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.