Newspaper Page Text
4 • The Rea ana Biac* • Thursday. March 1, 1990
OPINIONS
■ QUOTABLE
"With tne nigh concentration of vehicles we have here in
Athens it's easy to hit and run."— Hilda Spratlln Athens police
public information officer, on the rising number of auto break-
ins.
The Red & Black
EuatLihed ! tcorput^ud
Art irt4*prrtdr*vf not aTi^aUd wUh iKt Umucrtity of Otorgio
Charlene Smith/Editor-in-Chief
Amy Bellew/Managing Editor
Robert Todd/Opinions Editor
■ EDITORIALS
Towing fees
The Athens City Council Finance Committee
recommended a $10 increase in towing fees Tuesday
night to last until the city gets a more extensive report
| justifying higher fees.
Higher fees’ Wait a second, the fees are already
high enough. The council should hold a hearing on the
problems with local wrecker services and consider
j decreasing the rates.
State law allows local governments to set the
towmg rates, and Athens hasn’t raised local rates in
five years Area wrecker services are complaining that
higher costs and no rate increases are making it
impossible to stay in business.
Given this argument, it’s ironic that the Athens
Yellow Pages list 21 different towing services. That’s
more towing service vultures than new car dealerships
or Clarke County schools. This city certainly isn’t going
to miss a towing service or two.
It’s hard to be sympathetic towards towing services
because very few dealings with them are pleasant.
People are most familiar with the towing
! experience in which they find a wrecker ready to haul
j their wheels away only moments after they start
| unloading their groceries. Of course, the tow truck
driver says someone called him. From where, Kroger?
Some have also found mysterious new dents in their
i cars after an overnight stay at the wrecker compound.
Of course that wouldn’t have been caused by the
towing.
To be fair, some of the local services are
professional and courteous, and new laws banning tow
truck “sharks” have helped the situation.
But before the city increases towing fees, the
council should seriously consider whether the 21
towing services merit the raise or if citizens deserve a
break.
Thank you
It’s a good thing some state officials aren’t letting
Gov. Joe Frank Harris’ obstacles to University System
funding discourage them from getting money for
construction projects.
At least one of the University’s top three building
priorities will get funding thanks to a House and a
Senate subcommittee which will allocate $2.5 million
for a Rusk Center for International and Comparative
Law facility.
The center was the University’s third construction
priority and wasn’t even on the regents’ priority list.
But because a private source has pledged $500,000
toward the project, these progressively-minded
legislators allocated money to finish it. At least that’s
one project that won’t have to wait for hell to freeze
over to get funding.
Other other University System schools may also get
some projects underway. Lt. Gov. Zell Miller has
requested that $35 million originally designated for
highways be allocated to the University System.
Although little of that is likely to be used for
University projects, it will take care of a couple of
funding priorities that lie ahead of some the
University’s priorities, pushing our needs higher on the
list.
The University’s first priority is a new Fine Arts
Complex, which is no. 17 on the regents’ list.
If for no other reason, legislators should be pushing
education issues to gain votes in this election year. No
doubt, Miller will get a few votes for this effort and
deservedly so.
Georgia’s next governor should make education a
top priority. That means giving colleges and
universities the money to grow.
STAFF
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Repair treatment of homeless addicts
One evening, or. my way to see a band with
some friends, I passed someone sleeping in a
•hallow storefront doorway, his back against
the wind. A week later I went on a “Kroger-run”
with two other people, and I noticed a man sit
ting at the edge of the parking lot, holding a
sign that read "Will work for food and a place to
Bleep.” Most recently, after lunch downtown, a
friend and I were approached by a woman who
asked for money with which to buy something
to eat; we freely gave her our leftover change.
Lately I’ve noticed more and more homeless
people, and most of them appear to be loners
witn no family in tow. A few decades ago, they
would have peopled a place called “Skid Row,”
where derelicts, drunkards and ne’er-do-wells
finally hit rock bottom. Today “Skid Row-" has
•pilled over onto Main Street.
The infirmities of todays homeless are haun-
tingly similar to the foibles of yesteryear’s
homeless. Chronic alcoholics and drug addicts
are the fastest growing group among the home
less. About 44 percent of today’s homeless are
substance addicts.
