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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 26, 2003)
Newsroom: (541) 346-5511 Suite 300, Erb Memorial Union P.O. Box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403 E-mail: editor@dailyemerald.com Online: www.dailyemerald.com Oregon Daily Emerald COMMENTARY Editor in Chief: Brad Schmidt Managing Editor: Jan Tobias Montiy Editorial Editor: Travis Willse Wednesday, November 26, 2003 a. Smacks to professors who hold classes the day before thanksgiving. Sure today is "formally" a school day, according to established "schedules" sitting in Johnson and Oregon halls, but there's no real need to have a quiz today, is there? Is there? Quacks to the football team for quashing the feeble Reavers' attempt at a Civil War win. The Ducks' 34-20 blast over their Corvallis counterparts was deftly executed, and capped off a rollercoaster-ride season that has left Oregon bowl-bound. Smacks to naysayers who complained that the new on campus cell phone tower might pose a threat to flying wildlife. If birds can dodge buildings, they can certainly fly around an inches-thick pole. Making lame, last-ditch argu ments doesn't further your point, regardless of the merits of installing a cell phone tower. Quacks to the snow last Wednesday. A wintry break from the monotony of rain and end-of-the-term stress is just what the meteorological doctor ordered. Quacks, too, to the smiles that the precipitation prompted. Smacks to Michael Jackson. The walking one-man circus large animals and all — has been arrested on charges of child molestation (he settled a civil suit related to a similar case a decade ago). Jackson has already set up a Web site to act as a "source of official communications," and his hijinks have only worsened already mushrooming media attention on the case. Quacks to the Federal Communications Commission for requiring that most mobile phone numbers be more, well, mobile. Now, most of the cell-connected throngs will be able to keep their phone numbers if and when they switch carriers. I he change lightens the burden of inconvenience not only for cell phone users but for anyone who calls them, too. Smacks to the Civil War attendee who found the time to dress as the embattled Jackson. Despite whatever limited shock value parading around as the pop star may have (and whatever desperate clawing for attention it may satisfy), it re ally only serves to distract genuine fans from an otherwise en joyable event. Quacks to those who are donating part of their four-day weekend working to serve thanksgiving meals to the needy. A few community servants are doing their best to bring some thing close to the less fortunate members of our community. Smacks to the Rush administration for opening Alaska to oil drilling. While the administration has allocated large amounts of funding to alternative energy source research, the potential for environmental damage — and the small potential gains in fuel supply — make this trade not one worth making. Quacks to the Knight Library for being open around-the clock next week. Administrators heard students' voices last year, and they're responding in perfect synch. Smacks to the Oregon State football team, some of whose members failed to show as scheduled for the "Put the Civil Rack in Civil War" event at Edison Elementary. Ducks (and the Duck himself) went to Adams Elementary in Corvallis. What gives? Quacks to the re-released Reatles album "Let It Re ... Naked." While the new album won't ever supersede the orig inal in importance (nor would it be reasonable to expea it to), it's a welcome way to re-experience some of the Fab Four's later work in a different light. Smacks to ASUO for effeaiveiy faltering on its promise to notify students of the imminent tuition hike. Waiting until after students register for winter classes doesn't help them plan their finances for the term any better, even if the aaual increase itself is small. And finally, big quacks to the life of Professor Emeritus Rill Loy. Not only was Loy a highly accomplished instruaor and cartographer, he was also a caring and respeaed person who worked to improve the campus and Elugene communities. No thanks. Thursday is Thanksgiving, the day that Americans will gorge themselves into food induced paralyses while celebrating a holi day that has lost all meaning. Americans eat more food on Thanksgiv ing than any other day of the year, followed by Super Bowl Sunday in second place. Ac cording to the American Dietetic Associa tion, the average American will consume 4,500 calories on Thursday, more than twice the recommended daily allowance. But what a great representation of Ameri can culture this holiday is. We have so much crap in this country that we can afford to be some of the most wasteful, improvident be ings on the planet. According to the United States Depart ment of Agriculture, nearly one-fifth of this country's food goes to waste. The Environ mental Protection Agency reported in 1998 that Americans produced about 220 million tons of solid waste or garbage. Every day, each American produces 4.6 pounds of sol id waste, and in that garbage is an estimated 106 pounds of food waste annually. Only four percent of the 14 million tons of wasted food was