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E-mail: editor@dailyemerald.com
Online: www.dailyemerald.com
Wednesday, February 4, 2004
Oregon Daily Emerald
COMMENTARY
Editor in Chief:
Brad Schmidt
Managing Editor:
Jan Tobias Montry
Editorial Editor:
Travis Willse
EDITORIAL.
PFC shouldn't
OK funding
of USSA dues
The University's Programs Finance Committee doles out
some $5 million annually to various facilities (for example,
the Student Recreation Center); subsidies (Lane Transit Dis
trict and child care); and, largely, student groups. Some allo
cations fall into another category; off-campus associations.
Student fees are collected and disseminated under the
assumption of materially benefiting those who pay them.
Accordingly, because it is often more difficult to identify
benefits imbued on students by a remote organization than
it is for on-campus groups, these allocations deserve (and
usually receive) additional scrutiny.
Indeed, PFC Chairman Adrian Gilmore observed:
"When you go off-campus and you go to a federal level, we
as a board really need to make sure that the incidental fee is
going to benefit students at the University of Oregon."
During a January PFC meeting, committee members
took some issue with the ASUO Executive's request to fund
the United States Student Association, a national political
group that lobbies on behalf of students. The USSA origi
nally requested $20,000 in student fees but agreed to let
funding increase "gradually." Trie final executive recom
mendation was $7,435, which could cover dues and stu
dent travel to conferences.
According to USSA's Web site, "The organization tracks
and lobbies federal legislation and policy, and organizes
students from across the country to participate in the po
litical process, through testifying in official Congressional
hearings, letter-writing campaigns, and face-to-face lobby
visits between students and their elected officials."
Commendably, the PFC was originally wary of the pro
posal, which called for a several hundred percent increase
over the previous year's allocation.
"What makes this not a partisan group? Why should we
fund this?" PFC Sen. Colin Andries asked.
ASUO President Maddy Melton defended the proposal, say
ing the organization doesn't campaign for particular candi
dates. Moreover USSA's lobbying inarguably benefits at least
some students; Melton said USSA's efforts have helped protect
the Pell Grant and reauthorize the Higher Education Act.
Funding was tabled until PFC's Jan. 29 meeting, when
PFC passed a $9,640 budget for the organization, a whop
ping 776.5 percent increase.
That students are evidently compelled to fund an explicit
ly partisan group that lobbies specific legislation should irk
fee-paying students, regardless of their political slant and
whether they materially benefit from the USSA subsidy.
Some students might argue that diverting funds to a hy
pothetical (and implicitly political) national lobby pro
moting, for instance, abstinence-only education and the
banning of contraceptives in public universities' student
health centers would materially benefit students, but many
students — those on the Emerald's Editorial Board includ
ed — would disagree. Some of those would resent, too,
their incidental fees being used for such a purpose.
Simply put, mandatory student fees shouldn't be divert
ed to any partisan, lobbying end, regardless of how much
students benefit from them.
EDITORIAL POLICY
This editorial represents the opinion of the Emerald
editorial board. Responses can be sent to letters
@dailyemerald.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 Jen Sudick
Editor in Chief Freelance Editor
Jan Tobias Montry Ayisha Yahya
Managing Editor News Editor
Travis Willse
Editorial Editor
Population panic
In three of my five classes, the lectures
and readings have recendy turned to the
issue of our ever-increasing human pop
ulation and its impact on the environ
ment in which we live.
I've listened to arguments from all sides
of the equation, from advocates of sus
tainability who say that the number of
humans is not as relevant as how we all
live, to people who say that it doesn't mat
ter how we live — if the number of peo
ple on earth exceeds the earth's carrying
capacity, then we're doomed.
Science has proven that our population
is growing exponentially, and the mathe
matical diagrams derived by science show
that this growth will continue until it
peaks. Then the population will crash in
a manner reminiscent of Wile E. Coyote
hitting the ground after being tricked off
the cliff by that silly Road Runner.
Now, I believe that human choice is the
second most wonderful thing in the
world, behind love, but I don't believe
that it is possible that all humans would
choose together to live in a sustainable
manner. We, as individuals, are just too
self-centered, too focused on our own
well-being rather than the health of our
neighbors, to make a choice that would
benefit everyone instead of just ourselves.
It's hard to admit we're killing ourselves,
so let's try something else.
Let's imagine that there's this beautiful
pristine pond, and in the middle of it is
this perfect little island with emerald
green grass, flowering plants, nitrogen
rich soil and a population of flightless
birds that, much like Canadian geese,
mate for life, but like penguins have only
one or two eggs. The birds have no preda
tors on the island, and they outcompete
all the other organisms living there for re
sources.
