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Oregon Daily Emerald Thursday, April 7, 2005 NEWS STAFF (541)346-5511 JEN SUDICK EDITOR IN CHIEF STEVEN R. NEUMAN MANAGING EDITOR JARED PABF.N AYISHA YAHYA NEWS EDITORS MEGHANN CUNIFF PARKER HOWELL SENIOR NEWS REPORTERS MORIAH BAUNGIT AMANDA BOLSINGER ADAM CHERRY EMILY SMITH EVASYLWESTER SHELDON TRAVER NEWS REPORTERS CLAYTON JONES SPORTS EDITOR JON ROFTMAN SENIOR SPORTS REPORTER STEPHEN MILLER BRIAN SMITH SPORTS REPORTERS RYAN NYBURG PULSE EDITOR AMYLICfJTY SENIOR PULSE REPORTER JOSHUA LINTEREUR PULSE REPORTER CAT BALDWIN PULSE CARTOONIST AILEE SLATER COMMENTARY EDITOR GABEBRADLEY ANNEMARIE KNF.PPER CHUCK SLOTHOWER JENNIFER MCBRIDE COLUMNISTS ASHLEY GRIFFIN SUPPLEMENT FREELANCE EDITOR DANIELLE HICKEY PHOTO EDITOR LAUREN WIMER SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER NICOLE BARKER TIM BOBOSKY PHOTOGRAPHER ZANE RHT KATE HORTON PART-TIME PHOTOGRAPHERS BRET FURTWANGLER GRAPHIC ARTIST DUSTIN REESE SENIOR DESIGNER ELLIOTT ASBURY WENDY KIEFFER AMANDA LEE JONAH SCHROGIN DESIGNERS SHADRA BEESLEY JEANNIE EVERS COPY CHIEFS KIMBERLY BLACKFIELD PAULTHOMPSON SPORTS COPY EDITORS GREG BILSLAND AMBER L1NDROS NEWS COPY EDITORS JENNY GERW1CK PULSE COPY EDITOR ADRIENNE NELSON ONLINE EDITOR WEBMASTER (541)346-5511 IUDYRIEDL GENERAL MANAGER KATHY CARBONE BUSINESS MANAGER LAUNADEGIUSTI RECEPTIONIST IERED NAGEL PATRICK SCHMERBER HOLLY STEIN PETER STEPHENS (ANA SWANSON ROB WEGNER CAROLYN ZIMMERMAN DISTRIBUTION ADVERTISING (541)346-3712 MELISSA GUST ADVERTISING DIRECTOR TYLER MACK SALES MANAGER MATT BETZ HERON CALISCH-DOLEN MEGAN HAMLIN KATE HIRONAKA MAEGAN KASER-LEE KELI.EE KAUFTHEIL MIA LE1DELMEYER SHANNON ROGERS SALES REPRESENTATIVES CLASSIFIED (541)3464343 TRINA SHANAMAN CLASSIFIED MANAGER KORALYNN BASHAM ANDO KATY GAGNON KERJ SPANGLER KATIE STRINGER CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING ASSOCIATES PRODUCTION (541)3464381 MICHELE ROSS PRODUCTION MANAGER TARA SLOAN PRODUCTION COORDINATOR JENCRAMLET KRISTEN DICHARRY CAMERON GAUT SABRINA GOWEITE JONAH SCHROGIN DESIGNERS The Oregon Daily Emerald is published daily Monday through Friday during the school year by the Oregon Daily Emerald Publishing Co. Inc., at the University of Oregon, Eu gene, Ore. The Emerald oper ates independently of the Uni versity with offices in Suite 300 of the Erb Memorial Union The Emerald is private property. Un lawful removal or use of papers is prosecutable by law. ■ In my opinion Perpetuating ^stereotype I teel sorry tor middle-class white guys. They get no respect. They must be feeling pretiy cheated right about now, too. If I didn’t know so many personally, I would think they were all fat, stupid, lazy and helpless. Why? Because that very image is what I am inundated with on a daily basis in all forms of media. Morning radio shows showcase Idiot Every Dudes obsessed with sex and bodily functions. Print ads offer a slight vari ation on this theme: young men with unachievable-for-most physiques, but still addicted to sex and dumb as rocks. But television, the most perva sive of all media, is the greatest cul prit in the “guy as stupid/fat/ lazy/helpless” campaign. The joke is as old as the situation comedy, starting with fat Jackie Glea son and thin Audrey Meadows in “The Honeymooners” back in 1955. But while Gleason’s threatening, ready-to-punch “to the moon, Alice!” gesturing has long been outmoded by women who give as good as they get, the physical stereotypes have far from disappeared, actually being promoted to new heights in recent years. The standard sitcom formula seems to be the aforementioned port ly male, coupled with a thin, smart, sexy, young woman. The examples of this on network television are many. FOX has “Family Guy,” “King of the Hill,” “Quintuplets” and “The Simp sons.” ABC: “George Lopez” and “Ac cording to Jim” (albeit the former is about a stupid Mexican-American ANNEMAR1E KNEPPER WORKS ON PAPER male, but the formula remains the same). But the all-time greatest con tributor to this myth of the stupid white male by far is CBS, with its ar senal of “The King of Queens,” “Still Standing,” “Listen Up” and “Every body Loves Raymond.” For the formula at its best, observe the genuinely funny Kevin James as Doug in “Queens.” To his fit, witty, sassy wife, Carrie (played by fit, wit ty, sassy Leah Remini), he often quips, “I’m fat, but you’re mean.” Their believable chemistry and the juxtaposition of her non-physical flaws