composted, the rest was either in cinerated or left to rot in a landfill. We spend $1 billion dollars every year to dispose of leftover food. Despite that waste, average Americans manage to get more than enough food in their faces, The North American Association for the Study of Obesity noted a nearly 30 percent rise in the adult obese population from the late 1980s to 2000. Currently, more than 60 percent of the population is overweight. The National Institute of Dia betes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases, a branch of the National Institutes of Health, claimed that 300,000 adult deaths in this country each year are the result of unhealthy Joseph Bechard C u i t u ra I o b stet r i c i a n eating habits. In a recent call to action against obesity, the surgeon general lament ed that in 2000, obesity cost our fine country $117 billion. Aside from the 11 percent of Americans who experience food insecurity this year, most of us haven't worried too much about starvation or where our next meal is coming from. And that is what the whole celebra tion is really about. After much starvation and privation, the people of the Plymouth Colony experienced a bountiful harvest and they celebrated with a feast. Finally, they did n't have to worry about food for a while So how do you celebrate Thanksgiving in an environment where there's always a bountiful harvest? We should spend a good, long day away from our crap think ing about where it came from and what it cost the rest of the planet — in terms other than monetary. The mythology of American perfection is bom from our perception of a never-ending well of resources. Our take-take-take lifestyles drive us ceaselessly and ant-like in a selfish quest for luxury, if you don't buy Product X, you're a loser. If you don't use those magical beauty products, you're doomed to a life of hideousness and loneli ness. And, how can you ever survive with out the convenience of Product B? Because we're so wasteful, we are now taking our insatiable thirst for more to the rest of the world. If we can't generate the materials to support our needless accumu lation of possessions within our borders, we'll export our me-first attitude and get everyone on the bandwagon. In our desperate flailing to live the good life, we never stop to consider who we're stepping on to make our lives so much "better." We've pack ratted so much crap in search of the holy grails of convenience and status that we can't get away from it long enough to think things through. And that is why, while everyone else is sweating a gravy funk and dodging flying rivets from splitting pants, I'll be spending this Thanksgiving cold, naked, shivering and sobbing in my empty bathtub. Contact the columnist atjoebechard@dailyemerald.com. His opinions do not necessarily represent those of the Emerald. Prevailing American sentiment supports iron fist It has always amazed me how single-minded liberal elites are so quick to claim moral high ground in arenas that are obviously entirely out __of their league. No "■*. „ icc" better example seems " >;* ' available than our bel COMMENTARY licose if not entirely —-—- elegant, Joseph Bechard. Really now, editorial staff of the Lmerald, the least you could do for those of us who actually can read past a third-grade level — and 1 realize that this is a rari ty here at the University — is utilize the spell check on your iMac, or at the very least hire com petent copy staff who doesn't epitomize the in satiable incompetence that has radiated from your publication. Or has the accepted English lexicon evolved to include the word "costed" now? ("To Angry Peacemaker," ODE, Nov. 5). To answer your more pressing question, Mr. Bechard, the American public is really not what is considered the Willamette Valley "norm," i.e„ hippies and flower babies. Most Americans feel like singer Toby Keith does: angry and vengeful at a group of hateful, ignorant and despicable people who are bent on the destruction of this country not because of some abstract objection to imperialism, but rather because of the free dom and liberty that vve enjoy each and every day Not because we have slaughtered innocent women and children by the millions (and, of course we know that countries like Libya, guilty of the worst human rights violations imagina ble, are applauded by ignoramuses like Mr. Bechard when they take leadership of the Unit ed Nations Council on Human Rights), but be cause we support the only representative democ racy in the Middle East. These are people that believe killing Muslims who do not agree with their particular vision of Islam and the Koran is the only moral thing to do. After all, heretics, ac cording to these self-proclaimed protectors of the Islamic faith, are not deserving of life and liberty. And these, sir, are people that deserve "understanding"? No, these are people that de serve harsh actions and unmerciful reprisal. So no, Mr. Bechard, I have no loss of love for such people as these. They are backward, un civilised brutes, and barbarians who deserve nothing more than an iron fist and a boot, re spectfully, in their posterior. Viva Keith and the millions of Americans who patriotically pur chase his music! Scott Austin, a 2000 University graduate, lives in Eugene. •
