Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 28, 1978)
Letters Vote ‘yes’ on No. 6 As a former board member of the Lane Humane Society (now the Greenhill Animal Shelter) I re peatedly urged the board to elimi nate the use of the decompres sion chamber and switch to he more humane method of injection of sodium pentabarbital to destroy unwanted animals. It was dis couraging to me that many of my fellow board members were not concerned about this issue. Ballot Measure No. 6 will re quire what the Lane Humane So ciety Board would not direct — the humane killing of animals. People will vote “Yes” for Ballot Measure No. 6 because they care about how animals die. Connie Thomas 37483 Riverside Dr. Pleasant Hill, Or. Statement sharpened I find it necessary to write this because my remarks at the Li brary Symposium have been un derstood as support for the cur rent efforts to automate the library’s card catalog, etc. Such was not my intention; therefore I write this to sharpen my state ment. It is becoming possible (and as publication increases, I believe it also becomes necessary) to or ganize descriptions of mono graphs and even individual papers in journals into a database for lit erature search. We will then be able to perform part of our search for library material through in teractive reference to the database. This should enable much more effective and thorough canvass of possible sources. We will have better starting points for browsing or source-hopping and also reduce our reliance on these activities. The costs of this kind of tool are decreasing dramatically every year, and the systems that would support good literature search are becoming feasible. The systems I forsee are not yet here; nationally they exist for very limited fields. Our collective con cern expressed in the library sym posium is evidence that a machine-readable catalog, like a card catalog or a published bib liography, is a very blunt instru ment for library search. Let us use the next few years working toward systems that will realize some of the tremendous improvements possible in our methods and tools for search for relevant or useful information. To ignore the possibilities is stupid. To adopt a storage mode that decreases our opportunities for finding scholarly material would be even more stupid. There is our challenge. George Struble Computer Science Dept. For human rights On May 23 the citizens of Eugene will face an issue of fun damental importance when the re ferendum on Human Rights comes to a vote. It is unfortunate that the welfare of a minority must be decided by the will of the major ity, but that is the way in which this matter comes before us, and we must therefore choose wisely and with compassion. It should be remembered that homosexuality is not against the law in Oregon. We are a nation of laws and must remain so if we are to survive. If laws are broken, I am a confident that the Eugene police and court system will act appro priately, regardless of the sexual orientation of the individual in volved. We are voting on protec tion for law-abiding citizens, and the Human Rights amend ment applies to both homosexuals and heterosexuals, in other words, to all of us. Although there are many lesser issues which have been men tioned in the letters-to-the-editor column here and in the Eugene Register-Guard, the real issue is ensuring basic human dignity for all our citizens; Freedom from ar bitrary eviction and from loss of employment are essential to this dignity. Few of us are so strong and self-sufficient that we do not need the tolerance and compas sion of others. All of us belong to one minority or another; it is all the “theys" that make up the ‘‘us.'' We do a double evil when we single out groups or individuals for arbi trary exclusion from full citizen ship, both to them and to our selves. Let us reject fear and pre judice in favor of compassion and tolerance. Vote No on repealing the Human Rights ordinance. Let us stand firm against those who would drive us apart. Let us be a community. Daniel P. Kimble Professor of Psychology IFC disruptive Kent Mortimore's statement that the IFC hearing to determine allocation for Forensics, 1978-79, “resembled a circus” (Letters, April 24), certainly is a proper one from his personal perspective, but as the one who both wrote and proposed the budget, requires a certain amount of delineation. Not all members of the IFC engaged in the exercise in democracy-by frustration which was at the center of the hearing of April 13. In fact, the majority of members listened dosely to the arguments on both sides, and voted their honest opin ion. Even Dave Tyler, who sup ported a cut in the existing budget by the maximum 10 percent al lowed, did the same. Rather, it was the deliberate ac tions of the remaining three mem bers which turned what should have been a routine hearing into a two-hour ordeal. Procedural prob lems were carefully outlined in Mortimore’s letter, and shall not be dealt with here, but came as no surprise. In early January, before budgets were officially submitted, and while specific line items were still being formed, I was assured by Janet Eggleston that Forensics would be cut, and further, that she had arranged the votes to accom plish that task. That sentiment was echoed by Jeff Warren on January 13, a date on which I doubt that either had read the specific written proposal. It ap peared to me then, as it does now, that something more than a goal based budgeting procedure was about to take place. In the hearing itself, therefore, even such frivolous acts as Ted Walker’s motion that $448.71 be allocated for payroll assessment, a budget item which required less than a tenth of that sum. came as no great shock. What did concern me was that a reasonable budget hearing should contain so many cases of abuse of the process. Two come readily to mind: 1) Jeff Warren's proposal for $5,000 reflected, in his own words, an “arbitrary” amount. After carefully working out a figure of $7,071.25 for the same purpose (recommended by ASUO), a $5,000 figure, backed with no reasons for the cut, struck me as both mindless and irresponsible. 