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Commentary Oregon Daily Emerald Monday, September 26, 2005 NEWS STAFF (541)346-5511 PARKER HOWELL EDITOR IN CHIEF SHADRA BEESLEY MANAGING EDITOR MEGHANN M. CUNIFF JARED PABF.N NEWS EDITORS EVA SYLWESTER SENIOR NEWS REPORTER JOE BAILEY KAIY GAGNON CHRISTOPHER HAGAN BRTTTNI MCCLENAHAN NICHOLAS WILBUR NEWS REPORTERS EMLY SMITH PART-TIME NEWS REPORTER CIAYTON JONES SPORTS EDITOR SCOTT J. ADAMS LUKE ANDREWS SHAWN MILLER SPORTS REPORTERS AMY LICHTY PULSE EDITOR TREVOR DAVIS KRISTEN GERHARD ANDREW MCCOLLUM PULSE REPORTERS AILEE SLATER COMMENTARY EDITOR GABE BRADLEY JESISICA DERLEIH ARMY FETH RICHARD PRYOR COLUMNISTS TIM BOBOSKY PHOTO EDITOR NICOLE BARKER SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER KATE HORTON ZANE RITT PHOTOGRAPHERS KAHE GLEASON PART-TIME PHOTOGRAPHER JONAH SCHROGIN SENIOR DESIGNER JOHN AYRES JONNY BAGGS MOLLY BEDFORD KERi SPANGLER DESIGNERS Cl IRIS TODD GRAPHIC ARTIST AARON DUCHATEAU ILLUSTRATOR TRACY TIERNEY REBECCA TAYLOR COPY CHIEFS EILEEN CHANG JENNY DORNER JEFFREY DRANSFELDT JOSH NORRIS MINDI RICE COPY EDITORS STEVEN NEUMAN ONLINE/SUPPLEMENTS EDITOR TIMOTHY ROBINSON WEBMASTER BUSINESS (541)346-5511 IUDY RIEDL GENERAL MANAGER KArHY CARBONE BUSINESS MANAGER LAUNA DE G1USTI RECEPTIONIST JOE BEES ALAN FULLERTON RYAN JOHNSON ROB WEGNER DISTRIBUTION ADVERTISING (541)346-3712 MELISSA GUST ADVERTISING DIRECTOR MIA LEIDELMEYER SALES MANAGER KELLEE KAUFTHEIL JOHN KELLY LINDSEY FERGUSON WINTER GIBBS KATE HIRONAKA DESI MCCORMICK STEPHEN MILLER KATHRYN O'SHEA-EVANS EMILY PHILBIN CODY WILSON SALES REPRESENTATIVES BONA LEE AD ASSISTANT CLASSIFIED (541)3464343 TRINA SHANAMAN CLASSIFIED MANAGER KORALYNN BASHAM ANDO AMANDA KANTOR KERI SPANGLER KAHE STRINGER CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING ASSOCIATES PRODUCTION (541)346-4381 MICHELE ROSS PRODUCTION MANAGER KIRA PARK PRODUCTION COORDINATOR JAMIE ACKERMAN CAMERON GAUT JONAH SCHROGIN DESIGNERS The Oregon Daily Emerald is pub lished daily Monday through Fri day during the school year by the Oregon Daily Emerald Publishing Co. Inc., at the University of Ore gon, Eugene, Ore. The Emerald operates Independently of the University with offices in Suite 300 of the Erb Memorial Union. The Emerald is private property. Unlawful removal or use of papers is prosecutable by law. sum ouu ro ii HONK WITH HIGH SCHOOL AMO NOT HAVK TO WO**? AOOUT (FITTING INTO AI»L THOSI CLICHE STEREO* TYPOG...... . OH MAN I THINK ITS GOING TO BI; A LONG YEAR... STUMS Aaron DuChateau | Illustrator ■ In my opinion Dealing with disaster Hurricane Katrina has come and gone, taking with her more than 1,000 lives. Rita is well on her way out, with only one reported death directly relat ed to hurricane damage. I think we’ve all learned something — preventative measures are key. President Bush certainly believes in preventative measures. He went out of his way to ignore concrete evidence and predict that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Bush even went to war to prevent an Iraqi weapon of mass destruction from hitting the Unit ed States. So maybe it would be more accurate to say that Bush pre-empted his post-9/11 fall in political capital by blaming terrorism on Iraq and attack ing the country at will. The Bush administration was all for a pre-emptive strike against Iraq, but not one person took such a strike in evacuating the city of New Orleans. Yes, money is always an issue. The subtext to the money is that no one in the Bush administration can even lis ten when environmental scientists say global warming could be one reason for a recent upsurge in dangerous storms. If the government has the power to allocate the billions of dollars it takes to deal with Katrina, they sure ly have the power to use scientific in formation as well as foresight and re duce greenhouse gases with the help of cleaner-burning fuel sources. Speaking of preventative measures that can still save future disaster vic tims, it would do Bush well to remem ber that a reported 37 million Ameri cans live in poverty. Aside from using phrases saturated in political correct ness, Bush is doing very little to solve the problem of poverty. Bush claims that he can see the poverty/racism fac tors that resulted in Hurricane Katri na’s destruction, but policy decisions show only that there is a “great city” needing to be rebuilt. Phrases drenched in political accu racy are of no help to the poor. New buildings do nothing to heal the AILEE SLATER FURTHER FROM PERFECTION poverty that led to so many citizens unable to escape their Great City as it flooded out from under them. With out a car to travel across freeways, without a television to even realize that there was a problem, New Or leans’ poorest had little choice but to perish where they stood. Pouring money into new Gulf Coast development (potentially more than $200 billion) can’t save the poor from another hurricane; only government acknowledgment that the poor are im portant and necessary to our society can prevent another instance of un necessary death. The Bush administration showed its disregard for the poor long before Kat rina hit, with a national policy of fewer welfare programs and more tax cuts. If Bush wants to repair hurricane dam age and the damage done to his own image, he ought to use future policy decisions to prove he cares. Bush must show that in the wake of thousands of Katrina casualties and less than 100 Rita deaths, his administration has learned its lesson. No more ignoring the poor