Newsroom: (541) 346-5511
Room 300, Erb Memorial Union
PO. Box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403
E-mail: editor@dailyemerald.com
Online Edition:
www.dailyemerald.com
Editor in Chief:
Jessica Blanchard
Managing Editor:
Michael J. Kleckher
Editorial Editor:
Julie Lauderbaugh
Assistant Editorial Editor:
Jacquelyn Lewis
Friday, November 16,2001
Editorial
Eight young men
Yesterday the papers car
ried a story about eight
young men in New York
who, as conscientious objectors
to war, received a sentence of a
year and a day in federal prison
because they refused to register
for the draft.
Picture the crowded court
room scene: eight tense featured
University
of Oregon
125th
ANNIVERSARY
Originally
published on
Nov. 16,1940
ineoiogians
and numer
ous grave
faced spec
tators
watching
the show.
The judge
asks the
eight if they
would like to reconsider and reg
ister “ at this last minute. ”
Can they do it? Can they aban
don their principles? Can they al
low themselves to be beaten into
submission?
The answer, of course, is no.
The eight young men hold, in
principle, that a soldier’s first
duty is not to lay down his life for
his country, but rather to be pre
pared to murder other young
I men. They believe that war and
| mass slaughter are evil, and that
| two wrongs can never make a right.
Who is there to say that the
young men’s beliefs are wrong?
Who is there that would enjoy
wantonly annihilating his fellow
creature?
And yet in our country we be
lieve that the whole is only as
strong as its parts. We also be
lieve that one unit takes its
strength from the strength of the
whole. Thousands of other
young men who registered for
the draft felt repulsed at the
thought of murder, the soldier’s
business. But weak individually,
perhaps, they felt that in a united
country there is strength.
The significance of this clash
of wills and beliefs seems to be a
revelation of a degree of toler
ance in our national spirit. We
are still free people. Eight young
men who violently disagree with
the mob rule are permitted to de
fend themselves. Those who dis
agree with the young men’s ac
tion can still sympathize with
the young men’s principles.
Consider what would happen
to the eight young men in a totali
tarian world.
Editor’s note:
This editorial was taken from the Nov. 16,
1940, edition of the Oregon Daily Emerald.
Letters to the editor
Free speech isn’t a shield
The peace activists who hold
American policies and culture re
sponsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks air their opinions as free
citizens of the United States —
writing, speaking and protesting
under the protection of the First
Amendment of the United States
Constitution.
In his letter to the editor “Patri
otism means respecting dissent”
(ODE, 11/2), Garger accuses me of
wanting to deny these peace ac
tivists their freedom of speech
when I criticized their opinions in
my letter to the editor (“Peace ac
tivists are hypocrites,” ODE,
10/22).
This is undiluted absurdity. Us
ing the same liberty guaranteed by
the First Amendment, I simply
conveyed my personal judgment
that these peace activists are hyp
ocritical and that their views are
outrageous and indefensible.
-
Suppressing people's freedom
of speech should not be confused
with discounting foolish opin
ions. While I may be disgusted by
these peace activists' repellent
views, I also defend their freedom
to state them because the First
Amendment is a bedrock of
American liberty. The First
Amendment is not, however, a
shield against denunciation- of
people who express unpopular or
misguided points of view.
Sean Walston
graduate student
physics
‘United We Stand’
oversimplifies issue
On Nov. 5, the United States
Postal Service issued a stamp with
an American flag along with the
phrase “United We Stand” across
the bottom. However appropriate
this initially seems, the phrase has
taken on a damaging, polarizing
character.
To suggest all U.S. citizens sup
port the Bush administration’s cur
rent policy in Afghanistan stifles
public debate, polarizing our coun
try into a “with us or against us”
mentality. A united course of ac
tion implies those who sway from
popular opinion aren’t only un
sympathetic to victims, but “un
American.” Censoring discourse,
especially at a time when it’s most
needed, is to silence the voice of
democracy.
During the Vietnam War, we
suffered a similar split, where you
were either a “warmonger” or a
pacifist. The Vietnam War is still
fresh in the minds of those who
fought the military war and the so
cial and political war at home. The
political and military lessons are
still humbling influences in our
foreign policy.
