had the guts to borrow the money it took to build (Charlotte Motor Speedway) to the status it is today" said Richard Howard who ran the track for a INSIDE By DAVID MILDENBERG Staff Writer Legendary driver Curtis Turner huddled with his partners at the Barringer Hotel on North Tryon Street laying out plans to build Charlotte Motor Speedway It was May 8 1959 and stock-car racing was sweeping the South A young man knocked on the door hoping to join the team Turner and his partners knew him well a 32-year-old maverick dirt-track promoter whose day job was selling used cars Get lost Turner told him Fine said the young man wounded but cocky build my own track Thirty-six years later he owns Charlotte decade before Smith took control in 1975 was his dream and I think it really took someone like him to make it Wealth made Smith an insider in polite Charlotte society are a lot of people in the old-money Myers Park-Eastover part of Charlotte who think Bruton is white trash" says Patrick Daugherty one of Charlotte attorneys has never paid any attention to those The money has not come easily or without controversy Smith has overcome a string of broken Please see Smithpage 1 4A The Peirce Report The grim underside of the region's prosperity too many low-skilled people Part three of the Peirce Report PerspsctiveID More new NC laws that take effect todaypages IB 8B Delany sister returns home for burial Nearly 200 gather in Raleigh to mourn Last respects: Sarah Delany 106 reads the program Saturday for her memorial service at St Chapel in Raleigh About 200 attended the service for Bessie Delany who was buried in Mount Hope How to contact The Charlotte Observer for delivery assistance classified ads or story ideas next page Observer Plus at 377-4444 gives you updated news and advertising throughout the day Directory page 26A last month Bessie turned 104 on Sept 3 and Sadie 106 on Sept 19 Mainstream fame found the Delany sisters with their 1 993 oral history Our Say: The Delany First 100 but the sisters were well-known in New York City as pioneering African-American professionals They lived through the heady days of Jazz Age Harlem in the 1920s and later were among the first to integrate the New York City suburb of Mount Vernon More than 500 people attended a funeral service for Bessie Delany on Thursday in New York City including former Mayor David Dinkins broadcast journalist Char- Please see Delanypage 12A By CJ CLEMMONS Staff Writer RALEIGH After 104 years Annie Elizabeth Delany is home The Raleigh native Harlem dentist and best-selling author known as Dr Bessie died in her sleep Monday at the Mount Vernon NY home she shared with her sister and lifelong companion Sarah Delany Delany was buried Saturday in Mount Hope Cemetery not too far from the campus of St College where she grew up with nine brothers and sisters said Sadie Delany know what going to do without my sister" Both women celebrated their birthdays This newspaper is pnnted In part on recycled paper and Is recyclable Contents 1995 The Charlotte Observer KARL DeBLAKER Associated Press i I.