September 6, 2002

Carolina in the News

Current National Coverage

Here is a sampling of links and notes about Carolina 
people and programs cited recently in the national media:

National News Note

CSPAN's "Book TV" had a crew in Chapel Hill Thursday night to cover a summer reading 
program lecture by Michael Sells, author of "Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations," 
that attracted 700 people to Hill Hall Auditorium. CSPAN's broadcast of the 90-minute event 
is scheduled to air on Sunday, September 8, at 1:25 p.m. and again at Monday, September 9,
at 1:25 a.m. For more information about the segment, please go to 
http://www.booktv.org/General/index.asp?segID=2819&schedID=146. 

The National Associated Press also distributed a story about Sells' appearance that has the potential for
significant pick-up in both print and broadcast media today. Other North Carolina media covering the 
event included The Durham Herald-Sun http://www.herald-sun.com/orange/10-264439.html, The 
News and Observer http://newsobserver.com/news/triangle/story/1706114p-1722906c.html, 
WRAL-TV (CBS-Raleigh) http://www.wral.com/news/1651984/detail.html, WTVD-TV (ABC-
Durham) http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/news/ncnewsbriefs.html, News14 (Time-Warner, Raleigh), 
WLFL-TV (Warner Brothers, Raleigh) and WNCN-TV (NBC, Raleigh).

This makes the second national broadcast by CSPAN involving Carolina in the past two weeks. 
The national network also covered Chancellor Moeser's National Press Club appearance live 
Aug. 27 and rebroadcast the event several times.

National Coverage

The Islam Expert Who Now Heads a Divinity School
The Wall Street Journal
Less than a year after the Sept. 11 attacks, while America is still facing down Muslim terrorists, 
Harvard taps an Islamicist to head its Divinity School. The new dean, William Graham, specializes 
in ancient Islam -- he's also a Christian who attends services at an Episcopal church. And he's the 
first dean of the divinity school without a divinity degree... In an interview, Mr. Graham said that 
he finds it ridiculous that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill -- his alma mater -- came 
under fire recently for requiring incoming freshmen to read "Approaching the Qu'ran: The Early 
Revelations," by Michael Sells. 
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1031275152464136795,00.html?mod=weekend%5Fjournal%5Fprimary%5Fhs
(Note: The full text of this article is included at the end of today's edition of Carolina in the News.)

Study says cholesterol drug risky for nerves 
Toronto Star 
Cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins have been hailed as an enormous advance in the treatment 
of heart disease and stroke, medications so beneficial that some doctors have jokingly suggested 
putting them in the water supply... "This study does raise the awareness that polyneuropathy may 
occur, but other studies have not found it to be a significant problem," said cardiologist Sidney 
Smith, a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "The 
cardiovascular advantage is so substantial that we need to be sure that patients who need statins get 
them," added Smith, chief scientific officer for the American Heart Association.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1026144896739&call_page=TS_Health&call_pageid=968867505381&call_pagepath=Life/Health&col=969048872038
(Note: This National Associated Press story also appeared in the September 3 edition of 
The Washington Post.)

A defining experience for a young generation
Baltimore Sun
Eighteen teens sit at their desks in full first-day-of-school awkwardness: Eyes are wandering, hands 
fidgeting, yawns are being stifled... Glen H. Elder Jr., a sociology professor at the University of 
North Carolina and author of Children of the Great Depression, sees other parallels with current
times. At the least, the attacks "changed a generation's sense of vulnerability and its need to be 
engaged in the world."
http://www.sunspot.net/bal-te.children06sep06.story
(Note: This story featuring quotes by Elder was also featured in The Chicago Tribune http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/bal-te.children06sep06.story)

Doctors Reexamine the Process
Los Angeles Times
For 20 years, football players from Encino Crespi High lined the hallways and crowded the 
examination rooms of Dr. Richard Ferkel's Van Nuys medical office on a Saturday in August for 
what had become a rite of summer: an assembly line-style medical screening that allowed them to 
participate in sports... Last year, 17 high school and junior high football players died, according 
to the National Center for Catastrophic Sport Injury Research at the University of North 
Carolina.
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-physicals6sep06.story
(Note: The Los Angeles Times requires free registration to access articles.)

Franklyn Holzman, Economist and Critic of Moscow, 83, Dies
The New York Times
Franklyn D. Holzman, an economist who uncovered regressive taxation in the Soviet Union and 
railed against intelligence estimates of Soviet military spending, died on Sunday at the home of his 
daughter, Miriam Meyer, with whom he lived in Clifton, Va. He was 83... Franklyn Dunn 
Holzman was born and raised in Brooklyn, and received a bachelor's degree in economics from 
the University of North Carolina in 1940. 
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/06/obituaries/06HOLZ.html
(Note: The New York Times requires free registration to access articles.)

