Greek guard riles reporter at Duck game
Hyped up for the Cal football game, a few
friends and I arrived at Autzen Stadium in
plenty of time to secure good student seats
for the game.
We thought.
reporter's notebook
frank shaw
We walked up to a huge section of empty
seats about halfway up the stadium and on
the 20 yard-line and sat down. “Hey!" a
drunken student yelled as he staggered up
to us. "You can't sit there."
We looked around in confusion, thinking
perhaps we had gotten turned around and
were trying to sit in the reserved seat sec
tions. No, this was the right spot. Student
section, no reserved seats.
We said as much to our inebriated friepd.
"No, we're saving these six rows of seats
for our friends,” he slobbered. "They'll be
here later."
We sat down.
"You can leave now and find some other
seats, or you can leave when all our friends
get here," he said. We stood there and
argued for a while. These aren’t reserved
seats, we pointed out. If your friends
wanted to get good seats, they should have
come early.
As we stood arguing, more people started
to trickle in to the "reserved seats." The
guard started to try to herd these new in
terlopers out. We moved to other seats a
few rows down.
By the ‘time we, had settled, the section
had been filled with other f^ns, and our
Neanderthal friend was trying to secure a
new section a few rows up.
A man and his wife walked up. “You can't
sit here," he tried.
"Have you ever seen a mad Marine, boy,"
the man hollered. "I'll wipe that smile off
your face." He, too, went and sat
somewhere else.
A few minutes later the guard received
reinforcments in the form of his "friends"
who started to arrive in various stages of
drunkeness.
You guessed it, they were from a fraterni
ty. We stayed in our seats. About half way
through the first quarter we wished we
hadn't.
We saw people hand-passed up and and
down the stands. We watched people stag
ger up the aisle and and stop to chat with
their friends — effectively blocking our
view. We heard discussions about parties
and girls. We listened to two girls moan
about not having Vuarnets for the glare,
and we listened to an in-depth discussion
on the relative merits of the different finger
nail polishes.
It was.. .um.. .stimulating conversation.
But we didn't get to see the game.
I don't really have any complaints about
friends sitting together. But what burns me
up is the idea of Greeks “reserving" stu
dent seats. I paid the same amount of
money for my tickets as anyone else. I'll sit
where I want.
So next time, Greeks, if you could cut the
tailgater just a little bit shorter, get there
earlier and don't post the guards. You'll
make more friends that way.
letters
/Twilight'
I write in response to your arti
cle about the SEARCH program
(Oct.6). I would especially like to
address the questions surroun
ding "Twilight of Western
Thought."
I have taken two terms of the
three term course. Though I was
cautioned about taking a 400 level
sociology course as a sophomore,
I looked forward to the challenge.
I was not to be disappointed. It
was extremely challenging, cover
ing topics new to me (such as
nihilism and psychoanalysis) and
shedding new light onto old sub
jects. If it were not for Doug
Groothuis' teaching ability and his
sincere desire to see his students
succeed, I'm sure I would have
either dropped the class or receiv
ed a very poor grade. Not only was
the class itself mind-expanding
but the instructor made a con
scious effort to see that the
students understood the ideas ex
pressed. He encouraged, and
received, student feedback
throughout the two terms. The
course was not an easy A. Today,
two years later, the challenge of
the class continues to encourage
me to explore and examine the
ideas and topics it presented.
After all, isn't that what education
is- all about'
Tom Simpson
senior, telecommunications
Draft rally
The Associated Students of Lane
Community College are honored
to be co-sponsoring a rally with
the Associated Students of the
University of Oregon in voicing
our common opposition to draft
registration and the linkage of
financial aid.
There is a move in Congress to
repeal this discriminatory law. It is
our obligation to have extensive
lobbying efforts to encourage our
representatives to support this
repeal and also to become active
in the process of building support
for the repeal.
This law is not only
discriminatory because it forces
people to incriminate themselves,
but it is also discriminatory
against lower-income people. It is
a very dangerous precedent to
compel universities and colleges
and their financial aid offices to
become police officers of the
state. This is another example of
the Reagan administration priority
on military development while
maintaining a blatant insensitivity
to social needs. We are witnessing
diminishing support for education
while unprecedented spending
goes to military madness.
The students of LCC are proud
to work with students from the
University on such urgent com
mon goals. Students from LCC
will be attending the rally at the
University courtyard on Friday,
Oct. 14 at 12:30 p.m. In order for
our concerns^ to be heard, we
must join our efforts together.
Bryan Moore, ASLCC president
Nigel Griffith
student resource center director
Cathy Benjamin
communications diret tor
Stephen Wysong, cultural director
Humanist
I write this letter in reaction to a
recent Maranatha demonstration
against abortion in the EMU cour
tyard. I feel compelled to express
my views and the views of many
modern humanists on the subject.
