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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 19, 1996)
VIEWPOINTS tOITORIAlS OPINIONS LlTTfflS TO THE tQITOR Montana has Freemen, but Oregon has Tonya ■ OUR OPINION The Big Sky slate may have learned something horn the wacky Northwest What's up with the stale of Montana7 First off. the statf ha* all those gun-bugging Freemen holed up on some snow dusted ranch with half the nation s FBI babysitting them It's probably due to all that crystal-clean Rocky Mountain air that blows all over the plai n See what happen* to a handful of wheat fanners, cattle ranch er* and NBA cowboys when they grow up breathing air permeated with actual oxy gent "Whooooee' Don't cha love that there crisp moun tain air Clyde? (Hyde. I been watchln that durn mailman an I do believe he's one ’o them there jack-booted FBI CIA-ATP agent* from Warshington — I say we plug that bastard full 'o lead and send him to that big federal huildin' in the sky!" If we could just send the whole shoot in' hunch of them to California to bn*afhe some Los Angeles air fur a few weeks, they'd probably turn out |ust fine — that is, if they survive the dnve-bv shootings, And at this stage. il took* like Theodore Km zynski could turn out to be the alleged Unabomtrer One thing U certain With that stylin' haircut. he'll never have to worry about making the cover of fiQ magazine — he's got a doo to make a Deadhead die for. Kaczynski was i barged last Thursday in Helena, Mont., with one muni of possessing bomb compo nents But Montana wasn't the firm to have inch a promi nent, though disastrous, spotlight in the national madia Orison was Yep We‘ve been them, done that — long before the UfMbombor or Freemen Remember Bigfoot? Although we're »ure the funy one never sent any mail Iwmilw to anyone, he * still from the Northwest Tlte mysterious muppet has limn scaring people for decade* US. Senator Bub Park wood? The naughty man who couldn't keep his lip* off the liquor or his hands to himself? From Oregon And how abrmt the Bhag wan Shree Rajrieeth and his free-love and heavwbeads commune in Eastern Oregon during the mid '80s? Talk about a media event A cou ple of the Hhagwan s follow er* were convicted last year for their part in a plot to kill then Oregon State Attorney, (Starlet Turner Apparently, the two missed the Bhagwan's semi nar on leaving federal attor neys the hell alone The notoriety doesn't stop there I onyt Harding, that sniveling embarrassment in ih* 1904 Olympics. i> from Portland The slain lias town quieter I hi* past few months and year*. That's exactly why the bozo in Mood River recently filled a shell he owned near Muster with all kinds of explosives, and then let the thing blow sky high. This immediately brought all the media and the other half of the nation's FBI track to Oregon. After all. we've got to show those Montana boys how it's done. r* 8UT TM£ftfe WAS No ^ '< tf, OKiA > C,TV It V F*us rt?A,T>o*; »j * rtATKueq auo ha re i % * fi*<- —' JjJ Jessica’s fliaht: Parents crash vouna life Do you bear the r»inf Do vmi hear the mint" Watching a thunderstorm rapid ly approaching, an anxious Jessica Duhroff talked to her mother on a reilu tar phone momenta I adore she emlwrked on her final flight After stalling shortly after takeoff, th* 7 year old a (awna nose dived into a street, immediately killing hwiica. her father and the flight engineer Seven years old I dreamt about flying when I wa* that age The freedom of soaring like a bird, having my own wing*, the usual kid stuff Of course those were merely fantasies, and hack then the only takeoffs I had were from swing sags and fungi* gyms But the alory of » attempt to lie the youngest pilot to aviate arms* the country is nothing like a childhood drawn* It's an incomprehensible nightmare of parental folly In the world I live in, ? year-olds don’t set aviation distant* rax rands They ride hikes, they play hide and go seek they pick their noses The only planes they fly room through their imaginations at whimsical speeds And thru I see a pudure of|«*i*t< a in the cock pit. taken »• she pr«|Mn>Mi for hrnt «dght -day, h.tXJO mil* trek. and I had iuumhiui I literally brw urm> ill «t the tight of the brown bomber (•dud that Jessica's parents wraprred around h#w I g«*»» she wm supposed to Us another Charles Lindbergh or something Jessica's father. Uovd Oubtuff. w*» a master at promoting photo ops like this one. In the picture, Jessica sits in a specially made booster seat, she is fastened to a specially made •oat belt, and she steps on ■ set of extended rud der pedals because the plane wasn't intended tor people her size % With an ovarsized headset perc hed atop the “Women Fly" cap she wears. Jessica turns to the tamers and gives a thumbs up But Jessica does not smile like the SS pound Amelia Earhart she is supposed to be Her lips are dull, and the appears motionless Her eyes are half closed and glazed over with an expression that says. "Why am I here7" Following the crash, the most pathetic com ment aune from Jessica's mother. Usa Blair Hathaway The unapologetn mother said that her daughter died "in a state of Joy" and that Je» sica's "life was in her hand* " Contrary to this pitiful eulogy, reports indi cate that Jessica's life was always in the hands of her media-hungry parents The entire reconl breaking venture was conceived by Jessica's lather Before the fateful voyage began. DubrofT had spent SI.JOG fur 200 special baseball caps to give to friends and reporters. He brought a pro fessinnal television < amera on board the plane so he and fmsica could appear on ABC New* IHibroff wu in *uch a rush to get to Maaaachu • Mrtt* and appear on NBC's "Tixisy Show” that he rushed into a b»d*weather takeoff that should have been delayed or canceled all together. OPINION Since (he t rash, loud protests have been made regarding young pilots who fly Perhaps even more noise should l>e made about deatrui tive adults who live vicarious ly through their children. We could start a national campaign and use Jess tea's mum and dad as the poster couple. A father who makes nu daughter play the tragic rule in ht* own jmr verted dream A New - Age mother who cele brate* a 7 year old * "freedom of choice." The campaign could read: "If You're Going to Fail This Miserably At Being A Parent, (art Sterilized —■ Please. For Their Sake!" Jessica's parent* gave their daughter no toy*, they opted for power loll*, so that Inuiu could "learn by doing." She was home-schooled and restricted from television When Jessica's mom wa* asked if she might have pushed too hard. «he remained entirely unrepentant, saying that her daughter had a lull, wonderful, wonderful, exquisite life." Seven years old Why can't this mother at least concede that perhaps she did something wrong, that perhaps she was too hard or too controlling, that perhaps she pushed and pushed until jeaaica had no life of her own? Yet least* a * story ia about more than Lloyd Dubrnff and Lisa Blair Hathaway's pitiful par enting It's about a society that squeeze* its chil dren to a pulp. It's about dance classes and piano lessons and play praetkaa It's about adults who don't know the first thing about rais ing children. Parents should be there to steady tha bike as the growing leg# turn the pedals, to smile and U> cheer as the tiny body determinedly pushes for ward If the child (alls and scrapes, if the hat swings and misses, if the piano notes are off-key time and time again, the cheering must never stop. Parents must freely dispense this uncondt tional love, without strings of fame attached Only then will our children acquire their own wings and truly achieve flight Kmth Cunningham, a senior majoring in English <* a columnist for the Emerald. E-mail kmthc^ktmgan. uorogon edu
