After a month long hiatus I’m back. And here’s why:
The video you see here is of yours truly and it’s created a mini controversy. Apparently, the Edwards campaign tried to have it taken down. I’d write out the whole story here, but I just did that on my blog… so you can head on over there to check it out.
One of the things I’ve been wanting to do with this blog is comment on some stories in the paper that either a) don’t deserve a full column or b) are way outside of my topic area as a community/sports columnist.
So far this year though, I’ve been reading papers two or three days late. Not today though.
Here are the stories and links that have got me thinking.
Town News
Possible Column Spoiler
Senior Class Gift
Jena 6
Now I’m not going to touch this issue from the stand point of a commentary, for two reasons: 1) I already have enough stress in my life and 2) I might be the least informed person out there when it comes to this issue. I’m can’t even tell you the sequence of events when it comes to this incident…. which seems to be a common problem. Just about every time I hear someone talk about the incident, I hear different facts. As a remedy for that, I suggest this piece from Slate.com, which does a good job of framing the issue (although it does have it’s own slant – oped pieces are much easier for me to read, because I can easily identify the slant).
Alright, that was fun. Hopefully I’ll get to it again tomorrow.
I wrote about this one in my second column and now it’s up and running. The headline says there’s mixed response, but the article doesn’t really mention any opposition… unless I missed it, which is possible.
Check it out here.
First let me apologize to “Tron Stokes” and “Dwoobley Dwaddle”. I asked my editor if I could use “biggest tool ever” or “doofey little religious twat” as my tag line next week, but she said no. Sorry guys.
So usually I take the 4-6 comments/emails I get about my column and on this blog address the points they make, making counter points along the way. I do this for two reasons: 1) because almost every week at least one person brings up a point of view I didn’t think of and should have been addressed and 2) because I only get 650 words to tackle some really complex issues… some things get left unsaid.
But this week we’re doing things differently. The response to “Massage with not-so-happy ending” has been far beyond anything I’ve ever written. I’ve gotten more phone calls, emails and comments on this column then all my other columns combined, covering a number of different issues. I’ve done my best to group them and here’s what I’ve come up with:
Comments dealing with why I wrote the column (my motives, etc).
Comments dealing with why I wrote the column the way I wrote it (the point of view, journalistic integrity, etc).
Comments dealing with whether or not prostitution is wrong.
In the course of this piece, hopefully you’ll find something worthwhile. Feel free to comment, but know that I will take it down if there’s excessive inappropriate language (same rules as the DTH website).
Alright… let’s go.
Why did I write this column?
This column idea came out of a brainstorming session with my editor. We were discussing different things I could write about when the topic of University Massage came up. Both of us “knew” it was a brothel, but neither of us could say definitively why. We decided that discovering what it was, even if it was a legit parlor would be an interesting column. So that’s where the research began.
Up until I visited the massage parlor on Monday (the day before the column ran), I had no proof that this story actually had legs. I had Googled the place and found some reviews, but nothing that could be substantiated. That was the pattern that formed as I researched – everyone could tell me definitively one way or the other what it was (and I got answers on both sides), but no one could substantiate it. So I decided to go and get the true story. No harm in that, right?
But after I went to UM, I realized that I couldn’t just laugh it off. As a person who believes that prostitution is wrong (more on that later, I promise), it wouldn’t be right for me to just shrug it off and laugh about it. My intention wasn’t to moralize, but I was deeply emotionally affected. It shocked me that our campus community (including myself) could spend hours debating the ins and outs of Playboy on campus, but never address the local (and illegal) sex shop. From there, I wrote my story and let people make up their own minds, hoping that people would take action.
Why did I write this column the way I wrote it?
One issue with how I wrote my column was raised by a commenter that called “Angry Tar Heel”:
If you were really interested in ending prostitution you would vouch for an end to the cause of prostitution: poverty. You would vouch for better schools, better health education, more money for college scholarships and subsized loans.
Truth be told, ATH has a point. Usually I try to make sure that my column, even if it’s funny, has a logical argument behind it. I try to look at the facts and make an argument that changes people’s minds, hoping that their actions will follow. But this column was different. Allow me to explain.
In this column, I made an emotional appeal, which is my right. My thought is that if people knew that this was happening, they’d want to do something about it. ATH is right that good intentions won’t solve the problem, but I only had 650 words. In this column, I chose to present a problem rather than posit a solution. Our college campus is one of the smartest in the world. I took it for granted that they’d understand that prostitution is a huge issues, which includes economic factors (like poverty) as well as sociological ones. (if you disagree that it’s a problem, be patient, we’ll get there soon). If I bring the issue to the forefront of an entire community, which is what a columnist is supposed to do, surely someone in the community, hopefully some one smarter than me, will do something about it.
Now let’s check out another comment. This time by “k”:
This is the best piece of investigative journalism I’ve ever seen in the DTH.
