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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 10, 1982)
Oregon daily . _ emerald Winter sports Page 1B Wednesday, November 10, 1982 Eugene, Oregon Volume 84. Number 49 It would be nice... Emerald photo editor Bob Baker (not pictured) was on assignment‘ in Hawaii last week, covering the weather. He reports balmy blue skies with temperatures hitting 85 degrees in Honolulu — a stark contrast to Eugene 's expected high today, which the National Weather Service predicts will be in the mid 40s. The low in Honolulu Tuesday sank to a chilly 71 degrees, whereas lows in the 20s are expected in the Eugene-Springfield area today. Foggy skies with partial clearing in the late afternoon and a 10 percent chance of precipitation are also in the works for Eugene today. Arms control talks ‘useless,’ claims anti-nuclear speaker By Frank Shaw OfVw EmaraM The Reagan administration's Strategic Arms Reductions Talks are almost useless in terms of reducing the arms race and the threat of nuclear war. said Tom Lynch, a Citizen Action for Lasting Security member Lynch criticized the admin istration's START negotiations in comparison with the proposed nuclear freeze in a Tuesday speech sponsored by Students for a Nuclear Free Fu ture The Soviet Union has far more land-based weapons than the United States and the START agreement would limit the number tor both sides to 2.500, forcing the Soviets the to cut their arsenal by half, he said The United States would be able to add 300 missiles to the svstem Lynch said the proposed basing of the Pershing II and Cruise missiles in Europe is a good example of the difference between START and the nuclear freeze proposals While the Soviets have medium-range missiles based in Europe — the SS-20 — the North Atlantic Treaty Organization alliance has none, he said Tom Lynch used a variety of visual aids is his speech comparing Reagan's START plans to the nuclear freeze proposal. ‘ (NATO) looked at just a small part of the arms race," Lynch said, "and decided we were behind." In reality, he said, the Pershing II and Cruise missile give NATO an incredible edge, because both missiles can reach the Soviet Union in four to six minutes from the previous 30 min utes, cutting the time the Soviets have to respond to a potential attack “What looks on paper like a balance," Lynch said, “is in fact a gross imbalance.” This imbalance forces the Soviets to rely more heavily on their computers, and com puters often make mistakes, he said For example, computer errors mobilized the armed forces in the United States three times within 18 months from 1979-80. "We re being asked to put our faith in the Soviet computer system when our own has been proven so fallible," he said Lynch said the four most important United States additions to the nuclear arsenal are the Pershing II, the Cruise missile, the MX missile system and the Trident missiles, all of which have the features of being first-strike, non verifiable weapons. A first-strike weapon is one designed to destroy enemy missiles before they are launched, and a non-verifiable weapon is one that is difficult or impossible to detect once it has been installed None of these would be affected by the START talks, but all would fall under the jurisdiction of a nuclear freeze, Lynch said “These weapons are the future of the arms race and START deals with none of them,” he said. Lynch said a nuclear freeze would reduce world tension, stop the development of first strike weaponry, stop the development of non-verifiable weapons, maintain nuclear parity, set the stage for reductions and strengthen the economy of both countries. In a recent study it was estimated that over a five year length of time the U S. would save $200 billion, he said. The administration’s proposals would retire the Poseidon missiles and replace them with a lesser number of Trident missiles, giving the appearance of reductions but in reality only replacing a large number of relatively inac curate missiles with a lesser number of highly accurate ones, Lynch said. “It's not really a numbers game," he said, “It’s a race of technology, and that's a race the U S. is winning." Surgeon general zaps unsafe video games PITTSBURGH (AP) - Video games may be hazardous to the health of young people, said U S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop on Tuesday Koop, a Philadelphia pediatric surg eon who became surgeon general in January, said "more and more people are beginning to understand' adverse mental and physical effects of video games on pre-teenage and teenage children "They are into it body and soul," Koop said. "Their body language is tremendous and everything is zap the enemy. There's nothing constructive in the games. “There are educational video games,” Koop said, “but the kind the kids like and the kind they are addicted to are Martians coming in that have to be killed The enemy is coming here (and) you have to zap them. “Everything is eliminate, kill, destroy," Koop said The surgeon general, speaking at the University of Pittsburgh's Western Psy chiatric Institute and Clinic, said doctors and psychiatrists are just now seeing "aberrations of childhood behavior” due to video games He described symptoms brought on by the games as “tensions, sleeplessness in kids and dreams that have to do with the things they have been doing all day.” Koop said he had no scientific evidence on the effect of video games on children, but he predicted statistical evidence will be forthcoming soon from the health care fields. Electronic games and television may also make some children too ready to accept real violence — or even willing to copy it, Koop said. “We have no evidence of a cause and-effect relationship,” said Charlene Margaritis, spokesperson in Los Angeles for Mattel Electronics, which makes the Intellevision home video system. "Most of the top-selling games are non-violent and involve sports, science fiction and fantasy themes," said Jack Wayman, spokesperson for the Washington-based Electronic Industries Association, which represents home video game manufacturers. "Very, very few of the games can be called violent," Wayman said. "Most are done with cartoon characters, a far cry from the violence seen on television, television news or a football game."
