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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 5, 1998)
CONTACTING US NEWSROOM: ADDRESS: (541) 346-5511 Oregon Daily Emerald E-MAIL P.0. BOX 3159 ode@oregon.uoregon.edu Eugene. Oregon 97403 ONLINE EDITION: www uoregon edu -ode irMutti'nn'iiilWWlilWMilllil'HllilllillUMM'fcU'WMlII II I'lM II >'11111 Nl iWNWI 11A Hill I . Perspectives EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Sarah Kickler EDITORIAL EDITOR Mike Schmierbach NIGHT EDITORS Laura Cadiz Sarah Kickler amaaMMMHK Using the censor’s shears in the new year Welcome to 1998. For those of you who lost con sciousness some time in late 1996 and are just now struggling back into reality. 1997 was roughly 365 days long, and every day was packed with good ness. Goodness has different mean ings for different people. For me. it means a swirl of vaguely un pleasant, half-recalled events that would be better left in the foggy past. Government leaders, corporate OPINION Mike Schmierbach heads and the smiling collection of media com mentators who are waiting to slime their way to a juicy post advis ing presidents how not to get caught have a dif ferent idea of what goodness entails, r or them, the new year is an opportunity to highlight the porcelain sparkle of the toilet bowl that was the past year. Such revisionism requires a lit tle censorship, a lot of spin con trol and a fair amount of what George Orwell termed “newspeak.” Events are conve niently forgotten or cloaked in the most sweet-smelling rhetoric available. Well, if they can alter history, so can 1.1 don’t want to forget about labor or environmental abuses, however. I just want to make sure that 1 never have to read about a select number of sto ries again. The best solution I can think of is to steal an idea from Matt Greening. We had the same jour nalism teacher — shared the same suffering — and 1 certainly think life is hell. Therefore. I feel entitled to pre sent my 1998 forbidden words list: What follows are words and phrases 1 hope never to read or hear again. If all goes well, this will eliminate talk about the sto ries that go with them. Mibe Scbnuerhacb is the editorial editor for the Emerald His rieus do not neces sarily represent those of the paper advisory ratings, altemative-anything, America's Favorite Fries, amphitheater, awareness, back, to the books, ^ ballroom dance, Big Stink, Bill Sizemore, binge drinking, Buddy, the presidential pooch, Chumbawamba, corporate donors, cyberjoumalism, Diana, the people's princess, downsizing. Dr. Death, electronica, fatally flawed, faux-anything, focus, Gardenburger, Generation Next, Generation Y, heroin chic, lean, the Information Age, Information Superhighway, just do it, the Lincoln Bedroom, love, medical marijuana, the militia movement, millennium bug, Must See TV, NAFTA, near miss, P.C., pepper sprav, proactive, quasi-anything, riot, road rage, septuplet, ska, Spice-anything, swing, taskforce, tear gas, trip hop, 7V newsmagazines, Unabomber, nadmMml rirtimmenialitv, virtual pet, workfare, Zeitgeist LETTERS TO THE EDITOR McDonald comments misleading In response to the comments made by Duncan McDonald (ODE, Dec. 4) about student protest of corporate influence on campus, what exactly does McDonald mean by stating that "you have to be able to think to use the standard of a reasonable person” when referring to student protest ers? McDonald has not only made an of fensive attack on students, but he has demonstrated obvious disrespect for the j students that actually do think and have the skills to be critical of the growing trend of corporate influence on campus. McDonald denounces Student Action for Labor and Equity as having an agenda. Weil, we certainly do: Our agenda is to ed ucate the students of this campus on the growing influence that private and corpo rate donations have; our agenda is to build a movement that will challenge the pres ence of corporate funds in the University; our agenda is to make sure this University accepts money that is clean — monev that comes from sources that are sociallv and environmentally acceptable to the stu dents. Further, McDonald claims that "to be generous ... they are misinformed." Not only is this another diminishing and de grading attack on his part, but it is also not true. How exactly is it that we are misin formed? For isn’t it true that there is a growing number of questionable private and corporate donations being made to the University that do have strings attached? McDonald cannot deny the fact that Phil Knight's S25 million donation included a SI million salary increase for University President Dave Frohnmaver is a serious dubious practice. Indeed, the fact that our president is being paid a million dollars by the CEO of one of America's largest corpo rations is a seriously questionable ethical practice. The need for a student-faculty review committee that would evaluate private and corporate donations of more than Si0.000 on social and environmental cri teria does exist. For how truly reliable can the present committee be in discerning en vironmental and social concerns in pri vate donations when it is made up of "deans, directors, the University president as well as representatives from the Depart ment of University Development and the Oregon Foundation”? Don't these individ uals have a very specific perspective? -And. more important, do they really rep resent the views of students and faculty? \%e are asking for the opportunity to have representative input in the accep tance of private monetary gifts; we are ask ing for our social and environmental con cerns over private donations to be addressed appropriately. We see this as being done through the establishment of a student and faculty committee that will re view all donations of more than $10,000. Is it fair to deny students this type of rep resentation when we not only constitute the biggest population on campus but are also the biggest source of income for the University? McDonald has an agenda and a job to do as well. He is the person who is in charge ot bringing in the big corporate donations on campus. As such, we should be careful in our understanding of his "comments” and his “views." Claudia Villena Student Action for Labor and Equity
