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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 10, 2000)
Tuesday Editor in chief: Jack Clifford Managing Editor: Jessica Blanchard Newsroom: (541) 346-5511 Room 300, Erb Memorial Union P.O. box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403 E-mail: ode@oregon.uoregon.edu EDITORIAL EDITOR: MICHAEL j. KLECKNER opededitor@journalist.com SAINT AND PROFITS ERIC PFIEFFER Jay Breslow is not your ASUO president. Jay Breslow is revenge gone wrong. He is fulfilling his role as the George W. Bush of Univer sity politics. Someone I wouldn’t mind going to a bar becue with, but someone who takes orders from a shadow boss. I don’t question that Breslow is passionate about student ac tivism. Most people, upon em bracing activism, are passion ate. And single-minded. For example, dozens of young fascists who have their parents buy them $1,000 tents so they can camp on a lawn and tell the world how to think. Or a few dozen anar chists who decided “breaking shit” was a movement and subsequently drowned out the message that 45,000 union workers, religious leaders, students and activists were promoting in Seattle last year. Breslow, like most politi cians and the government it self, is victim to the special-in terest lobby. Jay Breslow was not elected ASUO president on his mer its. He was elected by the backlash to his opponents in last year’s election, C.J. Gabbe and Peter Larson. Anyone who even remotely follows the ASUO knows this is the truth. When it was a real contest, based on political connections and grassroots activism, the Gabbe ticket devastated Breslow in the pri mary election. Then, fear set in. If you do the math, Gabbe received 834 votes in the pri mary election, compared to 548 for Breslow. The other candidates received a com bined total of 483 votes. Then, in the general election, Bres low surged to 1,037, while Gabbe dropped slightly with 806. Cut to the chase: Breslow won on a platform of collec tive hate. Those voters (myself in cluded) who did not support a Gabbe presidency simply transferred our votes from the candidates we actually fa vored to what we perceived as the lesser of two evils. We played a childish game, and now the Karma chameleon has bitten us in the ass. Breslow flirted with fas cism in a Sept. 27 Emerald in terview: “Student leaders are student activists, and those who don’t believe it shouldn’t be student leaders. ” Transla tion: Play by my rules or go home. Jay, I didn’t get the new Dave Matthews CD. I don’t wear armbands to show my political affiliation (my Dad did as a Black Panther grow ing up in Watts, when that ac tually meant something). And I don’t base my beliefs on how many cameras show up. Am I disqualified from the cast of WRC Activist, 90210? Now, put down your soli darity sticks. This is not an at tack on ideals. I embrace some of Breslow’s adopted beliefs. He seems to be a decent and relatively intelligent young man. However, I also believe that the method is as impor tant as the message. And his method is flawed. If Breslow wants to be an ac tivist. he needs to realize that activism is not just a code word for Worker Rights Con sortium. The Lesbian, Gay, Bi sexual, Transgendered Al liance, the Black Student Union, the International Stu Bryan Dixon Emerald dent Asso ciation and 90 other stu dent groups de serve resources and recogni tion as well. These are the activists who fight every day to preserve their livelihood, even when the mainstream media and political circles look the other way. The truth is, Melissa Unger is vour real ASUO president. She has risen like a phoenix from the political ashes to seize control. The invasion of the ASUO by members of the Survival Center mirrors the Republican take-over of Congress in 1994. I’ll tell you what though, I’m glad Melissa Unger is my ASUO president. She’s an ef fective activist. Like her friends in OSPIRG, she has the credentials and the chutzpah I can respect. I just wish Jay Breslow, the ASUO and the students knew who really was in charge. Eric Pfeiffer is a columnist for the Oregon Daily Emerald and is cur rently serving an internship at the National Journal Hotline in Washing ton. D.C. His views do not necessari ly represent those of the Emerald. He can be reached at epfeiffe@glad stone.uoregon.edu. Letters to the editor The