Newsroom: (541) 346-5511
Room 300, Ert) Memorial Union
RO. Box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403
E-mail: editor@dailyemerald.com
Online Edition:
www.dailyemerald.com
Monday, April 1,2002
Editor in Chief:
Jessica Blanchard
Managing Editor:
Jeremy Lang
Editorial Editor:
Julie Lauderbaugh
Assistant Editorial Editor:
Jacquelyn Lewis
Motto of the Oregon Daily Emerald:
“You can fool too many people too much of the time"
April Fools!
Today is April 1, and as has probably been true for hun
dreds of years, it is sort of a special day when normally honest
and truthful people take a day off from reality.
Being college students, we are of course interested in taking
time away from reality. That’s why we decided to follow in
the illustrious footsteps of our Emerald predecessors and
publish a spoof April Fools Day issue.
This edition is published for a variety of reasons, one of
which is that it’s sort of fun. As we wrote in 1963, there are
lots of fools in April, as in the rest of the year, so there are al
ways plenty of topics to write about. Of course, all stories are
completely false and are written expressly for the purpose of
making our readers laugh.
Editorial
Math class would
be a lot more fun
with sexy teachers
It’s high time the University look into allocating
money from last year’s overrealized fund to
start a plastic surgery campaign to make our
professors more attractive. Since the Ducks for
Bucks solar panel campaign has been foiled by the
logistics of the Erb Memorial Union, using the
overrealized money for such a worthy effort seems
only natural.
Professors could still preserve their individuality
— nothing would be changing except their looks —
while making themselves a great deal easier on the
eyes. Plastic surgery could turn the professors of the
University into look-alikes of such beauties as Jen
nifer Lopez, Julia Roberts, Denzel Washington or
Brad Pitt.
Learning physics or math from a professor with a
hot body would ensure higher class attendance, more
participation and generally more interest in the sub
ject. The obvious upside for professors would be
more positive evaluations at the end of the term, as
well as having students hang on their every word.
Plus, they’d look like movie stars!
Because students are paying such a high price for
their education, the “new and improved” professors
shouldn’t let their new movie-star looks go to their
heads. We’re envisioning congenial professors who
would invite us over to their houses for barbecues,
buy us a round at Rennie’s after the final, or at the
very least smile at us on the streets. Students are ef
fectively paying for the salaries of professors, and we
expect service with a smile in return — they do it at
McDonald’s, so why not here?
The University’s professors are mostly dowdy
scholars who have been sucked into the isolated and
intellectually narcissistic world of college academia.
They have completely forgone any sense of fashion
or sex appeal, and they need to be stopped. Profes
sors should all subscribe to “In Style” and “Gentle
man’s Quarterly” after their plastic surgeries and
heed the advice of those fashion bibles.
We all know that the money for this project ex
ists. And if the University is ever really going to
become a top-tier college, it needs to do some
thing to stand out. With this proposal, we could
make sure that in addition to impressing prospec
tive students with the wealth of knowledge our
professors possess, they could wow them with
their looks as well.
Editorial Policy
This editorial represents the opinion of the Emerald
editorial board. Responses can be sent to
letters@daiiyemerald.com. Letters to the editor and guest
commentaries are encouraged, tetters are limited to 250
words and guest commentaries to 550 words. Please
include contactinformation. The Emerald reserves the
rightto edit tor space, grammar and style.
Peter Utsey Emerald
Make it all monkey business
During spring break, while many
of you were sitting on the beach,
hitting the slopes or catching up
on some much needed sleep, I chal
lenged myself to a higher level. My goal
over the past 10
days was to find a
solution to all the
world’s problems.
No doubt this is a
difficult task by
any standards, but
after hours upon
hours of intensive
research I finally
figured it all out.
The answer is
... monkeys. Yes,
The Chimp those adorable ba
Columnist nana-eating pri
mates hold the key
to the future of our world.
Our great planet has roughly 6 bil
lion people on it. Many of these people
perform routine functions that are well
below the performance capacity of the
human brain. Everything from the fast
food worker to the U.S. senator could
be thrown into this category. Some
people may even see it fit to include
newspaper columnists as well. In any
case, these dubious tasks waste the
time of humans.
