EDITORIALS. OPINIONS. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Unabombers manifesto
may explode on media
■ OUR OPINION Thf
promises of a terrors!
should nof be believed
For nearly two decades
the l Inalwirnber has stalked,
murdered or seriously
Injured his victims through
the postal system. Ho has
also remained silent while
evading and perplexing
investigators for the past 17
years
Suddenly, after taking the
life of his latest vie tim in
April, the t fnabotnber ail
hut shut down busy I.os
Angeles International Air
port with a written bomb
threat early in July It was
his version ol a joke, but tin*
ensuing media blit/ was
enough to shame ,i Fortune
S00 public relations firm or
ad agency.
I'he new controversy is
over the Unahomlrer's sud
den desire to stroke his ego
fry seeing his views printed
in Thr Washington Past and
Ihr \’ri\ York Tmu-s via <i
word self-styled
manifesto. The Unabomber
says ho will slop killing if
this document is printed
The issue is whether the
media should cooperate
with a terrorist and
whether the man c an lx*
trusted
The answer to both quos
lions is no.
The media should not let
a murderer coerce them into
voicing his ideology An
individual who kills people
and ruins the lives of others
t annot he trusted to “keep
fits word."
We are not dealing with a
rational person here We are
dealing with a clever but
sick individual who needs
to he stopped. I httil the
killer is caught. authorities
and editors should continue
to keep him in the head
lines anything to make
him feel powerful. Then
maybe he'll get careless and
give himself away
Increase in teen smoking
not caused by ignorance
■ OUR OPINION: Young
smokers know the risks,
they just don’t care
A ret <tnl survey by the
Amerit an l.ung Association
shows a 10 voar high in the
number of tonnage smokers:
H .2 percent of high school
teenagers admitted to smok
ing ( igarottes in a one
month period.
Anti smoking advocates
arc ( ailing for stridor regu
lation of the product, a ban
on unattended vending
machines, a reduction in the
number of smoking ads
dirot ted at teens and larger
warning labels to combat
the ini roaso.
While all of the proposed
regulations may help reduce
the number of teenage
smokers slightly, it misses
the larger question of why
teenagers are taking up the
habit in the first plat e.
All teenage smokers know
that cigarettes r ause * ancer.
Thoy live in a nation of non
smoking offlt <*s. airports
and restaurants Their par
ents are less likely to smoke
than any generation of par
ents before them Will any
of the new regulations keep
them from lighting up?
Probably not. Teens smoke
for reasons that cannot be
legislatively removed.
They smoke be< ause it is
rebellious. They smoke
bet ause they feel invint ible,
but they also smoke because
they see a world of violent.**,
drug abuse and absentee
parents .* world when*
they think diet are more
likely to be shot or get AIDS
than die of i ancer They
rationalize that in tin* face of
all that, what different o will
a tilth* nicotine make? The
solution to teen smoking,
then, lies in showing Ameri
* a s youth what they have to
live for. not what can kill
them.
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LETTERS
Reanalogize
I'd Iilu* Jo respond to the In
ter submitted by James I.
Humpy* {ODt:, Jul\ ZS) Beside
the fat t that he is poorly
informed about Bosnia llerze
govina, his “Oregon analogy"
makes me feel that he fries lo
obscure the core of the problem
Hrsl of all. it was not Mus
Inns, fiut all of the Bosnians
(Muslims, Croats. Serbs and ali
others) who decided to setede
from Yugoslavia It was the Ser
hion nationalists (different from
the Serbs who are loyal lo
Bosnia) who started to prepare
for the destruction of Bosnia
well before Bosnia's hid for Hide
pendente Bosnia is different
from Yugoslavia Y ugoslavia was
indeed an artifu lal < real ion In
the major powers in the West
However. Bosnia has been its
own distinct historiml and jHilit
ual entity since medieval times
Sis ondly, it is true that atrot -
dies have been committed by
both sides. But he misses the
jHimt The Serbian offensive was
not .1 result ol a spontaneous
explosion of intercommunal
hatred, hut rather a well-coordi
nated. well-planned ethnic
cleansing by Serbian polilu inns.
