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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 19, 1998)
CONTACTING US NEWSROOM: ADDRESS: (541)346-5511 Oregon Daily Emerald E-MAIL: P.O.BOX 3159 odeSoregon. uoregon.edu Eugene, Oregon 97403 ONLINE EDITION: www uoregon.edu/~ode Perspectives EDITOR IN CHIEF Sarah Kickler EDITORIAL EDITOR Mike Schmierbach NIGHT EDITOR Carl Yeh Oregon Daily [your name here] Is the growing trend of corporate names for real places finny or frightening? Roh Moseley B eing a sports guy, I thought the disturb ing trend of attaching corporate sponsor ship to basically theoretical products was confined to the world of professional athletics. Flipping through Sports Il lustrated, one reads references to games played at Cynergy Field, Qualcomm Stadium and 3Com Park. A post-New Year’s edition of The Sporting News referred to college football con tests sponsored by lnsight.com, Federal Express and Tostitos. Christ, watch a ballgame on TV and you’ll see pitching changes and instant replays with spon sors attached. So it was with no small bit of sadness and, I’ll admit, a bit of laughter, that I read in PC Com puting’s April issue of the latest craze in the race for big busi nesses to attach their names to every imaginable entity. The city of San Francisco, not a half-hour drive from my hometown and, in my opinion, the greatest city in the world, was negotiating with a comput ing industry powerhouse to change its name to San Fran Cisco for a period of eight years. The compensation: $1 bil lion. Frightening, yes. An isolated incident, no. Similar means of achieving a financial windfall are being considered in towns such as Dallas, Houston, Detroit and Seattle, and at least one town has already completed a deal. As of April 1,1999, Sioux City, Iowa, will be no more. On that date, the city of Gateway will be born. Which begs the question: Can I work on my IBM in Gate way? It sounds ridiculous, but con sidering the cutthroat tactics adopted by all corporations, and especially those in the computing industry, it proba bly isn’t that absurd a question. And it’s a type of question that’s probably been raised in the past. An Iowa city has prostituted itself before, when Dubuque was named after a meat-pack ing company in town. San Francisco would be continuing the trend set by its neighbor Hercules, which was named af ter a gunpowder manufacturer. And I think we can all guess the impetus for the naming of Goodyear, Ariz. I guess in the days when those names were chosen, the city and company were basical ly the same. There probably wasn’t much else going on. But if Bill Gates is allowed to change the name of Redmond to Microsoft, Wash., a severe conflict of interest could arise as to which computer products I could use in town. Would Gates permit opera tion of Macs in Microsoft? Could I drink a Coke in Pepsi, Texas? Could 1 be arrested for flying United into Delta, Ga.? Would 1 be shot for wearing Reeboks in Nike, Ore.? And just how severely would I be flogged for driving a Chevy in Ford, Mich.? Gotcha. The last one was a trick question. Detroit is negoti ating to change its name to Hyundai. Imagine the uproar. The one true bastion of Ameri can blue-collar labor renamed by a foreign interest. What this signals is the com plete disintegration of our so cial forums. No longer do we have a business forum separate from the political forum. No longer is there an entertain ment forum separate from the athletic forum. The powers of all the rest combined have proven no match for the almighty dollar, and the busi ness forum has drawn every other social realm under its umbrella. But I guess there is one posi tive we residents of Eugene can take from all of this. If Hyundai does indeed become the new moniker of Detroit, there’s no way the company could own the rights to two separate city names, is there? Or are we all future residents of Hyundai n? All of this has led me to one conclusion: From now on, I’m sticking to the sports page. Rob Moseley is a sports reporter for the Emerald. His views do not necessarily represent those of the newspaper. Drawing Board hms CAMPAIGN Flh [UFO R M st I FEEL YOUR PAIN... m Miiifat’liili-lili OSPIRG reality This really has gone on long enough. Doesn’t the ASUO Execu tive get it? I wish I could attribute Geneva Wortman’s and Bill Miner’s statements to poor journalism, but it seems that they really are ignorant of the student body’s desires. Wortman seemed shocked to hear that students wanted a detailed bud get from OSPIRG. I’m glad to find out that she paid equal attention to both sides of the issues, seeing how fiscal