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
Tuesday, February 4,2002
Editor in Chief:
Jessica Blanchard
Managing Editor:
Jeremy Lang
Editorial Editor:
Julie Lauderbaugh
Assistant Editorial Editor:
Jacquelyn Lewis
Editorial
Government
must cease
obscuring
of Justice’
The United States Justice Department
has something to hide
— literally.
Apparently, certain government offi
cials feel uncomfortable or embarrassed
being photographed or filmed giving
speeches in front of the department’s
“Spirit of Justice” statue. The embarrass
ment stems from the fact that the historic
female statue wears a toga and exposes
one breast.
To solve the problem, the Department
of Justice recently spent $8,000 for cur
tains to conceal the partially nude sculp
ture. The curtains will close in front of
the statue, concealing it completely from
press photographers and cameras during
news conferences. The curtain will also
conceal “The Majesty of Law,” an adja
cent male statue, which is clothed from
the waist down. The decision to cover
up the statues is ridiculous and shows
both a stunning bit of misplaced Repub
lican modesty and a lack of art apprecia
tion. The Justice Department claims the
curtains were placed in front of the stat
ues for “aesthetic” reasons. But what
could be more aesthetic than art? Cer
tainly not a pair of plain curtains. The
department stated that U.S. Attorney
General John Ashcroft wasn’t even
aware the curtains were being ordered
because Ashcroft had “better things to
do” than worry about statues.
Maybe it’s just a coincidence that the
“Spirit of Justice” has been standing in
the department’s Great Hall for 70 years,
but no one noticed the statue’s supposed
lack of aesthetic value until Ashcroft be
gan appearing in front of it. Or maybe it’s
not a coincidence.
The bottom line is that we shouldn’t
have to cover up a valuable piece of art
— and waste $8,000 doing it. If prudish
Department of Justice speakers can’t get
over their blushing, immature reaction
to a metal breast, an easier and cheaper
alternative would be to simply move
the podium.
CORRECTION
Monday’s story about the proposed Men’s Center
(“Campus to add Men’s Center," ODE, Feb. 4),
should have said that mate suicide attempt rates
are highest for men 20*24 years old. The Emerald
regrets the error.
Factory ‘seconds’ could save lives
The new technological revolution has
begun yet again. In Massachusetts, sci
entists at Advanced Cell Technology
have cloned a cow’s kidney from an embryo.
While this could be an amazing feat, what is
even more astounding is that the cloned
organ actually func
tioned in most of the
ways that an (for lack of
a better term) “organic”
kidney would and was
not rejected by the
cow’s body. By extract
ing the stem cells just as
they began to specialize
into a kidney function
and colonizing them in
what is known as a
“biocompatible scaf
folding” —basically a
mold of the organ to be
created—they were
able to “create” a kid
ney. This new science has intense ramifica
tions on medicine, by divorcing the supply
of donor organs from the need to wait for a
person to die from a head injury or other fatal
accident. More than that, it clears the path
for a near-limitless organ supply.
However, there is one thing standing in
the way of this advance in medical science.
We have a deep-seated mistrust of cloning
and cloning technology. Some of this is reli
gious in nature; people have been taught
that to clone a human being or any part of a
human is little more than “playing God.”
Others feel that an embryo, no matter how
early in its development stage, is a human
being and therefore sacrosanct. This dis
course in the debate over cloning has been
picked up by anti-abortion advocates who
feel, through a leap in logic, that cloning is
therefore tantamount to abortion.
Payne
Columnist
The second notion in this hurdle is the av
erage American’s science-fiction view of the
dangers of genetic engineering. For too many
years, when people have heard the world
“clone,” they think of depictions in the popu
lar media, almost universally depicting
cloning as a tool of evil or, at best, as a force of
nature that is better left untapped. For
instance, the book and motion picture “The
Boys From Brazil, ” where escaped Nazi doc
tor Josef Mengele makes numerous clones of
Adolf Hitler. Or “Star Trek II: The Wrath of
Steve Baggs Emerald
Khan,” in which Ricardo Montalban played
the genetically-engineered supercriminal
Khan Noonien Singh, a genocidal tyrant who
abused his strength to take over the world.
