Oregon Daily Emerald
Monday, March 28, 2005
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■ In my opinion
Bullets or bullies
You can blame the bullies. You can
blame the Prozac. Blame it on parents,
violent flash animation, explicit lyrics
or the fact that no one saw the warning
signs. Or you could blame it on the two
factors that truly resulted in the death
of six high school students and four
adults: a loaded gun and a violent kid.
School shootings, such as the one
that occurred on the Red Lake Indian
Reservation last Monday, occur be
cause of two main, intricately en
twined issues. First is a statement that
I would consider fact, but many con
sider debatable: guns kill. According
to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, firearm deaths to
taled 29,573 in 2001. The classic say
ing goes that guns don’t kill people,
people kill people; however, it is
painfully apparent that guns belong
ing to already violent people are not
just hanging around and watching
crime being committed from their
cozy positions in locked cupboards.
Published last year, David Hemen
way’s book “Private Guns, Public
Health” calls attention to an impor
tant idea: The United Sates is not nec
essarily a nation more violent than
the rest of the world. As director of
the Harvard Injury Control Research
Center at the School of Public Health,
Hemenway comments that the crime
rate in our country is comparable to
other industrialized nations of the
same size; however, lethal violence
because of easy gun access represents
the real disparity.
AILEE SLATER
FURTHER FROM PERFECTION
“It’s not as if a 19-year-old in the
United States is more evil than a
19-year-old in Australia — there’s no
evidence for that,” Hemenway writes
in his book, “but a 19-year-old in Amer
ica can very easily get a pistol. That’s
very hard to do in Australia. So when
there’s a bar fight in Australia, some
body gets punched out or hit with a
beer bottle. Here, they get shot.”
The United States’ acceptance of
guns will always lead to lethal vio
lence in schools, and lethal violence
in society. Which leads to the second
reason why school shootings are
probably not going to end in this
country: The United States cannot
simultaneously promote and decry
violence. Remember that the United
States attacked Iraq not because of
an action taken by the Iraqi nation,
but because of the threat of violence
from them toward ourselves. Kind of
like a school yard drama in which
the nerds feel threatened by the
jocks, and suddenly a kid has a pis
tol (or army, if you will) resting at
someone’s forehead. It may be
painstakingly pacifist, but the logic
remains that to kill is to kill. Jeff
Weise caused the death of ten; the
United Sates has caused the death of
well over 100,000 in Iraq alone.
Schools are not a separate entity
from the world; rather, they are a mi
crocosm of it. In every grade level,
within every classroom, are the chil
dren representing the roles of
brown-nosing coworker, submissive
housewife, or crazy bag lady en
gulfed in a life of generic formula
mind-altering substances and “For
Maximum Value” TV dinners. Chil
dren and teenagers are aware of the
world and society in which they re
side, and will mold their individual
values around their settings. If the
United States remains lax on gun
laws, not to mention the absurd
army-worship in which our country
increasingly engages, homicide in
schools by gun will not end.
There is not a problem with vio
lence in schools, there is a problem
with violence, period. Metal detectors
won’t solve the problem, and neither
will parental advisory warnings on
video games and music. If the U.S.
government wants to make a real
change in violence within schools,
then they need to set up a real change
in the mindset of this nation. As long
as citizens are supplied with lethal
weapons and violence is promoted as
an acceptable solution to problems,
improvements will be few.
aileeslater@dailyemerald.com
INBOX
Neon campaign signs pose
environmental threat
As I walked through campus the
other day, 1 couldn’t help but notice
the bright campaign signs. Election
season is upon us, and I expect we’ll
be seeing many more of these cam
paign signs in coming weeks. How
r
ever, using neon paper for these signs
must cease immediately.
Neon paper is made with toxic
heavy metals such as cadmium and
arsenic that leach into the environ
ment if the paper is thrown away. If
neon paper is recycled as colored pa
per, the bleaching process produces
cancer-causing dioxin. Neon paper
can only be recycled as low-grade,
which is hard to market and not cost
effective. I urge all candidates to keep
in mind the health of our community
and environment as they run their
campaigns.
Jessica Thompson
Eugene
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■ Editorial
Early ASUO election date
leaves students uninformed
As the term begins and the University springs
back to life, the freshly tanned student popula
tion will return only to be caught off guard by
an event of premiere importance that flies be
low most of the school’s radar — the imminent
ASUO elections.
The first round begins only a week from
Wednesday with the primary elections leaving
voters, who often return on the eve of new class
es or even midway through the first week, woe
fully uninformed and unaware of the candidates.
We appreciate the hard work the Elections
board does each year to inform and aid potential
candidates, but setting the primary election for
April 6 hardly seems in “the best interests of the
student body,” as the ASUO Green Tape Note
book specifies. The Emerald aspires to provide
the best coverage, yet the scheduling of elections
soon after the break severely limits the availabili
ty of candidates and drastically lowers the visibil
ity of the election.
ASUO rules stipulate the board has from
Feb. 1 until April 30 to complete regular elec
tions and sadly, every single year the Elections
Board gets it wrong — apparently stabbing
blindly at their desk calendars without regard to
the importance of the dates they have selected.
Last year’s proposed election date twice coincid
ed with the Law School’s Dead Week, and this
year’s date is almost equally inappropriate.
The board cannot be faulted for weak candi
dates, simplistic campaigns or apathetic con
stituents, but considering the static nature of
spring break, its poor planning and lack of con
sideration of students’ needs does deserve some
blame. If this year is any repeat of previous low
turnout ASUO elections, steps should be taken in
the future to strategically plan an appropriate date
for elections.
Two publications strip down
definition of pornography
H Bomb and Boink certainly sound like
weapons of mass destruction, and that’s exactly
how these publications have been treated by their
university campuses. What objections could ad
ministrators from Harvard and Boston Universi
ty have with these two magazines? Both H Bomb
and Boink use editors, writers, and models from
their respective schools and both publications ad
dress themes concerning sex. H Bomb operates
under the notion of sex as art, but Boink editor
and founder Alecia Oleyourryk has repeatedly
emphasized her goal to promote the magazine as
exactly what it is — porn.
What stands out in both of these instances is
not the locales or the education level of the partic
ipants; rather, it is the deliberate effort made by
the creators to shy away from traditional pornog
raphy, which is centered around heterosexual,
primarily male desire. The sexual imagery found
in H bomb and Boink includes pictures ranging
from two men kissing in the nude to a naked
women sporting only tattoos and a large reptile.
As purveyors of sexual education, and entertain
ment, these and a few other college sex maga
zines like them have all taken impressive steps in
moving away from a history of exploitation in
erotica. Oleyourryk herself posed in the pages of
her publication, nicely blurring the delineation
between sex employee and employer, which has
traditionally lead to painful business relationships
in the porn industry.
Although it is understandable that a university
may not support or endorse porn, perhaps there
is, somewhere, a liberal college willing to take the
plunge and stand behind a sex-themed piece of
media. College represents ^time of education
and growth in the sexuality of many. Perhaps rec
ognizing this fact and supporting a source of en
lightened, positive imagery and education would
be just the ticket to producing a new generation
of sexually healthy young adults.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Jennifer Sudick
Editor in Chief
Aiiee Slater
Commentary Editor
Steven R. Neuman
Managing Editor
Shadra Beesley
Copy Chief
Adrienne Nelson
Online Editor