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.
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