2) On at least two occasions during the meeting, Janet Eggles ton felt compelled to announce either the votes of Warren or Walker, before either had expres sed an opinion, raised a hand, or indicated a perference in any fash ion. In both cases, those votes were recorded as if those involved had actually made them. In any case, the fact that such things took place runs counter to any estab lished form of parlimentary proce dure. In short, Mortimore’s contention that he was “appalled at the be havior of several committee members” rings true, but not necessarily for the reasons he gave. Most committee members conducted themselves in an ac ceptablefashion. It was those who acted in a vague and disruptive manner that gave Forensics treatment which was less than de-* served, and their behavior was certainly far less than should be expected by those who hold or aspire to high positions in student government. Dale Buckley Director of Forensics Boycott worthless Last spring I wrote the Emerald a letter in which I urged students to vote against a boycott of southern African countries. I argued that in ternational economic boycotts are counterproductive, hypocritical, and inimical to our own interests. The editor told me he wouldn’t print that letter, and he didn’t. Please permit me now to make those same points in reference to Senator Mark Hatfield’s proposal to boycott Ugandan coffee. First of all, an economic boycott of Uganda would be counter productive. The tactic has been tried hundreds of times in the past, and the results were always the same: the hard-line elements get the upper hand. In an oligarchy, there is a complete eclipse of the most moderate people, the ones whose influence derivesfrom bus iness, government, and cultural contacts abroad. In a dictatorship like Uganda, the paranoic and egoistic elements of the tyrant’s personality come to the fore. Why provoke Idi Amin, when he seems to be experiencing a period of rela tive self-restraint? An international boycott can be effective only if 1) it is sudden and unexpected, 2) if trade or aid had previously been on a very high level, and 3) if the boycott is ex erted at a crucial moment. A hypothetical example might be if the Soviet Union had refused the Egyptian Army spare parts when it was surrounded by the Israelis. In stead, the Soviet Union waited until Egypt’s crucial moment had pas sed and so its later refusal to sell Egypt spare parts must rank as one of the most counterproductive boycotts in history — the Rus sians were expelled from the country. A boycott against Uganda now would not meet even one of the above three criteria. Secondly, internationl boy cotts are hypocritical. We boycott some and excuse the many others who are just as bad. I suppose that Hatfield's proposal is a response to the movement to boycott South Africa and Rhodesia. To be sure, this is a more creative response than the resignated acquiescence of so many academic and community leaders to this leftist moral tunnel vision, but this hardly makes it a consistent policy. This tactic is also hypocritical in another, less obvious way. The proposed boycott will exert neglig ible pressure on Amin, because he is only interested in personal power and he already gets all the tools he needs to maintain that power from Libya and the com munist bloc. Rather, the boycott will further improvish Uganda's unarmed populace and thus pres sure them to rise up in desperate revolt. The hypocricy is the sup position that we Americans would have revolted long ago if we were Ugandans. (In the case of South Africa and Rhodesia, the Ameri can left would like to provoke a premature uprising there while only the extremists are armed.) Thirdly, economic boycotts are inimical to our own interests. In ternational trade keeps our economy strong, and maximum personal contacts keep us well in formed and sharpen our moral focus. We are not to blame for the evil in the world because we con sume foreign oil, coffee, and cav iar or because we sell them our gadgets. This truth is bitter to those who would like to make the world perfect easily. Mike Sylwester 4830 Center Way Eugene 97405 Editor's note: Greg Wasson, Emerald editor for last year, in forms us that Sylwester’s letter wasn't run because he, Wasson, decided its satirical content may have been offensive to some people. Letters Policy The Emerald will accept and try to print all letters and opinion col umns containing fair comment on ideas and topics of concern or interest to the University commun ity. Letters and opinions must be typewritten, using 65-character margins, and should be triple spaced. Letters and opinions must be signed, with the author's year and field of study (or faculty status) noted. -opinion-v Why the strike Submitted by Scott Higgins President, University Student Employees Union Senior, Economics and Geography The student labor force at the EMU food service has called a strike today to show the University that we will not accept slave wages nor stand for the withdrawal of our seniority rights. The University has stated that it will not pay us the current minimum wage. Although they are legally exempt from paying the minimum wage, there is no reason why EMU workers should be forced to accept less than the going wage in the rest of the community. One reason the University can get away with not paying a decent wage is the nature of the labor force. Over half of the labor force in the EMU food service are foreign students. They are limited to work only on campus without getting a U S. work permit, which is hard and complicated to obtain. Most other jobs on campus are limited to work-study students and are only granted to U.S. citizens. The University is exploiting the foreign students who are trapped into work at the EMU by not paying a decent wage. The University also wants to take away our existing seniority rights by exempting positions in both the EMU and dormitory food services in which people would be assigned by the management with no regard as to a person’s seniority. These exemptions would open the door once again to favoritism and legalize discrimination. Past experience has shown that when the management, especially in the housing department, has scheduled without the seniority system, it is not the most qual ified, but the most favored employees who get their desired shifts. We will not settle for wholesale favoritism. We are asking everyone to honor our picket lines today and boycott the EMU food services and beer garden today. We will not give up our rights to a decent wage and fair working conditions.
