CONTACTING OS
NEWSROOM:
(541)346-5511
E-MAIL:
ode@oregon. uoregon.edi
ADDRESS:
Oregon Daily Emerald
P.O. Box3159
Eugene, Oregon 97403
uNLiNt tui i iun: www.uoregon.edu/~ode
Perspectives
Summer in Eugene rewards students with boredom
s summer. Ana iorsome reason, a
large majority of students find them
selves in Eugene. Instead of taking the
opportunity to break away from the city
of neo-fiowerchildren and street fairs, we
have chosen to enlighten our lives with
cram courses of organic-multicultural-so
cio-economic 347 classes or, for instance,
the exciting world of house painting.
Now, this is not to say the choice of staying
in Eugene was a bad one. In the lone run.
Amy
Goldhammer
we’ll be thanking our
selves when graduation
rolls around and we have
enough credits to march
our overlystuffed brains
down the aisle. But sum
mertime in Eugene is so
uneventful that mosqui
toes have chosen to mi
grate elsewhere. We have
limited opportunity to buy
'The Funniest Joke Books
me vvoria nas uver tcnown until tall be
cause even Frog doesn’t seem to tie around as
much.
Out of pure boredom, my friend decided
to get her nose pierced. When asked why she
did it, her response was plain and simple. "I
was bored,” she said.
Not to say the bands that come through
Eugene and play at local bars and dubs don’t
fulfill our endless nights, but if I see one
more fluorescent flyer for a band with a
name like "Chocolate Milk Balls," I’ll scream.
And how many times can you go to Satur
day Market before people start asking you
where your booth is?
For a while, the beautiful Oregon coast
was a prospect, but for anyone who has ever
left sunny Eugene and ended up sitting un
der the overhang of Driftwood Shores watch
ing the water while torrents of rain come
crashing down will understand how the
sandy beach slowly loses its appeal.
So that leaves us sitting around in the hot
sun, trying to figure out something to do,
while our friend—who we really don't want
to hang out with, but there’s no one else
around—stares at an empty refrigerator and
proposes the idea of barbecuing the baked
ziti left over from last week.
You find it’s actually not bad charbroiled
witn barbecue sauce.
But, cn the upside of pure boredom, you
find yourself hanging out with people you
really weren’t friends with during the year
and you do your homework because it pass
es time. Summer in Eugene allows you to
discover you actually like the taste of beer at
9 a.m. on a camping trip, and going to bed
before 3 in the morning gives you more ener
gy the next day. You may find out the girl’s
name down the street is Jenna and not "the
weird chick with funny hair."
Summertime parties don’t compare with
school year 200-plus capacity shin-digs.
However, you go because you secretly hope
something exciting might happen. Or,
maybe that cute guy in your lab will venture
away from his volumizer experiment. OK,
so his shorts are half an inch too short and
he wears white athletic socks with sandals,
but you end up holding his drink while he
plays darts with yourbuddies.
The Blockbuster employees know our
names, and not because we have fines. Eu
gene summers present you with a great op
portunity to rent "Spice World." Boredom
has led a handful of us to watching the Eu
gene Emeralds minor league baseball games.
My friend commented it reminded him of
games at Wrigley Field.
Right.
Pure boredom has driven us to find out
that the "My So Called Life" marathon I have
taped doesn’t include the Halloween
episode and that the Glenwood closes early
in the summer.
We have observed breathtaking sunsets
from atop Spencer Butte, driven aimlessly
around town and spent countless hours peo
ple-watching from our front porches.
Spending a summer in Eugene allows us
to grow, to appreciate the simple things in
life and to learn how to spell the word
“ornery.” So, maybe our job leaves us cov
ered in primer and we spend our days star
ing at chalkboards, but we took the risk of
staying in our home away from home.
And we’re bored.
A my Goldhammer is a reporterfor the Emer
ald and will be a columnist in the fall. Her
views do not necessarily represent those of the
newspaper.
|. n*p
z. * whjfc
nothing
3, lie in the Sun
y. more nothing
&. deep'COnoh'HOn
the dog
Ip- n*p
AMY GOLDHAMMER/Emerald
UTTERS POLICY
The Oregon Daily Emerald will attempt to
print all letters containing comments on top
ics of interest to the University community.
