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
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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
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