Friday, March 12 1999
Weather forecast
Today Saturday
Rain Rain
High 53, Low 40 High 53, Low 46
Oscar picks
Find out who would linn the
99 awards if the Emerald
were in charge/?AGE 5A
March Madness
'The Oregon women's basketball team opens
NCAA Tournament play today at 4 p.m.
against Cincinnati /SECTION 8
An independent newspaper
Volume 100, Issue 117
University of Oregon
www.dailyemerald.com
A moment in the sun
Scott Bamett/Emeratt
While getting ready for finals, junior Rob Byars, among many others, spent the beautiful afternoon basking in the sun on the Knight Library lawn.
Forum aims to help middle school girls
This weekend’s “Success in the
Middle” conference discusses
‘evaded curriculum issues’
By Sarah Kickler
tor the Emerald
A keynote speech tonight by an organizer
of Take Our Daughters to Work Day kicks off
the “Success in the Middle” conference,
which aims to offer support for middle
school girls and the adults who care for
them.
“The goal is to address what the AAUW
[American Association of University
Women] study calls the ‘evaded curricu
lum’ issues: substance abuse, early sexual
activity, violence, sexual harassment, body
image, sticking with math and science in
school and other issues that, if not ad
dressed, lead to poor self-esteem, school
performance and a limited future,” said
Jayne Mickles, one of the conference’s orga
nizers.
The conference begins tonight at 7 p.m.
with “Girls’ Night Out” and continues Sat
urday with conference workshops and per
formances.
Tonight’s “Girls’ Night Out” events, spon
sored by PeaceHealth Medical Group, in
clude performances by Encore Theater, a
group of retired community women, and
Young Women’s Theater Collective, a group
of local high school girls.
The keynote speaker is Lisa Sjostrom, an
expert on eating disorders. She will talk
about healthy development and offer sug
gestions for preventing eating disorders and
developing “bullyproof” girls, according to
a news release.
Saturday workshops for girls and adults
will be held concurrently in the EMU. Both
groups will watch a performance by Ophe
lia Rising, a high school girls’ theater group
from Jackson County.
Adults will attend a panel discussion
about ways to support girls during their
middle school years. After lunch, adults can
attend "At the Movies,” a mother-daughter
Turn to FORUM, Page4A
Auction
benefits
homeless
The University president and
several coaches are on the
event’s honorary committee
By Felicity Ayles
Oregon Daily Emerald
Joe DiMaggio’s spirit lives on at Lane
Shelter Care’s Benefit Celebrity Auction on
March 14 at Lane County Fairgrounds. The
auction features an encased baseball auto
graphed by the sports legend, as well as
more than 200 items from celebrities in tele
vision, film and the arts.
Lane Shelter Care sent out more than
1,200 letters to various celebrities this year
and, as usual, ended up with a favorable re
sponse, said Mary Bunch, auction database
manager.
“We have lots and lots of celebrity memo
rabilia,” she said.
These items include an autographed pho
to of Susan Sarandon, a Jackie Chan poster
and a book by Dr. Laura Schlesinger.
In addition to celebrity items, the auction
also features household goods, sporting
goods and children’s items, Bunch said.
“We have over 1,000 items donated by lo
cal businesses,” she said. “You name it, we
have an incredible variety of things.”
Of the celebrity memorabilia, 30 items
will be sold by oral auction at the fair
grounds from 2 to 5 p.m., whereas the rest
of the items will be part of the silent auction
at the same location. Bunch said she hopes
these items will raise more than $500 each.
Bunch said Lane Shelter Care has already
received a major bid for the Joe DiMaggio
baseball, but can only accept bids during the
auction.
This year, as in each of the auction’s three
previous years, honorary committee mem
bers, who are local celebrities, are lending
their names to the auction. •
"The honorary committee is known by
name and that helps to get the attention of
celebrities,” she said.
University President Dave Frohnmayer,
Turn to AUCTION, Page 4A
Most personal computers will not be affected bvY2K
Home users
with concerns
can go to any
of the
numerous Web
sites that have
information
on the Y2K
bug
By G. Jaros
Oregon Daily Emerald
Home, home on the computer — where
the nerd and the Webmaster play — and
where seldom is heard a discouraging word
— about the bug they call Y2K.
Y2K is the bug that computer date sys
tems are going to run into at the turn of the
century. Four-digit dates such as 1985 were
often saved as 85 to conserve memory
space.
“Mostly, there’s no cause for concern,”
said Chad Giusti, a microcomputer consul
tant at the University Computing Center.
“It’s a nonissue for newer home computers,
say for 1995 on.”
For computers made before about 1995,
there might be a possibility of a problem, al
though 99 percent of home applications
won’t be affected in the least, Giusti said.
Older computers may experience minor dif
ficulties because the industry was slow to
upgrade the standards.
"The worst thing that will happen to
home users is you pop on your computer
and it will say Tuesday instead of Friday
and your tax program might say you are a
hundred years late on your payment,”
Giusti said.
The primary Y2K issue surrounding PCs
is older hardware, but most of these issues
are well known to hardware makers, so if
people have concerns the best thing to do is
contact the hardware maker, Giusti said.
Students were not too concerned about
having problems with their PCs.
“I’ve been pondering the worldwide
banking concerns more than my home com
puter,” said Chris Geib, a junior political
science major. He just bought a new Dell
laptop and the manufacturer didn’t say any
thing about any problems, he said.
Dell-developed computers and software
that were shipped after Jan. 1,1997, are Year
2000 compliant, according to Dell’s online
Y2K information Web site. With older soft
ware, the company recommends contacting
the software maker.
One student was confident that her com
puter would have no problems.
“I have a Macintosh, so Y2K doesn’t affect
me,” said Cedar Rossini, a senior humani
ties major.
Turn to Y2K, Page 4A
This series will delve
into the questions and
concerns surrounding
the new millennium.