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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 22, 1996)
VIEWPOINTS iPllOHMUS OPtmONS IfTIIRS to tHf {OlTOR Student benefits, perks are definitely not free ■ OUR OPINION Most students do not question who pays tot free items Ah, the (Mirks of being a University student Every where you turn, someone swims to be giving you something for nothing That student body card swims to encompeM certain freedoms and privileges For starters, the LTD •ticker you receive each term enables you to ride the bus without having to worry about how much change is in your Dockets, A flash of your identifica tion can! ai Autzen will get you football tickets With a temporary surrender of your student identification card, you can use the EMU Cora puling footer's facilities — one* again for no apparent cog, Dorm residents might remember m wiving Univer sity mug* and key chains «l the beginning of the year and plugging in their televi cions to seemingly free cable. But ail of those apparent porks am being paid for by you, the student. From the University Day T-ahirls to the Ememld, you foot the bill Next lime you encounter some "free stuff." lake into consideration how “free” it actually is Housing expen ditures are more than $4 million per year — nothing is free. Folk Festival muddies more than EMU lawn ■ OUR OPINION: Schools' graduations cannot be moved off campus The Willamette Valley Folk Festival has placed more in danger than the aes thetic quality of the KMt ! Fast lawn The muddy con dition of the lawn, created by a mixture of rain and hippie*, is threatening three events — two involving graduation. Tito Oregon Grind, a rock (estival scheduled to take pl»*:e this weekend, will moat likely be canceled. The giant mud pit in front of the stage needs to heal before another event can take I dace Odda are. the entire awn needs to lie replanted The journalism ami archi tecture and allied art* school*' commencement caramon ie* am currently scheduled to take place on that lawn, if the lawn is still a muddy mess in three weeks, these schools may have to graduate off-campus with a ridiculously small ticket limit as a result of a weekend of mud-covered fun. all because no one pre dicted that it might rain hard in Eugene in May. We cannot let the Univer sity do this. The right of stu dents in these schools to graduate on their own cam pus must be protected, It is unjust and unfair for the University to expect thes*’ students to accept anything less than what the previous graduating class received. The University must move the ceremonies to another on-campus loca tion. : two Ml MU . -TUAT'S WllDUFtff W1UOM «0 nm ARCTIC KATK3NM OftDUFt REFUGE Once upon a time... there were forests Once upon • time. fairy tale* warn read by mom* *nd dad* lo little kid* Otwm upon • time. environmental fairy tala* about famtlie* who lo*t their rancho* to the Endangered StMdM Ad went told by anti environment poilticiana and then duly relayed by ran*!*** reporter* Now comm a new environmental fairy tale, thi* time relayed by environmental group* and politicians claiming them i* no f»*rw*t health problem and that all the talk of dead and dying timber la —■ Ju*l talk A* lhe Umber salvage traua head* far a vut# Mure a Senate (mum) thto week, the ditcuttton of farott health it heating up in Washington while Ami rage in the .Southwest Senator Bill Bradley a New Jersey Democrat with Onl-Offioi ttpiraUum. to damaging hit own credibility and that trf iwnservtliun groups with hit fairy «ai* claim that theta to no forest health crisis ~Dat« noil*, ted by the U S, Farast Service my ihw l* no crisis,- Bradley recently Mid. “All lh» major environmental group, mv them is no crisis .* Bradley claim* that the problem U a manufac lurtd un», put forth by umber industry lobbyists who favor increased lwm*n Though I won't vouch for lire ethn. of indu* try lobbyists I've met I am assure you that the fomt With emu it nut their invention if you drive Highway S« amt of here or High way 12* west to the coast, you'd think the only foraei health criait it the landslide* earned by record rain* and swollen s Imams Where am ait tha dead and dying tmet they keep talking •hout? Do they exist. or la it a fairy tala? industry lobbyists ought to put Bradley on a plana and fly him over the Blue Mountain* in eastern Oregon I've flown over moat of tha Umatilla and Wallowa Whitman National Forests, and I’ve worked on wildfires in Oregon and California and Montana. I've ridden horseback along ridges in aastern Oregon, where you can aaa for a hundred miles or more, and tha sight of miles-lung expanses of dead grey trees made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Tha long, deep canyons wind down bom wind-blown ridge*, with hawks drifting above thick stands of tightly packed dead trees — it sends shivers up your spine Flying over rtdg* after slope after ridge of dense, dead timber stands is enough to make you cry. Believe me. the forest health crisis is for teal. lust writing about it gives me the chills But remembering the howling winds and raging wails of fir* and billowing columns of smoke I've seen in wildfires, and then reading Bradley * claim* that there it no form! health aist* — well, that infuriate* mo If you haven't teen any dead and dying tim ber. p take a look tmagme tree# and under brush to thii k you can't walk through it Some of it (usually found on the ea*t tide of forusis) it to thick you can't drive a D-4 Cart bulldozer through it. Old-timer* there refer to it at "dog hair" tim ber —• tree* to closely spaced that it look*, like hair on a don't back. Now imagine that it'* ail • isiuvf* tuy «»u ijMi wo re m another drought lumow Add light ning and you have a prescription for disaster. I know it’* hard to handle the word 'drought” with the record rainfall and flooding we’ve suffered recently But if you look at the last hundred years or so. you’ll find that early heavy rains and flooding allow for a strong green up and heavy growth of vegeta “W*m wn«.n *u<n < omniums are tol lowed by a hot dry mmmw are invariably rwunrd year* for wildfire* Tb» dead and dying timber is for real The fire hazard i* real Widespread damage bom insect infestation* and forest diwaiM i* real The newl to deal with il is also real But the claim that the forest health crisis is a figment of the industry's imagination is a fairy tale Claiming that ih# Fur ast Service has denied a forest health c risis is just a bald faced lie Senator Bradley and the environmental groups should recognise that such propaganda does not help their cause Despite its flaw*, the Forest Service is the best thing we've got going for us in term* of forest management. Perhaps we'll live to see the day when every one's happy with the management of our public lands it's mg Ulely, though Consider this quote from the president . * We ate coming to recognise as never before - f»* essential matter of natural resources The time has come for a change As a people we have the right and theTSy „ to pmtL our selves and our children against the wasteful development of our natural resources. * Teddy Roosevelt said that — eg years ago last — *• the Governors' Conference on Con servation in 1908 We've been arguing about this for a long time and aren't Ukaly to solve it to everyone's satisfaction In the meantime, wo need to listen to state menu such as Bradley'i with a critical ear — and beware of (airy tales k*f/y Andersson, a senior motoring in joumaiUun. it a coJumniMt for the Emerald E-mail: hoonedforegon uamgon odu
