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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. •