accountability was the entire point of the “Honesty” campaign. Then, she incriminates herself fur ther by making reference to OSPIRG as “we” and to “our message.” Whoa! Can anyone else see the con flict of interests here? Then our good buddy Miner lays down a fat one: “People didn't un derstand the implications of their votes.” For crying out loud, of course we understood the implica tions of our votes! Why else would we have voted how we did? To ask students to “reconsider” their vote is bad enough, but to suggest com plete ignorance on the part of the student body is downright offen sive and insulting. If this campus is to maintain its level of activism, then our student leaders need to open their eyes to reality and stop second guessing their constituents. If they refuse to do even this much, then I ween for the future of democracy. Sean Williams Music Education SETA overlooked It was no surprise to see the article on the zebrafish grant (ODE, May 13) talking about how great the funding for the facility is with no discussion why it might be wrong. The Emerald has completely ignored all events and education Students for the Ethi cal Treatment of Animals have con ducted in protest of animal research on this campus. I guess the suffering of innocent animals doesn’t matter to them, no matter what the arguments are. Last year, over 2,000 students signed a petition saying they are against the animal research on cam pus. I guess they don’t matter either. And the more than 500 signatures from students asking for a neutral public forum discussing the moral and scientific implications of animal research is in vain as well. But then again, millions of dollars will always speak louder than the truth, no mat ter how horrific it is. This is just an other example of big business at our school that drowns out the sincere concerns of students. m the article it discusses how the administration has been supportive of the funding. Why shouldn’t they be? They are profiting. Steadman Up ham, the vice provost of research, has stated that there is no way that there will be a public forum on the issue of animal research. What about student voices? Animal research receives millions of dollars for a variety of rea sons — and where are all the cures? Animals differ anatomically, psycho logically, physiologically, genetical ly and socially. Many drugs have been put onto the market that tested “safe” on nonhuman animals but had severe side effects on humans, even death. There are many alterna tives to animal research as well. Most importantly, these animals are not humans’ to manipulate, own and murder. These animals are their own beings, and by decid ing their life, researchers are creat ing oppression and death for hu man and nonhuman animals. You would hope they would at least try to justify what they are doing through a public forum, but none of the animal reseachers responded to the request to do so. They can get away with this, as well as the mur der of innocent beings, because people continue to be ignorant of the innocent beings, because peo ple continue to be ignorant of the issues surrounding animal research and because part of that ignorance is perpetrated by this paper. Chelsea Lincoln Director, SETA Quoted 'This horse is not a bad-boy type of horse. He's just a bad boy some times." Trainer Shug McGaughey dis cussing Corona do's Quest in an Associated Press story from The Oregonian on Fri day. Does a “bad boy" horse throw horseshoes at photographers when they enter the barn? "Their whole team outplayed us, but we still feel they’re not a better team than we are," New York Knicks center Patrick Ewing, af ter his team lost its playoff series with the Indiana Pacers 4-1, as quoted in an AP story from Thursday’s Regis ter-Guard. They won, but we still feel we won. "Boomer is the farthest thing from a Beanie Baby." New York Yan kees manager Joe Torre quoted in an AP story about pitcher David Wells’ perfect game in Monday’s Register-Guard. Just because it was “Beanie Baby” day at the stadium doesn’t mean the analogy makes sense. “Couldn't hap pen to a crazier guy, huh?" Wells, talking about his achieve ment in the same story. Well, it could have happened to Torre. “He has great width in his stance and his grip and the plane of his swing are good. He's just faster and stronger with his rotation than any one I’ve seen." Oregon golf pro Jerry Mowlds, commenting on Tiger Woods’ swing in an Ore gonian article on Wednesday. Now I understand why la bor and the envi ronment receive so little coverage in the print media— there’s just so much vital infor mation you can pack into a news paper, after all.
