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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (July 11, 2002)
014370 Earn Extra Money eNevc <Jo»qh feriog, to sd to for 9G extet £5 flvenMs Biosenrices • Eugene (Formerly Seramed) 1 Block east of 8th and Garfield 1901 West 8th Ave., Eugene 683-9430 also at 225 B Main St. in Springfield mm ill! we'll push you to WmMm. the fed^el f then tell you to Jump. .f?.. mm&Mss&tmm You know it's in you. The desire to go farther. To start where others stop, it’s why you should consider Army Hm ctass/whe* while developing skills like how to think on your feet and be a good leader. Register today. And hold oh fight. ^ >;.' &R M Y ROfC Unlike any other college coarse yoa can take. A UH-le o-P-P f Ue fop. A lof le-Pf lv\ f ke Trendy and professional haircuts by friendly haircare specialists. sriii me best. still just... $1200 Call Ahead Service available at WILLAMETTE SQUARE 2526 Willamette Ave. 683-1405 Open 7 days a week; Mon-Sat 9am - 7pm • Sun 1 lam - 4pm SUPERCUTS As hip as you want to be. Baseball's major league error A* iib mid the controversy swirling around steroid use in base all and an impending strike, major league baseball and commissioner Bud Selig slapped the na tion in the face Tuesday night and handed America’s Pas ’ time the straw * that should :i —and that I nope will— break the camel’s back. Schmidt Sports editor By calling Star Game in the 11th inning a 7-7 tie because both teams had exhaust ed their roster, both baseball players and officials destroyed all that is sa cred in the game. Foremost, it is an honor to be se lected to play in an All-Star Game, and players chosen to the squads should stick it out for the entire game, the 73rd All not pack-up early and change to street clothes before the game ends. Secondly, if a player chooses to participate in an All-Star Game, the player is taking a gamble. Injuries happen, and if a player were un lucky enough to be seriously hurt during the annual game, that’s a damn shame. Sometimes, that’s just the way the ball bounces. But Selig, American League man ager Joe Torre and National League manager Bob Brenly decided to sus pend play in the second extra-inning because, as they said, it wouldn’t be fair to force some athletes to contin ue playing. Doing so, they said, could potentially hurt their respec tive teams in the long run. In response, some fans became outraged, and many of the 41,871 fans at Miller Park chanted “Let them play!” MLB proved once again that it lacks the common sense needed to handle the simplest of situations and showed blatant disregard for the sport and sports in general. In a game that could have proved to be a memorable, perhaps even legendary All-Star Game, baseball erred in the worst of ways. The whole concept behind athlet ics is competition, and to have com petition, there must be a winner and a loser. Winning is the drive behind playing—the essence of sports. Ordering the players to suit up again and play until there was a win ner seemed rational Tuesday night, and in retrospect, doing so would have made all the sense in the world. Tuesday’s All-Star Game set a record, earning itself the lowest tel evision rating since the event went primetime. Even before the game, it appears fans of the sport realized what tur moil baseball is in. I hope they won’t soon forget. In baseball, it’s three strikes and you’re out. Let’s hope fans hold the sport to its own rules. Contact the sports editor at bradschmidt@dailyemerald.com. His opinions do not necessarily represent those of the Emerald. Lon Mabon gets it all wrong Lon Mabon’s piece on the pledge of allegiance, like his previous pronouncements as head of the Oregon Citizen’s Al liance, is hill of half-truths, distor tions and lies. The basic premise of his guest editorial, that the Constitu tion is a Christian document, can be checked against reality very easily. If the Framers wanted the Con stitution to be a Christian docu ment, why is there no mention of Christianity anywhere in the Con stitution, nor in all of the “Federal ist Papers”? As stated in its open ing line, under the U.S. Constitution all power of govern ment is derived from “we the peo ple,” not from God or Jesus. Speaking of the Constitution’s Framers (and Mabon’s lies), the quote Mabon attributes to James Madison has been exposed as a Guest Commentary Scott Miksch hoax — the chief author of the Constitution never said that the 10 Commandments are the basis of our civil society (see James Madi son University’s Web site, wAArw.jmu.edu). Mabon goes on to quote Patrick Henry to “confirm” his assertion that the Constitution is a Christian document, but Henry so opposed the