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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 5, 1978)
Letters Please attend Tuesday, May 2, the ASUO sponsored an open forum for Eugene City Council candidates. We consequently cancelled- ap pearances throughout the after noon, when it became obvious that nobody was going to come. I apologize to the candidates I also wonder what’s happening when so few are interested in im portant races that will affect their city government. We will continue to sponsor forums; we will try to publicize them better, too. But please! Be responsible citizens and find out what is going on! Tuesday, May 9, EWEB candi dates will appear in an open forum in the EMU from noon to 2:00 p.m. Please come. Kelt Osborn ASUO Vice-President for State & University Affairs Here and now Little more than a week ago, on April 20, the Jewish Student Union and the Campus Christian Minis try sponsored a very fruitful dis cussion of the NBC film series, “Holocaust.” Near the end of the session, a woman asked what ac tion we in Eugene, in 1978, could take to prevent such an outrage as the holocaust from occurring again. The answer to this question — if, indeed, there is an appropriate answer — escapes me. The ques f tion did provoke, however, the fol lowing thought: We in Eugene, in 1978. are being asked to consider a proposal to refuse to homosex uals guarantees against discrimi nation in housing and employ ment which ought to belong to every American citizen as a civil right. The proposal does not call for a disabling' act, of the kind which kept Jews and other religi ous minorities out of public office and out of certain professions in many areas of Europe in centuries past. But the proposal is evidence of an exdusionist mentality that has led, in the past, to disabling acts and, in some instances, to holocausts. In partial and belated reaction to the woman s question in the ses sion on the "Holocaust,” I suggest taking a firm stand against repeal of the phrase of the city ordinance guaranteeing non-discrimination on the basis of sexual preference. George Sheridan Assistant Professor of History Petty facts I have to take a moment (more time would be excessive) to thank Jock Hatfield for his thoughtful discourse on learning (Emerald 4/21). It is simply amazing that a barbarian such as Jock can ex press himself as eloquently in Chinese as he does in English. It is a tribute to his warm typewriter and whatever other mental ap paratus simmering in his subter -Letters— ranean vault. His perceptions re mind me of a like-minded scholar of the sixteenth century, Claude Duret, who came to the conclu sion that Chinese was a language which belonged in the category of “the unarticulated voices of ani mals and birds." One can only la ment the fact M. Duret cannot ex perience Jock's language, but one can guess that he would have placed it in the category of that braying animal noted for the tail about its jawbone. In spite of all the good Jock has done for Chinese language teach ing in recent days, this may be a suitably obscure time and place to announce (for the first time) that the name of the language depart ment he has so libelously referred to is being changed from the De partment of Chinese and Japanese to the Department of East Asian Languages. The change will formally go into effect this fall. As an admirer, I can only hope Jock never does get hung up over petty matters of fact. I want him to remain just as he is — hunched over a warmed-over typewriter far from those chilly cerebral climes some folk call classrooms, chant ing his Chinese text to the drip of the water clock — for the next thirty years. Mike Fish Assistant Professor East Asian Languages The Emerald will accept and try to print all letters and opinion col umns containing fair comment on ideas and topics of concern or in terest to the University commun ity. Letters and opinions must be typewritten, using 65-character -Letters 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. Letters and opin ions will be run on a first-come first-served basis. ____opinion-.— Misleading myth Submitted by Greg Wasson 1976-77 Emerald Editor Last Friday was the day of the second Great Debate. State Sen. Victor Atiyeh, Rep. Roger Martin and former Gov. Tom McCall gathered to face students and answer questions important to the higher educa tion community. The format of the "debate” allowed neither follow-up questions nor questions from the audience of the three major contenders for the GOP gubernatorial nomination. But it did allow McCall to make use of myths surrounding his tenure in that office. Atiyeh started it v^ien he used a question about higher education funding to laud the Legislature's actions during the years of student unrest. When he finished McCall reminded the audience he’d been governor during that time. A check of budget totals shows Atiyeh was right: the Legislature did not use unrest of the late 60 s as an excuse to take financial swipes at higher education. But a review of Legislative records and the 1969 Emerald, the University’s student paper, show the Legislature and Gov. McCall were not the students’ friends. The 1969 Legislature passed and McCall signed into law a bill allowing the Governor to declare martial law on campuses facing "an emergency." The measure, HB 1880, required students and faculty to show identification before entenng campus during an emergency. It subjected unauthorized people refusing to leave to a possible $500 fine and a year in the county jail. At first, supporters of the bill tried to railroad it through the Legisla ture spurred by unconfirmed reports of a SDS conference supposedly scheduled for Oregon State University. Regular