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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 4, 2004)
Newsroom: (541) 346-5511 Suite 300, Erb Memorial Union P.O. Box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403 E-mail: editor@dailyemerald.com Online: www.dailyemerald.com Tuesday, May 4,2004 Oregon Daily Emerald COMMENTARY Editor in Chief Brad Schmidt Managing Editor: Jan Tobias Montry Editorial Editor: Travis Willse E EDITORIAL. Lane County direly needs more funds Now that the month of May has rolled around once again, Oregonians can expert to see more petty criminals running just out of reach of the law's long arm. Well, it used to be long, anyway. These days, the budget tragedy in this state has reached such dire proportions that the Lane County District At torney's office can't afford to charge suspected perpetra tors of certain crimes. In a $270,000 money-saving effort, prosecutors will cease to pursue some 102 types of nonviolent misde meanors in about 2,000 cases, including theft under $750. In further cost-cutting measures, District Attorney Doug Harcleroad said his office will also cease prosecu tion of about 1,000 drug felony cases and 650 nonvio lent felony cases. Included in the crimes that won't be prosecuted are prostitution, credit card fraud and physical harassment. An unfortunate byproduct following years of gross mismanagement of taxpayer money on the part of local agencies? Perhaps, but the cuts are currently needed to meet 9 percent across-the-board cuts, which will com pensate for a $4.1 million shortfall in the county. Oh, but never fear! The local police will still be arrest ing people. Those people just won't be charged with any thing. As Harcleroad conceded in a memo to courts and police, the reductions are "a blow to public safety in Lane County." We wholeheartedly agree and hope public offi cials can crunch some numbers and find a solution to the whole mess. Meanwhile, upstate, prisoners at Oregon State Correc tional Institution are having flat-screen televisions in stalled into their cells. A recent Associated Press story fea tures Nicholas Krahmer, a prisoner who was convicted of assault with a knife, kicking back on his bunk and en joying his $300 flatscreen television. Krahmer bought the television using money he earned computer drafting in the prison, where he made a few dollars per day. After what was sure to be many, many excruciating weeks of working for a hilariously low wage, Krahmer saved enough — and maintained a clear record — to buy the television for his cell. Here's an idea: Use their money to pay for more con victions in Lane County! Given, the prisoners earned that money fair and square, but those are the breaks, as the saying goes. Or, better yet, instead of Krahmer working in computer drafting at the prison, why not give him a go at prosecut ing? Surely the man has had enough exposure to Court TV in his cell to understand at least the most basic tenants of trying a criminal, right? 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 Jan Tobias Montry Managing Editor Ayisha Yahya Mews Editor Travis Wallse Editorial Editor Jennifer Sudick Freelance Editor « « 4 i / i i J i 'i i if*JL'± 'A ~J. Eric Layton Illustrator Only skin deep I need a makeover. I'm not talking about one of those pansy salon makeovers, with the manicure and the pedicure. I'm talking scalpels. I'm talk ing plastic surgery. I'm talking liposuction. I need an extreme makeover. My television box told me so. MTV told me "I Want a Famous Face." FOX told me to be "The Swan." And, of course, ABC told me to get that "Extreme Makeover." America is obsessed with this new, twisted brand of reality television. "The Swan" is a ratings hit for FOX. It takes ugly women, makes them over extreme-style, and enters them into a beauty pageant in the final episode. This past week it was the network's third-highest-rated show, be hind only "American Idol" and "24." For America, these television shows of fer the ultimate rags-to-riches tale. It's Cin derella in prime time. With scalpels. The worst of the batch, by far, is "I Want a Famous Face " Thankfully, the show is no longer on the air. But when it was on, it was gnarly. Really gnarly. The show's sub jects all wanted to resculpt their bodies so they could look like a pop singer or a hot actor. MTV claimed to be "documenting a phenomenon." And document they did. Blood flew. Lines were drawn on various body parts. Boobs were lifted. It was horrendous. I couldn't look. It got to the point where if I saw the show's logo, even if it was a com mercial, I had to change it. Even C-SPAN would be better. One of the famous subjects was Kate Winslet. "Jennette" from Florida wanted to look like the British actress, who isn't even hot, in my humble opinion. But that's a different story. Jennette got her tummy tucked and her boobs lifted. "I would do the whole thing over in a heartbeat," Jennette told MTV.com after the show. "I can't even begin to tell you how worth it, the whole surgery, was." Peter Hockaday Today is Hockaday Winslet, though, wouldn't do it over in a heartbeat after watching the show. She told the London Times she felt obligated to watch. Imagine watching somebody endure severe pain in order to have your tummy. Kate Winslet knows what that's all about. "I just felt so powerless," Winslet told the London paper. "I certainly don't have breasts like the ones she ended up with. Trust me. She had slabs of her stomach taken out. Li posuction ! What the f— is going on?" Exactly. What is going on? Why would people torture themselves medieval-style just to look like Brad Pitt or Jennifer Lopez? Why would people endure surgery and weeks in the hospital to look a little better? What happened to inner beauty? People say that "Extreme Makeover" is * acceptable because the people on that show are Hunchback-of-Notre-Dame ugly. They're can't-go-outside ugly. Obviously, I'm beautiful, so I don't know about that kind of ugliness. That was a joke. But in a perfect world, looks shouldn't matter. Heck, even Quasimodo gets the girl in the end. Sort of. So why can't people just be happy with where they are? So you're ugly. You don't look like Jennifer Aniston or Andy Roddick. So what? Get over it. I guess I'm just idealistic. These makeover shows crush my ideals. So I'm going to go on "The Swan" and I'm going to beat the skirts off those girls. I think I would look good as any woman. How about that for a makeover? Contact the columnist at peterhockaday@dailyemerald.com. His opinions do not necessarily represent those of the Emerald. LETTER TO THE EDITOR Editorial gave false impression of USSAtrip This letter is in response to a recent edito rial ("Student Senate could be new reality TV show," ODE, April 14), which claimed that the United States Student Association's trip to Washington D.C. was a waste of money, and that the "chance of USSA students bringing meaningful, tangible benefits to the University (is) 1 percent." In this situa tion, the Editorial Board is simply wrong. Firstly, this column gives a false impression to readers by failing to fully explain the Ci'i i i Jl 'l a 4 USSA's conference This editorial makes it ap pear that Melton and the others were treated to a five-star vacation. Absolutely not In real ity, this seminar included workshops on be coming allies to different communities, and concrete promises were received from mem bers of Congress for funding higher educa tion. By giving readers an incomplete story, the Editorial Board showed its lack of support for alliances towards minority students, and are uninformed about the pledges of congres sional representatives. Furthermore, in this same editorial, the editors once more failed to properly ana lyze a delicate situation with the issue of ASUO Vice President Eddy Morales' assertion of racial discrimination during a Senate meeting. According to this editori al, because Morales' claim was not neces sarily agreed on by all Senate members, in the future he "should just keep his mouth shut." Although I am not a racial minori ty, I can only hope that all people would choose to voice an issue of possible dis crimination, especially if related to my ac tions, instead of "keeping their mouths shut" in order to avoid disturbing a mem ber of the ODE editorial board. Ailee Slater freshman English
