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
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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
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