If k is right, then that’s more of a comment on the DTH’s investigative journalism than my column. It was never intended to be investigative journalism. Investigative journalism includes interviewing numerous sources, reading property deeds and chasing the money behind an operation. I did none of those. With a weekly deadline, I don’t have that kind of time.
Instead, I do what columnists often do. I told my story. No one ever complains when the Community Columnist writes a column about riding the bus around Chapel Hill with their significant other – they just tell their story.
I did the same thing. I didn’t put anyone’s name in the paper that could be arrested for a crime. I got rid of any physical description of “Jane”,not to mention her name, so that she wouldn’t take the hell for my glory.
All I did was tell my story with my spin – as is a columnist’s job. How people decide to react is their decision.
Is Prostitution Wrong?
A number of people brought this up. Allow me to make my case.
1. Prostitution is illegal. While you might disagree about whether or not it should be illegal, as it stands, in the state of North Carolina, it is illegal. If we’re not going to enforce the law, why have it?
2. Prostitution is morally wrong. This is a personal view, which I don’t expect others to agree with. It might just be me, but I don’t think sex is a commodity to be bought and sold. Even if it’s legal, I’m not going to it. But that’s just me.
3. Prostitution is harmful. This gets at the question of whether or not prostitution should be illegal.
I’ll agree that there is an argument that prostitution should be legalized. After all, it’s easier to regulate an industry once it’s legal than it is to prevent it from happening in the first place (ex: tobacco vs. illicit drugs).
But prostitution is different. Allow me to present a case study on why. The following clip is from a blog called College Call Girl (click the link to read the whole thing). It tells the story of a college educated woman who decided to be a sex worker to earn some extra spending money. She has no qualms about no strings attached sex (if you don’t believe me, click around her blog some). Basically, she decided being a hooker would be more fun that being a barista. Here’s the clip:
I want to be very clear that I recommend this lifestyle for no one. It is easy enough to cross the line because the line is invisible. Much harder still to go back, to return to a time when you shared no piece of yourself with strange men, men you don’t like, even men who don’t like you. I detached myself completely from the work I was doing and felt that I was getting off scot-free with minimal psychological impact. I was having fun at first; I felt beautiful and confident and adored and I was financially secure for the first time ever. But those nights found their way underneath my skin. They just burrowed down deep under the folds of my subconscious like a rat nestled at the bottom of a shopping bag.
She goes on to tell where her journey as a prostitute took her, and let me tell you, it’s not a happy place.
Here’s my point: If there was ever anyone who could handle being a prostitute, it was her. She’s a smart woman working on her college education. Morality isn’t her issue. Throw out the fact that most prostitutes aren’t nearly so educated, rich or willing. College Call Girl got used anyway. Simply put, women aren’t sex toys. Using them as such damages them and it’s not fair.
For a more academic discussion on the prostitution, check out Bob Herbert’s column (NYT Subscription required here… posted free on someone else’s blog here). This gets at some of the more macro issues.
So there’s my take. Let the discussion continue.
Checking out different blogs for story ideas, I ran across this. It’s a post by Robert on a blog by Sherell about a parking scam in Chapel Hill. Anyone else know anything about this? I’d love to turn it into a column, but can’t… yet. If I can get a location, I’ll do some investigative journalism. Have I done any before? No. But I do watch the Wire… if that counts.
My first sports column ran on Wednesday about whether or not being a big football school would be good for UNC. It generated quite a bit of chatter on the comment board, which I’d like to address.
First, from “lee Gliarmis”:
Every year there’s one like you. You would have been one of the malcontents building shanties when i was in school, ruining the campus my senior year.
Take a cold shower and just say thank you to our Rams Club members, and athletic department for all of the fine academic facilities they’ve funded for you to utilize and complete your college education.
Lighten up Frances
I’m not sure who Frances is or who I’m like, but lee’s point comes through loud and clear – that I’m just complaining to complain. Personally, I disagree. What good am I as a columnist if all I ever do is clap my hands for the people in charge? If all I do is say that hiring Butch Davis is the best thing ever, did I add anything to the discussion? As a columnist, I have to be more than just a fan. And I tried to do that in this column.
Next, from “Pres Davenport”, who echoes lee’s complaints and adds some of his own.
Good for you for throwing cold water on your fellow students on the football team! Its not like they have been here all summer taking classes and practicing twice a day in sweltering heat so you can sit on the sidelines and enjoy a victory.
Why would any self respecting academic like yourself lend credence to the idea that football, such a barbaric sport, should bring joy to anyone.
Congratulations to you James! You have written the first of this years sadly predictable anti-football, anti-athletics, pro-academics articles in the DTH. I think you may have set a record this year – your team has won its season opener, against a Division 1 AA opponent, and you already convinced the DTH to publish your story criticizing your own school, and making the assumption that corruption in the football program is an inevitable truth. Heaven forbid a school try to succeed at both athletics and academics.
