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E-mail: editor@dailyemerald.corn
Online: www.dailyemerald.com
Friday, April 23,2004
Oregon Daily Emerald
COMMENTARY
Editor in Chief:
Brad Schmidt
Managing Editor:
Ian Tobias Montry
Editorial Editor:
Travis Willse
Frohnmayer
quacks about
twisting words,
Prefontaine
"Quick Quacks" is the newest Emerald feature, a spontaneous Q&A ses
sion aimed at giving readers a quick look at campus and community mem
bers' thoughts. "Quick Quacks" will run every Friday this spring. Please
send suggestions about possible interviewees to
letters@dailyemerald.com.
This week, University President Dave Frohnmayer, who has presided over
the University since 1994, sits down at the "Quick Quacks" table. Frohn
mayer has served as Dean of the School of Law, as a state legislator and as
Oregon's Attorney General.
Emerald: What's the best thing about being a university president?
Dave Frohnmayer: Really getting to see all of the paths of knowl
edge and discovery, the really interesting things people do in a wide
variety of fields. So many exciting people — faculty, students, staff—
are doing so many interesting things.
Emerald: What's in your CD player right now?
Frohnmayer: The Lives and Music of Great Composers. We're do
ing Bach and the High Baroque. When that's not there, the Brahms'
Double Concerto; when that's not there, the Beethoven Archduke
Trio; and when that's not there, a CD by On the Rocks.
QUICK
IACKS
Emerald: In an alternate universe, where
you never went to law school or became the
_ _ __president of the University, what would you
CjUACKS be doing right now?
... ”_ Frohnmayer Ah, interesting. If I were
smarter I'd be a molecular biologist Maybe an
archaeologist or in the olden days, maybe a member of the U.S. Senate
Emerald: The flavor of modem politics doesn't suit your taste then?
Frohnmayer: It's really gotten ugly since when I left elected poli
tics. It's really polarized now ... It's sad and tragic to see, because it
used to be much different.
Emerald: Who's your favorite Duck athlete of all time and why?
Frohnmayer: Good question. Probably Steve Prefontaine. Guts,
stamina, grit; he never quit. You never think of anyone other than speak
ers as being charismatic, but his running was very charismatic. His races
were electrifying.
Emerald: In the face of increasing tuition and decreasing fiscal
support of the university system from the state, what is the University
doing to keep the cost of going to school here low?
Frohnmayer: Obviously, what we're trying to do is getting as many
scholarships from private donors as possible ... We're trying to stop
state disinvestment and encourage re-investment. We've also been
pretty inventive, I think, offering discounts for early morning classes.
For the price-shopping student, I think we're trying to be very creative
and sensitive.
Emerald: What's the best restaurant in town?
Frohnmayer: Oh, geez, that's a good question. There are so many:
Marche, Ambrosia, Waterfront. I just had lunch at The Glenwood.
Beppe & Gianni's is wonderful; it's just a block and a half from where
we live — you can't limit me to just one.
Emerald: What's the most important thing today's college students
need to know for the road ahead?
Frohnmayer: They need to learn how to learn. They need to learn
how to learn deeply not just learn a superficial mastery of a field. The
best that we can do is to teach someone to be deeply intellectually
curious, to teach people how to think to solve new problems. The
ideal outcome is a good liberal arts education.
Emerald: Any plans to retire?
Frohnmayer: Well, I don't think it'll be soon. I'll want to travel
while I can still carry my own luggage, but right now, I'm firmly in
the saddle. Right now, we have this imperative of raising hundreds
of millions of dollars to support the University, and that's occupying
a lot of my time — and rightfully so.
Emerald: What do you like best about Eugene?
Frohnmayer: Oh, the proximity to a wide variety of wonderful ac
tivities. I don't think you can beat Oregon as a place to live.... I'll ap
propriate a saying from my friend: "I can't think of another place
with such a high quality of life for such low overhead."
Emerald: In your experience, what's the most unusual or interest
ing thing you've seen in your official capacity as University president?
Frohnmayer: I got my words twisted in a public commencement
ceremony: Instead of saying, "Will all those candidates for master's
and bachelor's degrees please stand," I said, "Will all those candi
dates for machelor's and baster's degrees please stand." I tried to cor
rect myself, but then said the same thing again to the amusement of
thousands of graduates and their families.
The most heartwarming moment was when I had an unexplained
cardiac arrest in 1997 when I was visiting the National Institutes of
Health. As they did with the death of my daughter Kirsten in 1997,
the community was amazingly supportive.
Emerald: Finally, where can we find Dave Frohnmayer on a Friday
night?
