The Daily Tar Heel from Chapel Hill, North Carolina • Page 8

8The Daily Tar t-u oc -i 98' The price of glory OJar By S.L. PRICE 91st year of editorial freedom Kerry DeRochi, Eiw Leila Dunbar, ocm EJiwr Alison Davis, Managing Editor LISA PULLEN, University Editor Christine Manuel; state and National Editor MlKEDtSlSm, Sports Editor BILL RIEDY, News Editor John Conway, cuy Editor KAREN FISHER, Features Editor Jeff Grove, a Editor Charles W. Ledfokd, photography Editor Budget blues nations go into a generaj fund, thus stopping any fat-cat alums from controlling the athletic program. Up in the Ivy League it's the same story. No Ehring-haus, no training table.

Athletes live with non-athletes, and academics come first. There are no athletic scholarships. It's done differently there. It's done better. Now is the time for the University aclministration to reassess itself.

Is the construction of a new Student Activities Center justified in the face of a recession, when 10 percent of America is out of work, and financial aid has been cut to the marrow? Why is the Educational Foundation able to tell the administration that come, hell or the NCAA they are going to build a new coliseum? It's our money, they say, we can do what we want with it. If the University didn't want it, why didn't they just tell the "Educational" Foundation that UNC teams wouldn't compete in the new If the University supports this garish display of elitism, then the tail is just wagging the dog all over, and both the students and the athletes are being cheated by an administration content to watch it all fly. Some time ago, a mush-mouthed football coach at Oklahoma smiled and said, "I want a school my football team can be proud of." i And the University of North Carolina, sitting on its hands as the trees fall on South campus, just smiles and nods. They're cut off, set apart. And because the University elevates athlets, putting them on a pedestal of privilege, students are forced, without even knowing it, to think of athletes as different, and somehow better.

And the adniinistration smiles and nods, nudging themselves in the ribs. We've done right, they say, and the University is better for it. Elitism has never been right, even when it is disguised as school spirit, competition or prestige. An athlete at North Carolina gets up in the morning and sleeps, eats and practices with athletes. When the weekend hits, chances are he heads uptown with athletes.

One of the few places he's going to interact with non-athletes is in the classroom. And in the classroom is where an athlete's education begins and ends. He's not challenged by different lifestyles and philosophies; his way of lile, the life he led in high school, is perpetuated and encouraged by the administration by their policy of athletic segregation. He uses the school and the school uses him, but in the long run, the school profits. The athlete is kicked out into the real world without ever having to prepare a meal or worry about money.

If they don't go on to professional sports, they're no longer superior. Welcome to the world. My, that water is cold. It doesn't have to be that way. At Notre Dame there, is no training table.

No red-shirting. No special admissions. No junior college transfers. No jock dorm. And no slide courses for athletes: 75 percent of all the scholarship athletes playing football or basketball finish with liberal arts or business degrees; the other 25 percent split into either engineering, prelaw, or the pre-med fields.

More important, not one dollar of alumni contributions can be earmarked for athletes or athletics. All do The trees have fallen on South campus. The plans were made, the money miraculously raised, and the contractors bulldozed the forest down, leaving a gaping hole where once there was nothing but green. They gather together every day on South Campus for breakfast, lunch, dinner. Sometimes it's sandwiches, sometimes steak, sometimes shrimp on special occasions.

The ice cream machine never runs out. While others camp out. for days for a big basketball game, cluttering the sidewalk in front of Carmichael Auditorium with sleeping bags and tents and beer cans and people who say there's got to be a better way, they walk to the ticket windows a day before everyone else and get their seats. No line, no waiting, no problem. They are athletes, and forgive them, lord of equality, for they know not what they do.

For the athletes here at the University of North Carolina take, like you or I would gladly take, what is given to them. The University says, hey, athletes are special and different and must have a training table, must have rooms set aside especially for them, must have their basketball tickets a day early, must have an educational foundation that raises money for their use solely. The University says, yes, the alumni must have a new playground on South campus, must raise $30.5 million for an unneeded monstrosity when financial aid students are worrying about their next meal. It's good for the school, the administrators say; it brings national prestige and attention; it's good for this school. It's not good for the school, and it never will be.

What we have here is segregation. Athletes are separated from the student body they don't eat with and they don't live in the same rooms. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR S.L. Price, a senior English major from Stamford, is a staff writer for The Daily Tar Heel. A group of state Senate and House leaders this week has proposed a budget-cutting plan that, if approved, would slash $36.6 million from the UNC system and eliminate 854 teaching positions.

As it now stands, the proposal may never see the light of a senate or house chamber. Educators are outraged. UNC Prsident William C. Friday has called the plan devastating to the school system. Even the joint subcommittee on education balked at endorsing it.