In contemporary society the deci
sion is made daily which living
creatures shall live and which
shall die. That decision is based
upon what we determine to be the
level of the living creature's con
sciousness. Cows, we determine,
have a level of consciousness so
low that it is acceptable to kill
them for their beef. Some people
take exception to this; the majori
ty do not. Many argue that whales
have a consciousness level so high
,that it is morally wrong to kill
them for their blubber. I raise
these two issues because they are
interrelated to the abortion issue.
A fertilized egg is, at this stage
of development, a one-celled
creature. It does not, by defini
Hraann Ptlllv Fmmld
tion, have any consciousness. I
will open myself to the charge of
sensationalism, but I must point
out the stark fact that a mosquito
has more consciousness than a
fertilized egg. The United States
Supreme Court has decided that
the killing of a fertilized egg does
not constitute the taking of a
human life. Furthermore, it has
left to the individual states the
power to determine at what point
the human embryo is to be con
sidered a human life. Many of us
in the humanities feel that this
distinction should be based upon
the embryo's level of con
sciousness, its ability to feel pain
and fear. These capacities do not
exist for the fertilized egg. It is up
to the embryologists, the experts,
to tell us when they do. For now
the working model appears to be
three to six months.
To this view many will counter
that it is the human potential
which counts. In response we can
only say that it is safer to consider
things as they are, and not as they
might become. Others will
counter that human kind is en
dowed with a soul. This conten
tion is religious in nature and thus
has no place in the discussion
determining the laws of our
secular society.
Keith Bowen
senior, English
Reservations
We agree with your reservations
about the use of the terms
"vagrant" and "transient" ("Police
May Abuse Task Force Plan,"
Sept.30) as they are so vague as to
be meaningless. However, we
disagree that the recent Vagrancy
Task Force report (or any other
authority, for that matter) "allows
(police) carte blanche to stop and
cite any person or groups." We
simply do not have that kind of
discretion, that kind of power.
You ask what stops us from
"citing as vagrant" someone who
is hanging out on 13th Avenue.
The U.S. Constitution and its in
terpretations make it clear that
"vagrancy" is not a crime. If there
is no crime being committed or
none has been committed, there
can be no citations.
Please be assured we do not in
terpret the Vagrancy Task Force
recommendations as advice to
harass students of the University
or anyone else in this community.
On the contrary, the work of the
Task Force has focused attention
on problems on homelessness,
joblessness, and hunger and has
made us even more conscious of
our need to be sensitive to those
problems and to remain a con
structive force within this city.
lames Packard
chief, Eugene police
No message
The problem with Maranatha's
anti-abortion position from a
religious perspective, that tji^re_
is no message from Cod about
abortion in that Jewish-Christian
document known as the "Bible,”
upon which Maranatha seeks to
base its views.
Two things the Bible does sug
gest about the origins of human
life are: human life begins when
Cod breathes the spirit of life into
a potential being (Gen.2:7,
Hebrew word nephesh means
both breath and spirit); and
human beings are co-creators of
life along with God (Gen. 4:1).
From these descriptions, a cou
ple things are clear to me: "to be"
as a human being is to be able to
enter into relationships with other
human beings and with God on
the levels of dialogue, choice, and
action: this happens at birth when
the energizing spirit of life sur
faces the newborn into the com
munity of interacting life. And as a
co-creator of life, a mother has the
choice (just as God does) to effect
the creation of a human being or
not effect it. The creative act is not
mandated.
God endowed human beings
with freedom to choose what we
will affirm as fruits of our lives and
what we will not affirm. To accept
the gift of human life is to accept
both the pain and the joy of
responsible choosing. One of our
most significant choices is
whether or not to actualize a new
human being through birth. That
will always be done with fear,
trembling, and joy.
Stuart Shaw
Wesley foundation
Hearsay
Melissa Martin's article on
SEARCH in the Oct. 6 issue of the
Emerald is a compilation of opi
nion, rumor and hearsay.
According to the article, "the
SEARCH program is a persistent
problem," an opinion shared by
Paul Holbo and supposedly some
unidentified complainers. Neither
Martin nor Holbo explain precise
ly win/ is complaining or why.
Holbo has concerns, but there are
no specific allegations from other
quarters against the SEARCH
program.
Certainly any instructor,
whether a faculty member or
SEARCH instructor, has an obliga
tion not to indoctrinate students.
Had this been happening in
SEARCH, I doubt the prgram
would have survived for 15 years.
If there are legitimate areas for
concern which haven't already
been addressed, let's hear about
them from a spectrum of past and
present SEARCH instructors,
faculty sponsors, students and
staff. There is more to this pro
gram than one person's concerns,
"The Twilight of Western
Thought," and anonymous
unspecified complaints.
Incidentally, if anyone happens
to "pass mustard," I hope they
see a doctor.
Kathy Bogan
graduate, art
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