Frohnmayer Oh, gosh. Hopefully at a nice, relaxing dinner with
family and friends, but sometimes the demands of the official life are
a little more frantic.
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Steve Baggs Illustrator
To err is machine
Imagine this: You, Joe or Jane Citizen,
walk into a voting booth this November,
ready to exercise your solemn responsi
bility and participate in the democratic
process. You cast your vote for your fa
vorite candidate (or more likely, the less
er of two or more evils) on a touch
screen a la Jetson. Knowing you've
fulfilled your civic duty, you leave the
booth aglow from a job well done.
But the computer has different plans.
By malice or mistake, the machine does
n't record the vote. Because the system
doesn't keep a voter-verifiable paper trail
of votes, your vote is lost forever in a
black hole of undemocratic illegitimacy.
During March's presidential primary
election, one of Sequoia Voting Systems'
Optech system electronic voting machines
in Napa County, Calif., failed to transcribe
votes on paper ballots because of a prob
lem with ink calibration, necessitating a
re-scan of some 11,000 ballots.
In early voting during the November
2002 general election, six electronic vot
ing machines in Wake and Jackson
counties, N.C., lost at least 436 ballots.
When poll workers entered absentee
votes on the Election Systems & Soft
ware iVotronic touch-screen machines,
the computers falsely detected that their
memories were full and didn't record
the votes.
Last year, California officials discovered
that Diebold, another electronic voting
machine manufacturer, had installed
uncertified software on the machines in
several counties; the subsequent statewide
audit revealed that the company had "up
graded" without certification the software
in all 17 counties using its touch-screen
and optical-scan machines.
The introduction of high technology
into the voting process is, in theory, a very
good one. Well-operated and pro
grammed machines reduce the chances of
Travis Willse
Rivalless wit
human error, failures that can be critical in
tight races. But when votes are lost or mis
counted — usually without notifying vot
ers or officials — the integrity of the dem
ocratic process is directly threatened.
In recent years, officials have phased
out punchcard-style machines, which
are susceptible to operating problems of
their own. But replacing unreliable ma
chines with newer unreliable machines
which don't leave a paper trail is irre
sponsible, and begs for another electoral
mess of the kind Florida saw in 2000.
Fortunately, Congress has begun to take
notice. Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., introduced
House Bill 2239, titled The Voter Confi
dence and Increased Accessibility Act of
2003. Along with its companion Senate
bill, S.B. 1980 (introduced by Sen. Bob
Graham, D-Fla.), HR 2239 requires that
voting systems produce a paper trail, a
powerful fail-safe method that makes any
necessary recounts feasible and democrat
ically meaningful.
Better still, the act would ban undis
closed software in voting machines, leav
ing the guts of the machine open to pub
lic and expert scrutiny.
Voters have also seen problems in
Broward County, Fla., where 134 voters'
ballots were lost, and unrecoverable be
cause there was no paper trail. Machines
in Hinds County, Miss., overheated, in
terfering with the election so badly the
state legislature called for a new election;
and in Fairfax County, Va., some voters
saw votes they cast given to their candi
dates' opponents.
For the sake of fairness in the elec
toral system — the keystone of represen
tative democracy — contact your repre
sentative and senators (Rep. Peter
DeFazio, D, and Sens. Gordon Smith, R,
and Ron Wyden, D, if you live in Eu
gene), and urge them to support the
above bills.
Contact the editorial editor
attraviswillse@dailyemerald.com.
His opinions do not necessarily
represent those of the Emerald.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Public debate requires
knowledge and understanding
Public debate would be improved if
people studied all sides of an issue be
fore putting forth their own viewpoint.
Matt Chorpenning has clearly demon
strated what happens when one enters a
conflict knowing little about one's op
ponent ("Wagner misses God's point,"
ODE, April 7).
Chorpenning apparently thinks that
Wagner believes God's word is limited to«
a single book. There is an obvious error
in Chorpenning's response: As Kimberly
Wagner mentioned, she is a member of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, an unorthodox Christian religion
that believes not only in the Bible, but
also in several other canonical texts, the
words of a living prophet and in person
al revelation.
Whether or not one shares Wagner's
beliefs, only a fool would argue with her
without understanding them. Premises
of faith are personal phenomena which
aren't subject to third, party .validation,
so theological claims are generally un
productive in secular debates. Those
who already believe that God opposes
homosexual marriage don't need further
convincing, while non-believers won't
have their opinions changed by Biblical
commandments. Fortunately, Wagner
recognized this.
Regarding the separate question of the
legalization of homosexual marriage,
she said only that one should "have
what opinion you wish," and conclud
ed that she would base her opinion on
**»••« Turn to.LETTER, page 5, ,,