The sprouting of various shelters has done
little to alleviate the situation of the growing
number of addicted homeless people. According
to a recent HUD survey, two-thirds of our
homeless shelters offer no drug or alcohol reha
bilitation services (probably because there
aren’t enough funds due to budget cuts and
“priorities”). Some even refuse to admit alco
holic* or addicts, because they don’t have (can’t
afford) the facilities and professional services
needed to handle housing homeless addicts.
Even the small number of detoxification
Terrance
Heath
clinics serve as little more than revolving door
hotels where homeless addicts can get clean,
and have a place to sleep for a couple of days.
With no after-care, or referrals to other pro
grams, three out of four homeless addicts
usually return to their old habits once out of
detox. The current system offers them no alter
natives.
There are those who ask if the government
should be responsible for salvaging those
people who have fallen through the system.
Many people balk at the idea of spending any
more money on the homeless problem, as if
there weren’t a high price tag already attached
to the current system. The truth is that Amer
ican tax dollars are already going up in smoke,
perpetuating programs that do little to solve
the problem. As addicts go in and out of jail, as
well as detox, the price tag for all of us in
creases. Every stay in jail or detox costs, and
most addicted homeless pay more than a few
visits to both; by providing little or no rehabili
tation or treatment, the current system only in
sures that the cycle will continue. Changing
things may cost, but until the system is altered,
the problem and the price tag will continue to
grow.
Our “thousand points of light” don’t begin to
glow brightly enough to dispel the darkness of
the lives of our homeless fellow citizens. If an
army of soup-kitchen volunteers were going to
solve the homeless problem, then there would
be a solution on the horizon by now. What is
needed is a government supported system of
shelters that provide the facilities neccesary to
bring the willing homeless off of the streets and
begin to propel them back into society.
We tend to have contempt for “bums” who
have fallen into alcoholism and addiction, while
our hearts pour sympathy for homeless families
(who too closely resemble our own) and ad
dicted celebrities. In doing so, we make hypo
crites of ourselves. Those of us who will send a
deluge of support letters to the next celebrity to
check into tne Betty Ford Clinic (again) will
have only sneers and awkward avoidance for
the next incoherent cur who turns up a palm
when met on the street, even though both suffer
the same affliction. The difference is that one is
wealthy and the other isn’t.
W’e must recognize alcoholism and addiction
as diseases among the destitute, as well as the
affluent, and then provide reasonable treat
ment for homeless addicts, as is provided for
wealthy alcoholics and addicts. If not, we hypo
critically perpetuate a cycle of suffering, and
the fault is partially our own.
Terrance Heath is a columnist for The Red and
Black.
■ FORUM
□ The Refl and Black welcomes letters to the editor and prints them in the Forum
column as space permits. All letters are subject to editing tor length, style and li
belous material. Letters should be typed, doublespaced and must include the name,
address and daytime telephone number of the writer. Please include student classifi
cation and major other appropriate identification Names can be omitted with a valid
reason upon request Letters can be sent by U.S. mail or brought in person to The Red
and Black s offices at 123 N. Jackon St., Athens. Ga.
Hillel provides
I find it ironic that a complaint
of media exploitation was made by
an Israeli in The Red and Black,
when The Red and Black failed to
report on the lecture given by Dr.
Jim Jennings of the Palestinian
Human Rights Campaign and
Marcia FUhman of the New Jewish
Agenda on Feb. 12. The Israeli gen
eral also had the benefit of talking
in the non-neutral Hillel Center,
while the PHRC/NJA event was
held in the neutral Tate Student
Center. Selective journalism at its
best.
The Hillel speaker obviously
condones the daily oppression and
violence against the non-Jewish
population under Israel’s control. A
true peace won’t come under these
conditions. A truly just and lasting
peace won’t come from negotiating
with other Arab countries as the
general suggests, but will come
only through negotiations with the
PLO, which is supported by the
vast majority of Palestinians under
Israeli occupation. The non-PLO
moderates that Creenwald speaks
of don’t exist as a viable alterna
tive. I would request that the next
lecture sponsored by Hillel be held
in a neutral location.
Dennis Prlckett
graduate student,
College of Veterinary Medicine
Gays have civil rights
I was listening to an argument
the other day that took me by sur
prise. Two black women were a'r
guing with two gay men about civil
and gay rights. The two black
women didn’t understand how the
diecrimination of gays and lesbians
could possibly compare with the
discrimination of blacks. “Our skin
color is not a choice,’ one black
woman said. “Being homoeexual
is* One would think a group of
people who have fought eolong and
hard for rights they so deserve
would be more supportive of other
minoritiee seeking the same rights.