make the relationship some what plausible. However, the show’s theme (Doug gets himself into trou ble, Carrie fixes it; Doug irritates Car rie with his stupidity, Carrie gets over it because Doug is so gosh darn lov able) feeds into the disturbingly prominent ideology that a woman can be a bitch as long as she’s thin and a man can be fat as long as he’s an idiot and, therefore, no real threat to anyone. But “Queens” is where the come dy goodness ends for CBS. For the formula at its worst, see any of the above-listed shows. For our purposes, “Listen Up” offends greatest with its pairing of everyone’s favorite stocky guy, Jason Alexander, with wispy, mostly unknown (unless you remem ber “Sister Act 2” very well) Wendy Makkena, as Tony and Dana Klein man. What made Alexander so believable in his “Seinfeld” days was his character’s uncanny ability to repel women. One episode of Alexander’s new se ries (“Tony Whine-Man,” episode 1.17) was deemed “so bad it baffles science” by one Internet Movie Data base user. In this episode, Dana dress es in a slutty, age-inappropriate outfit to show Tony’s old summer camp buddies that the once slouchy, be spectacled Jew married a “fox.” She proceeds to prance around in hooker heels, coming on to his “friends” and embarrassing all who watch the show and hopefully all who had hand in creating it. People watch television for sever al reasons: to escape, to be enter tained, but mostly to identify with other humans. They want to see themselves on the screen and know that others, even pre-con structed, exaggerated, false others, are going through the same trials and tribulations that make up our Ameri can life. Just whose American life are we watching? annemarieknepper@ dailyemerald, com ■ Guest commentary U.S. leaders need to actively, proudly, passionately stop massacres in Sudan As a citizen of the United States, I am completely outraged by our for eign policy regarding Sudan. It is a sad day for all American citizens when we (President Bush, Colin Pow ell) openly admit to the ongoing atrocities afflicting Sudan’s Darfur re gion, referring to the continuous mas sacres with one word that should im mediately instigate action, “genocide,” but as of yet have effec tively accomplished nothing to stop it. Even while the United Nations de nies the act of genocide in Sudan, the U.N. Security Council admits that ter rible acts against humanity are occur ring regularly in that region. And yet again, the United Nations has effec tively done nothing to stop these ter rible acts of violence. Have we actually reached a time in history in which the only way to stop the brutal killings of hundreds of thousands of people is to follow laws laid down in conventions and act only when certain terms are used? Using terms such as “geno cide” and following guidelines laid down in human rights conventions are important but must not be the sole purpose behind action. It seems that we are ignoring or have lost the value of the most important thing on earth: living, breathing, human beings. It’s not that we are ignorant on the issue but that we have consciously stepped aside, accepting the role of a spectator. We have watched the tor turing and killing of loving wives, mothers, husbands and fathers. We have witnessed the countless slaugh ter of brothers, sisters, sons and daughters by the hands of their heart less enemies. Worst of all, and what is truly unjustifiable, we have seen the innocence of a child stripped away by the simple movement of a finger. The finger attached to men of true evil. Must we be reminded that the fam ilies of those who are maliciously slain love their families to the full ex tent that we love ours? That they feel the same anguish when their beloved dies? That they, like us, are filled with the ugliest feeling in the world when death is involved? Understanding that state of sorrow, do we really wish that ugliness upon someone else? Are we actually conditioned in such a way to only help people not because they need help, but because we have our self-interests in mind? Do we only act when we will become the benefi ciaries, not the people in dire need? I could not feel this passionate about the issue if we as a nation were incapable or unaware. But we are both fully capable and aware of our options to act. The only question we consider is should we act, are we willing to act. Thus far, it is clear that we are simply unwilling. As a plea from an American