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E-mail: editor@dailyemerald.com
Online: www.dailyemerald.com
Monday, January 5, 2004
Oregon Daily Emerald
COMMENTARY
Editor in Chief:
Brad Schmidt
Managing Editor:
Jan Tobias Montry
Editorial Editor:
Travis Willse
EDITORIAL
Mews doesn't
stop during
winter break
Welcome back, snow-drenched readers. The Emerald
Editorial Board hopes your holidays were happy and
healthy, and relaxing if not rocking. For those of you
who left the news programs off and the newspapers on
the porch, here's a primer on the events of recent weeks,
coupled with pithy but insightful opinions.
Dec. 14 After extensive questioning of people with
family or other ties to Saddam Hussein, soldiers found
the 'haggard' former Iraqi leader hiding in a so-called
spider hole near Tikrit, Iraq. President Bush, in a tele
vised address, said "the former dictator of Iraq will face
the justice he denied to millions." While the news is
definitely good for Iraqis and represents an important
moral victory for coalition soldiers, Americans (mili
tary and civilian alike) shouldn't forget that the work
in Iraq is far from over and that the nation remains a
dangerous place.
Dec. 19 VIPs gathered around a muddy runway in Kill
Devil Hills, N.C., to celebrate the 100th anniversary of
the Wright Brothers' first flight. Despite the replica
plane's failure to fly, the centennial still reminds us of
the fantastic capacities of human ingenuity.
Dec. 19 Libyan leader Col. Moammar Gadhafi an
nounced that his country would end its weapons of mass
destruction programs and admit weapons inspectors to
oversee the programs' elimination.
Dec. 21 The United States cranked up the terror threat
level from elevated (yellow) to high (orange), whose rec
ommended measures for government agencies include
"preparing to execute contingency procedures, such as
moving to an alternate site or dispersing their work
force." While the "Homeland Security Advisory System"
is a convenient way of packaging the current state of se
curity affairs for sound byte digestion, more information
that the department has been doling out in recent
months would be a psychological and academic boon,
whenever security concerns allow for it.
Dec. 23 The U.S. Department of Agriculture an
nounced the discovery of the first apparent case of
bovine spongiform encephalopathy — mad cow disease
— in Mabton, Wash. Several nations, including Japan,
immediately halted beef imports from the United States.
This is cause for concern, but not gross overreaction:
There's still only one apparent contraction of the disease
in this country, and moreover, scientific studies have
shown that the BSE infectious agent has never been
found in beef muscle meat or milk, according to the Na
tional Cattlemen's Beef Association.
Jan. 4 Pop princess Britney Spears eschewed the tradi
tion of large Southern weddings and married a child
hood friend in a small, 5:30 a.m. ceremony (wherein she
was escorted by a limo driver and walked down the aisle
in torn jeans and a baseball cap) in Las Vegas. She plans
to annul the mockery, er... marriage.
EDITORIAL POLICY
This editorial represents the opinion of the Emerald
editorial board. Responses can be sent to letters
@dai!yemerald.com. Letters to the editor and guest
commentaries are encouraged. Letters are limited
to 250 words and guest commentaries to 550 words.
Authors are limited to one submission per calendar
month. Submission must include phone number and
address for verification. The Emerald reserves the right
to edit for space, grammar and style.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Brad Schmidt
Editor in Chief
Jan Tobias Montry
Managing Editor
Travis Wilise
Editorial Editor
Aimee Rudin
Columnist
Ayisha Yahya
News Editor
/
L
Starting over
As you wander from dass to dass, meet
ing new people and saying hello to old
friends, take just a moment and realize that
you are currently in the midst of a time you
will look back to in about six weeks with sin
cere regret. Because, my dear friends, not
only is this wintertime, start-of-term time
and "Does-it-always-rain-in-Oregon?" time,
it is also I-shoulda time.
A month or so from now, when you are
feeling hassled and harried, you will look
back to these halcyon days and think things
like "I shoulda started this paper when it was
assigned," "I shoulda organized from the
start" and "I shoulda kept up with the read
ing instead of partidpating in that all-you
can-bdch beer and soda pop sotial."