Intel!** tuals and the mass media
in lx>th Bosnia and Serfna Atns
ilies on non Muslims have been
done hy Muslim extremist units
who have always been dis< i
plined or at least condemned hy
the Bosnia government The
Bosnia government, represent
ing all sides, followed every sug
gestion that the international
community proposed before its
independence Does Mr
Bumpas know that the Bosnia
President Alija Detbegovic. a
devout Muslim committed to
multicuituralisin. proposed the
plan to preserve Yugoslavia
when Croatia and Slovenia
intended to secede from
Y ugoslavia? It was the Serbian
nationalists, with an insensitive,
nationalistic polic y of the Croa
tian government, w ho caused the
disintegration of Yugoslavia
Then* is a dangerous implica
tion in Mr Bumpas' analogy,
because he portrays that the
Muslim" government selfishly
sought independent e. disre
garding .1 will of the S»*rhs Well,
them is "another" wav to look at
Bosnia Let's regard the Serbian
nationalists In Bosnia as sepa
ratist Oregonians That dearly
explains the situation in Bosnia.
Like A M Rosenthal anti
Alexander Co kburn. his analy
sis only gives a wrong impres
sion about Bosnia to readers
Certainly, oil politics is
involved rhe Serbian leaders
and arnty officials knew that the
West could care less about
Bosnia or Croatia than Kuwait
after analyzing the Gulf War in
1991
Shin Yasut
Committee for World Peace
Farm Aid
When I was a bov growing up
in Texas, I was told that farmers
were the backbone of our com
munity The theory was, if the
farms were doing well, the
schools, businesses and church
es in rural towns would do well,
too
In the ‘80s, rural America's
backbone was broken. Farmers
were hit with an economii cri
sis that caught the attention of
the entire nation It seemed like
every nightly news report
brought new images of devas
tated families watching tfieir pre
cious farms lining sold piece by
piece on the auction block.
In 1985, when we organized
the first Farm Aid concert, we
never imagined that we would
still be around 10 years later
The artists and farmers involved
in putting together that show
honestly believed that if enough
people were made aware of the
difficulties facing rural Amen
ta, the problem would he solved.
But it wasn't solved. In fact,
the family farm < risis is more
serious today than it was a
decade ago. True, farm aut lions
and foreclosures no longer end
up on the front page or the
evening news But. while many
view this as a sign that the farm
t risis is over, the fact is. the
dilemma in roral America is less
evident today Ims nuae there are
so few fanners left to toll their
stories Just last year, the Census
Bureau announced that they
would no longer include farm
ers as a category in the census.
hei auso farmers now make up
less than two percent of the
population.
Since 1 l)8t). nearly 400,000
family farmers have lost their
land, according to the U.S
Department of Agriculture
I very week, more than T>(M) fann
ers am still going out of business
That’s 70 every day.
It's no wonder that young peo
pie are moving out of rural areas
to find opportunities in the
cities This shortage of young
people entering farming could
create an even bigger ensis in the
next Jt) years as a whole gener
ation of farmers reaches retire
ment age
The reason so many of them
are going out of business is very
simple farmers are paid less
for their crops today titan they
were ID years ago
With every family we lose,
another piece of America's her
itage is lost Now is tlie time for
the ‘!H percent of us who depend
on farmers for our food and
clothing to do what we can to
help families stay on the land
Call your representatives and
make sure they support farm
policies that ensure increased
income for family farmers and
increased opportunities for
young fanners.
Willie Nelson
Singer, songwriter
LETTERS POLICY
The Oregon Daily Emerald
will attempt to print all tellers
containing comments on top
ics ot interest to the University
community
letters to the editor must be
I rmted to no more than 250
words, legible, signed and the
identification ot the writer must
be yentied when the letter is
submitted
The Emerald reserves the
nght to edit any letter tor length
or styte