Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (April 26, 2001)
Letters continued from page 2 ning odds for citizens of Oregon and our $150 million. Building a stadium in Portland is not economic development; it’s a subsidy to some out-of-state mil lionaire team owner. If you be lieve we should spend our re sources on transportation, education and rural infrastructure rather than a stadium, call or write your legislators and the governor and tell them to stop HB 2941. Baseball for Portland shouldn’t be Oregon’s favorite subsidy. Jason Franklin Portland Horowitz is raising awareness of reparations movement David Horowitz’s “Ten Rea sons” is an “infomercial” for his pocket-sized book, a full half of which is reproduced in the adver tisement. If you’ve read the ad, you know everything he has to say about reparations. Send him your money, and he’ll help prevent oth ers from receiving your money. Yet this ad also gives public at tention to a movement that is striving for greater public visibili ty and increased dialogue, with out which reparations will not be made. Frederick Douglas’s pub lished ads to purchase African Americans out of slavery as a means to abolition. Let Horowitz’s ad serve as a catalyst for dialogue and attention to the views of di verse scholars, activists, leaders and citizens who support repara tions. John Shuford graduate student philosophy One person can create change Apathy and ignorance is failure. Seventy species all over the earth go extinct every day. In the next few years, 200 tim ber sales in national forests in the Northwest, encompassing 60,000 plus acres of ancient forests, could be cut, pushing hundreds of threatened forest species closer to the brink of extinction. That’s just the tip of the glacier. It’s hard to think of us as the most advanced society on Earth as we blindly stumble toward our own demise day after day. Our society has all the knowledge and technol ogy to completely reverse our cur rent direction, yet greed, deception, apathy and ignorance perpetrate our biological annihilation. You say, “I am just one person or family — what can I or we do? We and I are so inconsequential.” That is exactly what the corporate capitalist system has trained your mind to believe. The truth is that the individual or small group creates most of the pos itive change in the world. They al ways have and likely always will. These people will set the example or precedent and others will follow. The problem is that there are more and more of those who blindly fol low the corporate institutions into the abyss of personal psychological annihilation. Apathy and ignorance is failure. So become one of those individu als or small groups and create the positive difference in your house hold, your neighborhood, your town, your county, your state and in our natural world. Becoming empowered leads to genuine free dom and success in this sweet life. Shannon Wilson Eugene Alcohol is simply a tool of rapists In response to Tuesday’s article (“Judge urges students to drink, party responsibly,” ODE, April 23), I am quite dismayed by the way nothing at all points to per sonal responsibility of the rapist in the rape situation mentioned. Comments such as “drinking too much alcohol leads to sexual assault” places the blame on the alcohol consumed, not the guilty party. All the alcohol does for the situation is make the victim less able to resist and the rapist able to justify his violence by saying, “But I was drunk.” Alcohol in and of itself is not a catalyst for violence; it’s just a tool some use to commit violent acts and later justify them. Randy Newnham senior linguistics/anthropology Emerald is offensive during Sexual Assault Awareness Week As I opened the Emerald on my way to class and found the “lovemat ters.com” insert (an advertising sup plement in the April 24 ODE), I was not surprised by the decision of the newspaper to allow it to be included. Instead, I just noticed the irony that during Sexual Assault Awareness Week, the Emerald would print ma terial which contributes to the rape culture on this campus. The intolerant conservative rheto ric spewed in this insert is appalling and offensive to many people. The inclusion of a relationship test given by Dr. Laura Schlessinger, who has repeatedly made homophobic re marks, and the article by Mike Math ews are just two examples of the ig norant and intolerant viewpoints expressed in this insert. In his article, Mathews makes the ludicrous and extremely sexist asser tion that a woman wearing sexy clothes is “actually guaranteed to cause men to dishonor and disre spect them.” Besides the ridiculous assumption Mathews makes that women need a man to fall in love