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Friday, March 15, 2002
Oregon Daily Emerald
Editor in Chief:
Jessica Blanchard
Managing Editor:
Jeremy Lang
Editorial Editor:
Julie Lauderbaugh
Assistant Editorial Editor:
Jacquelyn Lewis
Yesteryear's Editorial
As They
March Away
University
of Oregon
As the March sun’s feeble rays attempt to warm
the chill wind left over from winter, discerning
coeds, ever quick to observe new fashion
trends, have noticed an abrupt shift in “the” color in
dicated by style as “what is being worn this season.”
The pastel hues of coed sweaters have replaced kha
ki as the dominant, most popular shade.
Yes, the soldiers have gone, most of them, and the
rest will be on their way. At first it seemed strange to
walk across a campus that was a cross between an
army camp and a military school. It seemed strange to
scurry out of the way of oncoming platoons, and to
leap off the path and onto the grass when an unexpect
ed “To the left flank, HARCH”
caught us unaware. The blare of
bugles and the shouted commands
of platoon sergeants and corporals
disturbed the slumbering air of our
quiet campus. The way our soldier
classmates suddenly exploded
from the ivy-sheltered halls at each
10-to bell was rather startling.
Shoving our way into the Co-op for
a between-class Coke and smoke
was almost impossible.
The whole campus was different and strange. We
weren’t sure if we were in a dream or a nightmare, but
we knew our familiar campus as utterly changed as a
dream world seems to someone who is sleeping. The
camp has become a campus again. To be sure, there are
a few engineers and area and language students
around, and the air corps will be with us till May, but
it’s predominantly a civilian campus, just the same.
But — we’re just never satisfied — the campus
seems just as strange without the soldiers as it did at
first with them. We miss them, our khaki-clad friends.
Because after we got used to seeing so many uniforms,
we began to look at the faces, and they were the same
125th
ANNIVERSARY
Originally
published on
March 15,1944
sorts of faces we had seen on our own former students.
Then we realized that these soldier students were not
very different from any other college students, and so
they were our friends.
We’ll remember lots of things about them. The person
al things about the ones we knew, of course, but we’ll also
remember things about living in a soldier campus. We 11
remember the sergeant who said “Hup hot HIT har, hup
hot HIT har,” and the little southerner who called out,
“Lai-uft, raht, lai-uhft; lai-uft, raht, lai-uhft.” We’ll re
member the way the columns, from a distance, looked
like a giant, khaki-colored centipede. We’ll remember the
disconcerting “Eyes right” when a platoon passed a cou
ple of coeds. We’ll remember the Brooklyn, Bronx and
Jersey accents. We’ll remember the friendly grins and
greetings which came from the ranks.
The ASTU men wrote their final grousings and
farewell comments in the last edition of their paper. The
air corps men waved bed sheets as a parting salute as the
engineers marched through campus, down Willamette
Street, and left Eugene and the University of Oregon.
And the campus settled back into its familiar routine and
quiet serenity, but somehow the old serenity seems
rather empty. For they made a place for themselves here,
our soldier-friends, and they will be missed.
This editorial was taken from the March 15,1944,
edition of the Oregon Daily Emerald.
Letters to the Editor and
Guest Commentaries Policy
Letters to the editorand 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.
CORRECTION
The headline for Thursday’s story about an armed robbery on
campus, “Student reports robbery attempt" (ODE, March 14,
2002), should have identified the victim as a Eugene resident
Abstinence makes for better sex
There are many errors
in Dr. Sol Gordon’s
message, (“Love Doc
tor,” ODE 3/4) but I would
like to address two of them
in particular. One is his idea
that the abstinence philoso
phy has made sex dirty. That
is simply not the case.
Waiting until you’re mar
ried to have sex acknowl
edges the power, love and
responsibility inherent in
sex. It doesn’t diminish the
beauty and pleasure in sex.