First of all, I never put down the members of the football team. I lived in a suite with a couple of them my first year on campus – Chase Rice and Hilee Taylor – and both were the epitome of class. From what I could tell, not only were they dedicated to football, but to their coursework as well.
The charge that I think football shouldn’t be fun is incorrect as well – I went to Saturday’s game, cheered the team on and loved every last play. As a fan, I couldn’t be more excited to see Carolina finally tap it’s potential, but as a student/citizen/human being, it’s getting harder and harder for me to simply watch college sports. More on that in a second though.
(On a side note, where do people get the idea that I “convinced” the DTH to publish this? They asked me to write a sports column… I simply delivered a piece of work with some value beyond the field. If you want game analysis and predictions, try Tar Heel Blue or the DTH Sports News. As long as I’m a columnist though, I’m going to bring the noise.)
At the end of Pres’s letter, he alluded to a valid critique of my column – that a school can succeed at athletics and academics. Randy Ferguson, class of ‘67 presented this response:
Mr. Dillard:
Perhaps your concern about whether a successful football program can co-exist at an University that also has outstanding academics can be best addressed by looking at our peer top flight public universities. UCal Berkeley is currently ranked tenth in the football polls and Saturday defeated Tennessee. UCLA is currently ranked 14th in the polls and last year defeated Southern California. Michigan has gone to BCS bowls three of the last four years. So three of the four public universities ranked higher academically than Carolina have very successful football programs. The other public university ranked higher than us is Virginia, and I can assure that their relative lack of success on the football field is NOT due to lack of effort.
Please also consider two other fine academic institutions: Wisconsin, who is currently ranked fifth in the football polls, and Texas, who won the national football title a few years ago and is ranked seventh in this week’s football poll. So, if Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Texas can have both successful football programs AND outstanding academics, I not only think Carolina can as well, but also think that Carolina would be remiss if we did not strive to be outstanding in all aspects of university life. As a matter of fact, Carolina is one of the few of the top flight public universities that does NOT have a successful football program.
Naturally, we must adhere to all the rules and not cut corners, but I look forward to the day when Carolina will not only be known for its outstanding academics, its outstanding men’s and women’s basketball programs, its outstanding soccer teams, and its outstanding baseball team, but ALSO for its outstanding football team. Go Heels!
Randy makes a great point – there are some great schools that have football success. This is the reason I dropped the stat about Stanford being the only school in the U.S. and World Report Top Ten to be represented in a BCS bowl. To me, it seems that if you’re running an academic institution, your goal should be to have the best school you can possibly have – very similar to sports, in fact, where winning a championship is the only goal. Since it considers itself a top flight University, UNC’s goal should be to become the TOP university in the nation. When you look at the data, the traditional football powers aren’t in the top ten, where UNC should be aspiring to be. This isn’t to say they can’t break the top ten in football and academics at the same time, but since we’re an institution of learning… shouldn’t academics come first?
Then there’s Jonathon Howard, who asks why football is different from basketball:
This article is beyond ridiculous. Why is it that being a “basketball school” is O.K., but winning football games somehow means that all of a sudden a bunch of bad students will be coming into the school. I have news for you, not all basketball players are geniuses.
Why not ask what the costs are to maintain the solid basketball program. The fact that people are questioning whether success on football field is going to screw with the student body is ridiculous.
Stay classy
To answer his question, they really aren’t that different, other than the fact that football teams are bigger. And I’d love to look into how being a basketball school affects our institution, the only problem is it’s not newsworthy. This is football season therefore the focus is on the football team.
Lastly, from “Matthew”:
What an embarrassing piece of drivel that should have never gotten past the editors desk. The members of the football team are hard working and contributing members of the student body. This summer, while you were probably making Frappacino at the local Starbucks or playing countless hours of Dungeons and Dragons on the internet, the football team was taking classes and practicing in the abrasive summer heat. They love their University and sacrifice so much to play the game and excel in the classroom, at the same time. For you to say that having a competitive college football team hurts the schools ranking is a slap in the face to your schoolmates.
Additionally, besides the fact that your comments are disrespectful, they are also very racist. Yes, you who is trying to come across as the liberal scholar, has come across as a naive bigot. The football team is predominantly African American, so your first swipe at them is to say that they bring down UNC’s Academic standing; bravo! And do not accuse me of playing the race card—-I am a 27 year old WASP male.
Finally, because you obviously have never followed football and probably no other sport, please take a look at the following list of FOOTBALL PLAYERS:
Gerald Ford, University of Michigan–38th President of the United States
Roger Staubach, US Naval Academy–Chairman and Founder of The Staubach Company, a half a billion dollar a year, global real estate advisory firm
Rick Steinbacher, University of North Carolina–Associate Athletic Director, University of North Carolina
Heath Shuler, University of Tennessee
United States Congressman, North Carolina 11th District
I could obviously go on, and on, and on, but I frankly do not have the time and I think you can get the point. It is members of the student body like you who give our great university a bad name.