Humans, as the highly superior race,
should train monkeys to do all the work
for us. Anything that is capable of being
done by a monkey should be done by a
monkey. That way, we humans have
more time to do things we truly enjoy,
like watching monkeys do work for us.
The adaptation of a monkey butler
society will benefit us all. If the trash
needs to be taken out, have the monkey
do it. Butler monkeys could clean the
bathroom, the kitchen and even our
cars. The possibilities of monkey but
lers are endless.
Is that boring math class wasting
your time with pointless homework?
Get yourself a monkey to punch those
equations for you. Monkeys could type
term papers for us and, who knows,
maybe a few years down the line we
can have monkeys that are even trained
to do the research for those papers.
Our governmental officials are
sometimes compared to monkeys, but
imagine how more enjoyable C-SPAN
would now be with a bunch of mon
keys running all over the Capitol
Building. We could simply teach the
monkeys the basics of democracy, cap
italism and unethical behavior and
then line the floor with old newspa
pers and lock the doors. In a few
weeks the budget will be balanced and
all those highway and public school
appropriation bills be taken care of,
thanks to Senator Curious George and
his back-room dealing.
The use of monkeys will change the
whole dynamic of our planet and hu
man life. No longer will we have to
work for a living, but instead just live.
If you own a few monkeys, they will
go to work for you and bring home
the paycheck. All you have to do is
plant a banana tree in the backyard to
keep them happy.
Critics may argue that by having
monkeys do everything for us, our lives
as humans will become unfulfilled and
boring. I beg to differ. Watching mon
keys do all of our tedious work should
entertain us until the end of time.
Now many of you may be hesitant to
jump on the monkey butler bandwag
on. Some of you may see it as cruelty to
animals or an opportunity with too
great a risk, but I urge you not jump to
any conclusions. Take a deep breath,
look at today’s date and then decide if a
monkey butler is right for you.
Letters from yo’ motha
Stop ignoring
the Commentator
The Emerald continues to cover
petulant events from petulant student
groups like OSPIRG and the Multicul
tural Center but has repeatedly de
clined to report on the events of the
Oregon Commentator.
Just last month, the Commentator
won the prestigious L. Ron Hubbard
honorable mention award for most
copy editing mistakes in a single
publication. The Commentator also
won the Oregon Neurological Polyp
Association’s award for best under
age beer garden.
Last year, the Student Insurgent won
the same awards and was featured on
the front page of your petulant newspa
per. That’s not fair!
We have 4-by-4 and monster truck
shows nearly every month to boot, but
the petulant Emerald continues to ig
nore our success. It is time the so-called
“voice of the students” realizes they’re
purposefully ignoring a significant por
tion of the student body — who wear
sparkly white shoes.
We will continue our petulant
events, without the Ol’ Dirty’s liber
al ink.
Oily Ruff
Oregon Commentator
Didgeridoo players
deserve respect
The Didgeridoo Association of the
University of Oregon has repeatedly
been denied student representation
within the ASUO for no apparent rea
son. Didgeridoo players have been con
tinually underrepresented on campus,
and we are constantly being harassed
by the Didgeridoo “Nazis” of the De
partment of Public Safety. In fact, we
can’t even get funding from the corrupt,
communist Programs Finance Commit
tee, who obviously have an inferiority
complex with indigenous Australian
musical instruments.
Students appreciate and love the
DAUO. We get political support from
many organizations, such as the Urban
Farm, the Progressive Wizards of Oz
and the Eugene chapter of the Russell
Crowe Fan Club. Didgeridoo players
are an integral part of keeping the Eu
gene stereotype of stoned, tree-hugging
1960s pot-head liberal rejects alive and
well on the West Coast. Without im
promptu and often unwanted perform
ances along East 13th Avenue and at
the EMU Amphitheater, incoming
freshmen and visitors may confuse Eu
gene with Corvallis.
Steve Irwin
Crocodile Hunter
Didgeridoo Association
of the University of Oregon