That is done by the casual
sex philosophy that is so
prevalent today. It reduces
sex to a biological urge that
has some pleasant emotional
side effects and can be en
gaged in by anyone with no
responsibility or commit
Guest Commentary
Sara
Stewart
ment required. And it does
seem true that waiting does
have positive effects on a
marriage, despite his state
ment that “people say wait
until you’re married and
you’ll be happy, but that is
not the case.”
Statistics show that you
are less likely to get di
vorced, have health prob
lems or have problems in
your marriage if you wait un
til you are married to engage
in sexual intercourse. The
support for this is literally
too numerous to list here.
Secondly, his statement
that the majority of marriages
before the age of 22 end in di
vorce is misleading. It is true
that the divorce rate is higher
among young marrieds, but
considering the divorce rate
is roughly one in two, it does
n’t take too much of a raise to
say that the “majority” of
marriages end in divorce.
This rate increase can be
explained by, among other
things, the “forced mar
riages” due to pregnancy or
parental pressure, marrying
to get out of an abusive fami
ly situation, and the com
plete lack of support that
faces young married couples
in particular and married
couples as a whole.
How often have you heard
“Well, I got divorced, but I
was young,” as if young
adults are incapable of mak
ing a marriage work, or as if
age is an excuse for divorce?
Considering a couple
“high risk” isn’t the best
foundation for their mar
riage. When troubles come,
the younger couple is often
told “Well, you were young
and you made a mistake, so
move on,” instead of being
encouraged to work though
their problems.
In short, if you are looking
for healthy relationship ad
vice, and the truth about sex
and marriage, you should
probably look elsewhere.
Sara Stewart is a junior majoring
in philosophy.
Christian Morality’open to interpretation
Tara Carleton and Scott
Britt read differently
into the values upon
which this country was
founded because the opin
ions of historical figures, like
the stories contained within
any holy text such as the
Bible, may be interpreted in
a multiplicity of ways.
Carleton is able to infer
that America was founded
on Christian values because
many of our “founding fa
thers” were indeed Christian
and their ideas reflect their
Christian values (“Welcome
to the land of forgotten pur
pose,” ODE, 3/11). Britt, on
the other hand, is able to de
termine that our country is
founded on values of reli
gious freedom because this
freedom, too, was an ideal
valued by the founders of
our country (“Bush’s cru
sade is anti-American,”
ODE, 02/20). One’s conclu
sion here is ultimately de
cided by the quotes one
chooses to cite.
Regardless of the light m
which one chooses to view
the founding fathers, Car
leton’s call for our govern
ment to align with Christian
morality is wholly inappro
priate. First, there is no such
singular entity as “Christian
Morality.” The Bible offers
to its devotees a religion of
kindness, peace, brother
hood and charity to those
less fortunate, and righteous
-1 self-sacrifice. At the same
time, depending on one’s in
| terpretation, the Bible advo
cates a culture of misogyny,
patriarchy, homophobia,
harmful subordination to au
thority and exaltation of
man above the rest of nature,
leading to destruction of the
environment. In fact, many a
racist has used the Bible to
1 justify his or her ideology,
declaring dark skin the mark
1 of Cain. The essence of
“Christian Morality” is in
the interpretation one choos
es, not the text itself.
Additionally, the views of
J the founding fathers and
Guest Commentary
Andy
Kohnen
even the set of values upon
which our country was
founded have no bearing on
what course of action is ap
propriate today. It is logical
ly fallacious to make a hol
low appeal to tradition. Just
because the United States
was founded on certain
principles does not mean
that those principles are still
useful or just today. This begs
the question, “What values
are appropriate for contem
porary American society?”
America is a liberal
democracy, meaning that
our government enacts the
rule of the majority through
electoral representation
while at the same time estab
lishing rights for significant
minorities (the question as
to whether this form of gov
ernment is appropriate is be
yond the scope of this letter).
Furthermore, current Ameri
can society is religiously
pluralistic.
Thus, to protect the rights
of all Americans, a distinct
separation between church
and state is wholly appropri
ate. This leads one to con
clude that President Bush’s
Christian moralization of the
state is not in the best inter
ests of America, and is there
fore un-American.
Andy Kohnen is a sophomore
majoring in psychology.
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Peter Utsey Emerald