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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 21, 1969)
Oregon daily EMERALD Opinions expressed on the editorial page are those of the Emerald and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the ASUO or the University. However, the Emerald does present on this page columnists and letter writers whose opinions reflect those of our diverse readership and not those of the Emerald itself. PAUL BRAINERD ROBB MILLER Editor Business Manager Les Blumenthal Sue Heinz News Editor Managing Editor University of Oregon, Eugene, Wednesday, May 21, 1969 .. ~ Emerald Editor: UUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIilllllUJ Your problem Emerald Editor: This past week when the ASUO budget was released in the Daily Emerald I noticed just how curiously indicative the budget priorities were of our American society. At the very top of the list was the ath letic department with a near phenomenal $249,000. Athlet ics. exercise and athletes are fine but surely all those jocks are more than comfortable with their “astroturf” and the $400, 000 it cost to install largely on contributions from “well wish ing” alumni. Just the idea of the athletic department receiving all that cash over anything else brings to mind the absurdity of an other American priority: the constant paranoia over hair and the ignorance and apathy over the American ghetto, which is a hell-on earth for millions of our brothers. The ASUO budget shows about as much social, political and moral responsibility and sense as hanging Christmas tree ornaments on Boulder Dam be fore it collapses. What are they doing in the athletic depart - inent with the $70,000 for tow els. having them cleaned in Hong Kong? Just the slightest, most su perficial mental investigation will reveal to even the most dense just how ridiculous this expenditure is, and that it could certainly be spent on something much more socially, politically and morally significant than the athletic department. I can see the ASUO establish ing some kind of Poverty Re search Program where such ex penditures would be spent to help those of the State of Ore gon and in the country not for tunate enough to experience a university situation, much less the pleasures of an athletic de panmeni. The money could be used to finance scholarships directly through the ASUO or to send University students into the ghetto or other poverty areas to help the poor. Few of us as students of the University ever get the chance to directly help our brothers in the ghetto, we have all too lit tle money, time or guts to ex perience or give our attention to such an environment. An ASUO Poverty Research Program or other closely relat ed programs within the ASUO could serve as an excellent op portunity for us as supposedly socially, politically and moral ly responsible entities to do something about one of the very things that could destroy the university along with the rest of our society. Come on now! Which seems most important, a lot of jock’s clean towels and fancy equip ment or a response (your re sponse) to our most pressing so cial problem (your problem, brother)? Rod McCall Junior, Architecture Kirby writes Emerald Editor: The letter of mine printed in the Emerald May 8 was meant to inspire those in favor of abortion to voice their beliefs and to acquaint them with the sort of irrationality they would come up against in the opposi tion. It was also intended as a catalyst to action during a pe tition-signing and letter-writing campaign being waged here in support of the Roberts Bill. Unfortunately, it was not printed until the bill had al ready lost in the Oregon legis lature. One “right-thinking” Oregon senator did actually say that any woman who wanted an abortion deserved to die. Ed Fadeley seemed to think the bill oppressive because it would have allowed the indivi dual woman free choice in the question of abortion. One wom an very much against the bill thought that it would have al lowed her husband and her doc tor to force an abortion on her because their signatures would have been required for her to get one, after she had made the original choice. Of course, under the Roberts bill, as now, a doctor may ad vise a woman to abort if her health would be endangered by bearing the child. She still would have the choice to re fuse abortion and risk her own life in childbirth. Those are some examples of how the opposition to abortion reform thinks. Again, I was and am in favor of legal abor tion. I am pleased that so many responded so clearly to my first letter. With enough support and ac tion in the next two years, per haps such a bill can be passed in the next session of the Ore gon Legislature. Patsy Kirby Sick Emreld Edutor: Kris Hoegluhm dropps names and welds he can't evun sppel. Hirtz hurts. Hurt feles grate. Sum day he shuld here the man whoose name he missppelss. Mississippi John Hurt wood de lite ole Kris. I’m shure of it. Ashun Studese Junior Stven Zukhemun ‘Students unite!’ Emerald Editor: Until recently, the most press ing business for the true radi cal on our campus was to rid this University of professors who propagandize rather than teach. Thus, the Committee to Encourage Professors Using Propaganda Techniques to Leave Campus and Teaching (CEPUPTLCT) was formed. This committee is truly deserv ing of student support. However, it is clearly the case of radicals of good will must al so turn their attention to ano ther serious problem on the University campus. The issue is that of bringing an early end to student gov ernment. Our student “leaders" and those who would be our leaders make it ever so clear that they are a luxury we can no longer afford. Think for a moment of the possible reduction in tuition or the funds that could be given to the soealled deprived if there were no student govern ment to support. Therefore, the Committee for an Early End to Student Government (CEESG) is now being formed. I wish to urge all who care to do their very best to support the aims of both the above com mittees. To borrow a little of the surplus value of the late Prof. Marx, may I also suggest that students would have noth ing to lose but their chains. They have Indeed, a world to win. Students of our campus, unite! Barry Boyer Grad., Economics and Business one opinion —— -- odds and ends _ - - — —— — arattan he ran 6 Senate Minority Leader Dirkson’s pontification concerning the “sanctity of the Court” during the Fortas episode amazed this observer. Granted, the Justice was in error, but Senator Dirksen was the last person- I’d expected to be morally outraged by a conflict of interest. Asked last year why International Harvester, P a b s t Brewing, Pepsi Cola, National Lock, Panhandle Eastern Pipe Line, International Paper, and a dozen other giant firms, regulated by or doing business with the Federal Government, happened to travel to Peoria, Illinois to retain his law firm, Dirksen replied, “None of your business.” Slush Fund It’s noteworthy that Senator Packwood has so far escaped critical comment concerning the $40, 000 “communications fund” being raised in his benait. a similar scneme got Senator Charles Percy in so much hot water he had to abandon it. It will be interesting to see which prominent O r e gonians (and their wives, sons, daughters, in-laws, nephews, nieces, grandchil dren, and employees) make contributions of $100 each, the tentative limit on indi vidual gifts. The dangers to the public interest in such a plan are obvious, and protection against them will be difficult at best. Unless Senator Packwood is extremely careful, he will have the stigma of a “slush fund’’ to contend with. Free Warheads Nearly 6.6 billion dollars may seem like a lot of money for the “thin” Safeguard System now being debated in Congress, but it’s actually cheap when you consider that the Defense De partment gets the nuclear warheads free. In Congressional testimony and in Pentagon press releases, Under secretary Packard has put the “Department of Defense investment” in the Safeguard over the next six years at 6.6 billion. He didn't mention that this is without war heads. Those will cost the Atomic Energy Com mission 1.2 billion to produce, but the loss is absorbed by the AEC budget. It appears that the Administration is playing budget games as a hedge against the expected cost overrun of the system. However, if the 100 per cent cost overrun of the C5A troop transport plane is any indication, a measly 1.2 billion isn’t going to hide it. Dubious Cure Last week, Eric Hoffer described to a Con gressional subcommittee the sort of men capable of ending student violence and urban riots. “You need chancellors of universities and may ors of cities who will get up in the morning and spit on their hands and say, ‘Who am I going to kill today?’ These are the people who will kill you.” No doubt it is this enlightened philosophy that won him his place on the National Commis sion on the Causes and Prevention of Violence. Two Steps Back Reduction of the Job Corps by 20,000 men has satisfied at least one group. Building trade unions have always claimed a “lack of qualified appli cants” for their apprenticeship programs, and hundreds of locals in the country remain lily white as a result. Now that the Corps will be training that many less masons, carpenters, painters, and the like, the building trade unions can simply point to the reduction as continued proof of their claim. Obscenity Note When Ralph Ginzberg was sentenced to five years imprisonment for the way he advertised Eros, I thought we had reached the ends of ir rationality. I was wrong. President Nixon is asking Congress to approve five-year sentences and $50,000 fines for mailing to people under 18 anything dealing with a “sex ual subject in a manner unsuitable for young people.” Second offenses will bring ten years in jail and $100,000 fines. Of course, local juries will decide what an “unsuitable manner” is. A barbaric measure like this may slow down “obscenity,” but I doubt if it will teach young people about reasoning out a punishment to fit the “crime.” Jules Feiffer TWS'MX (r'.PLS Af?T tmcw TO l HOMEY I fm I HAWP50H5 m m mmep mm , 61R16- j me ,, WITH EWk litv mrneti yte SEX£S ! & w To BT mm mvn FltOR LOkPW IT