I speak from experience
Generally, I start out with the best of inten
tions. I buy planners and lovingly thumb
through their empty pages all set up to or
ganize my life. I eagerly await the first day of
dasses and vow that as soon as I receive a syl
labus, I will faithfully begin to plan my stud
ies with loving care Somehow, it never quite
turns out that way.
I usually wait until after the first day of
classes to purchase my books. That presents a
bit of a problem. In law school, they not only
expect you to ferret out the first day's assign
ments before the term starts, they actually ex
pea you to have read the required materials
and be prepared to discuss them.
To disguise my lack of preparation, I find
that staring intendy at my laptop and typing
furiously as if taking notes usually dissuades
anyone from calling on me. That leaves me
the endre dass period to figure out what to
do with my planner.
Should I put in the assignment that I
haven't done? If so, where? According to the
planner, it belongs on the page designated
for the first day of dass. But if I put it there
will I ever see it again? I mean, the point of a
planner is that you should be able to look at
a day and see what your tasks are for that day,
* .
Jessica Cole-Hodgkinson
Huh? What? Reaily.
not thumb through all previous days look
ing for tasks that you failed to accomplish.
I could combine the first day's assignment
with the second day's assignment and write
them both in as one single task for the sec
ond day of class. But, if I do that, my beauti
ful new planner will silently testify that I start
ed out the term badly. Every time I open it,
the first writing I see will present a slight blow
to my self-esteem. I usually conclude that it
would be purpose-defeating for a planner de
signed to help keep me on top of my game
to pettily dwell on my minor failures.
Usually, I dismiss both these options and
decide that 1 will put nothing down in the
planner about the first day's assignment. Af
ter all, I'm in law school. How hard can it be
to read a few dozen pages?
Well, harder than you might think.
The problem arises with the assignments
for the second day. If I write them into my
still-virgin planner, then the evening before
the second day, I will sit down with my
books to read the assigned material. At that
point I will discover that the assigned mate
rial is referencing material that was in the first
reading assignment and I will be terribly con
fused. After all, I haven't actually read the first
reading assignments. "And why not?" you
may ask. Why, because I bought a planner to
rely on, and I assure you it says nothing
about any assignments for the first day.
Rather than continue on in confusion, I
usually put away the books and see if I can
find an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
to watch. It is, after all, only the first week,
and no one flunks out in the first week.
Unfortunately, left unattended, none of
my planner problems sort themselves out
before the start of the second week. Still, I sail
blithely on into the third week. By the fourth
week, the still-blank pages of my planner —
once so lovingly admired — have begun to
haunt me I try to leave it behind, only to find
it has snuck into my book bag to taunt me
with its emptiness.
By the fifth or sixth week, I begin to realize
that my planner is an agent of (insert your
preferred evil force here) and not to be trust
ed. After all, it still says that we've yet to be
given any assignments, even though my pro
fessor — who has now caught on to the in
tent gaze/rapid typing gig and calls on me
regularly to bolster the egos of my fellow
classmates — assures me otherwise.
About this time, I start to look back in
time to the early days of the term with fond
ness and regret. I think to myself, "1 shoulda
bought a different planner," and vow that I
will try again next term.
Contact the columhistat
jessicacolehodgkinson@dailyemerald.com.
Her opinions do not necessarily represent
those of the Emerald.
ONLINE POLL
Each week, the Emerald publishes the
results of the previous poll and the
coming week’s poll question.
Visit http://www.dailyemerald.com to vote.
Last question: What was the biggest
story of fall term?
Results: 81 votes
• Oregon shocks No. 3 Michigan: 33.3
percent or 27 votes
• Five-part series on cheating: 16.1
percent or 13 votes
• DPS: Officer committed misconduct:
14.8 percent or 12 votes
• Howe Field selected as location for
new arena: 14.8 percent or 12 votes
• ASUO VP pleads innocent to assault
charge: 9.9 percent or eight votes
• Business school enters new era with
Lillis: 7.4 percent or six votes
• Other: 3.7 percent or three votes
This week: Snow?
Choices: I love it and want more; That
was fine and I’ve had enough; That was
awful and I hate snow; Don’t care.