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
Oregon Daily Emerald
Editor in Chief:
Jessica Blanchard
Managing Editor:
Jeremy Lang
Editorial Editor:
Julie Lauderbaugh
Assistant Editorial Editor:
Jacquelyn Lewis
Thursday, January 24,2002
Editorial
Student
committee
surprisingly
powerful
The Student Health Advisory Com
mittee doesn’t have the same
prominence as student/faculty
boards for the Athletic Department
or University administrative issues. But
with the resignation of University Health
Center Director Dr. Gerald Fleischli, the
committee now will play a vital role —
finding a new director.
Hiring a new director will display
SHAC’s important power sharing. Students
serving on the board offer their opinions on
how the health center is run. They will de
cide whether the new director should have
a stronger background as a doctor or an ad
ministrator. SHAC members also helped
with hiring the new director of nursing.
Compared to other student/faculty com
mittees, SHAC has considerable decision
making weight. The Athletic Department
student task force has yet to make any real
progress or affect the decisions administra
tors make.
SHAC is a group where student voice
has influence and a quantifiable impact on
the health center’s administrative deci
sions. The health center should be ap
plauded for making SHAC a success, and
the way the group is used should serve as a
model for more University student/faculty
committees.
Where there’s smoke, there’s fines
On Friday night, when you stop
by your neighborhood bar for a
drink, you might notice some
thing seems a little different.
The same three guys are sitting at the bar
that sit there every other night, and the
jukebox is still playing someone's ques
tionably bad selection. But you breathe
in, and it’s no longer the traditional
smoky haze that leaves you smelling like
an ashtray. It's clean air — at least in most
Eugene bars.
More than a year ago, amid an excess
of media coverage and local debate, the
Eugene City Council made the decision
to prohibit smoking in public establish
ments, effective in bars on Jan. 1, 2002.
As the deadline loomed closer, many of
the bars in town became construction
zones as bar owners
raced against the
clock to finish con
struction on covered
smoking decks or
rooms. And as we
rang out 2001, we also
said goodbye to smok
ing in bars and hello
to a smoke-free 2002.
Personally, the
smoke-free thing does
n't seem like a hard
concept. If you smoke,
do it outside or in the
Columnist designated areas. But
several Eugene bars are
claiming it's too difficult for their clientele
to comprehend or for their staff to enforce.
The owner of O’DonneH's Irish Pub, Shon
O’Donnell, complained in a Jan. 19 Regis
ter-Guard article that he’s constantly re
minding patrons not to light up. And
when they do? He slides them an ashtray
and tells them they can't smoke in the bar.
Does anyone else see this as a mixed
message? Local customers know they
can't smoke in restaurants and bars. With
the amount of media coverage and politi
cal debate that the local controversy has
seen in the past year and a half, it would
be hard for a recluse to claim ignorance.
Yet in several bars — including O'Don
nell's and Max's Tavern — bar owners are
claiming that they can't seem to stop cus
tomers from smoking. Of course, when
you're providing ashtrays at the bar, it
tends to send customers a message that
doesn't exactly coincide with the new
anti-smoking ban.
I don't buy the excuse that it's too
“tough” for bar owners and workers to
“police” their customers smoking habits.
It's a bar, and bartenders typically deal
with bigger problems than asking a cus
tomer to step outside for a smoke — such
as cutting off an unruly inebriated patron
or breaking up fights. They seem to do a
pretty good job of announcing last call at 2
a.m. or pulling drinks at 2:15 a.m. And
why? Because no bar wants to lose its
liquor license for breaking laws regarding
alcohol distribution. No license, no liveli
hood. If they tied smoking violations to
losing a liquor license, bartenders would
be armed with fire extinguishers to put out
“illegal” cigarettes.
So why is everyone whining about be
ing fined? After all, they are breaking the
law. From the complaints aired in the
Register-Guard article, you’d think that
the Lane County Health Department is
sneaking around in trench coats, peering
through back windows in a sneaky effort
to catch patrons with cigarettes. In reality,
alleged infractions are investigated only
when someone calls Lane County's no
smoking complaint line. And it's those
filing complaints that are telling a differ
ent story than the bar owners who re
ceived fines this past week.
The bars that are receiving citations
are breaking the law, and they are doing
it on purpose. Regardless of how they
are fined or who files a complaint, it
doesn't change the fact that it is the bar
that's breaking the law. The majority of
Eugene bars are complying. What makes
a handful of resisters so special?