Lessons of the Vietnam War,.
however, tend to be forgotten, sub
stituted by an easier-to-swallow
version of war, where good versus
evil is clearly defined and public
support is unanimous. This pic
ture, painted after World War H, led
us down the long, bloody road to
Vietnam. History may repeat itself if
we forget lessons of the past.
As the USPS issues the new
stamp, Americans should consid
er implications of such a limiting
statement in a country that prides
itself on tolerance and acceptance,
and disassociate patriotism with
unquestioned allegiance.
Levi Strom
junior
political science, sociology
People have insurance rights
After the grief following a disas
ter comes another disaster—the re
ality of insurance claims and a pub
lic left in the lurch.
The public deserves access to in
formation about their fundamental
insurance claim rights and the
rules that govern insurance compa
ny behavior, but policyholders will
demand that information only if
told they have the right to it.
Ask yourself if you have been
provided with such information,
and then imagine having to file
claims after a disaster without it.
Tony Braga
Fall River, Mass
Stupid driver,
sudden stop
■ spend large portions of my life
driving up and down Interstate
5 in order to visit my husband,
who lives in Seattle. As a driver
and a graduate student in
physics, I am struck that my fel
low drivers are often quite ignorant
about basic physics concepts such
as velocity, deceleration (how fast
something is slowing down), slid
ing and momentum.
I play a game with myself: Is the
person in that car up there weav
ing back and forth, going way too
fast and tailgating because they are
a) asleep at the wheel, b) stoned, c)
a jerk or d) not too bright'? There
are, of course, other options. The
driver could be not paying atten
tion, distracted or ignorant about
the physics of driving.
I think a little attention to
physics would improve the driv
ing of most people. So, here are
two examples of scary things I
have observed.
• Tailgating: When someone
follows so closely behind another
car that if the other car brakes sud
denly, the reaction time of the fol
lowing driver is not swift enough
to brake completely before run
ning into the lead car. Our reac
tion time is basically constant, no
matter how fast we are traveling.
Recently I was driving down
Guest Commentary
Sasha
Tavenner Kruger
18th Avenue with wet roads and
heavy traffic and a tailgater right
behind me. A stoplight turned yel
low, I braked, and the car behind
me braked so hard that I couldn't
see the headlights in my rearview
mirror except while the car was
still bouncing up and down from
the sudden stop. If you run into a
heavy, stopped vehicle your car
will stop before you do. Your
whole body will continue moving
at 30 mph until parts of it are
stopped individually: your torso
by your seatbelt and your head by
your neck. This is why neck in
juries occur in this situation. You
have momentum, and your car
has momentum.
Momentum is mass times veloc
ity; since you mass'about 10 per
cent of your car's mass, your car
has the greater momentum.
Things with momentum which
are suddenly stopped have to
transfer their momentum. For in
elastic collisions, some can be lost
as heat and crumpling of the car
body itself. Or, the momentum
can be transferred to people in the
car (this is how people get thrown
through the windshield).
• Sliding without rolling: It is
winter and has recently rained.
Overnight the temperature has
dropped and the bridges (being in
contact with more air than
ground, and the air temperature
being lower than the ground tem
perature) are a little icy. I'm near
Centralia, Wash., and there is a lit
tle slowdown half a mile ahead.
The car ahead of me hits an over
pass going about 70 mph and
while on the bridge tries to brake
in anticipation of the slowdown.
The car begins to turn sideways
while not slowing down. The
driver panics and hits the brakes
hard and turns the steering wheel
too much. He gets off the ice and
because he has overcorrected with
the steering wheel manages to
drive off the road and off the
shoulder and only barely suc
ceeds in driving back onto the
shoulder without sliding down
the bank on the side of the road.
Moral of the story? Don't over
correct your steering and don't hit
the brakes hard while in puddles
or on ice.
Drive safe, folks!
Sasha Tavenner Kruger is a graduate
teaching fellow in the physics department.
Peter Utsey Emerald
FR.€t>, w«''*r cunttlC ooK w<?*.ki*ojcc£ By
Soot So you <*oyta £<?. -Pur *«c r>ip &g-r you tws
Ft-Atf, wc Act 6or To STICK Yoo K^oW,"