All for good reason. The proposal presents not only unacceptable cuts to the UNC system, but also the unsettling notion that education should be used to buffer state deficits. The proposal is the brainchild of budget leaders caught in the unenviable task of trimming 3 percent from the state 1983-85 budget. For UNC, that 3 percent translates into $18 million. To meet these figures, legislators have proposed gradually increasing the number of students per teacher at each school.

By eliminating 287 teaching jobs, they could save $9.6 million; 574 jobs, $19.3 million. But that's not all. The legislators are also considering cutting funds to N.C. Memorial Hospital by $248,000 to $746,000 a year. Support programs to all campuses would be eliminated, including aid to historically black campuses as was agreed upon the 1981 consent decree.

N.C. State's School of Veterinary Medicine and East Carolina Medical School would have to wait. It's at times like these, when education is weighted in dollar signs only, that students, educators and state residents should worry. In North Carolina, as in the nation, education has traditionally been emphasized as a means for improvement in both the individual and society. With today's rapid technological advances, more education, not less, is needed.

As Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations, a nation is rich not because of the factories or tools citizens hold, but because of the skills and attitudes they have in their heads. No one can envy the state legislators their jobs this week. Cuts have to be made somewhere. The state's public university system, however, cannot be an option. Cutting figures from the UNC system is more than just erasing dollar signs on a ledger; it is setting back an institution that was designed to move forward.

Contraception coverage biased withdraw the regulations. How can the director of a public health agency who draws his salary from taxes get away with becoming a political-judicial activist? The reporter evidently neglected to pose this question to the taxpayers of Orange County and include their answers. Also omitted were the opinions of local parents, who by North Carolina law must consent to a minor daughter's decision to have her ears pierced, but need not even be informed of the same daughter's decision to get potentially dangerous contraceptives from Planned Parenthood (what an ironic name). Parents have the right to know about something as important as a loved one's sexual activity, which far outweighs any superficial rapport a teenager may develop with a health politico. If this knowledge tends to To the Editor: Why are you partial to front-page editorials? Bonnie Foust's article on the Health and Human Services' parental notification regulations concerning contraception, ('' 'Squealer law' may cause increased risks" DTH, Feb.

22), was no more than shoddy yellow journalism. The very title belies a heavy pro-contraception bias which manifests itself with every quote from an interested party without balancing opinions from the other side. People interviewed by the reporter like Janet Coin of Planned Parenthood and Jerry Robinson of the Orange County Health Department earn their livelihood from young people's promiscuity. Naturally they will oppose any measure which threatens to reduce the market for contraceptives and hence their salaries, even if such opposition means lying or becoming politically one-sided in an official tax-supported capacity. Coin cites no authority for her amazing statement that the risk of maternal mortality doubles for a teen-ager as opposed to a woman in her 20s.

Local doctors, far more knowledgeable than Coin, have in-. formed me that teen-agers can become mothers at least as safely as older women, i And according to Dr. Thomas Hilgers of the Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha, women of all age levels have a 99.99 percent chance of surviving pregnancy, which is greater than their chance of simply surviving one year of life. Robinson expresses his desire to have the courts put pressure on Reagan to dampen the teenager's promiscuity, then teenage pregnancies and the spread of venereal diseases will decrease accordingly. Furthermore, girls would be spared possible severe side effects and even death sometimes associated with use of unnatural contraceptives like the Pill or IUD, which prompted one' manufacturer to withdraw the Dalkon Shield from the market.

Teenagers would also benefit emotionally by postponing sex until ready to fully enjoy and appreciate it in the context of a stable marriage. How much healthier is a system based on loving family relationships than one based on lies and deception! Chris Kremer Chapel Hill Tune the tower EPA in shreds By JEFF HIDAY rn CD jEE JV izi Jk-zzaD I just want you to none, of this is goincf to shancfe Herschel Walker For whom does the bell toll? Not UNC students. Each day the Bell Tower limps through a meager repertoire of songs even music majors find difficult to identify. 0 The tower's system is, insufficient. It's outdated.

Even our band Hirector calls it "puny," Any ding-a-ling would declare such descriptions unfit for a UNC edifice. Renovations and the addition of more bells should cure the ailing tower's musical impotence. We need money to fill the prescription. The Bell Tower was a gift from cousins John Motley Morehead and Rufus Patterson in the early 1930s. Then, "the fashion did not call for elaborate bell systems," UNC Band Director John Yesulaitis said.

But times change. Today, other universities with 40-bell bell towers can serenade their campuses with complicated concerts. Our tower botches even the "Big Ben" theme. It doesn't have to be that way. A ringer of a fund-raising effort is needed.

