Oregon daily
emerald
Tuesday, October 26, 1982
Eugene. Oregon
Volume 84. Number 37
Bomb threats
empty class,
ruin midterm
By Debbie Howlett
Of the Emerald
Two bomb threats halted a midterm and
forced the evacuation of Room 150 Geology at
about 12:45 p m Monday
One threat was received at the EMU Main
Desk phone at approximately 12 45 p m and then
another at the campus security office about
12:50 pm, according to campus and police of
ficials.
There were two different people that called
There was a woman (who called the main deski,
and a man called the office." said Richard Tan
ner, director of campus security
"They said they were the Revolutionary
0 Youth Brigade, I can't remember exactly, but they
said there is a bomb in 150 Geology and it
would go off at 1 pm.,' said Debby Martin, an
EMU employee who took the first call at the main
desk
Then they said something about capitalism
— death to capitalist pigs or die all pigs of capi
talism, I can't remember verbatim — it had to do
with capitalist pigs," she said
Campus security and the city police re
sponded and searched the room At about i 05
p m the room was declared safe to re-enter
The call "sounded like it was a tape record
ing," Tanner said
The callers identified themselves as members
of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade,
but Tanner said the public safety office has not
been able to contact the group You never
know, Tanner said when asked if he thought the
group was responsible
OTIie Emerald tried to contact the RCYB
several times without results
Some people waiting for the officers to check
the room speculated the bomb threat came to
avert the mid-term examination in John Keana s
Organic Chemistry class
It's shocking, but it relieves the pressure (of
the exam), but it's sad. said a student who
pieferred not to be identified
Keana canceled the exam and said a make
up exam would not be given Keana said the bomb
threat, if done to avoid the midterm, was awfully
selfish "
Despite the speculation, the investigation will
continue in the same manner any bomb scare
investigation would, said Sgt Rick Allison,
Eugene Police Department
It's too bad students have to suffer," Allison
said "One of these days it might be for real "
Pictures worth 114,000 words
By Sandy Johnstone
Of th» Emerald
A picture is worth over 114.000 words estimated
Randall Stickrod, keynote speaker Monday night at the
Computer Graphics Conference, which attracted about
800 people to its first day of activities
Stickrod. editor and publisher of Computer Graphics
World magazine, discussed the potential tor computer
graphics in different fields
While he admits many people may wonder about the
value of applying sophisticated computer technology to
pictures, Stickrod says computers can show so much
information that the eye cannot process it all,
Stickrod sees computer graphics as a "compelling''
technology
The reason it is so compelling is the latest buzzword
— productivity," he says.
Using computer graphics increases productivity in
almost every field, says Stickrod. For example, in design
there is a lot of redundant work being done by talented
people because when they start to produce something
new (like a car for General Motors or a plane for Boeing),
they have to start from scratch.
By using computer graphics, Stickrod notes the
preliminary work would be in the computer so the
designer could just make alterations in the computer
itself
"It's not that computer design is better or more
creative or enhances the creative process,” he says. "It
just allows artists to be more productive "
Stickrod notes the boom in computer graphics is
quite a change from four or five years ago when only a
small group of people were involved
“The last three to five years have seen a quiet
revolution The second industrial revolution is happening
in the world today,” he says. Stickrod notes the advances
in commercial and industrial use of computer graphics
have become common because of technology which
allows computers to store more information in a smaller
area for less money
"It has become available to even the smallest com
mercial and industrial users," says Stickrod “It has
become legitimate as a tool e .ndustry.”
Even as Stickrod speaks about advances in the
computer graphics field, he adds cautiously are is still a
need for improvements.
“I don’t want to make it seem like computer graphics
have arrived,” he says Stickrod explains the software is
an enormous problem which has been changing in the
last year or so.
He also says there is a need for a clearer
understanding of the use of colors. Right now there are
up to 16 million colors available.
“The technlogy is ahead of people's ability to use it,”
he says. We need to teach people how to use color
properly.”
“Reduced to the most elemental level, the most
important impact is the next generation of children will be
utterly uninhibited by technology,” he says. “It will be an
extension of everyday life. If we are impressed by ad
vances today wait ten years when those kids hit the
streets.”
Disaffiliated: Woman ‘outgrows’ Greek life
By Ann Portal
Ot the Emerald
isa remembers the exact night
last year when she decided to
move out of her sorority
She got home late from work
after a "long, tiring day” only
to discover she had forgotten to call and
say she would be late for dinner
Because she hadn't called, there was
no dinner and no chance of getting any
She went out and got a can of pop
When Lisa returned to the house and
started upstairs with the can, the house
manager chastised her for drinking on
the first floor
"And that was just it,” Lisa said.
"There comes a time when you say, ‘I
don't want to be in this anymore — how
can I get out?' "
Lisa, 21, is a former University sorority
member who decided after three years
that sorority life no longer fit her lifestyle
‘It's so screwed because the reasons
they were formed at the time aren't valid
any more,’’ she said
Women used to join sororities to find
husbands, to have their meals prepared,
to live in a safe environment and to be
part of "the ethics of Christian woman
hood," she said.
"All those false morals. That’s what the
sorority system is, but they’re no longer
reality,” said Lisa, adding that she wasn't
the only one to leave her house last year.
"Lisa,” incidentally, isn’t her real
name. A University senior, she asked for
anonymity so her interview wouldn’t re
flect on her old sorority. She also was
concerned how her former sorority sis
ters might react to a newspaper article
discussing their lifestyle
Not many women disaffiliate (“D A. ")
from sororities each year, said Marti
Chaney, Panhellenic advisor. Her office
is in the middle of changing and improv
ing record keeping, Chaney said, so no
definite figures are available.
Sorority membership this year is close
to last year's level, she said, although fall
rush was down a little, probably because
of the drop in enrollment and a large
spring rush last year. Of 351 girls who
participated in fall rush, 266 pledged
In general, each sorority is self
regulating and has its own policies
regarding disaffiliation, Chaney said
Sorority members usually sign several
agreements when they are initiated into a
sorority, including a promise to live at the
house until a new member is ready to
move in
But Chaney sees "living in” as one of
the main advantages of belonging to a
sorority. By having someone else to do
the shopping, meal preparation and
cleaning, it gives the student more time
to be a student, she said
"I think there’s so much time ahead
that you have to do that — Why let that
interfere with what you're here to do?”
Lisa felt it was the sorority that was
interfering with what she was here to do.
So she left the guaranteed social life, the
secret handshakes and passwords and
the "Christian” ceremonies for a life as a
non-Greek apartment dweller.
She now calls herself — with obvious
relish — a "born-again G D I.” (God
damned independent).
Lisa was quick to point out that her first
two years as a sorority sister weren't like
the third She joined her sorority during
her freshman year, she said, partly
because her mother, father and brothers
all had been Greeks at Oregon State
University.
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