Constitution that he refused to attend the framing convention be cause, he said, “I smell a rat.” Some argue that this opposition was rooted in part in his opposi tion to a secular constitution (see www. i smellarat. com). As for Mabon saying that “for a long time ... the courts held that (the United States) was a Christian nation,” the courts have held lots of other strange beliefs (the cor rectness of slavery, male superiori ty, etc.) in the past, but this did not make them true. And yet it is this same court system that developed the idea of separation of Church and State, which Mabon decries as a “liberal ACLU lie.” You can’t have it both ways, Lon. One could go on and on about Mabon’s further distortions of the historical record, but a quote from his own piece should suffice to wrap up: “This attempt to rewrite history does not alter the truth. ” Finally, a note of reality in Mabon’s otherwise unreal world! Scott Miksch lives in Eugene. Everyone should be armed A rticlell. A well regulated Militia, JL JL being necessary to the secu rity of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. — Second Amend ment to the U.S. Constitution The government of this once great nation has strayed from the true path established by our Founding Fathers, and now we the people are paying the price: People are being killed by Islamic terror ists crashing airplanes into build ings; by disturbed young men who can’t take the status of societal out cast that is thrust upon them with the humble good humor which they should and instead open fire on their classmates; and now by a damned foreigner who waltzed into one of the nation’s largest air ports and gunned down two peo ple before he was killed by a guard. And what do our elected officials do about it? They drone on about “improving airport security” and “due process,” instead of doing what needs to be done — which is to repeal the insanely prohibitive gun laws that have been passed in this country in recent years and start arming the citizenry in a way consistent with the intentions of the Founding Fathers! There has been talk of giving guns to pilots, but why stop there? The Second Amendment was writ ten so the people of this great na tion could defend themselves from threats to their lives and property. If everyone was allowed to carry a gun anywhere, anytime, deadly sit uations could be prevented from becoming more deadly. If more people at LAX had been armed on the Fourth of July, that lu natic would’ve been dead after he shot his first victim — probably — and if the passengers aboard those four hijacked planes 10 months ago had been armed, the Twin Towers might very well still be standing. There are, of course, those who will raise questions such as, “What about all the people who almost as suredly would’ve been killed in the crossfire in a shoot-out between vari ous armed yahoos and said lunatic in LAX?” or “What would have stopped the 9-11 hijackers from sim ply killing all the passengers on those flights and carrying out their mis sions anyway if they (like everyone else, remember) had been armed?” or “Do you know what would happen if a stray bullet punched through die wall of an airplane cabin while the plane was at 10,000 feet?” To those people I have this to say: Shut up, pinkos! Of course there will be “innocent” people killed in the crossfire of the aforementioned situations—but only the slow, the stupid and/or the inadequately armed. And that, my friends, is called survival of the fittest. As for the whole “stray bullet at 10,000 feet” thing, so what? The threat of death from asphyxiation or whatever because of a stray bul let punching through the skin of the aircraft would deter all but the craziest or most desperate people from loosing rounds in a plane — which is sort of the situation now, and isn’t maintaining the sta tus quo the most important thing to most of us, anyway? But the argument for allowing people to carry guns on planes and in airports goes beyond mere safety issues. Allowing people to carry guns and provide their own securi ty will save money. Airlines and airports spend oo dles of cash every year on things like metal detectors and security guards. If everyone were armed, that cost would be eliminated. And with the money saved by not hav ing to pay the salaries of lazy, in competent security personnel, the major airlines can line the cabins of planes with titanium plating to pre vent the whole “stray round, de pressurization” thing. And maybe they would even have enough money left over to start serv ing complimentary meals on shorter flights again. Leon Tovey is a freelance columnist. His opinions do not necessarily represent those of the Emerald.