It should take little effort to awaken the University community to the tower's preservation. After all, second only to the Old Well, it is the most popular place for Carolina fans to have their pictures made. If the big bucks roll like they did for the $30 million Student Activities Center, money should be no problem. In fact, the Order of the Bell Tower should be able to help. The service-oriented group is tailor-made to tap the money wells of the Alumni Association.

And don't forget the Morehead Foundation. Executive Director Mebane Pritchett said the Foundation Trustees might lend a sympathetic ear for renovations to John Motley Morehead's creation. "The tower is obviously important to him (Morehead)," Pritchett said. "And I'm sure they (the trustees) would want it in good repair and modernized." The situation is as clear as a bell. Enough money and interest will restore music to our ears.

Critics have been calling it "Sewer gate and Shred-dergate." An apparent tag-team cover-up by the Environ-' mental Protection Agency and the Reagan administration has brought back ghosts of scandals past. Last October, a House subcommittee voted to subpoena EPA documents on numerous hazardous waste sites. Keen to jump on the subpoena bandwagon, 44 other committees and subcommittees with ties to the EPA ordered similar papers. Placed under such an intense magnifying glass, the EPA's warts were bound to show through. Shy as it is, the EPA balked, and in came President Ronald Reagan to the rescue.

The president invoked executive privilege to withhold "sensitive" documents from Congress, saying their release could complicate investigations of EPA's hazardous waste cleanup program. The legislators responded by citing Anne M. Gorsuch Burford, EPA's boss, for contempt of Congress a first for a Cabinet officer. Touche. The problems stem from EPA's alleged mismanagement of the $1.6 billion "sUperfund" program responsible for cleaning up toxic waste dumps.

As "part of an effort to strengthen middle-level management at EPA, particularly in the superfund area," a White House official said, a bit of housecleaning was conducted. The super-fund program's head, Rita M. Lavelle, was fired Feb. 7, and Reagan fired two more top EPA officials Wednesday. A congressman investigating the agency said as many as six other EPA employees were being ordered out in a mass firing he called "the Wednesday afternoon massacre." Plane strength "Qaddafi is back in his box where he belongs," Secretary of State George M.

Shultz said on ABCs This Week with David Brinkley in reference to the swift U.S. military response to Libya's reported threat against the Sudan. U.S. officials would not reveal details of the scheme, but apparently the Soviet-aided Libyans had some dastardly tricks up their sleeves for the' Egyptians and Sudanese. Egypt, a bit worried about the rumors, asked Uncle Sam for military back-up.

That's good news for the United States. The ministers reportedly were considering a slash of as much as $7 per barrel. And each $1 drop in the price per barrel could mean a 2l2-cent-a-gallon savings at the pump. Put the pedal to the metal. Beer money But wait.

If you throw four to the floor, be sober (or be square while sitting in the slammer pondering Gov. Jim Hunt's drunken driving program). Hunt's program, struggling through the state legislature, rewrites drunken driving laws, creating a new "driving-while-impaired" offense expected to boost conviction rates. The bill has passed judgment in the Senate Finance and Judiciary III committees, but stumbled Wednesday when a state senator claimed it would cost $1 million more than it would produce. Budget cuts And let's hope the state legislators are as cost-conscious while reviewing the consolidated University of North Carolina's 1983-85 budget.

A plan has been presented to the Joint Appropriations Subcommittee on Education to cut UNC's budget by as much as $36.6 million and to eliminate up to 854 teaching jobs. UNC President William C. Friday harshly criticized the plan. "It would be the most devastating thing to happen to the University in my experience," he said. Friday added that if the cuts were made, it would be the first time he had seen University teaching positions reduced in his 35 years here.

i Why is the ax falling? Budget leaders (from the state House and Senate) said they must identify cuts because the governor may have overestimated revenues in his budget for the corning biennium. One way to cut, they said, is by gradually increasing the number of students per teacher. Does this mean future classes in the Pit? THE WEEK IN REVIEW The Daily Tar Heel Editorial Desk: Frank Bruni, Charles EUmaker and Jeff Hiday, writers; Jonathan Talcott, staff columnist Assistant Managing Editors: Lisbeth Levine, Melissa Moore, Kelly Simmons and Eddie Wooten Assistant News Editor Stuart Tonkinson Special Projects: Mark Ancona and Keith Bradsher News: Cheryl Anderson, Pete Austin, Joseph Berryhill, Ashley Blackwelder, J. Bonasia, Hope Buffington, Paul Cocke, Tom Conlon, Ashley Dimmette, Katherine Farley, Pete Felkner, Bonnie Foust, Sherri Goodson, Julie Haack, Ivy Hillard, Bob Kimpleton, Kleman, Rita Kostecke, Stuart Long, Gary Meek, Karen Moore, Kim Morrison, Rosemary Osborn, Heidi Owen, David Poole, Pamela Pressley, Sarah Raper, Mike O'Reilly, Lynsley Rollins, Cindi Ross, Lori Schantz, Sharon Sheridan, Don Solomon, Mark Stinneford, Susan Sullivan, Keith Taylor, Lynda Thompson, Stuart Tonkinson, Evan Trulove, Lea Watson, Mickey Weaver, Scott Wharton and Jim Yardley. Liz Lucas, assistant University editor.

