BABA RAM DASS (Richard Alpert Ph.D) chants
an Indian song. Dass, who has traveled
extensively in the East and has worked with
Dr. Timothy Leary, talked about LSD and
particularly about his practice of Ashtanga
(Raja) yoga and other yogas. He had taken
several types of hallucinogens and studied under
a guru in the Himalayan Mountains searching
for the key to the knowledge of enlightenment.
Photo by Rand Dennis
St. Valentine’s Day and Friday the 13th fall dreadfully close to each
other this year and a little too much thinking about the matter can lead
to some interesting spirals of thought.
According to some musty volumes in the library, this “holiday for lovers”
evolved out of two separate traditions. The Christian tradition stretches
back to the martyrdom of St. Valentine on February 14, 270 A.D. when
he was executed for refusing to renounce his faith. His execution occured
during the Roman festival of Lupercalia which was held to insure the
fertility of people, flocks and fields. During the feast, young people would
traditionally draw names from an urn to determine the identity of their
true love.
When the Christians took over control of the calendar, they incorporated
the now too-familiar pattern of substituting religious holidays for pagan
festivals, and St. Valentines Day replaced the orgy.
Most of us have grown up celebrating St. Valentine’s Day in the green
backed tradition of American capitalism with the resulting instinct to buy
our way out of the situation. However, this tradition may be soon subject
to alteration, along with the accompanying roles of men and women.
For a further examination of this subject, turn to page eight and dis
cover another all new Emerald Wallposter.
ODE to sell
by bulk rate
The Student Publications Board Thursday unanimously approved
the financial section of a proposed plan which would reorganize
the Emerald’s relationship with the University.
The reorganization plan, prepared by Associate Director of Uni
versity Relations Herb Penny, was sent to the Publications Board
last week so that it could make recommendations to University
President Robert Clark.
Several professional organizations have endorsed financial and
legal independence of student publications from their universities.
A study completed last December for the University of California
also recommended fiscal independence.
During the two-hour meeting Thursday, the board approved mov
ing from subsidies to a system of bulk rate subscriptions for students,
faculty and staff.
Discussion of the proposed financial reorganization centered around
whether or not the Emerald would be threatened by editorial con
trol under the subscription plan.
Emerald Editor Paul Brainerd told the board there would be less
of a threat under the new system than there is now with the
ASUO approving a line-item budget.
Brainerd told the group of the successes of other college news
papers under similar bulk rate systems. He explained the proposed
method encouraged long-range financial planning.
The approved plan calls for the Emerald to negotiate bulk rate
subscription contracts with both the ASUO and the University to
provide copies of the Emerald for free distribution on the campus.
The subscription rate would be based on a fixed amount per
employee or student each year. Currently subsidies and payments for
faculty-staff copies amount to about 30 per cent of the Emerald’s
total budget.
Discussion of the proper membership of a new governing body
provided in the reorganization plan centered on the addition of stu
dent and faculty members.
Brainerd stressed the proposed board was a “working board”
and should remain small and have members directly concerned with
the successful month-to-month operation of the paper.
The current board is composed of the Emerald editor, five ASUO
appointees and six faculty members. The proposed board would in
clude one faculty member from the School of Journalism, the School
of Law and the School of Business Administration; a member ap
pointed by the University president; a representative of the ASUO;
the Emerald editor, business manager, managing editor and an at
large member elected by the paper’s staff.
Spence Alpert, student member, made two motions to increase
the number of ASUO appointments and both were defeated by tie
votes. A motion by Alpert to add one faculty member at-large was
accepted by a 4-2 vote.
Consideration of other sections of the proposal was delayed until
next Thursday as only six of the board’s 12 members were present.
The reorganization proposal must be approved by University Presi
dent Robert Clark, the ASUO president and the Emerald editor be
fore it can become effective.
Head of Survive?' class says
Personal effort needed to end pollution
Aiming to instill personal de
sires to curb environmental pol
lution, University professor of
sociology John MacGregor plans
to distribute his expansive over
view on pollution to anyone who's
interested.
For starters, a showing of Mac
Gregor’s multi-media socio-eco
logical presentation, "Where are
you at?” is tentatively scheduled
in McArthur Court for Feb. 27,
and copies of the written text
will soon be made available to'
the public.
