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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 7, 1986)
Editorial Twenty days best class drop deadline • The University Assembly will decide today whether to extend the course drop deadline from 10 to 20 class days after the beginning of the term. We recommend the extension. Students need more than two weeks in which to decide whether they can master the material in a given course. The University catalog and the ASUO Course Guide provide some information about classes. Experienced students know that only time spent in class really provides enough knowledge about a class to allow an informed deci sion to keep or drop the class. The four-week deadline will give students this necessary margin. We hope that all Student Senate members attend the Assembly meeting. At the University Senate meeting that discussed the deadline, only five of the Student Senate members bothered to attend. The extension lost by one vote. The issue has gone to the Assembly because such a close vote in the Senate requires Assembly action. The Student Senate is supposed to have 18 members, but loses many to resignations each year. This occurs in part because issues such as the drop deadline are non-sexy and don’t give budding student politicians the chance to throw their weight around. The drop deadline issue may be boring, but for many students it is one of the most important facing their representatives this year. They need to be there to carry out their duty to represent students. In the recent ASUO elections. 91 percent of the voting students approved of the extension. This is a clear signal both to the Assembly and to the Student Senators. Oregon must divest now or face escalating protest Shantytowns in protest of apartheid have appeared at campuses around the country, and Tuesday the University got the beginnings of one, too. At Dartmouth and other schools, shantytowns have pro duced small-scale riots and arrests. Conservative and liberal students have clashed, sometimes violently, over the presence of such towns. State officials should divest now. South Africa is hardly a stable place to invest money, and Oregon money is suppor ting apartheid. The shantytown idea is a legitimate way to remind state officials that the issue of University investment in corporations involved in South Africa will not go away. The government of South Africa maintains a system in which voting and other benefits of citizenship are denied to black people. American corporations and states that tacitly support this government by their presence are delaying, not advancing reform. The state is not neutral. It is a part of this repression. University administrators elsewhere in the country are discovering that the divestment issue can disrupt the orderly bureaucracy of their institutions. Good. Let those administrators ask their boards and invest ment councils to divest. Let Chancellor Davis request that the State Board vote again for divestment, as it did in 1977. The Board should reaffirm its position on divestment each time it meets from now until the issue is resolved. Until it shows this one minute of moral courage each month, pro tests should continue. Letters Life sacred To a confused Rob Young: Between 500.000 and one million animals each year die to test cosmetics alone — hardly a life saving matter for humane beings. The two most common tests are the lethal Dose 50 per cent (LD50) test and the Draize eye irritancy test. The Draize test is used to measure the irritancy of pro ducts that might get into a per son’s eyes. Rabbits are used because their eyes don't pro duce tears. While one eye re mains untreated to serve as a control, into the other is in troduced the caustic substance to be tested. Remember how it felt the last time you got sham poo into your eyes? If you would like a more lengthy, detailed description of the damage caused to the rabbits' eyes before it was destroyed just write the manufacturer of Pro cter & Gamble. Clairol, etc. where they chart the results of these tests in case of a lawsuit against them. LD50 represents the lethal dose (usually oral) that will kill 50 percent of the animal test group. How much liquid bleach do you suppose it takes to kill a small mammal? How long do you imagine it takes them to die? Compassion is the key to unlocking our “inferiority com plex.” The total disregard for Oregon Daily Emerald The Oregon Daily Emerald is published Monday through Friday except during exam week and vacations by the Oregon Daily Emerald Publishing Co., at the University or Oregon, Eugene, Oregon. 97403 The Emerald operates independency of the University with offices on the third floor of the Erb Memorial Union and is a member of the Associated Press The Emerald is private property The unlawful removal or use of papers is prosecutable by law General Staff Advertising Director Production Manager Classified Advertising Assistant to the Publisher Susan Thslen Russell H Stoele Vince Adams Jean Ownbey Advertising Sales: David Wood - Sales Manager, John Boiler, Jessica Cederberg, Michael Gray, Laura Goldstein, Robin Joannides. Carlos Lamadrid. 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Capl Lynn, Amy Moss, Chuck Thompson, BJ. Thomsen Photographers Lynne Casey. Shu-Shing Chen, Maria Cor vallis, Steve Gibbons, Derrel Hewitt, Ross Martin, Karen Stallwood, Mike Wilhelm News and Editorial 686-551 t Display Advertising and Business 666-3712 Classified Advertising 666-4343 Production 666-4361 Circulation 686-5511 life present in our QVllJZation is exemplified in this torture of creatures wo consider to in* .*'infurior"»to ourselves. It is the same justification used throughout history for the death/torture/extermiruition of “savages,” "gooks,” “queers”, and other '‘obviously inferior” groups. . Compassion", Rob; all life is sacred. • ■ - Thomas Pettitt Cancelled To whoever made the deci sion to cancel the anti apartheid rally Ihs ause of’;: did I hear right .. . rain?! My ■ question: .1)6 you thing South Africans delay their fighj for frecdorit because, .of - the elements, let alone a few drops of moisture? Excuses like this only perpetuate apathy on cam pus and our self-righteous at titude .that conditions. must be perfect for us beforU we'll make efforts to help others. It's just .difficult to sob the disappointment of those who worked on getting the rally together and the students who sacrificed. classes to protest something they believed in. No one ever told me that rain made such a difference to Oregonians. Catherine O'Connor Student Religious hoax While religion may be all well and good as a mental security blanket for (he masses. a* so meone who thinks for himself. I find it difficult to take seriously. How many religions are t here? Thousands, bui of course •yours is the right one and all the rust are wrong, how silly of me to think otherwise I mean, you .co.yJdn’t be wrong, could you? I low . many different sect* of Christianity are there? Several, please take note . that these are people who purport to worship the same god. So much for their . claim.of an absolute deity . To the members of that par lieu tar .cult I say this: Yours is merely one among many com peting theologies; the burden of proof is on you. not on science. Now as to your "proof”: please keep in mind that eyewitness reports are notoriously unreliable, no mut ter who is making them, This is in addition to the fact that historical sources are subject to manipulation and distortion for personal ends. If human iteings could lie counted on to bo honest and accurate, you would have a case. As it is. you do not. As to Christ's so-called "powers”: some people are very clever and can fool others, magicians today also ac complish seeming miracles Several years ago. millions of people thought that Uri Getter had supernormal powers. Some hoaxes just last lunger than other Donald Hoverson Physics Letters Policy The Emerald will attempt to print all letters containing fair comment on topics of interest to the University community. Letters to the editor must be limited to 250 words, typed, signed and the identifica tion of the writer must be verified when the letter is turned in. The Emerald reserves the right to edit any letter for length or style. Letters to the editor should be turned into the Emerald office, Suite 300, EMU.