rules were suspended and the House passed the bill in two days. Opposition, though , delayed Senate action and final approval for about a month. That same year. McCall responded to "obscene materials" pub lished at the University in a letter to acting University Pres. Charles Johnson. McCall demanded that “this kind of depraved mischief be stopped.” University machines, he wrote, were not to be used to print obscenities. The day after the letter was sent. McCall made it public in Salem. The letter, and its public release, occured at a time when the Emerald specifically and students in general were under public attack for the use of obscene words and graphics in their publications. Chancellor Roy Lieuallen objected to McCall’s handling of the affair saying McCall should not have made the letter public. ASUO Pres. Dick Jones charged that McCall’s letter fueled public concern that the philosophy of students and faculty members at the University was represented by the SDS. He said the SDS was "only one of the many student organizations on this campus. ” McCall was accused of further political capitalization of the student movement. He flew over the University in a helicopter during this time earning himself a satirical award from the Emerald. The flight aggra vated statewide concerns that the University was a "hippie" school to be watched and feared. Nineteen-sixty-nine was almost ten years ago and people change Throwing the Vortex rock festival in 1971 to avoid violence at the American Legion Convention in Portland was a novel approach for a governor to take. But, Tom McCall should not be returned to the governor’s office because of myths surrounding his tenure there. And the idea that he responded to student unrest differently is one of those myths. —1 ' ' " 1 . np»n»in-, m ! ASUO elections: problems, apathy plague them Submitted by Robin Patrice Geer Senior, Graphic Design I openly question the ASUO election system. I sin cerely wonder if this is a direct tie-line between the apathy felt toward the student governmental system by 90 per cent of the population and the “parlor games” election procedures that turn out a grand total of 10 percent (maybe). It disturbs me because I am, and have been for the past 12 months, an active member of the ‘ system” on several levels. And now at this election time it is being dearly projected to me just how hazy the ASUO is. Concerned as the ASUO is about getting students to vote, it would appear contradictory that it would give such a concern to a hastily thrown together cloister called the “Elections Board”. It seems befitting that they would make the same error twice in the same year. Last fall art students were able to vote for SUAB # 10 which repres ents only architecture. Being the SUAB #11 which rep resents only art I pointed this error out to them. This spring when the open positions were announced, my former position was stated to represent art and architecture. The positions have not changed Apparently neither has the elections board or its problems. The rationale in releasing the ASUO Voter’s Guide on election day is quite questionable. It may remind peo ple that it is voting day, but it also holds back the platforms Paap 1 of all the candidates. Then, and only then, do we even begin to grasp what all the commotion in the Emerald is about and are able to start attaching ideas to the ads and flyers. If we consider how much time people have to con sider candidates, and the amount of media as well, to elections on other levels of government, can we in the ASUO really be surprised that the turn-out is small. And since most candidates direct their efforts toward the “popular”, it is highly doubtful that the unpopular sector feel they have enough input to warrent directing their efforts to the voting booths. And it is a bloody good way to keep the issues am biguous. The Emerald made a notable effort to cover the candidates. Still, the issues involved are cloudy. I think most people feel ill at ease to vote for a candidate who has platform concepts that suddenly appear out of nowhere. Abolish the Bicycle Patrol?! Apathy breeds in an environment where needs are not being met and are possibly being ignored. I may be running around with the wrong crowd but the needs I feel people need are more on the level of SURVIVAL. While the ASUO does make the university a better place, sev eral candidates would appear to direct their efforts back to the ASUO on the assumption that because it exists, there fore it is right. Before high-handed dreams, reality. Boyd wants to change the registration system, how do these candidates view it? Library storage? South Africa? Faculty Course Evaluations are a hot item but what sounds peachy in theory may be the pits in reality. New students and fresh men probably know very little about what has been done to date. Shouldn’t they, and the rest of us, b« permitted to know what it is we are voting about? Some of the new ideas aren't so new. Individually released course evaluations have al ready been investigated. As an administrator for "The Guide’’ I feel that the sheer amount of manpower, paper work, and cost to work within the course structure in this campus is, at best, a so-so idea. If we aren't meeting the students concerns why should they be concerned about the ASUO. The current Drake/Donald debate indicates that our “image” is get ting more input from students than most ASUO issues. The ambiguity of elections is forerunner to the prob lem. It also keeps the system safe. We must cease with the audacity that the apathy is entirely due to THEM. And admit that it is much easier to do as one pleases if no one knows what it was you were intending to do in the first place.