The upcoming “Star Wars” prequel is
also rumored to be set during a “clone war, ”
where clone soldiers are churned out by the
bushel to fight for the bad guys. Then there
is the real world’s own experience in
eugenics, where in Nazi Germany, Europe
more generally and even for a brief period
in this country, there were attempts to
“purify” the genetic pool by using brutal
methods. With these notions in our collec
tive memory, is it any wonder that we fear
any application of cloning?
But we live in an age where the terrors of
some unchecked, cloned “superman” on
the silver screen is far less horrific than what
thousands of families are going through at
this very moment. Organ donations are still
nowhere near enough to cover the 76,000 on
organ waiting lists in this country. More
than 6,000 people die each year in the Unit
ed States because a donor couldn’t be found
fast enough to save the life of someone who
desperately needed a kidney, heart, liver or
a lung. And those family members who
donate their own organs (kidneys and parts
of the liver) while they’re still alive run seri
ous risks, including death. If cloning could
save those 6,000 lives, then I say fears be
damned. We now hold in our hands the
promise of a time in which no person would
have to die needlessly because a donor
organ could not be found in time.
E-mail columnist Pat Payne
atpatpayne@dailyemerald.com. His opinions
do not necessarily reflect those of the Emerald.
University must adopt sign language
The ability to communicate thoughts,
dreams and ideas is among the most
fundamental needs of any person,
and access to language is the key.
The deaf have reinvented and reconnect
ed the tissue that binds us together and cre
ated a culturally rich tapestry of traditions,
folklore and experience that touch hearing
and deaf. To negate their culture and pres
ence in society—by not respecting their
means of communication with each other
and the larger hearing community — is ig
norant. It makes a sham of the suggestion
that we are a diverse institution.
Oregon's flagship university — the Uni
versity of Oregon — must lead the way in
making diversity genuine and assuring ac
cess to all. Unfortunately, current language
policies do a disservice to deaf and hearing
when we deny the opportunity to experi
ence this culturally passionate and visually
elegant method of communication. When
we disregard the contributions and impact
of deaf citizens, we miss out on all the deaf
offer and the potential new students and
faculty that would come seeking studies
that include American Sign Language.
The issue has been raised before. Now,
thanks to students and faculty, the ques
tion is raised again. Will we make change
Guest Commentary
Jim
Evangelista
happen and join our sister universities and
the rest of the academic community?
Will we follow state and federal laws ac
knowledging ASL as a language and pre
pare educators and interpreters in ASL?
Will interdepartmental and funding pres
sures give way to standing for diversity,
rather than against it? Diversity means
more than color, race, religious, ethnic and
sexual experience. To suggest the deaf have
no culture is inappropriate. It shouldn’t be
accepted as a reason to continue non-com
pliance with the law.
Therefore, in the belief that current posi
tions are those of an uninformed few who
have prevented the present many from
moving forward academically, socially and
professionally, we offer the University
community an invitation to the ASL Now!
forum to be held in March.
We will share deaf culture in ways this in
stitution can no longer ignore. Speakers and
contributors from across the country will
come together and offer a prescription for
change. The University should comply with
the law, and faculty responsible for making
academic policy should do the right thing
and immediately institute a curriculum that
recognizes ASL as a language, and gives full
credit to its study and satisfaction of the lan
guage requirements for graduation.
Further, we declare February to be ASL
Education Month and will celebrate the
culture and experience of the deaf in the
United States throughout this month and
encourage the University community to
join us in questioning, expecting and re
quiring policy change. We invite students,
faculty and administration to move for
ward academically and morally as we offer
access to all who look to the University as a
benchmark for diversity and opportunity
in Oregon.
Please join us in March as we make
change happen and expand our vocabulary
and minds, inclusive of those deaf persons
who are our family, friends and fellow citi
zens. For more information and to lend
your support and time to this effort, con
tact us at aslnow@realitykitchen.com. Join
us as we look forward to a day where diver
sity is assured and access to opportunity
for all is the standard.
Jim Evangelista is senior bachelor
of fine arts student in visuaWesign.