Letters must be limited to 250 words or
less. The Emerald reserves the right to edit
letters for length, clarity, grammar and style.
Letters can be e-mailed to ode@ore
gon.uoregon.edu.
CORRECTION
The Aug. 4 story “Kent seeks to avoid
sophomore slump” in the Oregon Daily
Emerald should have said that men’s bas
ketball recruit Frederick Jones graduated
from Barlow High School in Gresham.
The Emerald regrets the error.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
KWVA not at fault
On Aug. 1, the WOW Hall
hosted a concert by Seattle-based
band jTchkung! After the show,
band members held an im
promptu drum circle that
blocked the intersection at 8th
Avenue and Charnelton Street.
Following the drum circle, rem
nants of the crowd that had gath
ered committed acts of vandal
ism.
News stories in The Register
Guard and an editorial in the
Oregon Daily Emerald (Aug. 4)
identified University of Oregon
campus radio station KWVA as
sponsor of the concert. KWVA
welcomes many shows to the
WOW Hall. What this entails is
the station does radio announce
ments about the shows. They do
this for free — out of the good
ness of their hearts and an inter
est in promoting new music.
However, KWVA has no role in
determining which acts perform.
That is our responsibility alone.
jTchkung!, which is well
known for political and environ
mental activism, had performed
several times previously without
incident.
The Board of Directors and
staff of the Community Center
for the Performing Arts, which
operates the WOW Hall, con
demn the acts of vandalism and
misconduct. It is our policy that
all performances occur inside
the building with suitable sound
dampening and volunteer secu
rity. We are especially saddened
that these actions have hurt our
neighbors.
Legitimate concerns over the
loss of urban trees and national
forests are ill-served by acts of
destruction.
Bob Fennessy
Community Center for the
Performing Arts
Autzen event harmful
The year is 2048. A pall of de
spair blankets an impoverished
nation that — because of its dis
mal human rights record — has
been barred by the major powers
from participation in a robust
global economy. The stars that
once spangled Old Glory’s blue
field have been replaced by a
single white cross, and a banner
of sectarian oppression now
waves o’er the land of the van
quished and the home of the
slave.
The old U.S. Constitution and
its Bill of Rights have been de
clared blasphemous and void.
The supreme law of the land is a
fundamentalist scripture titles
“The 700 Club Version.”
The government’s official dai
ly electropaper is called The
Register-God. The Christian
Broadcasting Network’s Family
Channel offers the only ap
proved television programming.
All unauthorized communi
cations are subject to laser zap
ping by federal jammers known
as Talibaners. Twice each day,
every vassal of the theocracy
must face the holy city of Vir
ginia Beach and genuflect in
homage to a deified evangelical
clergy.
As heavily armed soldiers
force a ragtag crowd to kneel in
prayer, you awaken and experi
ence a rush of relief. The whole
thing was a nightmarish reverie!
Over coffee, you peruse a
1998 diurnal. For the third time
in less than a week, the front
page of Eugene’s anti-secularist
daily newspaper heralds a male
supremacy rally staged by a
Christian Reconstructionist
cadre of born-again homo
phobes called the Promise
Keepers. The University of Ore
gon made its dormitories and
football stadium available for
the theatrical production that
was produced and directed by
the recruiting arm of the reli
gious right.
The only justification offered
for all of the extraordinary hype
and accommodation extended
to “Coach" Bill McCartney’s fa
natical army is the notion that
any event which pumps dollars
into the community is worthy of
beatification.
When you’ve finished read
ing The Register-Guard’s latest
Promise Keepers promo, your
eyes fall on a nearby bookshelf
where you observe paperback
editions of “1984” and
“Fahrenheit 451.” You begin to
wonder if George Orwell and
Ray Bradbury didn’t get it right
after all.
Ron Black
Junction City
The Oregon Daily Emerald is published daily Monday
through Friday during the school year and Tuesday and
Thursday during the summer by the Oregon Daily Emer
aid Publishing Co. Inc . at the University ot Oregon. Eu
gene, Oregon. A member of the Associated Press, the
Emerald operates independently ot the University with
offices in Suite 300 of the Erb Memorial Union. The
Emerald is private property. The unlawful removal or usi
of papers is prosecutable by law.
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