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Perspectives
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Sarah Kickler
EDITORIAL EDITOR
Mike Schmierbach
NIGHT EDITOR
Sarah Kickler
The twelve days of finals
AN EMERALD EDITORIAL
As we head into finals, our stress level is
reaching critical mass. Therefore, we present
the 12 days of finals— 12 things we would
like to receive for Finals Week
Illustrations by:
CHRIS HUTCHINSON
7 • The Rolling Stones at Autzen:
After watching two Rose Garden shows
sell out in mere minutes, we cannot help
but wonder if the football team could have
foregone that one day of practice to grant us
a shot at seeing “the world’s greatest rock
and roll band.” Then again, that lost day
might have kept the team from fulfilling its
muscular destiny in Las Vegas.
-•
PARKING FOR
217685
IMore comfortable
• classroom chairs:
Most of the time, the rigid seats in many
of the University’s lecture halls and class
rooms simply keep us from napping. Dur
ing Finals Week, however, they leave us
badly in need of physical therapy after con
torting ourselves to the chairs’ complex
forms to write out essays and fill in bubble
sheets.
2. A truly dead week:
Any Dead Week that requires attending
class and writing papers isn’t a dead week
at all. We need what other schools have: a
period of time to read and study, free of
classroom pressures.
3 • A library that’s open 24 hours:
Maybe this is too much to ask during the
whole year, but at least during finals it
seems unreasonable for students to have to
seek out coffee shops and dorm lounges to
study in. Sometimes we need the smell of
books to inspire us in our studies.
fr • More food choices:
The EMU has the Skylight Cafd and the
residence halls have their cafeterias, but
the fact is there aren’t many places to look
for food on campus and those places just
don’t offer that much variety. Good curry
would be a good start.
5. Sleep:
What more need we say? Sleep depriva
tion is the college student’s favorite hallu
cinatory experience, but during Finals
Week those bags under the eyes can make
it hard to read our exams.
6. A longer winter break:
Some of us nave been going since last
winter break, having endured summer
term. Frankly, three weeks isn’t going to
cut it; we have family to visit, friends to
hang out with and sleep to catch up on.
8 • Warm classrooms:
For some reason, perhaps a horrible ge
netic experiment, many people seem to
think that 40 degrees is an appropriate tem
perature for classrooms. They turn the heat
off and leave the windows wide open. To
compensate, we bundle ourselves in
sweaters and scarves, only to stumble upon
the one classroom where the heat has been
cranked up to 90 degrees.
0 • Snow:
Sure, it might make getting to class take a
little longer, but somehow we miss the
white stuff. Maybe it’s global warming,
maybe it’s El Nino, maybe it’s just Eugene’s
climate, but a fluffy blanket of white has
been noticeably absent from campus for a
while now.
i Unreserved parking spots:
b tired of looking for parking on
10.
We’re tired of looking Tor parking on
campus and finding the athletic depart
ment has claimed every spot near the EMU
the day before a basketball game. The park
ing shortage is bad enough without pander
ing to athletics personnel at the cost of oth
er events and students.
11 • Health:
Whoever suggested viruses are the sim
plest life form was clearly wrong. We can
cruise through a term without suffering for
our physical sins, only to fall victim to the
worst cold of our lives on that weekend we
desperately need to catch up on our read
ing and prepare for our exam. Obviously,
these viruses are plotting against us. One
more week without the sniffles. That’s all
we ask.
12
• A plane ticket out of town:
Eugene is a lovely town, don’t get us
wrong. But right now, if we have to endure
one more rain drop, pass by one more hip
pie or witness one more tear gassing, we’re
going to start a riot ourselves. What we
most need during Finals Week is for finals
to be over.
This editorial represents the opinion of the
Emerald editorial board. Responses may be
sent to ode@oregon.uoregon.edu
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Ineffective journalism
In order for journalism to be an
effective tool, one must first make
an attempt to get the facts before
displaying them to the public. Ed
itorial editor Mike Schmierbach
proved himself to be unable to
use journalism effectively as he
shows his ignorance of the issue
he is addressing in his column on
the McCaughey septuplets.
In his column, Schmierbach
stated that all of the babies were
in critical condition. If he had
been taking note of the true story,
he would have known that in
fact, only one of the babies (the
last one) had ever been in critical
condition and that was only for a
few hours. They were placed in
serious condition because of their
premature birth, not because
there were so many of them.
Another chord was struck
when Schmierbach took to dictat
ing that the McCaugheys were
"foolish” by not choosing to se
lectively abort, for various rea
sons. Sure, the McCaugheys may
not have been completely pre
pared for seven newborn babies
when they began with the fertility
treatments, but there are certain
factors that help to indicate the
probability of multiple births in
women using the treatment.
These indicators were not present
in this case. Thus, they took the
risk and ended up with seven and
they chose to keep those seven.
This leads into my next point.
What does it matter whether a
family had seven children one by
one or all at once? It could be ar
gued that in fact the foolish ones
were the ones who had them in
dividually and ended up on wel
fare because they had the choice
to stop at any point. When the
choice came up for the McCaugh
eys, it became a choice of person
al morals rather than just stop re
producing.
Another point that needs to be
addressed is the issue of “adding
to overpopulation.” First, the ma
jor problem with overpopulation
is population density. You aren’t
going to convince a million New
Yorkers, living where it is over
crowded, to pack up and move to
Nebraska, where it is wide open.
So New York will remain dense
ly populated and Nebraska less
so. Have you ever been to Iowa? I
don’t think seven new children
will be a real problem.
Finally, one of the reasons that
the McCaugheys did in fact re
ceive so much media attention is
for the simple fact that they did
n t seek it beforehand. They man
aged, amazingly, to keep this
knowledge of their risky pregnan
cy hushed and out of the media’s
prying hands. When did you
learn that this birth was going to
take place? Not only was this a
medical breakthrough, but almost
a media one as well. Chalk one up
for privacy of the people.
Your cachet of misinformation
amazes me. The best columnists
are the ones who are informed of
their topics before the begin to
pass on their opinions of the issue.
Ignorance by itself is not a good
thing but when added with the ar
rogance that Schmierbach por
trayed it is downright abhorrent.
I agree that something needs to
be done about families on welfare.
I agree that attention should be
given to the issue of overpopula
tion.
I agree that more research and
attention should be given to fertili
ty treatments, as well.
But, Schmierbach, your good in
tentions have been overshadowed
by your ignorance. The media is a
circus that you chose to be a part
of, now don’t going playing with
the untamed lions.
Jenel J. Stelton-Holtmeier
Journalism