Newsroom: (541) 346-5511
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PO. Box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403
E-mail: editor@dailyemerald.com
Online Edition:
www. dailyemerald. com
Tuesday, January 22,2002
Editor in Chief:
Jessica Blanchard
Managing Editor:
Jeremy Lang
Editorial Editor:
Julie Lauderbaugh
Assistant Editorial Editor:
Jacquelyn Lewis
Editorial
Mac Court
celebration
overlooks
UO women
On Jan. 15, rabid basketball
fans packed McArthur
Court to celebrate 75
years of magic in the Pit, the old
est court in the Pacific-10 Confer
ence. Nearly 50 former Duck bas
ketball legends reunited to honor
the building’s birthday. The
evening would have been a per
fect tribute, save the complete
lack of a bevy of former female
players from the lineup of Ore
gon basketball luminaries.
The night was meant to cele
brate the magic of Mac Court
and honor those players who
helped make it famous. All of
the honorees were well-deserv
ing of recognition and are, in
deed, Pit heroes. But it’s unfair
to celebrate the magic of a
building without including
all of the players who made
it legendary.
Let’s not forget that through
the years, the 29-year-old
women’s basketball program
has been vastly more successful
than the men’s. The men’s team
is on a roll right now, breaking
into the AP top 25 poll, but the
lady Ducks — especially under
former head coach Jody Runge
— have been a consistently
winning team. In Runge’s eight
years at Oregon, she amassed
the highest winning percentage
in the University’s athletic his
tory. The women’s basketball
program has consistently
proven its worth in the athletics
program and should have been
recognized as part of Mac
Court’s rich history.
Next year, Mac Court will cel
ebrate three decades of Oregon
women’s basketball, and some
of the honorees should include
all-time leading scorer Alison
Lang, current head coach and
all-time leading rebounder Bev
Smith, former players Angelina
Wolvert and Brianne Meharry,
Debbie Adams, Stefanie Kasper
ski, Julie Cushing, Staci Wallen
born, Gabi Neuman, and Runge,
the controversial coach who did
much to further Oregon’s reputa
tion as a contender.
Letters to the Editor
and Guest
Commentaries
Policy
Letters to the editor and guest
commentaries are encouraged.
Letters are limited to 250 words
and guest commentaries to 550
words. Please include contact
information, The Emerald
reserves the right to edit for
space, grammar and style.
The Enron follies
~jj Inron: v. (en’ron). To administer a rever
ts sal of fortune, especially through deceit
JL—J or trickery, and administered for benefit
at the expense of another, to take advantage
of another, to cheat. See also: screw (4)
— Webster’s Dictionary, 2050.
It’s a story that seems like a throwback to
the “greed is good” ’80s. The Houston-based
energy re-seller Enron Corp. was once a
giant in its field. In August 2000, investors
briskly traded shares of the company at a
respectable $90 each, and it looked like the
sky was the limit for the
firm. But after summer
2001, in which the firm
possibly made a killing
off the California energy
crisis by manipulating
energy re-sales to the state
for an immense profit, the
company went into a
nosedive.
In December, the ride
was over for Ken Lay,
Enron chief executive offi
Payne cer. The company retreat
i_. . ed behind Chapter 11 after
Columnist the announcement that
Enron used shady
accounting to make its fiscal reports look
much, much, much better (around $586 mil
lion) than they actually were, setting a record
for the largest bankruptcy filing in history.
But that, as they say, is not all, folks. It is
becoming more and more apparent that before
scuttling the company, many of the top execu
tives sensed the shifting winds and dumped
onto the New York Stock Exchange billions of
dollars worth of Enron stock that they
held in options. By the time of its bank
ruptcy, the once robust $90 stock had
become worth less than a dollar. Because of
this, entire retirements have been made
worthless for the employees who invested in
Enron-provided 401 (k) plans — in effect buy
ing Enron stock that would have become mil
lion-dollar nest eggs after leaving the compa
ny. It was through this insider trading that top
executives, like CEO Lay, made off with astro
*
nomical sums like $217 million.
Insider trading, huh? Thought that went
out with Ivan Boesky. It’s definitely time for
the Securities and Exchange Commission —
and others — to take a close look at these
last-minute trades that netted the top Enron
staff around a billion dollars. It’s obvious that
the executives knew the company was going
to collapse and tried to liquidate while the
stock price was high. It’s illegal to act on a
stock because of inside information. If they
can prove that Lay or any of his cronies prof
ited due to insider trading, it would not be
too extreme to relieve them of their billion -
dollar burden.
By the by, who’s going to look into the do
nations to certain politicians’ campaign
accounts mere days before Enron’s collapse?
Especially when these contributions rather
conveniently included 91 percent (51 of 56)
of the members of the House Energy and
Commerce Committee; who would be in
charge of investigating Enron? Now a majori
ty of this committee has had to excuse them
selves from the investigation.
It seems that everyone was asleep too long
at the switch. For instance, Billy Tauzin,
R-La., now one of the most dogged on the
heels of Enron, was also one of the biggest
recipients of donations from Enron and its
auditor, Arthur Andersen. Looking back to
previous years, we can see how this relation
ship worked. Tauzin, the Energy and Com
merce Committee’s chairman, took $47,000
from the company, and in return, helped
block regulations that may have prevented
accounting companies from the kind of
shady business that Arthur Andersen dis
played in its work with Enron.
It also helps when influential senators’
wives are on the board of directors, as was the
wife of Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, Wendy.
Guess who else isn’t investigating?
E-mail columnist Pat Payne at patpayne@dailyemerald.com.
His opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the Emerald.
Poll Results:
Every week, the Emerald prints the results
of our online poll and the poll question lor
next week. The poll can be accessed from
the main page of our Web site,
www.dailyemeraid.com. We encourage
you to send us feedback about the poll
questions and results.
Last week’s poll question: Where
should the city of Eugene put the
Sprint PCS tower?
Results: 82 total votes
Mot In My Back Yard (NIMBY)
—20.7 percent, or 17 votes
On top of McArthur Court
—34.1 percent, or 28 votes
15th Avenue and Vitlard Street
— 22.0 percent, or 18 votes
Don't care—14.6 percent, or 12 votes
Don't know —* 8.5 percent, or 7 votes
Apparently the campus is still divided on
this issue. The bottom line is the tower
neettsto be placed somewhere to service
frustrated cell phone users and frustrated
neighborhoods. A resolution is needed
immediately.
This week's pel! question: Whom woufd
you nominate to be an honorary Olympic
torch bearer?
The choices:
University President Dave Frohnmayer
Jeffrey Grayson
Eugene Mayor Jim Torrey
Frog
PFC Chairwoman Mary Elizabeth Madden
Don’t care
Letter to the editor
Yes, Oui, Ja; languages deserve study
I am deeply disappointed in the Emerald Editorial Board.
The editorial on the University's language requirement is an
other stellar example of Americans' growing shortsighted
ness and ethnocentrism (“No, Non, Nein; In any tongue, ‘no’
to language requirement,” ODE, 01/17).
The point of studying other languages is to engage other
cultures and to grow from that experience as a person, not to
be able to run a board meeting in another language. Practical
world experience is not always the value of education. Look
beyond your desires for a degree and a paycheck, and think
about your possibilities of growth as a person.
The rest of the world studies our language, and we have a
reputation as being rude and insensitive to other cultures.
Any idea where this reputation might come from?
Joseph Snider
graduate student
architecture, historic preservation