These birds are weight conscious, so
they only eat what they need to survive.
Their chicks, which have a very low hatch
ling mortality rate, are kind of a pain in
the butt, so the birds don't usually have
more than one or two.
Life is so good on this island that the
birds usually live a long time, and often
four generations are alive on the island at
once. Because of this, with each new birth
the island gets a little more crowded.
Soon, one family of birds is living right
next to another, and before long they are
trying to figure out how to stack their nests
vertically to make room for the next gen
eration. And even though each bird is eat
ing only as much as it needs to survive,
there is less grass to go around simply be
cause there are more beaks to feed and the
nests are taking up areas where the plants
used to grow.
Aimee Rudin
Five feet of fury
The birds, who are now living on top of
each other and stealing food from the
beaks of the neighbor chicks, were taught,
as hatchlings, not to defecate in their own
nests, and since where they used to go has
been converted into nesting for the less
fortunate birds, they are forced to start us
ing the water bank as a bathroom.
Before they know it their water is con
taminated with excrement so that when
Eric Layton Illustrator
they try to drink it they get giardiasis, which
causes them to poop even more, which in
turn makes the water situation worse.
Next, the rainy season comes. The
rains used to be an asset, but now the
plants are gone so the soil along the
bank has no anchor, and all the high
ground away from the water's edge has
been taken over by the healthiest birds
leaving no place left for anyone else to
go. The rains cause a landslide that takes
with it 78 percent of the nesting grounds,
and all the chicks that were still in those
nests — they all die.
Because most of the island just washed
away into the dirty pond, when the rain fi
nally lets up there is even less growing area
for food, and the birds who were squatting
up on the high ground now have no
homes, no chicks and no food. Most of
them just give up and die.
The few remaining birds are forced to
spend their days scavenging the barren island
for single blades of grass while trying not to
step in the droppings of their deceased
neighbors. It's not pretty, but neither is the di
rection we're heading as a population.
Contact the columnist
at aimeerudin@dailyemerald.com.
Her opinions do not necessarily
represent those of the Emerald.
DPS should adopt hanging permits
I am a member of the staff here at the
University of Oregon and my husband is
a law student. I recently got a ticket for
not having my University parking permit
permanently attached to the bumper of
my car. When I broached the Department
of Public Safety about the possibility of
getting a rearview mirror hanging park
ing permit, or sticking the permit on my
back window, the parking and trans
portation manager gave me the brush
off, and implied that he saw no reason to
change the current system. How much
harder is it to look at the back windshield
than the back bumper?
Here are some of my reasons for not
wanting bumper sticker parking permits:
(1) They are very, very difficult to get off,
so after a few years you either have a thick
collection from putting the permits on top
of one another or a patchwork quilt of per
mits next to each other. Plus, older permits
start to fade and crack and look ugly, but
getting them off is such a pain that most
people don't bother.
(2) If your car is in the shop, you have to
go to Public Safety and get a special permit.
If the repairs will take longer than a week,
you have to get a note from the repair shop
(and presumably your mommy).
(3) If your permit is on a car used by
more than one person, and you borrow
your friend's car, sans permit, you have to
buy a day pass when you already paid
once for the right to park on campus.
(4) When selling a car, having old stick
ers on the bumper decreases the car's value,
even more so if the bumper is scratched
from trying to
remove the
stickers.
If the permits
were rearview
mirror hanging
tags then all of these problems could be
avoided. Plus, there would be the added
benefits of:
(1) The permits being usable in more
than one car.
(2) The tags could be reusable for more
than one year. Instead of attaching a big
sticker to the bumper, DPS could have
tiny colored stickers with the years on
them to attach to the hanging tags. It
seems like tiny stickers would be much
cheaper than the big stickers currently
used, which obviously have to be special
ly printed for the University.
Reasons that DPS might be opposed
include:
(1) Less revenue because they lose the rev
enue from day passes, and the revenue from
students having to buy second car permits.
(2) Parking officers would have to patrol
at the front of cars rather than the bade.
(3) In theory, hanging tags could get
stolen more (but only if people don't lock
their cars).
I refuse to believe I'm the only staff
member or student who hates those
bumper sticker permits and the hassle
they represent. Imagine if you had a brand
new BMW 5 Series or a Lincoln Navigator.
Wouldn't it be awful to stick a tacky Uni
versity parking permit on it? Can't DPS
even consider an alternative? I've been at
a couple other Universities with window
stickers (which, although not transferable,
are easy to remove) or hanging tags which
are all-around super. Either of these types
of parking permit tags would be much
more user-friendly, espedally the rearview
mirror hanging kind.
Allison Martinez is an executive support
specialist in the Office of International
Programs.