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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 13, 1995)
VIEWPOINTS EDITORIALS. OPINIONS LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Mother Nature can kill; need laws to save lives ■ OUR OPINION: Outdoor enthusiasts, taxpayers need mountain climbing regulations As this goes to print, two University students are still missing somewhere on the North Sister ()nlv a month after bad weather kept searchers from combing Ml I loot) to find the relative of a Nike execu tive. storm conditions atop the Sisters mountains have search organizers clinging to hope but fearing the worst for HI year-olds Frank Allard and Michael K Gases For lunprepared out door sports enthusiast, and even for professionals, the constantly changing moods anti weather patterns of Mother Nature make the mountain a most unforgiv ing foe Mt ifood has a reputation for being as treacherous as it is beautiful The formidable mountain reaches some 10.400 plus feet into the oxygen-thin air above the valley floor around Portland. About two vears ago a Corvallis man tried to climb a six tion of Mt flood all In himself. Attempting to asi end the mountain solo was his first mistake lie knew lie was in trouble when just putting one foot in front of the other bei ame an exhausting chore. I in situation detailotated to the point that he could go no further. It looker) as if the de< eptively beautiful mimn tain might c laim yet another victim. That is. until he r ailed his wife and the sheriff's office on his cellular phone. He was rescued In ground searchers and a military helicopter. All hough thu climber used poor judgment in trv ing to conquer the mountain by himself, he saved his life by pai king his phone. As mountain climbing and other potentially dan gerous outdoor sports con tinue to grow in popularity, so does the related number of accidents. Injuries and deaths, The sad reality is that many of these situations could be avoided through the mandatory implementa tion of life-saving tec hnoio gy sue h as cell phones and personal lot ator devices. Hut the time for talk has passed. It's time to make cell* phones, (rat king devices, and survival training mandatory for climbers of all skill levels These are solid ideas that will, most importantly, save lives The added benefit is that tax payers will not be required to repeatedly foot the search-ami rest tie bill every time someone is lost on one of Oregon's many moun tains Currently, forest services for several mountains have personal locator dev ices (bat c limbers and hikers c an choc k out fur their outing. Hut the equipment is issued on a "use it if you want to" basis. It's time for the forest ser vice to enfori e a polic y of "use the trai king device if you want to experience the mountain." 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W-.' w * v >j j kvl'ttu CitbOht >Mpanp(KV Jsrity Co«ftC#| *3 S«f1 Ctmi*<*4 tj<t Gmtna^i Offset Mb MM M§ 3712 34*00 »See if*you can r^concvl® tkese tvJo slatfir^€ht.S ^ P$ou<c WE A/^eo f=OQ LIMIT ^^SL^T/oaj," ^E VOTED OUT TV4E IM DR°vES' <V£*r CUT TArtlS' A fMUWOBvDOlr Activism better than voter registration It's amazing how the trials and tribulations of Huh "( oim* on I-wannalove-va I’m kwood are being turned into an advantage for so many peo ple The latest beneficiary appears to he student government Were it not for the January election to fill Pack wood s wh ant seat, the ASUO would not have an ext use to mount a "last’s all register to vote and feel good” campaign The voter registration campaign is a no-hram er when it comes to making students fuel like they at tually have a voit e in government. It t osts nothing hut a few minutes to register, it makes the person registering leel good about themselves and the total numimr registered can l>e displayed by the ASUO os proof that it is actually doing something (resides giving away money from student fees. Personally. 1 would rather the ASUO office focus on giving away the money or on looking for programs that at tually have some useful hen Bin aua< nea voter registration drives, as pnw ticed on this campus, are worse than a fan o, they are deceptions Please note that 1 limited my com ment to drives on this campus Voter registration drives in the South and in the inner ones of the North played an important part in the civil rights struggles of the 1950s. fiOs ant) 70s. Such drives went « nil nilllip UVJIIC7 iU IllN lorn allv disenfranchised minorities Along with registration came political education and pro motion of minority candidates Were it not for such drives, many of those i nadidates would never have Ix-eu elm ted to of fit e and Amern .1 would have been the poorer for it. In comparison, the ASUO voter registration drive targets University students, the over whelming majority of whom are not ethnic or racial minorities Nor are they historically dis enfranchised Worse yet. the ASUO drive offers no polite al edui at ion None Not even the most minimal and non-partisan evaluation of the i an didates The emphasis is on getting as many people registered as possible It s as if the very act of registering is supposed to improve soci otv Sorry folks, d just doesn't work that way. To bring about real change requires an on-going dialogue with our elet ted representatives. Vot ing onee every two years is little more than an ineffet tual feel-good exert ise If you doubt this, look at the real differences the 1994 national elections have made. The Repuhlit ans got to la- the majority in both Houses of f.ongress. took over the reins of power and prompth set out to reward all their sptx.tai interest contributors with government give fifi Voter registration drives, as practiced on this campus, arc noise than a farce, they are deceptions. - aways. Tint Democrats used to give their special interest con tributors a lot of goodies, and now it's tlH> Republicans' turn. And while both parties publicly battle over the crumbs spent on social programs, they both go on giving away enormous grants to their sp<x ial interest contributors. Oh-blah-dee oh-blah-da. life grass on. No matter whom you elect, the net result is going to 1m* very much the same They are going to spend a lot of their time working on getting re-elected or in raising money to get re-elected And they are going to be part of a system that will continue to give huge chunks of money to special interest groups The best you can hope for. il you are not one of those special interests, is that whoever get-s elected will at least listen t<> vou if you speak up on any issues. And that is w here the on-going dialogue comes in. "Special interests" are people and organiza tions that have the money to hire lobbyists to continually deluge elected officials and their staffs with information, l-obbyists essentially do little more than talk to elected offu nils at ovorv opportunity in an effort to get those offic mis to vote on Dills that favor the lobbyists' employers The latest lobbyist tactic is to hire telemarket ing firms to call registered voters and sell the voters on calling their representatives to pro mote the lobbyists' uses Apparently, it is a very sun essful tactic, and while there seems to 1m* something inherently wrong about it. the tac tics success offers a possible tool to affect change. * Instead of focusing on voter registration, why not focus on voter organization ' Why not help people form telephone circles that engage in on going communication with elected representa tives about issues' Why not help form a student issues calling clique? I know that student gov ernment cannot directly engage in partisan poli tics. but that doesn't mean they can't tell others how to do it. Let's face it. Turnout in last year's student government elei lion show s just how active stu dents are when it comes to actually voting. Despite a m ord registration, voter turnout was less than 14%. and that was for an election that had an immediate impact on every student's finances So stop wasting time on a useless voter registration drive and start spending it on pollti* 1 *>: ''din ini. Mas Ik- the. vcai student luriiimt w ill get up to a whopping 15%. harry Hafll, a senior majoring in journalism, is a columnist for the Emerald.
