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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 10, 1994)
EDITORIAL Dorm life shouldn't include vagrant life After high school graduation, it's off to college for some For most freshmen there's dorm life, the institu tional living system where people live in small concrete cubicles with couches that can be made into beds ■ or is that beds that < an be made into couches? Suddenly, privacy is history. Everyday, students sleep in the same rooms, shower in the same showers, walk in the same halls, eat in the same cafeterias and pay mon ey to do it. For incoming freshmen, one of the most traumatic experiences is meeting their roommate, others in the same hall and their roommates. As if the whole room male experience isn't bad enough, imagine meeting a vagrant who is a neighbor’s roommate. The whole dorm life idea is crazy enough to begin with, so why make space for vagrants as well? The last place one would expect to see a vagrant tak ing refuge is a college dorm, but they are. They are at the University, and some dorm residents are inviting vagrants to stav with them. »\ residence hull director said trie general rule is: Guests arc welcome for a few days, and it is a good idea to let the hall director know if a guest will be staying. For those who have guests of the opposite sex. the guests are encouraged to use the appropriate bathrooms. Dorm residents are welcome to have brothers, sisters and friends stop in for a visit but certainly not vagrants. The somewhat vague policy now being enforced (most of the time) obviously leads one to believe there is a problem. A large part of the problem might very well be the source of the policy. After making a call to try to discover what the dorm "guest policy" was, a residence assistant recommended that a call lie made to someone at an area desk, who recommended that a call be made to housing, who recommended that a call lie made to a residence director, who finally unveiled the hard-to-get, easy-to-bend policy. One thing for certain in a group living situation is that not everyone will agree on everything. The ono thing that has always boon understood is that everyone pays rent. Everyone except the vagrants. The rules dealing with guests are an attempt to appease the majority, but lot's not forgot the idea of group living. The group living idea is that some people will have to sacrifice some things for the benefit of the entire group. The blame for vagrants shacking up can be put on the residence assistant or the blnmo can he put on those with the open door policy that allows the vagrants to bunk up. For those dorm residents with an open door policy, shut it. College dorms are not a place for vagrants, nor is the idea conducive to group living. Some people - believe it or not - don’t want to live with vagrants. And for those dorm residents who stumble over a vagrant taking uninvited refuge, call the residence assistants and have them do their job. And for those who enforce the "guest policy.” revise it. Oregon Doily Emerald Managing EdMo< Editorial Editor Graphics Editor Fraalanca Editor PO UOi luG£»4t OflCGOh*'* ! he l V(^v- £)»/, t is published daily Monday through f "day during !h» schoo yea’ and Tuesday and Thursday during the summer by the Oregon Daily Emerald Publishing Co . Irv at the University ol Oegon f ugene. Oregon T tie / merard operates independently cm the University with ottcea at Suae 300 ot the t rb Memorial Un*on and is a memtior ot the Associated Press The f mevaid i» private property The unlawful removal or use ot papers « prosecutatire Editor-In-Chlef Jane I leg Galley Andevson Sports Editor Steve Mms David Thorn Editorial Editor jet! Pcsharc* te« Paslay Photo Editor KAchaei Shtv»et Je« Winters Supplements Editor Kaly Soto Night Editor t dward Kloptenstern Associate Editors Edward Kloptenstern. Student Government Acin-.’m llebecta Meruit Community Jut»e Swenson Mrgner Education Admin.#.-ebon Nesrs SUM Mandy Baucum t nc OueKhalter Wilson Chan Oave Charbonneau J>m Dav.s Meg Dedotph Amy Devenpo’i Cafa Echevarria Maiia fields Mann Eishet. Sarah i tender son Heather te Himes. Yin l eng leong. Manus Meiano Insia Noel t i.sabeih Iteentlyerna. FW*>e Reeves t .a Satocoa. Scot! Srmonson Stephan-e Sisson Susanne Steffens Julie Svronsen Mchoie Ihompeon Agu.ar Kevin Tnpp Amy van Tuyi. Danre West Guneral Manager Judy Rmd Advertising Director Man Waiter Production Manager Mchete Ross Advertising: Subw Dutta. Rede Mwtmar. Teresa IsaboSe. Jett Manon Jeremy Mason M • ,K- M rife R«:haw Trull Kelsey Wonei! Angie W,ndhe*m Claaaltied: Re vy Merchant. Manage• Vctor Mena. Sim T/e lock Dlatflbotlon: Andy Harvey John Long. Gtaham Simpson Business kathy Carbone. Supervisor Judy Connolty Production Dee McCobb Production Cotyc*nala Shawma Ahern Greg Desmond Tara Gauttney. B>ad Joss. Stacy Mtcheli. Jenruter Roland. Ran Thangnyt. Clayton Yee Newsroom . MB-5511 Display Advertising- J4B-37IJ Business OMlce.J4B-55T2 Clasaltlad Advertising. Ut-A3*3 A $PE(TMlLX* Tmt Am irr* 0-kCx in wnu ■w JUDGES A LETTERS True motives On |an 2H, a proposal vs as submitted by the Oregon Com mvntator demanding the offb e currently occupied by the Iran ian Student Association, the Japanese Student Organization, the Muslim Student Association and the Singapore Student Association The Commentator's proposal is to