But she implied that the gay and
biased forum
lesbian minority was not worthy
because homosexuality is a choice.
A gay or lesbian can no more
change sexuality than a black can
become white, and I don’t think ei
ther would want it.
Gays and lesbians choose to be
so, in order to make their cause
recognizable in the same way
blacks choose not to sacrifice their
culture and identity for civil rights.
Jamie Teachey
sophomore, art
New sentence a joke
By letting Sigma Chi off the
hook, the University isn’t only con
doning misbehavior, it is actually
promoting infractions of the rules.
Rest assured that the student* at
the University have the clear mes
sage that campus rules are mean
ingless and aren’t enforced with
any punitive action. If there are no
consistent consequences, there’ll
be no discipline or adherence to
school policy. Reducing Sigma
Chi’s expulsion because “the sanc
tions imposed uopn Sigma Chi
were unreasonably harsh” is a
bunch of crap. Sigma Chi knew the
rules, and they knew the conse
quences if they messed up. Sigma
Chi had been found guilty of infrac
tions seven times in four-and-a-
half years — seven times. They
were on "probated expulsion” when
they broke yet another rule. The
fraternity, if it has a collective
brain cell, would have to realize
that one more mistake means
you’re out. But they ignored the
rules anyway, and got let off, as is
the usual case with fraternities.
Every time a stiff penalty is im
posed for flagrant violations, some
“higher-up" authority comes along
and reduces the sentence, just like
the reduction of the Chi Phi sen
tence in 1987. Our University judi
cial system ends up looking like a
collection of buffoons holding a
kangaroo court. The new warning
to Sigma Chi really tops the whole
case off: ‘This (new) probated ex
pulsion (to begin in five years) will
result in permanent expulsion for
any violation of any University
conduct regulation." What a joke. I
thought the current probated ex
pulsion was supposed to lead to
permanent expulsion. That lasted
about five weeks.
Sara M. Bowen
graduate student,
business management
Ticket sale fiasco
Charles Darwin certainly
missed an opportunity to see his
survival of tne fittest theory put
into use Sunday during the basket
ball ticket sales. As the time
assed Sunday morning, slowly
ut surely the small and the weak
gave in to the strong.
Why such a battle to get a ticket
to an important basketball game
here at the University? There were
no partitions to create defined lines
for people to stand in. There were
no policemen for protection (okay I
did see one pseudo-cop who hadn’t
been given his bullet yet this week,
but all he wanted to do was hassle
some drunk hanging out near the
street). There were only five ticket
salespeople for an expected large
crowd. I “mean it doesn’t take a
rocket scientist to figure out that a
large crowd would come to get
tickets for the LSU basketball
game.
When I asked our “student
ticket director” about the lack of or
ganization and the clear danger
that existed to the life and limb of
those at the ticket window, he re
sponded “you should have gotten a
season ticket." Boy was that a com
forting answer.
What makes the whole event
even worse is that I f hink my stu
dent athletic fee pays his salary. A
salary that I sure as hell hope is
not based on his organizational
abilities.
Jeffrey L. Payne
third year law student
Batt’s satire great
A friend of mine sent me a copy
of Mollie Batts’ column entitled
‘Twisted Experiments Delude the
Naive." As a former graduate stu
dent in psychology and an investi
gator of sex attitudes, I thoroughly
enjoyed the piece. It was great
satire and I liked it so much I gave
copies of it to some of my collegues.
Then it hit me: what if someone
takes the column seriously and de
cides not to participate in research
for fear of being lied to or worse,
humiliated? I figure I had better
set the record straight in case
someone interpreted Batts’ column
in a manner other than that in
which is was intended.
Rest assured that research con
ducted at the University’s psy
chology department isn’t done “just
for laughs.” All investigators must
have the approval of the Institu
tional Review Board, a federally
mandated committe that oversees
the ethics of research involving
human subjects. All aspects of all
experiments must be justified with
regard to their benefits to the sub
jects and to humankind in general.
O.K., now that I’ve set the record
straight, I hope Batts continues
writing those great, humorous col
umns. She made my day!
Kslly B. Kyss
University alumna