Sports'. Frank Kennedy and Kurt Rosenberg, assistant sports editors. Paul Gardner, Drag-gan Mihailovich, Kathy Norcross, Robyn Norwood, Michael Persinger, John Pietri, Lew Price, S.L. Price, Al Steele and Tracy Young. Features: Toni Carter, Michelle Christenbury, Tom Camacho, Cindy Haga, Kathy Hopper, Debbi Sykes, Mike Truell, Randy Walker, Clinton Weaver and Edith Wooten.

Arts: David Schmidt, assistant arts editor; John Altschuler, Steve Carr, Jim Clardy, Todd Davis, David McHugh, Jo Ellen Meekins, Mont Rogers, Karen Rosen, Gigi Sonner and D.F. Wilson. Graphic Arts: Jamie Francis, Jeff Neuville, Zane Saunders, Scott Sharpe, Al Steele and Lori Thomas photographers. Business: Rejeanne V. Caron, business manager; Linda A.

Cooper, secretaryreceptionist; Lisa Morrell and Anne Sink, bookkeepers; Dawn Welch, circulationdistribution manager; Julie Jones and Angie Wolfe, classifieds. Advertising: Paula Brewer, advertising manager; Mike Tabor, advertising coordinator; Sharon Duckworth, Keith Lee, Terry Lee, Jeff McElhaney, Doug Robinson, Deana Setzer and Maria Zablocki ad representatives. Composition: UNC-CH Printing Department Printing: Hinton Press, Inc. of Mebane. General Walker He fooled us once, he fooled us twice, and Herschel Walker did his best to keep us guessing after his junior year, repeatedly denying last week that he'd signed a contract to play professional football in the fall.

But apparently he did. As the Macon (Ga.) News reported, Walker will carry the pigskin for the New Jersey Generals of the new United States Football League. By signing the contract, the University of Georgia Heisman Trophy-winning tailback became ineligible for his final collegiate season, a season during which he probably would have captured the all-time NCAA rushing title. Instead, Walker finds himself in Orlando, site of the Generals' training camp. Have fun in the sun, Herschel.

Sen. Harold Hardison, D-Lenoir, agreed that the bill should generate revenues of up to $2.5 million, but said the creation of a need for more judges, prosecutors and court clerks would cost an additional $1 million. "There's no kidding ourselves this bill is going to cost us," he said. So goes the monetary aspect of the bill, but legislators are still playing bingo with drinking age provisions. Hunt's proposal would raise the age to 19, but an amendment proposed by Rep.

Dan Blue, D-Wake, to keep the drinking age at 18 under certain circumstances nearly passed the House Judiciary III Committee. Committee members voted for it by an 8-7 margin, but a negative vote cast by the acting chairman caused a tie. Since an amendment must pass by majority vote, the 8-8 tie killed it. One sponsor of Hunt's bill, Sen. Henson Barnes, D-Wayne, said Thursday that the Governor's Task Force was virtually split between recommending a drinking age of 19 or 21.

Of the members, 21 voted for 19, and 19 members supported raising the age to 21. Whatever the result, as Hardison said, "We'll get them (drunks) off the road." The watchword is money. The United States responded enthusiastically: by Saturday, four AW ACS air reconnaissance planes were poised at Cairo West airfield, and the aircraft carrier Nimitz appeared in international waters off the coast of Libya. Evidently the ploy worked, as Libyan military operations lay dormant. The U.S.

show of military might shouldn't be surprising, however, considering the fact that American planes downed two Libyan planes that had challenged them in international air space over the Mediterranean in 1981. This U.S. show was quite restrained. Gashog heaven The oil ministers have really lived it up the last few years, but their capricious lifestyles have been severely cramped by the ever-increasing world-wide oil glut. Now it looks like they must cut prices as well as crude production.

Saudi Arabia and its Persian Gulf oil allies the biggest oil-producing bloc in the world agreed Wednesday to cut their $34 base price and warned OPEC to follow suit or face an all-out price war. Jeff Hiday, a sophomore political science and economics major from Charlotte, is an editorial writer for The Daily Tar Heel..