Oregon Daily Emerald
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
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■ In my opinion
Informed for the Holidays
This is going to be a great winter
break. For some reason we appear to
have four weeks off, as far as I can
tell from the 17 times 1 checked. Po
litical news, my bread and butter,
usually tends to die down as Con
gress spends six weeks in recess dur
ing the time between Thanksgiving
and mid-January. You can always
count on our men and women of
Congress to set the highest standard
for time off.
Consumer driven infotainment will
no doubt take over the media. It has
already started, with massive
attention paid to Black Friday and
Cyber Monday.
Wow. A bunch of people started
shopping for the holidays on the cul
turally determined “first days.” I fail
to see how that is news, seeing as it
happens every year. People only feel
the need to shop on those days be
cause the media told them to in the
first place. Then the media in turn re
ports on the fact that everyone
listened to them.
Meanwhile, real things are happen
ing every day, but the politicians who
put the news into partisan sound
bytes suitable to the 24 hour holy
cow nature of cable news are taking
a break, and the system suffers.
Luckily, we live in the wonderful
age of new media. Besides catching
up on all the books you neglected
during school and renting whole
seasons of premium cable shows on
DVD, it is also a wonderful time to
catch up on the Internet. Oh yes, the
great time-waster can actually be
quite informative. So over the break,
when you just can’t listen to Rita
Cosby rasp one more pointless
tabloid story, when you know the top
10 most-wanted-toys-list by heart, or
just need a break from shopping
online, take a look at these sites, and
start a new trend: Informed for
the holidays.
Wonkette: By far the best and most
irreverent political blog out there. The
ARMY FETH
RHETORIC CHECK
site is very D.C., a town that func
tions as its own universe, so a few
things might fly over your head. (But
terstick is not the actual name of the
baby panda at the National Zoo). But
for straight politics, gossip and analy
sis, it can’t be beat. Wonkette, edited
by journalist Ana Marie Cox, will
make you laugh as you learn just
how sleazy our nation’s capitol, and
our leaders, can be.
www.wonkette.com
The Raw Story: Somewhere be
tween a blog and an online newspa
per, The Raw Story has helped lead
the media back to watchdog status.
The site is regularly quoted by tradi
tional media, and the reporting is re
ally good. They also accept submis
sions, so if you are a budding
journalist, it might be a good way to
get started, www.rawstory.com
Media Matters for America: Presi
dent and CEO, David Brock, is a fasci
nating character. He used to be a part
of what he calls “the Republican
noise machine,” when he wrote for
the ultra-conservative Washington
Times. He is now an award-winning
author with a mission. He wrote
“Blinded by the Right: The Conscious
of an Ex-Conservative” and has now
devoted his career to pointing out
bias in the media. If you still think we
live in a land with a “liberal media,”
you have to check this site out. It is
also a great source for audio and
video clips, www.mediamatters.org
BBC: For those with a worldly taste
for news, this is your outlet. Just
imagine if the media was loyal to you,
the taxpayer, rather than the share
holders of their multinational corpo
rate overlords. It’s also great to just
get an outsider’s view America, kind
of like overhearing a conversation
about yourself, www.bbc.co.uk
Center for Media and Democracy:
If you ever feel like the public rela
tions filter is an omnipresent part of
your life, or contrarily, you have nev
er even thought about it, PR Watch
and the Spin of the Day will have you
gaping at your computer screen.
About 50 percent of news is generat
ed by PR. It is important to know
what kind of filters the facts go
through before they are disseminated
to the masses, www.prwatch.org
Huffington Post: Author, colum
nist, and politico Arianna Huffing
ton’s online empire is a force to be
reckoned with. Huffington is respon
sible for leading the successful cam
paign to keep the ethically challenged
Judith Miller from becoming a well
respected martyr. Her blog has a ter
rific regular staff, as well as amazing
contributors like John Cusack and
Bill Moyers. HuffPo has all kinds of
fun pulling biased, spoiled journalists
off their newsprint pedestal.
www.huffingtonpost.com
Wayne Madsen: If you want the
story behind the story behind the sto
ry, you must go here. You will find
the day’s news and the kind of insid
er background on the key characters
and plot developments that bring
everything into colorful and crooked
context. I wouldn’t exactly call this
site news, but Madsen doesn’t really
either: “This online publication tack
les the ‘politically incorrect’ and ‘po
litically embarrassing’ stories and
holds government officials account
able for their actions. This Web site
extends a warm open invitation to
whistleblowers and leakers.”
www.waynemadsenreport.com
Happy Holidays news hounds.
afeth@dailyemerald. com
■ Guest commentary
Government should not punish
hybrid vehicle drivers with tax
I was casually enjoying a post
Thanksgiving cup of eggnog when
CNN announced that the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce was suggesting
a new tax on those who drive hybrid
and other alternative energy vehicles.
Of course, I assumed there must have
been some mistake. But when I looked
online, I was shocked to find the story
confirmed by both NBC and an ABC
news affiliate.