E-mail columnist Rebecca Newell
at rebeccanewell@dailyemerald.com. Her opinions
do not necessarily reflect those of the Emerald.
Letters to the editor
‘Payne’ in the NRA
In a time when it is more evident
than ever that Americans must be
responsible for not only their own
personal safety, but for the safety of
their neighbors, it’s disappointing
to see the kind of prejudice and stu
pidity displayed in Pat Payne’s col
umn (“Bunglers can boil in their
own stew,” ODE, 01/08).
I’m a life member of the National
Rifle Association. I’ve been a mem
ber for more than 25 years. The au
thor's disrespect of elected NRA
President Charleton Heston is an
insult to every NRA member. It was
meant as an insult, and I take it as a
personal and organizational insult.
I voted for Mr. Heston and am
proud of the job he’s doing for our
association.
Payne owes an apology, which I
imagine he is both too arrogant and
cowardly to tender. As for his con
demnation of Attorney General
John Ashcroft, I can only say it’s
about time the United States had an
attorney general who respects both
the wisdom of the authors of the
Constitution and the maturity of
the American people.
I assume Payne feels that he’s too
immature to own any dangerous
device and that, by extension, all
people are too immature to be trust
ed with them, or that only he has
the native intelligence to decide
what devices and technologies his
fellow citizens can be trusted to
own. Holding either of these beliefs
should be enough of a sign of a prej
udiced mind to take the credibility
from any of Payne’s writing.
I realize the column was intend
ed to be humorous. However,
cloaking purposely insulting com
ments about any group of people as
humor is rude and transparent. I
suggest the Emerald remind Pat
Payne of that fact.
Glenn R. Vandergriff
Centreville, Va.
Bilingualism a necessity,
not a nuisance
The editorial on the language re
quirement being a “nuisance” was
extremely short-sighted (“No, Non,
Nein; In any tongue, ‘no’ to lan
guage requirement,” ODE, Jan. 17).
Assuming one can now predict ex
actly what will be of use and value
in future life is extremely naive and
a bit arrogant.
The world doesn’t revolve
around the English language. If you
ever intend to successfully deal
with individuals from various
countries and cultures, you’ll find
any language skills of value. While
classrooms aren’t the “best” way to
learn a language, all students can’t
go to another country for immer
sion learning, either. You learn
things about language in a class that
you’ll never learn in daily usage.
I lived in Europe unexpectedly, in
a country whose language I had nev
er studied, yet the skills I had from
Latin in elementary school (amaz
ingly useful), and French in high
school/college, enabled me to leam,
read and speak very quickly. I was
able to use everything I had learned
to live there very successfully.
Don’t write off any education (es
pecially not anything as fundamen
tal as language skills) just because
your narrow focus doesn’t allow
you to see the practical applicabili
ty now. Life is rarely interested that
you have a plan about what you
will do, what your career will be.
The world has a tendency to throw
curveballs at you. It will amaze you
how useful the things you have
learned may turn out to be when
you least expect it.
Rand Stamm
parkingAransportation manager
Department of Public Safety
National insecurity
I hope I am not the only one to
see the contradiction. President
Bush builds an international coali
tion to fight terrorism, which is a
valuable and worthy effort by any
measure. With this, Bush draws
people together to dismantle the
forces that endanger us all.
Bush abandons international
treaties on global warming, chemi
cal weapons and land mines, and
now he abandons a key treaty to
our national security, the Antibal
listic Missile Treaty. With this,
Bush thumbs his nose at the con
cerns of others.
According to our National
Academy of. Sciences,. Europe
stands to become another Siberia;
a global warming disaster could
befall them in a decade. As sea
level rises, small island nations
may cease to exist. War-torn peo
ples around the world are maimed
and killed by abandoned land
mines.
By abandoning the ABM treaty,
Bush can race forward with his ill
conceived and useless missile de
fense program, a technology whose
absurdity was horribly demonstrat
ed on Sept. 11.
Will Russia be more willing to
negotiate nuclear arms reductions?
Not likely. Will China, India, Pak
istan and North Korea shun nuclear
weapon and missile development?
It is not likely. So are we more se
cure with a missile defense system?
Not at all.
Bush’s motivation is easy to
track. The money trail leads to
those who purchased his presiden
cy. Bush pays his political debts
with the currency of our collective
security. Beyond politics and be
yond arrogance, this is immoral.
Eldon Haines
Eugene