Crap! Now everyone knows I play Dungeons and Dragons!
Not sure where I played the race card though. Yes, most of our football players are black, but are we doing the most we can to help the black community by requiring that there children be exceptionally athletically gifted to get into our University? To me, that’s where the racism comes in, but I could be wrong.
Moreover, I never said that football players couldn’t be geniuses – all I said is that having being a major football school (being in the business of semi-professional football) can detract from the University’s purpose – higher learning.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to play computer games on the internet. GO HEELS!
So I wrote two columns this week both of which got quite a response both online and as letters to the editor. I’m going to use this post to address these comments, because, believe it or not, sometimes readers are a heck of a lot smarter than us writers… we tend to get tunnel vision, if you couldn’t tell.
First the John Edwards column, which garnered a spirited response in the form of a letter to the editor by a Junior named Eugene. Here’s a clip:
James (Edward) Dillard’s (column) on John Edwards, (“A rich man’s attempt at sincerity” Sept. 4) employs a tired and illogical argument: John Edwards can’t help the poor because he is rich.
While I agree that my column was a bit tired (let’s face it, there’s no reason for the column to be written this particular week over any other week), I think Eugene misunderstood my argument. My point wasn’t that Edwards can’t help the poor, it’s that his lifestyle makes his rhetoric seem insincere.
While this might indicate, as Eugene pointed out, that I don’t know anything about politics, I don’t think it’s unfair for me to expect politicians to practice what they preach. I understand that campaign headquarters aren’t the center of a campaigns, but they are chosen for a reason. It’s my opinion that a politician willing to live (or even pick a symbolic center point) amongst the poor gives himself greater credibility when he speaks on his behalf.
That said, who will help the poor but the rich? In the words of Jay-Z “I can’t help the poor if I’m one of them/ so I got rich and gave back to me that’s the win-win.” As I said in the column, running for president isn’t a poor man’s game. To really help the poor, Edwards has to be rich… but he also has listen to them. Many a poor person has been adversely affected by leaders who don’t take the time to really examine what their problems are.
User “w” meanwhile made a great point on the comment board – my column totally failed to mention the comparative credentials of the candidate. Admittedly, that was an oversight. I only get 630 some odd words for these columns, so sometimes things get cut. In an effort to keep things more local, I decided not to compare Edwards to the other candidates. In hindsight, that may have been a mistake.
A friend of mine was actually the one who gave me the idea for the column when another idea fell through. His idea was to posit what would happen to the community should Edwards win – would it become like Crawford, Texas? Would crazy conservatives camp out in Southern Village? While this has a local angle, it’s all speculation.
But should Edwards win… it’ll be great fodder for a Community Columnist down the road.
So here’s a link to my column about John Edwards. If you’re wondering why him, why now, my answer to you is, why not?
A more substantial update complete with links to stories and witty comparisons will be coming later today. Until then, try not to do anything stupid.
Happy Monday, Chapel Hill.
Welcome to the Community Blog, brought to you by James Edward Dillard, your friendly Tuesday Columnist.
Before I lay the ground rules, let me explain why I’m going to be blogging, given that I already get 650 words once a week in the paper.
As the university columnist last semester, I read the entire DTH every day as a way to generate ideas for my column. Frequently I found 3-5 stories that I felt should be commented on in some way or another, but weren’t worth a full column. This blog is a place to discuss those stories.
Now, let me be the first to say that I have no idea how this is going to turn out. I’m not the university columnist anymore – I’m the community columnist, and seeing as the DTH has yet to pop out a relevant community column in my 3+ years as a student, I kind of doubt it can support a column AND a blog at the same time. But we’ll see.
Okay, enough of that. Ground rules are as follows:
1. This is a family blog, so try to keep the cursing to a minimum.
2. The Community includes the University, so University issues are still in play, however the way they affect the community, even if indirectly should be noted. I’ll probably be the first one to break this rule.
3. When you comment (if anyone comments), try to do more than just tell me in a really creative way that I suck at my job; tell me why I suck at my job (with the same amount of creativity) so that I can get better.
4. Both fun and informative are requirements.
5. If I’m missing something, please let me know.
6. If even five people read this blog, it will be considered a success.
7. I promise to post something worth your time at least once a week.
I think that’s good so far. We’ll be adding as we go.
Here’s a couple relevant blogs (so I’ve been told) that I’ve been reading in an effort to get up to speed on the issues particular to our community.
That’s far from a proper introduction to those blogs, but click around on them and get acquainted on your own time. I’m off to pump out a column.
