Editor in chief: Laura Cadiz
Editorial Editors: Bret Jacobson, Laura Lucas
No Excuses!
The standard student moan throughout
Eugene is that there isn’t enough to do
that’s fun or interesting. While it’s easy
to fall into that mindset during the drea
ry eternity that is the Willamette Valley rain
season, there are enough activities around
campus to keep students occupied that
there should be no reason to seek mischief.
Obviously, there are plenty of scholastic
events and clubs that one can choose to be
long to. Students interested in politics can
work with the ASUO, there are business
and marketing fraternities and there are al
ways fascinating guests lecturirlg on topics
that are often overlooked in the rush of
everyday life.
There is a multitude of on-campus sites
to relax and recreate that are only moments
away from anyone who desires entertain
ment. The EMU offers a recreation center,
an arcade, restaurants, a ballroom and The
Buzz for varying tastes for one’s enjoyment
palette. There are special events, such as the
ASUO Street Faire and David Spade’s com
edy, to break up any monotony some may
feel.
If anyone wishes to keep active while
close to campus, there are innumerable
opportunities to join sports teams or pick
up a hobby. Billiards and golf are not
only found around town, they’re taught
as one-credit courses, along with trampo
line and badminton. There are intramur
al sports offered such as floor hockey, flag
football and basketball to get out some ag
gression if it becomes so necessary.
For someone who seeks a little additional
culture to enrich their life, the University of
fers the Museum of Natural History and the
Museum of Art. Both are on campus and
both offer fantastic alternative views to
where we as people come from, where we
are and where we’re going.
The area also offers a great many hiking,
biking and kayaking sports that make for
days full of fresh air, nature’s beauty and a
different pace of life. Those who seek a bit
of danger in a sport associated with the great
outdoors can go rock climbing at Eugene’s
Crux Rock Gym.
But people shouldn’t have to worry that
a hike down the campus streets will be as
dangerous as rock climbing. The Universi
ty area has been witness to a remarkable
amount of juveniles acts over the last few
years. Halloween riots, vandalism and
burning couches falling from buildings are
just a few of the flavorful happenings that
needn’t have taken place.
The most basic excuse for mischief is a
claim that there are no alternatives to caus
ing trouble, but rather the lack of interesting
stimuli is in fact an inherent invitation to
wrongdoing. This argument doesn’t hold
water because it ignores the responsibility
of the individual to society in favor of a
faultless mass of egoists.
As a member of a campus that places a
high premium of peaceful coexistence, it is
incumbent upon each and every student to
find peaceful and safe means to pass his or
her free time and to forgo inciting others to
mischievous acts.
With so many interesting events and
venues around the area to keep even the
most fickle resident enthralled, there isn’t
any need for people to turn to destructive
activities to amuse themselves.
This editorial represents the opinion of the Emerald editorial
hoard.Responsesmaybesenttoode@oregon.uoregon.edu.
Thumbs
To 8 new support
network for those
who need it:
The Student Parent
Association pro*
vides students with
children an instant
community net
work to others in
the same situation,
To allowing every
one to serve:
Great Britain will al
low gays in the mil
itary giving every
one an opportunity
to improve them
selves while help
ing their country,
it's hard enough to
find good people
without adding un
necessary bans on
sendee. This is a
hillarious comment
that we just had to
repeat for your en
joyment.
To restrictive
clothing rules:
The Essltager Hall
gym does not allow
sports bras, tank
topsorspandexfor
those working out
in the facility.
To the prying eyes
watching you:
four KEZI employ
ees werefired after
ahigh-poweiad
camera lens may
have been adjusted
to view guests In
their rooms at the
Eugene Hilton ho*
tel.
Letters to the editor
Face reality
I found it interesting that the
stories about the Genocide
Awareness Project protests and
the free speech platform appeared
together in today’s Emerald (ODE,
Oct. 12). The protesters who de
cided that students should be
shielded from this form of expres
sion (posters depicting acts of vi
olence and brutality) seem anx
ious not to be seen as intolerant of
the First Amendment rights of
others. The fact that they covered
these posters with bed sheets
speaks rather more loudly to me
than does their denials of intoler
ance.
The images are starkly ugly and
brutal. The display’s message, that
abortion belongs to that set of hor
rible, brutal things that we humans
do to other humans is disturbing
but deserves to be listened to. It
confronts us with the possibility
that we, too, are capable of com
mitting (or consenting to) morally
equivalent acts. The fact that for
much of our culture, abortion has
become socially/ politically/ legal
ly acceptable does not make this
possibility unthinkable; lynching
and anti-semitism were acceptable
to significant parts of the cultures
of the times when the poster im
ages were recorded.
I understand that these ideas and
images make people uncomfort
able; they should. They show us
what real, living human beings
have done to other human beings.
They invite us to question beliefs
and practices that we have come to
accept as moral. If we find ourselves
unwilling to allow these ideas and
images to confront and disturb us,
perhaps we are not the champions
of truth, freedom and tolerance that
we imagine ourselves to be.
William Moore
classified staff
Abortion not the only way
Whenever the humanity of an
individual or group is denied, their
rights — even their lives — are at
risk. This is one of the points that
the Genocide Awareness Project is
attempting to make. I believe it
could have been made without us
ing photos that are insensitive to
the Jewish and black communities.
In the furor over the images used to
make that point, the question of
abortion as an issue of justice is be
ing overlooked.
Our society celebrates the rights
of the individual while neglecting
the common good, which really
means then that the powerful have
more to celebrate. In this situation
anyone who depends upon anoth
er for life is at risk. It should come
as no surprise, then, that the un
born, the elderly and the terminal
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iy ill are especially vulnerable.
People offer seemingly com
pelling arguments for abortion: preg
nancies that occur because of rape
or incest, overpopulation, birth de
fects, the poverty of the mother, etc.
Whether or not you believe abortion
deprives the unborn of their rights, it
must be admitted that abortion does
nothing to change the unjust social
and economic structures that make
abortion a compelling choice at all.
There are other solutions to these
systemic problems.
Seeking solutions to these prob
lems would seem to me to be an ap
propriate role for a university com
munity.
the Rev. Michael Fones, OP
director, UO Catholic Campus Ministry