courageous Emerald It's frustrating to me, really, to see what’s happening in regards to the Ya hoo! controversy. Whether or not the Ya hoo! ads were offensive, I get this feel ing that people are fighting against the ads for two reasons: Because the Emer ald ran them and because everybody else is arguing about them. Just like the protests and outbursts of before, there are just a vocal few who are swaying the opinions of many more: “Hey! Did you see this horrible ad in the Emerald? Let's write them a nasty letter in protest!” “The ad wasn’t that bad, and I think you're blowing it way out of proportion. ” “But you don’t like the Emerald.” “Good point, let’s get pissed at ’em!” I was happy to read Ms. Reynolds and Ms. Hilles’ letter, as they say what I’ve believed all along: You shouldn't argue just because you can. I support the Emerald running the ads. I've seen the ads, and while they’re not in great taste, they created enough debate that people will remember it. And that was probably Yahoo!'s inten tion. I don't blame the Emerald at all for running them and believe that it took more guts to run these ads than it did to not run them. Jake Ortman Class of 2000 Bend, Ore. Funds should support Pedi-Cab The leasing of police-style cruisers by the Department of Public Safety is most certainly a misuse of funds. Not only does this decision violate law and capi talize upon students’ (and community members’) fears of flashing blue lights, but the cruisers take funding away from programs that DO build a campus com munity. Instead of spending money to operate vehicles that may be illegal, why not fund programs such as Bicycle Taxi — a program that is not currently running due to “accessibility problems”? Odds are that for far less money than it costs to operate a fleet of illegal cars, we could BRING BACK THE PEDI-CAB! Ben Andrews geology HRA not truthful Why does the Human Rights Alliance see fit to lie in its commentary in the Emerald (ODE, Oct. 4)? Specifically, I am referring to its statement that “there is no democracy on this campus.” This is quite absolutely not true. This cam pus is rife with democracy at nearly every level. The most obvious case is toe annual ASUO elections, which recent ly supplied the HRA with a “mandate” from students — and, by the abhorrently low turnout, simultaneously demon strated that most students are here for an education, not for social policy debates. Another lie by the HRA was the state ment that “students, faculty, staff and other campus constituencies have a voice only if President Frohnmayer al lows it.” Perhaps the HRA is unaware that the Oregon Legislature provides the University with much of its funding as well as helps influence policy decisions. The Legislature receives its revenue from Oregon taxpayers and its mandate to govern from Oregon voters. Students, faculty and staff have a voice: Vote for the legislative candidates who support your views — the University does not operate inside a vacuum. Perhaps the HRA really wants to re place the current democratic system with its own local oligarchy. Creating such a quasi-autonomous, non-govern mental organization would have two possible outcomes: Either take policy decision power away from the Oregon Legislature, voters and taxpayers, or lose state funding and sit back as our tu ition rises to the levels of private col leges. Dustin Preuitt graduate student computer and information science Quoted “I had fun at Yale. I got a lot of great friends out of Yale. And I didn't pay at tention.” —George Bush, in The Washing ton Post on July 23,2000. “Every time we tried to do something, Al would catch us and say, Tm telling! I’m telling! I'm telling Dad!’He was an egre gious little tat tletale.’” —Barbara Howar, child hood friend of Al Gore’s sister Nancy, in The Washington Post on Oct. 10, 1999. "He is a caring, sensitive, good parent." —Eminem's lawyer, Harvey Hauer, in Peo ple magazine on Aug. 25,2000, speaking of the rapper, who is due in a Michi gan court today on charges of as sault with a dan gerous weapon and carrying a concealed weapon. “Our men are really manly men!” —a crowd of protesters in Ta balosos, Peru, chanting in re , sponsetoaTV I report that said drinking water i from a river that unsthrough he town of 4,000 has umedthemen into homosexu Is, as reported n www.advo ate.com'sOct. 9,2000 issue.