move all of the above orga nizations from our now modest a< i oinmodations into a virtual pigeonhole in KMU Hoorn 205, also known as the piano room. The KMU Hoard House Commit tee took this proposal seriously enough to schedule a hearing Wednesday night How can a University that seemingly prides itself as a champion of equality and multi i ultural learning take this pro posal seriously ' Bv sheer num tiers the lour collei live student assix lations represent more than TOO people, while the Common lator, with its alleged staff of ' i and a i in elation of not much more, serves only as an agitator and a nuisance We all know the reputation of the Commentator, but on Tues day. Feb 1. I overheard some comments that only further stain that reputation Comments such as "That's so unfair that the Black Student Union and Saferide get so much more mon ey " What’s worse is that these people are funded by the Uni versity You and I are paying for them. Is this the kind of repre sentation we want? I believe the true motives for the move, tiesides "conquering" our larger office, are to get the collective four student unions as far as possible from the "white student union " Do these people deserve a largo office to further propagate their views? Do we really need u "white student union" at a University striving for diversity and equality? Michael Shaheed Glaros Officer of Cultural Affairs Muslim Student Association Hypocritical? Non-Zionist Jews? As a non Muslim. non-Jevvish American citizen. 1 attended the roundtable discussion Feb. 7 and was inter ested in the Jewish population's justification of "occupation, exclusion and killing" of the Palestinian people. Thu co-director of tin; Jewish Student Union replied. "Where should we go'" My response: I wouldn’t go and slaughter those with whom your people had been living peacefully for the past 1,000 years — possibly you would claim the land that was rightfully yours in Europe! Most of the other Jewish stu dents simply claimed, "I'm a non-Zionist Jew.” Really' I’ve never heard of your kind. I don't see your objections in the letters section of the icx.nl newspaper; I've never seen you on the evening news or heard you on the radio. If you object, as one of the Jews said, to "going to Israel and see ing a Palestinian boy being stoned by the Jewish boys while riding his bicycle," why not dis tinguish yourselves? Why, for example, co-sponsor a fund-rais ing event for the people of Bosnia as a non-Zionist Jew and be killing Palestinians, as Serbs do Bosnians, allowing yourselves to tie publicly represented as a Zion ist Jew? Isn't this hypocritical? Amy L. Davis-Bruner Psychology Struggle I feel that there is a great amount of misunderstanding and insensitivity surrounding the use of the word "Jap” as an abbrevi ation for "Japanese" in the Uni versity's slide collection. Two previous letters in response to Edward Klopfenstein's Jan. 27 Emerald article on Asian-Amer ican racism defended its use. equating "Jap" to "Chi" for Chi nese and "Kus" for Russian. 'Hus analogy fails miserably, for "Chi” and "Kus" carry no negative con notations or meaning other than as abbreviations The authors of those letters, I.isa Clay-pool (ODE, Fell 3) and Charles Lnchman [ODE. Feb. 7). possibly do not know what the word "Jap" means to a Japanese-American. f or myself, "Jap" means more than just an abbreviation for "Japanese." It was a derogatory term used during World War II to fuel hatred and distrust toward anyone with an Asian face. It was the last word heard bv my uncle before he was run down and killed in the street on his first day of school. It con jures up images of my family, forced out of their California homes to be shipped off to internment camps. It reminds me of their struggle of more than 50 years to regain what was lost, every obstacle they faced and every form of discrimination they felt. But "Jap" is not just a word from the past. We hear it on this campus whispered behind our hacks, yelled at us on the street or in threatening phone calls recorded on answering machines. When you use the word ''|ap.'' you are not just dis respecting me but every lapan ese-American in this country. "Jf’N," which is non-offend ing, ran easily he substituted for "Jap'' as it is used in the course catalog. Brandon Sugiyama Asian/Pacific-American Student Union Dave’s no Duck Open letter to Dave Charbon neau: We are writing this letter in reference to your Feb. H article in the Emerald about our signs at the basketball game against Cal. First of all, I don't think that you understand our true dedica tion to the Oregon basketball team. The signs weren't made to get on television: they were made to distract Jason Kidd and take him out of the game men tally. This is what some true sports fans do at sporting events. I jo you understand (erry Green's sixth-man concept? F'very week you rip on our basketball team, vet you get annoyed when some guys want to do something about our team to make it better We made five signs altogether Two wore in support of Brion Smith, wanting him to bo rein stated. The fifth sign made no reference to Kidd's features. I personally think that the basket ball team appreciates the effort to support it. Why can't you see it as something positive? So from now on, leave sports to the fans who really appreciate it' Adam Aro Ryan Maklnson Quinn Vance Students
