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Editor in Chief:
Jessica Blanchard
Managing Editor:
Jeremy Lang
Editorial Editor:
Julie Lauderbaugh
Assistant Editorial Editor:
Jacquelyn Lewis
Wednesday, January 9,2002
Editorial
Inattentive
driving too
dangerous
to ignore
A recent trend among city legisla
tors across the country has absent
minded drivers paying the price for
getting distracted while on the road.
Cities in nearly 40 states have ex
plored some kind of legislation to de
crease the number of distracted driv
ers, according to several national
traffic-research groups. Now is the
time for the city of Eugene to jump on
the bandwagon and participate in
similar legislation before the accident
toll caused by inattentive drivers
mounts.
Most recently, the city of North
Bend, Wash., passed a distracted driv
ing ordinance to punish inattentive
drivers. Effective Jan. 1, drivers within
North Bend city limits will be fined an
additional $300 for violating traffic
laws while failing to pay attention to
driving. The law notes smoking, shav
ing, talking with passengers and using
electronic equipment (such as cell
phones) as some of the distractions
covered by the legislation. The law
follows dozens of related measures,
including New York state’s outright
ban on cell phone use by motorists in
June.
Drivers who are sidetracked from
paying attention to the road by cell
phone conversations, stereo equip
ment or even fast food have caused a
plethora of accidents in recent years,
and the numbers keep growing. Creat
ing consequences for drivers lacking
common sense is a last-ditch effort to
get drivers to pay attention. Being
aware of traffic and road hazards used
to be a given when on the road, but
distractions are easier to find when
more time is being spent driving.
Eugene is no stranger to inattentive
drivers and the city should consider
legislation to combat the problem. Too
much attention has been given to dis
cussing the placement of the Sprint
PCS cell phone tower on the east end
of campus instead of the adverse ef
fects of cell phones on drivers. The
tower may increase phone consump
tion as a whole, which would put
more phones in the hands of students
driving to school.
The bottom line is Eugene has a
commitment to keep roads safe for all
drivers. Distractions have reached epi
demic proportions in the information
age and legislation must be taken to
protect responsible drivers from those
lacking common sense on the road.
Editorial Policy
This editorial represents the opinion
of the Emerald
editorial board. Responses can be sent to
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right to edit for space, grammar and style.
Steve Baggs Emerald
Cheers to the U.S.A.
This holiday break I found inspira
tion and a nifty new hat at the same
place.
Like most other students, I spent the month
off at home with my family. I hail from t he small
town of Sonoma, Calif.,
which is also home to the
finest wines of the Califor
nia region. My time in
Sonoma was mainly
spent partying with high
school friends at night
and during the day either
sitting on the couch
switching from ESPN,
Comedy Central and CNN
or going through physical
therapy to recover from a
severely broken ankle I
suffered this summer.
Needless to say, while
I was relaxing I soon
found myself drifting into a kind of stupor. I
stopped reading newspapers, watched CNN
with a bored eye and became generally unin
formed and lazy.
I don’t know what could have awoken me
from this state; I probably would have just
drifted through the holiday season until I
came back to Eugene. But as is so often the
Adams
Columnist
case in life, frwas struck by an awesome inspi
ration in the most unexpected place.
In what some would call a juxtaposition of
opposites, right over the Napa County line and
outside the strip mall and subdivide town of
Fairfield, Calif., which is located in Solano
County, about 45 minutes away from Sonoma,
is a Budweiser brewery. My girlfriend, Chris
tine, suggested that it would be fun to take the
free tour, and so my friends and I decided to go.
The four of us took the 30-minute tour and
could not help but be impressed. Most people
might know Budweiser is the No. 1 selling
beer in America, but few may realize Bud
Light is the second. One out of every two beers
sold in the United States is made by An
heuser-Busch.
Each day the five main breweries brew mil
lions of gallons of beer, and the Fairfield oper
ation alone makes more than 2 million a day
and can fill 2.6 million 12 oz. cans or 1.4 mil
lion 12 oz. bottles a day. There are 45 beech
wood aging tanks at the Fairfield facility that
hold 50,000 gallons of beer each, which is im
pressive until you consider that the St. Louis,
Mo., brewery has three times the number of
tanks. Anheuser-Busch can make more beer
than most countries. Even though the Budvar
brewery in Czech Republic may have coined
the Budweiser name, Anheuser-Busch has
made it a world-wide legend.
Taking all this in from our tour guide (who
actually graduated from the same high school
as my friends and me), I was inspired by not
only the Anheuser-Busch corporation’s awe
some beer production capability, but also by
our own nation. Only a country like the Unit
ed States of America has the power and re
sources to devote to such a product as beer.
Sure all those specialty beers that folks here
in Eugene love are great, I like them myself,
but I discovered on that day in Fairfield that
Budweiser can be seen as a symbol of our na
tional power. And when you see the enor
mous capacity of the Budweiser plant, you be
gin to understand the power of this nation.
When I considered this I realized that I was
indeed lucky to be a part of America and that
shell of indifference began to crack. I regained
some of my enthusiasm and lost that laziness.
So the next time you see me in a local watering
hole, I won’t hold it against you that you may
be drinking a Black Butte Porter, but I’ll be
drinking a cold Bud and toasting the U.S. A.
Oh, and the hat? I picked that up at the
brewery gift shop.
E-mail columnist Andrew Adams at
andrewadams@dailyemerald.com. His opinions
do not necessarily reflect those of the Emerald.
Letter to the editor
Same God, different logic
The Sept. 11 disaster was clearly a product of religious
belief, yet few dare to condemn religion and lack of reason
as the cause.
Historically, violence arises among religious societies be
cause its members abandon reason to accept the core con
tradiction that is their “afterlife.” The Bible opens by reject
ing “the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge,” thereby
pre-empting reason’s development in its readers’ minds.
Without reason, how is one to negotiate with one’s neigh
bor, except with a club?
Osama bin Laden worships the same God as Christians
and Jews, but according to a different version of the holy
texts. He just takes his bible literally: “ ... Then slay the
idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captive
and besiege them and lie in wait for them ...” (Quran, 9.5).
For centuries, it was unacceptable to condemn witchcraft’s
contradictions. Today, media writers believe it unacceptable
to condemn religion’s contradictions. It is time that changed.
Richard Bramwell
Milton, Ontario
Canada
&Q8.
He led the fast-food franchise to international success after opening the
first restaurant in 1989 and was inspired by Ms daugh
ter when naming the business. Currently, Wendy’s is
the No, 3 burger chain in the United Stales.
Thomas will long be remembered for his appear
ances in nearly all of the Wendy’s commercials since
1989. The light-humored advertisements featured
Thomas dad in a Wendy’s apron, behind the counter
Sipping hamburgers, staying true to his humble roots.
He appeared in so many ads that he joined the Screen
Actors Guild.
Thomas made a less public name for himself advo
cating for adoption rights. Thomas was adopted as a
child.
In 1988, Thomas considered runningM the Ohio gubernatorial race as a
Republican. He said he wanted to "pay something back” for his success.
The Emerald salutes this humanitarian and advertising legend.
Thomas will be tremendously missed by the Emerald editorial board,
and probably the legions of University students who frequented his
restaurants. *
THOMAS