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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 16, 1996)
VIEWPOINTS f OlTQRiAi S 0P1WI0MS IfTIfRS 10 IM t fO IT 0 R Recordings may answer Watergate questions ■ OUR OPINION Secret tapes may reveal more about Nixon's personality “UH. sir, there's been a break-in at iho Dnmomtic National Committee head quarters at the Wntnrgatn hotel..." "What? Darnmit man. lake ran of II!" While the nation was (till mired in the quit ksand of Vietnam, a conversation like this undoubtedly took place at the beginning of what was to become one of America's biggest political embarrass* menu in a long line of national crises: the Water gate scandal If only. If only Nixon had made a thousand different choices long before, up to and dur ing the Watergate affair. If only — In what would have been an otherwise brief flash of ethical dec ency — he had told his cabinet to expose the crime. That Nixon allowed and then covered up the break in revealed that, at best, the late president was not able to effectively communicate with hU own people. At wont, the fiasco showed one side of • man who was obviously too paranoid and corrupt to have ever been trusted with the highest offit» in the land But none of that matter* now. What does matter i» that Nixon** estate ha* finally agreed (bending under tne pteMtire of a maaaive law suit) to release most of the remaining secret recordings the disgraced politician made in the White House As early as November, historians might find them selves studying a 201-hour long series of tapes containing Nixon conversa tion* from 1972 to 1973 — recording* that reveal the president's “abuse of gov ernment power.** The tape* might allow Nixon to explain some of his action* from the grave, and they might erven help us understand a little more about the man himself The recordings will defi nitely help us understand what happened to a nation after one man stole its trust. People are not running to OCA chief’s campaign ■ OUR OPINION: Mabon is dreaming if he thinks he'll gel any real support Is th*il so? I .on Mahon. th«t shrill Oregon Citium* Alliance chairman not exactly loved by the entire stale, U cur rently not getting much of a turnout when he shows up to stump fur his hi ram* hid ii* a Republican contender for the opm U S Senate seal Support (or Mi to bail, only 20 people showed up recently to hear the tna*» speak in the coMHtitivt m« i a of Medford The turnout was no better in Klamath Tail*, another city known for its conservative lient. If Mahon does no tauter in Grants Pats. Koseburg or Corvallis, maybe he’ll wake up and stop kidding him self. After all. the hike's on him. -vs-sr-T-' n-yi T*f {fCOND llAO^*C OUM 0» MAW **£>* •« ****** n GoMfmi „ Wf SHOULD 0* UP-IN-ARMS A*OUT 1UM» » AfUMTT WL AUUA0YO / Closed minds reject creationism theory Why la ll that v™ preach reaped for diversity of opinion and then ahut our mind* in any theory (hai con I flirt* with our personal beliefs? I'm nol talking about tolling a theory after examin ing it fair any possible grain* of truth. I'm talking about complete di*mi»*al as impossible or fool ish without giving it a moment of thought Whan the Hrunmid ran an editorial last term on retugniring that creationist and evolutionist theories are just that — theories — the mailman h**l a hentu tlrilvwin# th« of and Imltg natim Mo*( of ih« mail ndu uM ihr editor* for during lo »ugR'*t that echoed* b* allowed lo (iimcuM cnwtionict iim*y Koforv Darwin. fwnple m i opted a* fai 1 that human*, and the rwii of the universe, aw* created by some dtvtn* imB being or being* Tros belief wu held to be *11 absolute fail. not |u«i • theory Today. most people accept the theory of evolu* turn «» absolute mrl and then ignore or ndi* ule anything that challenge* that belief When Darwin wrote On the Origin of Specie*. he did not assert that human* are descended hum ape* Darwin *« a careful scientist who developed a theory baaed on ohaervation of the Wield around hint Since thu»e observation* contained niching ihai could definitely prove that human* were descended from ape*, he wa« careful not to make that assertion Today we have more evidence that point* to such a link, but the unanswered question* far outnumber the answered one* Yet no many of u* have accepted the theory of Darwin a* gospel that we close our minds to any other possibili ties In mv column last Monday. I offered another possibility —■ that there may be tangible evi dence of our human origin* on Mar* and on the moon Please note that 1 said may be. not it. There an* indications of the possibility, but it will lake another specs mission to Mars before we learn any more In the meantime, let me throw out another bit of poaaibly related infor mation A few months ago. the Hegitter-Guard ran a short article about a team of genetic scientists from Yale University who have been conducting a world wide investigation of genetic patterns They collected and analyzed a specific chromo some from 1,600 people in 42 population groups from around the world, and they found a pat tern One of the scientists said. "This pattern of variation suggests that all non-Africans derive from a single common ancestral population which migrated out of Northeast Africa." She went on to say. 'It will be very complicated to determine how big that migrant population was, but I would say it was very small Some people have estimated that it could have been as few as J .000 Thi» pattern of variation also suggests that the common ant**try of the non-African population* is quit* recent." Sh* estimated that the migration was no earlier than 100,000 year* ago and could be a* recent as 70.000 years ago That figure of 70.000 to 100,000 years set off a little "ding" in the back of my mind. There is a very old map — sometimes called the map of the ancient Sea kings — that shows a view of Africa, the Mediterranean and Antarcti ca as they woultl be stain from an elevation of about $.000 miles up. What is most amazing about this map. aside from the elevation of view, is that it shows details of Antarctica that have only recently been identified because they lie beneath miles of ice. Scientists estimate that these details would have been visible 100.000 years ago because the ice pack that covered Antarctica at that time was much smaller than it is today. Now add the hypothesis that Richard Hoagtand made in his book A form merit* of Man (mentioned in my column last Monday): It is possible that humans from Mars may have come to Earth, perhaps about 100.000 years ago Stir in a bit of creationism (we all descended from Adam and Eve), add a dash of evolution ism ("out of Africa"! ami an interesting pattern •tarts to emerge Enough of a pattern to at least make a new theory about the origins of intelli gence on this planet And that is all we have theories, not Imho trovertible proofs Creationism, evolutionism. Martian origins and genetic patterns all share the same quality They are each a "best guess" about who and what we are and how we got here to begin with Each of those guesses has tangible evidence to support it. and all of them lack some ultimate, definitive proof It is only in our minds that con nections are made between the bits and pieces wo see before us Dr. Lilly, the guy who did research on por poises. wrote a book that contains one of my all time iavonte quotes: “What one believes to be true is true, the limits of which are found by experience and experiment.1' The key to that statement is in the finding of limits It requires openness to new evidence and a willingness to re-examine even the most cherished and closely held beliefs in the light of that new evidence There may or may not be artificial structures on Mars and the moon, humans may or may not have descended from Martians or monkeys or both, and there may or may not be some realty powerful conscious force at work in the uni verse. W« may never have the definitive answers, but if we keep our minds open to new possibilities and take !l» time to examine them objectively, we may get a lot closer than we are right now. iMrry Hafti. a minor out faring in faumaJtim, i» a colummtt far the Emerald