State and Local Coverage

Peeling the Orange
Durham Herald Sun
Much more hoopla is being made of the 50th anniversary of N.C. Memorial Hospital this week 
than when it actually opened on Sept. 2, 1952...
http://www.herald-sun.com/orange/10-264375.html

Issues and Trends Affecting Carolina

Senate hopefuls decry mailer from SEANC 
News and Observer
Ellie Kinnaird and Howard Lee, two Orange County Democrats who have worked as a team in 
the state Senate for the past six years, have had to do some awkward maneuvering on the campaign 
trail to highlight their differences while maintaining a pledge of civility. But things got ugly Thursday.
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/triangle/story/1706106p-1722869c.html

OWASA seeks ban on all outdoor water use
Durham Herald-Sun
An all-out ban on outdoor water use could take effect in Chapel Hill and Carrboro on Monday, 
if the towns’ mayors support an OWASA request to declare a "water supply emergency." The 
declaration would also force UNC to cut back on the use of potable water in campus heating and 
cooling systems, and hand the Orange Water and Sewer Authority’s executive director, Ed Kerwin,
the power to discontinue or reduce service to some customers.
http://www.herald-sun.com/orange/10-264421.html

Note: If you have any questions about Carolina in the News, 
please call Cathleen Keyser or Mike McFarland at News Services, 
(919) 962-2091 or news@unc.edu or mike_mcfarland@unc.edu
***

The Islam Expert Who Now Heads a Divinity School
The Wall Street Journal
September 6, 2002

Less than a year after the Sept. 11 attacks, while America is still facing down Muslim terrorists, Harvard 
taps an Islamicist to head its Divinity School. The new dean, William Graham, specializes in ancient Islam
-- he's also a Christian who attends services at an Episcopal church. And he's the first dean of the divinity 
school without a divinity degree.

It is an interesting moment for an expert in Islam to take over one of the nation's oldest, and most 
prominent, American divinity schools. It is also, perhaps, a good time to hear more about Mr. Graham's 
views of recent events and of his mission at Harvard.

In an interview, Mr. Graham said that he finds it ridiculous that the University of North Carolina at Chapel 
Hill -- his alma mater -- came under fire recently for requiring incoming freshmen to read "Approaching the 
Qu'ran: The Early Revelations," by Michael Sells. Critics said the book did not include the militant side of 
Islam, and they argued that requiring such a book in a state school breached the wall between church and 
state. Mr. Graham sees the whole controversy as a matter of academic freedom, and indeed a recent court 
decision, upholding North Carolina's reading list, agrees with him on this.

As for Islam itself, Mr. Graham believes that it is, as the phrase goes, a religion of peace. He explains that 
many everyday human-rights abuses committed in the name of Islam really occur because the Muslim world 
happens to overlap with a large swath of the impoverished world.

What about, I asked him, the Nigerian court that upheld an Islamic code requiring that a woman be stoned 
to death for adultery? The sentence, Mr. Graham says, isn't required by Islam. It is the result we'd expect 
in an undeveloped nation. "Not to apologize for it," he told me, but give these nations "200 years of 
development" and things will be different. It's not unlike the social norms "imposed by 18th-century American 
Protestantism."

What about the fundamentalist London cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri? Here is an imam who admits to sharing 
the views of Osama bin Laden and to being a Taliban sympathizer. "I think you can find more than Sheik 
Hamza," Mr. Graham explains. "Look at the IRA." Any faith has its extremists.

How should Americans view Saudi Arabia, a nation with a rigid patriarchal society that forces women to 
wear abayas and accept arranged marriages, that keeps them from owning property and requires them not 
to walk on the street without a male escort? "I don't think half of society would say they were oppressed 
there," Mr. Graham says of Saudi women. We look at it from our vantage point, he notes, not with Saudi 
eyes. Besides, Americans should not throw stones. "We're a country that can't pass an equal rights amendment." 
This is also the land where McCarthyism happened, he adds.

But Mr. Graham isn't, as he confesses, an international-relations scholar or a political scientist. He is a student 
of Islam and now a divinity-school dean, and looking across the Muslim world he sees a lot of reason to be
hopeful. "It's not impossible at all" for Islam to be integrated into the modern world, he said. "It's not going 
to be easy, but Islam is going to have to reform. . . . But religious movements do this all the time."

Throughout the Muslim world he sees two layers to society. On top is a dictator; but peel back his regime 
and on the grass-roots level you'll find that Islam is often the foundation of a civil society. Mosques and 
Islamic organizations provide health care, education and other services, he says, sometimes doing more than 
local or national governments. The people who run such groups would also be a force for moderation, Mr. 
Graham believes, if authoritarian regimes didn't squelch their calls for reform.

Mr. Graham is not talking about those who run the madrassas -- schools where radicalism and militancy 
are at the core of the curriculum. They are ideological and promote a hijacked version of Islam, he notes, 
"which again is government-supported."

His own school, to teach modern Islam, relies on a professor in its women's studies department or professors
from other schools within Harvard. Mr. Graham hopes to change that by hiring at least one new Islamicist.

And what is the U.S. teaching the Muslim world? Muslims everywhere, Mr. Graham thinks, are watching 
what we do in Afghanistan. Now Islamic reform is possible there. If we help construct a peaceful and 
prosperous country, we'll find it easier to promote reform elsewhere. The same is true for Iraq, "if the regime
falls" and we have a willingness to rebuild the country's infrastructure.

"I'd like to see more leadership emerge" to give "the more moderate version of Islam." That we don't have 
such leadership now is "the real tragedy."