and disadvantaged until they are already dead and plastered across a television screen. So where’s the funding and policy to at least attempt a solution to poverty? A rebuilt city will likewise do little to end racism. Racism is an issue that Bush has admitted was related to the level of destruction in New Orleans. It seems that Bush is perfectly happy to oppose racism during his speeches, saying that America must “rise above the legacy of inequality,” but he is somewhat less likely to look at race when crafting his administration’s policy values. Bush agrees that there is a link be tween race and poverty, yet he ignored the racism/poverty cycle in his stand against affirmative action. And then, here comes Hurricane Katrina, a skep tical nation and Bush’s lowest ap proval ratings ever. Now, Bush has no choice but to admit, in his own words, that the United States is home to a “history of discrimination, which cut off generations from the opportunity of America.” It’s not good that our president only acknowledges racism when his administration is accused of being racist. If Bush truly understood the connection between a history of dis crimination and the loss of opportu nity that still exists to this day, affir mative action wouldn't even be a question. In the United States, the only sure way to repair poverty lies in access to higher education. The Bush stance is clear: If no one is giving him criticism, the issue may as well not exist. Racism is pushed under the rug until a hurricane upends New Orleans. We know that sexism isn’t dis cussed in the context of rape and abor tion; sexism is a non-issue until child prostitution rings are discovered. Bush doesn’t acknowledge homophobia when vying to make gay marriage ille gal; homophobia is ignored until the national news reports that another young gay person has been killed by harassers. When does it end? It ends as soon as our lawmakers get off their politically correct high horses and actually use their federal dollars and political power to do something about it. Even $200 billion can’t buy a fair fight against a hurri cane. Dealing with the human ele ment involved in exacerbating disas ters is surely the most efficient and important route to healing. aileeslater@dailyemerald.com OREGON DAILY EMERALD LETTERS POLICY Letters to the editor and guest commentaries are encouraged, and should be sent to tetters@daliyemerald ,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 toted 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 Stereotyping students is disservice to community On Saturday, The Register-Guard published a news article explaining why the Eugene Police Department will resume its “Party Pa trol,” concentrating EPD energy on University neighborhoods where potentially unruly parties may occur. Reporter Rebecca Nolan applauds EPD’s ef forts, offering a few tongue-in-cheek insults directed toward the University population: “(‘Party Patrol’ is) much reviled by youngsters who believe that hosting a kegger in a cramped rental apartment is a right protected by the U.S. Constitution.” The truth is, as long as everyone crammed into that apartment is older than 21, the right to have a party in a private residence is protected by the Constitution. Underage drinking is un derstandably a problem that must be dealt with, but not everyone comes to college han kering to get drunk and “start burning furniture in the street,” as is indicated in Nolan’s article. More police watching over the West Universi ty Neighborhood may have helped prevent ri ots in recent years, but stereotyping all Universi ty students because of rioting more than two years ago only enforces the mentality that stu dents are a nuisance to the Eugene communi ty, no matter our current actions. Nolan’s article insults college students, not even mentioning the economic and cultural benefits that a Uni versity population brings to Eugene. Eugene belongs to each of its residents equally; we must all live in this city together. Nolan’s “us and them” stereotypes will only encourage more anger and frustration from everyone. In the future, all Eugene media should encourage the value of mutual respect by using facts rather than stereotypes when reporting on University news. Editorial Board informs readers about commentary decisions In the coming months, within each issue of the Emerald, you may find yourself com pulsively reading the commentary in this editorial space. The ODE Editorial Board, a group of five Emerald editors, is responsible for editorial opinions and writings. The Board always in cludes the editor in chief, managing editor and commentary editor. The two remaining Editori al Board positions change every each term, as decided by the Emerald’s Editor in Chief. Those two openings may be filled by a pho to editor or an online editor. No member of the Emerald’s news desk can join the Editorial Board, meaning the opinions found in this space are not a reflection of the journalistic intent of any news reporter. The Editorial Board strives to provide a voice for the Oregon Daily Emerald; we wish to let the community know how and why the editors of this newspaper make some of the decisions that we do. This editorial space is the product of weekly board meetings, where in the Editorial Board discusses University, political, world and local events deemed important to our college campus. EDITORIAL BOARD Parker Howell Editor in Chief Shadra Beesley Managing Editor Steven Neuman Online Editor Ailee Slater Commentary Editor
