I r Commentary
Robert W. Straub
Rogue trail defaced by improvements
I have just returned from a back-pack
hike down the Rogue River Trail with my
wife and I don’t like what I saw!
This is the only river basin in Oregon
primitive enough to be included in the
original Federal Wild Rivers Act.
The Rogue River Trail was made 200
years ago by the Indians. It has been used
over these many years by miners and
mules packing supplies into the mines. It is
a beautiful, primitive, unique kind of
hiking trail—approximately 43 miles
long—ideal for a two-or-three-day back
pack.
The BLM has the responsibility over the
upper portion of this trail. I am appalled at
what I see the BLM doing to fulfill their
notion of preserving a wilderness area.
Leave them alone for five more years
and they will ruin it and waste a lot of
taxpayers’ money in the process.
Here are three things that are happening
under BLM management:
First, they have installed outrageious,
blue and white plastic, chemically
sanitized, perfumed toilets along the
trail located in the most conspicuous
spots along the river. Anyone on the river
or the trail can see these phony, Hollywood
substitutes for an honest, self-respecting
outhouse a quarter of a mile away. If a
hiker can’t see them, he can smell the
ersatz perfume way down the trail. I think
these toilets are made in Southern
California—probably in Hollywood. At
least they use the same cheap, movie
house perfume.
Second, BLM, which is supposed to
preserve the natural qualities of the
wilderness trail, has set fire to some of the
wonderful old miners’ cabins tucked into
the trees and blending so well with the
natural environment. BLM’s judgment
appears to be that old-time, historic,
miners’ cabins are incompatible with the
wilderness law.
Yet BLM apparently sees nothing wrong
with posting bright blue, sentry-type
outhouses at strategic spots all up and
down the river, at what cost I hate to think.
Some of the people along the river told me
the toilets were flown in by helicopter.
Since some are located below the winter
flood level, they presumably will have to
be helicoptered out in the late fall, and
then brought back again in the spring the
same way.
Next is the building of footbridges of
BLM to cross the little creeks that flow into
the Rogue. This is a real beaut! You ought
to see the just-completed footbridge built
across Kelsay Creek. It is a monstrous,
concrete-based, steel-reinforced structure
which I swear would carry the load of a log
truck. It must be the most over-designed
structure in the state of Oregon. For fifty
years, three logs have spanned that creek
and served the mules, miners and hikers
with no problem. To replace with a similar
structure would cost not to exceed $500.
You would have to see to believe what
BLM has built across Kelsay Creek as a
substitute for those three simple logs. I
estimated the cost at about $10,000, but a
resident living down river said he was told
it cost $27,000. Whether it actually cost
$10,000 or $27,000, it was too much money,
and this kind of elaborate, overdone
structure doesn’t belong oh an old mining
trail.
I see that the BLM is also surveying the
trail. This probably means they are going
to be “upgrading" the trail to meet their
standards. This means straightening out
the curves and the contours of the original
trail—which gives the Rogue River hike
such beauty and character.
In another five years, if BLM keeps
going, I predict they will spend a million
dollars “improving” the Rogue River
Trail. Leave it the way it is— the way it’s
been for 200 years. Spend your money
instead on timber management and
planting young Douglas fir trees in
brushed-over land. I believe if you would
put up a sign at each end of the trail and
simply say: “This is your trail—take care
of it,” and then stay completely out, it
would remain an authentic wilderness
area, be more enjoyable to those of us who
love to hike it, and the public would be
spared a vast and totally innecessary
expenditure.
Gary Cole
Who will protect us from OSPIRG?
ine umversuy oi uregons version ot
Nader’s raiders; OSPIRG, which claims to
be a consumer protection agency, among
other things, has released a report on the
sale of records in the Eugene area. By its
printing we make several assumptions.
One, that it is valid. Two, that it covers the
ground indicated. And, three, we can use
this survey when we as consumers march
out to the battlefield of business to wage
our wit against their policies. I’m sorry to
report that by digging into the survey I
found the assumptions to be fallacious on
the grounds that it is inadequate and in
complete.
A consumer protection report, by
definition, is designed to give the con
sumer adequate information to arm
himself against unscrupulous business
practices and enough facts to make an
intelligent choice. Yet, by all indications
these very elements have been left out of
this survey. If we are to clarify the report,
let us ask several pertinent questions:
1. Is the survey broad enough in
examining only fifteen albums?
2. What is meant by “highly sough*”
albums? Sought by whom?
3. What is meant by median price?
Making a survey of record dealers it
becomes apparent that no attempt was
made to distinguish the type of records
included in this survey. The different
stores listed appeal to different types of
customers they are trying to attract to
their establishments. Let us clarify now
the difference of special price and sale
price. Some of the stores listed, those in
the generalized term of head shops, list
their prices lower on the albums that will
draw the people into their stores. Whereas,
a store like Bon Marche makes no effort to
list records any lower to draw customers.
So, some of these stores have prices which
are specialized to the different types of
albums and these are not to be confused
with a sale price, which is a lowering of an
already determined price. This in itself
causes the term “median” to lose the
closely knit definition of being the
“average” price paid per record.
In using the term “median” it might
have been better to cover the entire
spectrum of records listed in Billboard’s
top one hundred albums as well as those
carried in the individual stores. Suppose
the survey had taken three from the top
ten, three from the next ten, and so on, and
had averaged the prices? Wouldn’t we
come closer to the term “median?” When
OSPIRG mentions “highly sought” do they
refer to teeny-boppers, hard rock, or
country? As I have shown the spectrum of
music is quite varied and leaves a lot to
interpretation.
Last, but not least, “merchant
policies” are variable according to
situation, not determinate on either yes or
no answers. Had OSPIRG asked the people
who make the policy, rather than some
poor schmuck who happened to be working
at the time the questions were asked, they
might have found this to be the case.
Conclusion: when making a survey;
that is, a generalized survey, make sure
your facts are broad enough to carry your
conclusion. It stands that OSPIRG in their
desire to help the community has misled
us, through ignorance rather than in
tention, to take at face value the assump
tions and conclusions drawn from their
efforts to inform us of the very thing they
tried to do. If this type of naivete is con
tinued we may come to the point of asking
whether it was worth the time and effort. If
those who try to lead us out of the darkness
are also blind, where do we end but
stumbling after them. Worst of all, if
OSPIRG is to protect us from the fallacies
of everyday living, who is to protect us
from OSPIRG?
Gary L. Cole
Jr., Philosophy
Letters
At a recent ASUO senate meeting a
notice of motion was presented calling for
a re-apportionment of the senate by sex.
While on the surface this bill may seem
unnecessary because a person’s sex can’t
bar their nomination to the ASUO senate.
It does however raise some interesting
questions concerning female participation
in politics. Why are there only
three women presently serving on the
ASUO senate? Notably one of them is the
President of the senate. Why do so few
women offer their names for nomination to
the student senate? As a former senator
and candidate for election this dall with
SAFE. I would like to urge any
interested women to run with the S.A.F.E.
party this all. Our party founded last year
is dedicated to a re organization of the
senate through qualified candidates, so as
to improve the senate as an effective
organization for student response.
Through a cooperation t of the sexes I
hope we can achieve that goal.
John Koford
Sr. Philosophy
"Officer, teil me very quietly . . .
who won the pennant?”