Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 6, 1999)
EDITOR IN CHIEF Ryan Frank EDITORIAL EDITORS KameronCole Stefanie Knowlton t As elections approach and student interest wanes, it may he up to the not-so serious candidates to save student government Be prepared. You are about to be visually assaulted by neon posters, T-shirts and balloons. As you walk to class, strangers will thrust buttons at you. The air around you will swell with the sound of lofty promises. Ah, yes. It’s election season at the University of Oregon. This year’s race for ASUO Executive promises to be particularly interesting. Of the 11 candi dates, only a handful would fit the traditional definition of serious candidates. One person al ways runs as a goof, but this year there are sev eral. Some people are worried that these candidates are going to waste the student body’s time, or worse yet, that they will make a joke of student government. That might be a legitimate concern, but in the minds of many people student government has been a joke for a long time. The number of joke candidates are a symptom of what is wrong with student government, namely that it has become a joke in the minds of many students. We are told that the ASUO Executive is wor thy of a certain degree of respect, yet this year’s officers have done little, if anything, to prove themselves worthy. They have failed to reach out to the student body in a way that would foster even a little confidence in cam pus politics. How many students even know the names of the current ASUO president and vice ' presi dent? The state of the ASUO and the in credibly invisi ble exec should an noy, if not outrage, every fee-paying stu dent on this campus. It should upset stu dents, but the sad truth is that few people care enough to be outraged. Many of the students who have been around for a few years have grown jaded. And all that new students know of campus politics and the inner workings of the ASUO is what they’ve seen so far, which hasn’t been much. When students go to the polls lat er this term, they will do so believ ing that their vote is going to count for something. The large percentage that choose not to vote have already given up on that idea. As the student government of one of the largest public universities in Oregon, the ASUO has the potential > / / to exert a tremendous influence. For the ASUO to re alize this poten tial, it needs to take steps to draw these uai,i\ illlu Uic process. The upcoming elec tion might turn into a cir cus, but if that gets the campus to take an interest in student government, then maybe it’s not such a bad thing. For the most part, students want the best leadership they can get, and if they’ve given up on finding it, then there is a problem. Before this year’s candidates start tossing out campaign promises, they would do well to get out and talk to those students who have al ready written off the entire elections BryanDtmn/ process as ridiculous or irrele vant. Students who look at stu dent government as a joke are the ones who know how it has failed. This editorial represents the opinion of the Emerald editorial board. Responses may be sent to ode@oregon.uoregon.edu. Letters to me hditor KWVA an alternative Regarding the article written on KWVA (ODE, March 10), I would like to clarify several issues. First, KWVA functions much like any other pro fessional office. Just as a writer could not walk into the Emerald office and demand that his story be printed, a DJ cannot walk into a radio and demand a show. There is a waiting list of qualified DJs. Specialty shows are granted only'to those DJs who have proved their metal. A good DJ is someone who is dedicated, reliable, consistent, willing to wake up at 2 a.m. for his or her show, doesn’t miss meetings and sticks around for more than just a few terms. A Grateful Dead/Phish show qualifies as a specialty show. The second point that needs to be addressed is our mission statement. KWVA provides a “clear alternative” on the radio dial. In a world that con tinues to be annexed by corporations, pacified by beer, homogenized by style and dwarfed by con sumerism, KWVA is untouched by the main stream. We are classified as an educational radio station, supported by the University. The spirit of our mission statement was to give a voice to the fringe of society, to the art of underrepresented music and the DJs taste. Our mission statement was approved by the FCC to obtain our license. Should we ever wish to change the mission state ment, we would have to reapply to the FCC when our license expires in six years. In closing, I would like to say that beyond the structure of our mission statement, we not only should not compete with other radio stations, we don’t want to. We provide a variety of music from underrepresented artists. The sound of the station is the culmination of DJs, programming directors, music directors, etc. If we don’t play the Grateful Dead and Phish it’s because no one here wants to do it. We don’t have to please the masses. The mass es have plenty of radio stations to tune in to. If you don’t like KWVA, you can apply for a staff or DJ po sition, volunteer, or just change the dial. Emily Walter General Manager, KWVA Y2K worries I’m concerned about the Y2K article you ran in the March 12 issue. Your article gives a false sense of security to people about the status of their com puters. Saying “For computers made before about 1995, there might be a possibility of a problem,” and “students were not too concerned about having problems with their PCs,” may give people a sense of relief that might cause them to put off checking out their systems. Just because you bought a brand new computer in 1999 doesn’t mean the computer is going to be 100 percent Y2K compliant. My company just pur chased four brand name computers and every one of them failed the compliance tests. Just because a company claims their BIOS chips are compliant doesn’t mean the BIOS in your brand new machine is compliant. BIOS manufacturers aren't just going to throw away the old BIOS chips even though they aren’t making two digit BIOS chips anymore. Instead, they are changing over to the four-digit year codes but continue to sell off their old stock. So you could have a brand spank ing new computer with an outdated BIOS chin in it. ^ There are several testing programs you can download off of the Web, but your best bet is to check with the computer manufacturer to see if your system has any compliance issues. Most of the big name computer companies have BIOS upgrades available on their Web sites. Windows 95 and some versions of Windows 98 are not compliant and require an upgrade patch that can be found at Microsoft's Web site. Also, even af ter you ve installed this patch on your computer, you need to change the snort date in your regional control panel to reflect a four-digit year date. Of course, if the power companies aren’t compli ant and you lose power on New Year’s Day 2000, your brand spanking new computer makes a won derful paperweight. RJ Emmett U0 Alumnus ’96 Systems Analyst Chrome Data Corp. Said &Done “Peace in Kosovo without the popu lation of Kosovo would be a hollow mockery. NATO's campaign will con tinue until the refugees can re turn to their homes under international protection." -British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook on the Koso vo crisis. “I would hope out of the whole expe rience Wyoming can emerge as a more caring com munity." -Stephen M. Johnson, a Wyoming minis ter on the conclu sion of Russel Henderson’s trial for the murder ol Matthew Shep ard. The trial ended Monday when Henderson pleaded guilty to robbing and pis tol-whipping Shepard in Octo ber. “Come on, it's poli tics. She presents us with an oppor tunity and we take advantage of it and then that’s not fair? I mean, is it fair that she comes to New York and raises lots of mon ey?” -New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, when asked if his recent criticisms of potential Sen ate opponent Hillary Clinton are fair. The mayor’s campaign com mittee recently unveiled its “HillaryNo.com” website. “Earth to Gore. Stop trying to rein vent reality.” -Republican Leadership Coun cil television com mercial that dis putes Vice President Al Gore's claim that he was instru mental in creating the Internet.
