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1
Community should be outraged by recent riots
Sunday’s disturbance began
with the good intentions of a
protest and should not have
become a violent outburst
AN EMERALD EDITORIAL
The blemishes on the face of the City
of Eugene continue to grow in number.
As Sunday’s early-morning riot fol
lowing a WOW Hall concert proved,
the city is not moving past senseless ri
ots.
The concert by Seattle’s jTchkung!
ended at about 1 a.m. Sunday. Follow
ing the show, the band migrated to 8th
Avenue and Chamelton Street and be
gan a drum circle. According to a po
lice report, most of the 130 concert-go
ers followed the band and into the
street, where the drum circle lasted
about 15 minutes. During the drum
ming, someone unfurled pro-tree ban
ners. The band soon returned to WOW
Hall to pack up its equipment.
Most of the crowd dispersed, but
many stayed, “working themselves
into a frenzy,” the Register-Guard said.
The riot reached its peak when the
crowd moved to the site of a recent
tree protest at the Fifth Street Public
Market, where three trees were recent
ly cut to make room for more con
struction. After vandalizing cars and
businesses, harassing passers-by and
police officers, and tearing down a
fence at the Fifth Street Market, the
crowd was dispersed by police in riot
gear.
What is happening when a post
concert crowd is working itself into a
distorted frenzy? This sort of behavior
simply does not make sense.
Eugene is well-known around the
country for its civic conscience, and
it is even infamous around the coun
try for its occasional over-the-top riot
over tree cutting and other city is
sues.
Although the post-concert party
may have originally been intended to
light an activist spark under locals, it
certainly did not turn out that way.
The concert, which was sponsored
by University radio station KWVA,
quickly turned into a violent, nonsen
sical riot that left what the Register
Guard reported as several thousand
dollars of damage at the Electric Sta
tion restaurant.
Protesting to save trees is one thing.
Rioting for the sake of rioting is anoth
er. The string of senseless riots that
have plagued Eugene in the last year
is disturbing. The worst of the recent
riots was on Halloween in 1997 when
police dispersed the crowd with tear
gas and Alder Street was left littered
with broken signs, bottles and light
poles.
i\one or tnese riots are rep
resenting a majority, but they
are a majority enough to
cause major damage and get
the attention of the Eugene I
police and the community. 1
It is in the best interests of
the community and protest
ers to stay focused and avoid
slipping into that habit of
senseless violence again.
This editorial represents /t
the opinion of the Emer
ald editorial board. Re
sponses may be sent to
ode@oregon. uoregon. edu.
AMY GOLDHAMMER/Emerald
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Maybe Rodriguez
As athletes grow bigger and
stronger, they get better. That’s a
logical premise that Rob Moseley
used in his recent column on the
great shortstops of baseball (ODE,
July 28).
He may be right about Alex Ro
driguez of the Mariners as the
greatest shortstop ever. But it’s a
question that never can be an
swered, especially since Rob, at
his age, has seen so few of the great
shortstops who preceded Alex.
Among them are two as lanky
as Alex, and who dominated the
position in their eras: Marty “the
Octopus” Marion of the Cardinals
in the 1940s and Don Kessinger of
the Cubs in the 1960s. They had
great range and hit well enough,
in the .270s.
Two things to consider about
the modern game: 1) The ball
clearly has been tampered with to
produce all the home runs; 2) Ex
pansion has diluted the game, es
pecially with some 20 pitchers
who never would’ve made the
majors in the old eight-team
leagues, a factor that probably has
led to the boom in home runs.
George Beres
Eugene
Alumnus remembered
1 met Shin Yasui some four
years ago. My remembrance of
him is very vivid. We were
friends for the last three years,
and two weeks before his death
in a car accident, I had received
his e-mail message informing me
about his latest plans and pro
jects with Roma or Gypsy people
in Yugoslavia.
Shin was a true Buddhist. His
life work toward humanity Shin
expressed with devotion, humble
ness and impeccability. With vast
compassion and knowledge of life
and livelihood, he approached or
phaned children, youth, elders
and adults in Bosnia.
Even being so far from his
homeland, Japan, Shin lived for
helping humanity in the parts of
Bosnia that were most affected by
the war. He always found a com
mon ground with people of dif
ferent nationalities and nations.
Working with humanitarian
organizations in Bosnia, Shin
witnessed many devastating
scenes in the war — starvation,
desperation and violence. In his
letters to me, Shin always point
ed out how much all his work
with other volunteers was grow
ing and becoming more inspira
tional, with feelings of never-lost
hope. I admired often the impec
cability, endurance, never-ceas
ing inner fire and love in Shin
that would always take a form of
action for improvement of hu
mans’ lives, no matter where he
would find himself — among
Bosnians, Croatians or Serbians.
Shin was one of the most
poignant writers on the political
and war issues in former Yu
goslavia. His fluid, non-biased
writing was always to me a
breeze of important issues taking
place in youth camps where
Shin often worked. Shin had
many friends all over the world
— in Bosnia, in Japan and here
in the United States. His
strongest weapons were compas
sion, love and clarity with which
he fought human stubbornness,
violence, anger, pain and death.
Today, as I am writing this,
memories and precious mo
ments I shared with Shin are
pouring into my thoughts. My
sadness is vast. If there can be
any peace I may find in thinking
about Shin’s death, it is under
standing how much Shin’s short
life touched hundreds of peo
ple’s lives. He lived life with ap
preciation and value of exis
tence, with his dreams to be of
service to humanity, particularly
of people in suffering.
Shin, you will always be in
my heart living like a bird never
ceasing to fly, with outstretched
wings touching people’s lives.
Our friendship does not have a
name nor an end.
Jasmina Gradistanac
Eugene
Editor’s note:
Shin Yasui was a former Uni
versity student who died in early
July as the result of an automo
bile accident in Austiia.
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