Newsroom: (541) 346-5511
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E-mail: editor@dailyemerald.com
Online: www.dailyemerald.com
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
Oregon Daily Emerald
COMMENTARY
Editor in Chief:
Brad Schmidt
Managing Editor
Jan Tobias Montiy
Editorial Editor:
Travis Willse
ElCMTOR! AL_
Crusading
against pom
wastes time,
cash, sense
What would you say if you found out the U.S. Justice
Department is spending millions of your tax dollars to
pay government employees to look at porn?
Not illegal types — such as child porn, which should
be actively sought out and purged — but the kind that
has been deemed acceptable by the legal system for
years.
The kind of porn those in the private sector would get
fired for viewing at work.
Well, it's true, and it's all part of the Justice Depart
ment's ongoing mission to trample free speech rights in
this country. Attorney General John Ashcroft is spear
heading the effort, where 32 employees are spending
millions to find new ways of charging pornographers
with "obscenity." (In fact, the Justice Department has an
entire division dedicated to obscenity prosecution.)
And, according to the Thought Police, nothing is safe
from the clutches of governmental tyranny, including
everything from soft-core sex in television programs to
adult movies offered in hotel rooms.
"We want to do everything we can to deter this con
duct," both on the production and consumption ends,
obscenity prosecutions chief Drew Oosterbaan told
the Baltimore Sun. "Nothing is off the table as far as
content."
Luckily, giddy teenagers sharing bootlegged Playboy
specials over the Internet aren't the only people involved
in the porn industry. Multibillion dollar companies,
such as Comcast, have a stake in the future of pornogra
phy broadcasting. Big companies means a lot of money,
which means highly paid lawyers and an uphill battle for
Ashcroft and his cronies. It will be interesting to see just
how far President George W. Bush will let Ashcroft take
his crusade; after all, Comcast President Stephen Burke
has agreed to raise at least $200,000 for the president's
re-election campaign.
ASUO Board
vies to build
voter appeal
ASUO Executive hopefuls will square off in a battle of
political wits tonight, with candidates debating who
among them is most fit to administrate the University's
student body government in 2004-05. After two-minute
opening statements, the ASUO Elections Board-hosted
debate proper will start with questions from two pre-se
lected ASUO groups, and then move to general audi
ence questions.
However, those groups — which aren't necessarily stu
dent groups, ASUO Elections Coordinator Stephanie Day
noted — won't be named until the event itself, to stave off
solicitation from candidates.
But any hypothetically approached group representa
tive could always simply say, "No." With that simple
caveat in mind, there's little reason to hide the group's
identities from prior student body review. Such open
ness is all the more important because the groups cho
sen "best represented the University campus," Day said
— a tall order for a diverse population of some 20,000
students.
Still, aside from this and elections scheduling problems,
the Elections Board's efforts this year deserve some ap
plause: With Monday's and today's candidate fair, and of
fering crowd-pleasing pizza before tonight's debate, this
year's Board is doing more than some of its predecessors
to culture more student interest in elections that have long
suffered from low turnout.
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In Eugene, everybody gripes about
housing codes. We want housing codes
so our dishwashers won't make the
dishes dirtier and our garbage dispos
als will actually dispose of our garbage.
But there's a little town in Italy that
needs housing codes way more than
Eugene does. The town of Canneto di
Caronia, on the north coast of Sicily,
needs housing codes like a whale needs
water.
In Canneto, the appliances don't
work. They blow up.
It all started in January, when the air
conditioner in Antonio Pezzino's
house burst into flames. That was no
big deal. Maybe it was an electricity
surge, or maybe a train was passing on
the nearby tracks.
Pezzino is one of only 39 people
who live in Canneto. Or, lived in Can
neto. Soon, everybody was being visit
ed by the appliance demon. Lamps and
refrigerators burst into flames. Car
alarms went batty. Cell phones, which
barely worked before, really went on
the fritz.
By mid-February, the entire town was
evacuated and living in a nearby hotel.
Police, electricity experts, geologists
and even spiritual experts parked on
Canneto's one strada, or street. Satellite
trucks and seismic-reading devices
turned the town into what seemed like
a movie set.
Still, nobody could find the answer.
"Someone wrote to us, saying the so
lution was to sacrifice a black goat and
collect its blood," Canneto Mayor Pe
dro Spinnato told Reuters news service.
"At some point, that's going to start
looking like a good idea."
The utility company shut off the
town's power in January, but it didn't
help. They tried to hook up the town to
a generator, but the generator explod
ed, too.
Looking for answers, the town big
wigs even called in Massimo Polidoro,
the head of Italy's Committee for the
Control of Paranormal Claims. Poli
doro officially nixed the demon expla
nation.
.. ilHH
Peter Hockaday
Today is Hockaday
"The fact that the phenomenon oc
curs only when there are people pres
ent makes it hard to believe that it is a
natural, or even supernatural, phenom
enon," he told Reuters.
That helps.
Finally, by the end of February, the
fires stopped. The town residents got
excited about the possibility of moving
back into their homes.
But then they started again, worse
than before. An apartment went up in
flames. More appliances combusted.
Police held onto the theory that a py
romaniac was starting the fires. Until,
that is, a power line went up in smoke.
Canneto residents are still holed up in
the hotel. People have theories. They think
it could have something to do with power
lines near the train tracks. They think it
could be natural surges of electridty
welling up from the earth's core
"I just want to go home" Canneto resi
dent Rosi Cioffo told Reuters. "I don't
know what's causing it and I don't care
anymore even if it's the devil."
So, the next time your washing ma
chine turns your favorite shirt pink or
your freezer melts your ice cream, think
about the people of Canneto. Think
about the possibility of sitting in the
Eugene Hilton while the town around
you is shrouded in darkness, save for
the occasional fireworks when Johnny's
microwave bursts into flames.
Think about that the next time you
complain about housing standards.
Contact the columnist
at peterhockaday@daiiyemerald.com.
His opinions do not necessarily
represent those of the Emerald.
ONLINE POLL
Each week, the Emerald runs an online
poll and publishes the results, along with
next week’s question, in this space.
Visit http://www.dailyemerald.com to
vote.
Last question: Will you be voting in the
ASUO primary election this year?
Results: 31 votes
• Yes -1 support the democratic
process: 41.9 percent or 13 votes.
• No-Why waste my time? 35.5
percent or 11 votes.
• Yes - So few people vote that I know
my vote will count: 12.9 percent or four
votes.
• No — I don’t know enough about the
issues: 9.7 percent or three votes.
This week’s question: What should the
U.S. military’s next steps in Iraq be?
Choices: Bush’s cease-fire proposal;
Send more troops and continue with
current strategies; Pull out ground
troops and use long-range tactics like
bombing from the air; Ask for more
assistance from the United Nations;
Surrender.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Iraq occupation similar
to American Revolution
There once was a corrupt and hypo
critical society that had race-based slav
ery, a government controlled by the
wealthy elite, and a policy of denying
women basic human rights. That flawed
society waged war against a great imperi
al power that thought it knew best about
what was good for the corrupt society.
The insurgents didn't care what the colo
nial power thought and felt that no mat
ter how bad their own society was, it was
better than being ruled by outsiders.
Thus the American Revolution succeed
ed and thus the American occupation of
Iraq will fail.
Christopher Cakler
Eugene