Apparently, the federal Highway
Trust Fund is running out of money
for repairing the nation’s road system.
In order to correct the problem, sever
al proposals have been set forth: First,
that the federal gas tax (about 18
cents to the gallon) be adjusted for in
flation; second, that drivers be billed
for miles driven. And, as aforemen
tioned, that a tax be imposed on
hybrid vehicle drivers.
The reasoning here is simple: All
drivers “should have to pay their fair
share” to fix potholes, bridges, etc.,
“regardless of how much or what
kind of fuel they use.” But before
charging progressive-minded drivers
extra, shouldn’t the government take
a more progressive stance itself?
Shouldn’t some attention be focused
on creating a broader system of pub
lic transportation? That would do far
more to minimize road wear than
would punishing drivers.
1 understand that because the Unit
ed States is vastly larger than most Eu
ropean nations, it has proved difficult
for the government to develop a univer
sal system of public transportation.
This does not mean, however, that it
should abandon the attempt. With oil
rich countries now producing to their
capacity, it will not be long before the
price of oil makes fossil-fuel dependent
transportation obsolete.
The time of the personal automobile
is drawing to a close, regardless of
whether the government or anyone
else wants to admit it. The government
should not, therefore, punish those
people who are doing their bit to re
duce our dependency on foreign oil. By
even suggesting it, government is send
ing a clear message to the environmen
tally conscious of America — that the
efforts they are taking to secure a
cleaner, better future are for naught.
If the folks at the Chamber of Com
merce are really that concerned about
a nearly-obsolete road network and are
devoid of the vision necessary to create
public transportation for the masses,
then perhaps they should consider in
stead a tax based on vehicle emissions.
By doing so, they would be taxing the
real culprits, those who make living
and breathing in our cities a challenge,
and who help make the United States
one of the biggest air polluters in the
world. And perhaps upon greater re
flection, they will realize that those
who spent the extra money to get a hy
brid car in the first place shouldn’t be
begrudged the few dollars a year that
they save from investing in our future.
Willow Baumann, University student
■ Editorial
Now is the
time to start
learning
from history
The year is 2025. Students at North Eugene
High School are studying a modern history
textbook that tells horrifying stories of the
genocide that took place in Sudan at the be
ginning of the century. The young students
are visibly upset when they hear stories of hu
mans raping and killing other humans in mas
sive numbers. The textbook has a scanned
image of a column by Nicolas Kristof that ran
in The New York Times on Nov, 29, 2005. The
article tells the story of two sisters who be
longed to the Fur tribe in Darfur. The girls
watched a janjaweed commander behead
their father when the father begged for the
commander to let his daughters go.
One student asks, “Why do we have to
learn about this? We can’t do anything about
it now — it already happened.”
The teacher patiently explains that we must
learn about history to avoid repeating it.
Another student asks, “But in the early 1990s,
didn’t the same thing happen in Rwanda?”
People are disheartened about the Su
danese genocide in 2025. There is a best-sell
ing novel out that tells the story of one brave
woman who was able to hide from the
janjaweed militia and survive, and it makes
people sad. The movie “Camp Darfur” re
counts the story of heroic members of the
African Union who risked their lives to pro
tect women from being raped when they left
the refugee camps to gather firewood, and it
makes people sad, just as people were sad in
2004 after watching “Hotel Rwanda.”
In 2005, people are shaking their heads and
asking, “How could the U.S. government
abandon the people in Rwanda? Didn’t they
see that there were people there who couldn’t
defend themselves?”
In 2025, people will shake their heads and
ask, “How could the U.S. government
abandon the people in Sudan? Didn’t they see
that there were people there who couldn’t
defend themselves?”
In 2025, college students in coffee shops
ask each other hypothetical questions like, “If
you were walking by a parking lot at night
and saw a woman being raped, wouldn’t you
stop to help? How could you just walk by and
do nothing? That’s exactly what the United
States did while women were being gang
raped in Sudan in 2005.” The college students
are glad that the United States has learned
from history and won’t let that sort of thing
happen again.
In 2005, it’s time to stop talking about
learning from history. It’s time to actually
learn from it by working to prevent this
hypothetical future — one where people are
ashamed of the United States’ apathetic atti
tude toward yet another case of genocide in a
far away country.
Despite recent news reports that brutal vi
olence in Darfur is worsening as peace talks
deteriorate, the Bush administration has re
fused to label this crisis a genocide. If named
a genocide, the United Nations and thus the
U.S. would be bound to intervene.
Government negotiators from the United
States and other countries on the ground in
Sudan are growing frustrated while our gov
ernment pays only lip service to this crisis.
Real people with homes, families, hobbies,
nicknames, favorite hangouts and photo al
bums are being raped, beaten, tortured, en
slaved and murdered. We cannot avert our
eyes anymore. It is time to declare this
situation what it really is — a genocide.