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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 22, 1981)
opinion bill manny even editors get the blues It’s been eight months since Oregon magazine, in its infinite wisdom, crowned Oregon State University the state’s king of higher educa tion. On the basis of Mom’s Weekends, cow-milk ing contests, beer busts and the lovable Benny Beaver, our Univeristy just can’t compete with OSU. Those of us who made the mistake of coming to the University missed our opportunity to find love and happiness at the state’s finest. But when you’re number two, you gotta try harder. Thanks to the magazine’s managers, we’ve seen the errors of our way. We spend too much time worrying about world hunger, herbicides, draft registration, crumbling libraries and human rights. And not enough time tapping kegs, relaxing with Mom or rallying in support of the draft. To redeem ourselves, we need to emulate OSU’s shining example. In this spirit of self-im provment, I’ve kept a watch for the past eight months, and I think I’ve hit upon the secret of being the best. From OSU’s award-winning Ba rometer, I’ve found: * That OSU students broke the record for Valentines Day kissing, after thousands gathered in Parker stadium. “Are your lips in shape?” wondered the hard-hitting student paper. * That although OSU is the finest bunch of swell undergraduates in the state, Uncle Bob McVicar, the OSU president, doesn’t think students need to have beer in their Memorial Union. * An ad in a pre-election Barometer read: “Total Women Want Reagan.” * Seems an OSU dean was “appointed dead in 1977,” according to the Barometer. The dead dean took the typo in stride. His secretary said his wife called to “speak with the corpse." * That DMSO “may be the best thing since peanut butter, but someone has to prove it before we can eat it with jelly on a sandwich." * “Get ready for a big Beaver weekend,” shouted a Barometer front page, covered with little Benny Beavers. Nice, but can it compare with “Eugene’s best butt?” Newspapers are a magnet for publicity releases bragging about every little thing anyone ever does. And OSU researchers do a lot, so we’re the recipient of a lot of fascinating facts. By studying these releases, I’ve found that being the best means: * Having “the straightest-shooting military student in America.” Evidently OSU has the finest ROTC marksman in the nation. And to think there are those on this campus that would kill off ROTC! * Having researchers that do “buoy studies” in the Gulf of Alaska. Another first for OSU. Most places have girl watchers. How many have “bouy studiers.” * Having an engineering school. Seems that engineers make so much dough these days that “engineering graduates have never had it so good.” * Having a Hermiston-based researcher who “collects ‘owl houses,’ in the hopes they’ll help him recruit airborne troops for his war with gophers.” Researcher Vance Pumphrey explains that the pesky rodents “are a menace to good resear ch,” and says poisons and traps have failed to halt the attacks of killer gophers. So he’s hit upon the idea of feeding them to the birds. “We’ll be glad to listen to anybody whooooo’s had experience attracting owls,” he says. * Having researchers working on the earth shaking revelations of the proper method to prepare “the unsung squid.” * Having researchers working on how to overdose horny moths with sexy smells. * Having lots of Greeks. Joining a fraternity as a freshman increases your odds of graduating from OSU, an OSU survey shows. What the study didn’t explain was that if you refuse to go Greek in Corvallis, you’re not in Corvallis very long. Semester superior Having experienced three types of academic fiscal division (semester, trimester, and quarter), I am convinced of the superiority of the semester system and would like to offer some observations on the Emerald's May 13 editorial panning such a system. The content of the editorial revealed both a misconception of the semester system, and a most curious idea of why people attend college and of what should be expected of them while they are there. First of all, semesters in many schools begin immediately after Labor Day, allow a month for Christmas break, and ad journ for the summer in mid-May (there are usually mid-term breaks as well). Thus the average semester is 13-15 weeks long, and not the five months implied by the editorial. Secondly, rather than creating additional hassles in the process of transferring from other I schools, quite the reverse is true as the majority of other schools are already on the semester system. Also, a majority of textbooks are written with semesters in mind, giving rise to one of the chief problems of the quarter system — many courses contain too much material to cram into a single quarter, but too little to fill two quarters. Neither option is really satisfactory here, though the latter is often taken thus requiring students to recall two quarter’s work (nearly six months) for a final exam. This brings up a third point: there is in either system a problem with “finals,” but it has to do with the concept of the "final examination” rather than the length of the school term, though realis tically, any student unable to remember in May something “learned” in January should not be attending a four-year or professional school. Finally, the idea of summer “beginning near the end of June” is appalingly provincial — Oregon is not the whole world, and if you treat it as such then you are going to create hassles for transfer students. It is indeed quite possible (and usual) to have a good time while going through school, but if a student’s main interests are “fun in the sun” with “brief immersions in a variety of subjects” when it rains, that student should reassess whether a four-year college — or college per se — is the place for him/her. Such students may be wasting their money — and their time. Hiawatha Graduate, music & philosophy A terrorist? I do not support the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade, but the socio-political ignorance expressed in Mike Rumble’s letter (May 20) must not go unaddressed. Point one: A* age 27, Bobby Sands, elected member of Parliament, had spent 1 ONLY S£ K C&VIQUS - INTHlS MAN'S ARMY,TWf$ QPFICXR Mflm.' nearly 14 years of his life in prison. At the time of his death, he was in the process of serving a 10-year sentence for an act (of "terrorism”) that most upstanding American citizens like Mr. Rumble tend to take for granted — possession of a firearm. Point two: If one is going to discuss the policies of the Irish Republican Army and the Palestine Liberation Organization, the historical tragedies resulting from Zionism and British imperialism must not be ignored. In reality, the scattered ac tivities of terrorism perpetrated by these resistance organizations can never and will never compare with the near genocidal acts of violence committed against their fathers and forefathers under English and Israeli hegemony. I too am often disturbed by the dogma of the RCYB, but anyone like John Kaiser who has the guts and basic intellect to question the undeniably distorted news fed to us by the mass media deserves some measure of respect. It is people like Mr. Rumble, on the other hand (who exercise a blind faith in the death ma chine of British and American trans national capitalism) that are actually supporting international terrorism and opposing the formation of truly democr atic societies in the world. Christian Gunther Sophomore, undeclared etterspoicy The Emerald will accept and at tempt to print all letters containing fair comment on issues, ideas and topics of interest to the University community. Letters must be limited to 250 words. Each letter must be signed and the author’s field of study or faculty or staff status noted. Each should be dated, and must also include the address and phone number of the author for verification prior to publication. The Emerald reserves the right to edit any letter for length, style or content. Publication of letters is dependent upon available space and can not be guaranteed.