with them, he is reinforcing the “blame the victim” mentality which is often used in rape cases. Benjamin Goldman senior sociology Stopping rape takes more than keeping women out of harm’s way Not having attended the presen tation, I do not know whether the speaker or the article is responsible, but regardless, I was troubled by the implications of Tuesday’s arti cle (“Judge urges students to drink, party responsibly,” ODE, April 23). The ideas portrayed in the article failed to place the blame for sexual assault where it belongs — on the perpetrator. While I agree that alco hol is a major factor in many in stances, the article seemed to place the responsibility of prevention on the woman. The article refers to how people can help keep their friends safe by “stopping a drunk woman from go ing home with a man she doesn’t know, or taking the keys away from a friend too intoxicated to drive.” This troubles me for a couple of rea sons. First, it indicates that the woman is responsible for the incident, rather than the truth — that she may be in the wrong place at the wrong time, not the driver but the victim. Second, these examples of “look ing out for their friends” say noth ing of the influence that friends may have in deterring a rapist. The emphasis is placed solely on keep-. ing women out of the way, not on altering the behavior or mentality that is the cause of the situation. These problems serve to perpetu ate the attitude that the woman did something to deserve it. This attitude makes excuses for rape and does nothing to change the underlying problems that allow it to continue. Gypsy W. Walukones sophomore international studies Ads in the Emerald shouldn’t preach I find it both shocking and ap palling that such an obviously reli gious and morally motivated advertising supplement (“lovemat ters.com,” inserted in the April 24 ODE) would be included with the newspaper. As I consider this to be a fairly liberal campus, I find it al most laughable that a religious right group would want to adver tise here. What is NOT laughable, howev er, is the fact that the newspaper de cided to accept these people’s mon ey and put this piece of drivel in with the publicly funded, public school newspaper. I was highly of fended by this, since I consider the advertisements that a publication chooses to print a reflection of the content and character within. I don’t care if they offer the news paper a million dollars; personally,. I don’t ever want to see anything like this included with my paper again. I pick up the Emerald for campus and city news and current events — not to be preached at. Nikki Le Fevre junior sociology Editor’s note: The Oregon Daily Emerald receives some student in cidental fee money as a subscrip tion charge. The newspaper is inde pendent and does not receive any public funding. 11509 Need a Job? Internship? Gain valuable experience in advertising, sales and public relations selling yellow page advertising for the UNIVERSITY OF OREGON CAMPUS DIRECTORY. Earn $500 a week plus • Internships may he available GV Publications is looking for enthusiastic, goal-oriented students for challenging, well-paying job! Expense-paid training. Call 1-800-288-3044 or e-mail your resume to gvpubs@aol.com Visit our website at www.gvpublications.com All inquiries attention Gary Voyles g g g Backpack Passport Eurailpass You are so ready for With a money-saving Eurailpass, you can make tracks in Europe wherever and whenever the impulse moves you. A variety of Railpasses are available, including: Eurail Selectpass Youth - Travel any 5 to any 10 days in 2 months (pick any 3 bordering countries out of 17), from $230* Europe. 'Must be under age 26 on first day of travel. RE~^ailEurope Council Travel America's Leader in Student Travel 877 1/2 East 13th Street Eugene 541-344-2263 JOG YAMAHA Presenting the Jog, home to the mightiest 50cc, fan-cooled engine in scooter ville! • Electric starting, an automatic choke and fully automatic, V-belt transmission means you simply thumb the starter and go. • Outstanding gas mileage translates to fewer fill-ups. • Autolube Oil Injection eliminates hassle of fuel/oil premixing. • Extras include a nifty glove box and stout rear cargo rack. Hours: 8am - 6pm, Mon. - Fri. ■ 9am - 5pm, Sat. Waite Co— www.ramseywaite.com 4258 Franklin Blvd • Eugene, OR 97403 www.ramseywaite.com • (541) 726-7625 * (877) 521-0048 Give us a ca Emerald 346-5511 Ciot a story idea? GRAND OPENING SPECIAL! •Fuji Tahoe NOW $599 reg $699 •Via Montega Univega NOW $299 reg $329.99 i 407 West 11th* Eugene *431-7300 While supplies last Commit to the Environment the fun way! nsestmmammxaL-sp. is : -__s - Your Alternative Transportation Location