More than 2,000 members of
the “Can Man Survive?” SEARCH
class gave overwhelming ap
proval to MacGregor’s initial
presentation Feb. 2 — his com
mentary along with slides and
tapes. It hasn’t been offered
since, but the great volume of
repeat performance requests has
encouraged MacGregor to seek
a larger audience “Where are
you at?” was created by Mac
Gregor and local media designed
Bruce Bittle, who operates five
slide projectors on a 40-by-60
foot screen during the commen
tary while MacGregor narrates
and plays tapes.
A desire to show “personal
concern people could identify
with” prompted MacGregor to
set about producing a multi
media ecological message, which
he noted is closely linked with
a number of "complex, inter
related social problems leading
to a basic personal alienation in
Western culture.”
“This (presentation) is more
than a look at pollution,” he
continued. “It deals with the es
trangement of the individual
through himself, others, and the
total environment.”
Eager to reach as many per
sons as possible with this ecologi
cal overview, MacGregor notes
that efforts are being made to
send “Where are you at?” to
audiences beyond the Eugene
area. Several suggestions regard
ing this were made by the media
public communications action
group of “Can Man Survive?”
Monday night.
These included a call for pres
entations at various Oregon pub
lic schools and during the April
22 environment teach-ins at Port
land State and Oregon State uni
versities, filming live scenes to
go along with the audio delivery
in order to create a television
program; a video-tape of the
presentation to include a trans
posed picture of MacGregor on
the screen along with the pres
ent slide projector shots, and a
widespread distribution of Mac
Gregor’s text.
At present, though, no deci
sions have been made on what—
if any—steps will be taken to
send the presentation beyond the
Eugene area.
The MacGregor-Bittle produc
tion is broken down into ten main
JOHN MacGREGOR
areas. They appear in this order:
• alienation
• overpopulation
• quantity of environmental
resources
• quality of environmental
resources
• distribution of resources
• person-to-person alienation
• impersonal relations hips
creating bureaucracy
• alienation contributing to
hostility (depicted through riots
and the Vietnam war)
• national goals and purpose
• individual commitments in
attacking depersonalization and
environmental pollution.
In his discourse, MacGregor
traces the source of modern
western alienation to Aristotle’s
dichotomous line of thinking
which he considers to be a still
prevalent “black and white” con
cept of good and bad.
What has resulted from this
dichotomous thinking, says Mac
Gregor, is a number of pressures
on the individual to be some
thing that is contrary to his na
ture. He claims this has fostered
unnatural competition and alien
ation between people, a theme
revealed often in the presenta
tion.
The audial presentation, which
includes MacGregor’s unaccom
panied rendition of satirist Tom
Lahrer’s “The Pollution Song,”
gains support for its message
through the simultaneous slides.
They depict everything from pol
luted water to crass commercial
ism and waste to impersonl sex.
Also, Bittle flashes many slides
on the screen which don’t direct
ly relate to MacGregor’s text,
designed to heighten the view
er’s involvement.
“Most of the visual slides
weren’t commented on,” Bittle
said, “because we want the view
er to make his own connections
between the slides and what Mac
is saying.”
MaeGregor stresses the impor
tance of an inter-related over
view of socio-ecological problems
for anyone wanting to attack en
vironmental issues.
“My main challenge is to point
out that technology alone isn’t
the answer to eliminating pollu
tion. The real answer lies in a
moral revolution, which has got
to be initiated by the individual.
“You can’t attack pollution
problems piecemeal. When you
do, often times new problem are
created.
“I’m not opposed to people who
want to seek technological solu
tions to specific issues,” added
MacGregor in clarifying his posi
tion, “but I think they have to
have an awareness of what the
specific effect will be in relation
to society and the entire environ
ment.”
Copies of MacGregor’s “Where
are you at?” text will be avail
able “perhaps by next week,” he
said. The text will be given out
in the newly-established ecology
projects coordinating center, lo
cated in the old Oregana office
on the EMU mezzanine.
The new coordinating center
will have information on file per
taining to all campus ecology
movements. It will be the official
headquarters of the “Nature’s
Conspiracy” conservation move
ment; "Time-Out For Survival,” a
group organizing University ac
tivities for the week of the na
tional environment teach-in April
22, and SEARCH-funded ecology
programs.