citizen to the elected leaders of the most powerful nation in the world, I urge a flaunt of power. If only those leaders can muster up the strength and courage to act as leaders in this des perate time of crisis, others will fol low. We have not gotten to where we are as a nation by playing a minor role in world affairs. Although it is a heavy burden, it’s one that we have taken on in the past, and I urge this nation’s leaders to take the initiative in actively, pas sionately and proudly stopping the massacres perpetrated against Ihe Sudanese people. William Hathaway, Eugene OREGON DAILY EMERALD LETTERS POLICY Letters to the editor and guest commentaries are encouraged, and shouid be sent to letters@dailyernerald.com or submitted at the Oregon Daily Emerald office, EMU Suite 300. Electronic submissions are preferred. Letters are limited to 250 words, and guest commentaries to 550 words. Authors are limited to one submission per calendar month. Submissions should include phone number and address for verification The Emerald reserves the right to edit for space, grammar and style. Guest submissions are published at the discretion of the Emerald. ■ Editorial PATRIOT Act hinders U.S. rights, not terrorists Take a moment and consider that we are living in the year 2005. Almost four years have passed since the infamous and devas tating Sept. 11 attacks, and much has changed in our nation during that span of time. Along the lines of instigating a pre emptive war and imprisoning Saddam Hus sein, the United States government has made terrorism the defining force in both national and international policy, and the USA PATRIOT Act is a prime example of this new national agenda. Since its passage on Oct. 26,2001 the PA TRIOT Act has been hotly contested by both liberal and conservative groups, the most vocal of those being the American Civil Lib erties Union. The act was, and still is, touted by supporters as an important mechanism in fighting terrorism because it grants U.S. government and federal officials powers specific to an international tone of terror ism. The right of federal investigators to search and seize electronic information without a warrant, for instance, could be key to swiftly understanding and stopping a future terrorist attack. Yet many deem the act an infringement on constitutional rights. The Emerald stands as one of those many. Now, three-and-a-half years later, 15 sec tions of the PATRIOT Act will expire if Con gress does not renew them at the end of 2005. Among others, those provisions being considered for renewal, and heavily dis cussed this week in front of the Senate Ju diciary Committee, include: Section 505, which allows the FBI to seize records with out a specific or concrete subpoena; Section 214, which allows investigators to watch and record the numbers of all incoming calls to a particular phone line; and Section 207, which gives federal officials the right to monitor any individual communications, through a wiretap or other means. This means that were you, a university student, fingered as a potential terrorist by a federal investigator, it is legal for him or her to listen in on your phone calls, analyze your text messages and read your e-mail — without your knowledge. Shall we play a game of Are You Nervous? The provisions within the PATRIOT Act as a whole are still largely unnecessary. Sept. 11 did not occur because the FBI did n’t have time to get a warrant and go through someone’s library records. The at tacks occurred primarily because of a gov ernment that chose to ignore both the world community at large and the warning signs that members of that community were preparing a massive act of vengeance. Un warranted seizure of documents can hardly make up for the terrorists’ belief that the United States is inherently evil and deserv ing of violence. It is important to remember that guaran tees of liberty found within the U.S. Consti tution were not designed to be applicable in only times of peace. Rather, provisions such as the fourth amendment right to privacy, or the guarantee of a fair trial by jury, were created so that even in times of country wide turmoil, the needs and rights of the in dividual could be ever-present. The U.S. Congress should remember the values that this country was built on, as it failed to do at the original passage of this act, and begin a disintegration of the PATRIOT Act this year by rejecting the re newal of any provisions.
