PAGE TWO ROGUE NEWS Fri.. Jan. 21. 1-tT
"STOP-AND-FRISK" LAW
The city council made a regrettable move recently with the
approval of the "stop-and-frisk" law. The council came to a
three-three tie in voting December 7, with the mayor casting the
deciding vote in favor of the stop-and-frisk ordinance.
The stop-and-frisk law has consistently been proven unconstitu
tional. It violates the Fourth Amendment, which maintains the "right
of the people to be secure in their persons . . . and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures . . ." How can one be secure in his
person or effects when at any time he can be detained for two hours
and searched by police?
Council members Fred Roberts, Audrey Soderberg, and Al
Willstatter must be commended for their opposition to the
stop-and-frisk law. In the face of an emotional campaign on the part of
many groups in Ashland, it is heartening that these city officials could
stand up for the rights of the people.
The real disappointment of the meeting was Mayor Charles
McKeen. Faced with a deciding choice between the emotionalistic
arguments of the "law'n'order" set and the compelling questions on
the constitutionality of the stop-and-frisk law, McKeen voted for the
former.
The unconstitutional nature of the stop-and-frisk law will certainly
come out in a court test. It is reported that the American Civil
Liberties Union is already preparing a challenge to the law. Once can
onlv wish the stop-and-frisk law a short life.
The initiative drive against the "stop and frisk" law is a ray of hope
for Ashland citizens. The recently-passed ordinance has raised
numerous Constitutional objections.
864 signatures were collected by opponents of the law, and turned in
Monday to City Recorder Joe Butler. According to the petitioners,
most of th signatures were collected on the Southern Oregon College
campus.
The "stop and frisk" law should never have been passed. As
pointed out by SOC political science professor William Cornelius, the
ordinance is directly contradictory to provisipnsof the Bill of Rights. It
violates- the protections against "unreasonable search and seizure"
and incarceration "without due process of law."
A special election will be held February 29 on the "stop and frisk"
ordinance. This is an opportunity for every Ashland citizen to join in
discarding the law. We can only hope that the people will utilize this
opportunity. LT
DRAFT CHANGES
The Oregonian
Barry Graczyk
Salem, Oregon
To the Editor: On Nov. 3, 4, and 5 proposed changes in the
Selective Service regulations were published in the Federal
Register to become effective in 30 days if there was no objection to
them. The purpose of the 30-day pre-publication requirement was
to give the public the opportunity to comment on the changes. On
Nov. 2 Selective Service national headquarters released a 12-page
news release to the national media. The major wire services, based
on this release, published stories containing several important
omissions. The probable reason for these omissions is that they
were buried in the middle of this 12-page release or not included at
all.
The most important of these omissions is a reduction in appeal
time from 30 days to 15 days. This means that a draft registrant
absent from his home for two weeks without notifying his draft
board of some other address may lose all right to appeal and all
right to defend a criminal prosecution. Other omissions include
revocation of the right to a reopening following a personal
appearance and revocation of the right to appeal from any
classification other than 1-A, 1-A-O, or l-O.
None of the local draft boards have copies of the proposed
changes as published in the Federal Register. State headquarters
has one copy which I was able to furnish them on Nov. 10, one week
after publication. This copy is not available for reproduction, but
may be read at state headquarters in Salem.
AO""00"
) CIIOI.AITtC J
( pKKM I
THE ROGUE NEWS
Published bi-monthy, during the school months, by the
Associated Student Body of Ashland Senior High School, 201
Mountain Ave., Ashland, Oregon, 97520. Subscription cost $2.50
per year.
Editor Lois Hill
Managing Editor Larry Taylor
News Editor Julie Harrison
Feature Editor Rick Stanek
Sports Editors Kevin Gandee, Mike Hocking
Advertisers Shirley Delsman, Sharon Hill, Jerilyn Lewis
Business Manager Mary Hoxie
Photographers Harold Berninghausen, Walt Vait
Illustrator and Cartoonist Dale Nelson
Reporters Rosario De La Torre, Willie Thompson
Advisor Clifford Brock
(From The Medford Mail Tribune
January 4, 1972)
Strictly
Personal
By Sydney J. Harris
Relevance? Yes -But To What?
Young people are right in demanding that their studies be
"relevant." What they don't understand, however, is relevant
to "what." Nothing can be relevant to itself; the word needs
a proper object.
My 16-year-old son informs me that many of his classmates
have no interest in studying about Naziism and the causes and
consequences of World War II. To them, the 1930s might as
well be the 1630s; the past has no perspective for them; only
the present has meaning.
While professing "humanism," these young people are
practising barbarism. The barbarian doesn't care about the
past, and therefore he feels free to violate the present. He is
interested in a world of brute fact, not of values, and con
centration on brute facts is the surest way to brutalize ourselves.
Young people today think they care about values, and mean
to. They are full of noble words like peace and love and
cooperation and environment and justice but they have no
real idea of what these mean or how they can work out or why
they failed to work out with previous generations who used
the same noble words.
But good intentions built on ignorance is the surest way
to turn idealism into cynicism; as the Romans knew, and said,
the worst is a corruption of the best.
Many militant youngsters, for instance, have a habit of
calling anyone who disagrees with them a "fascist"; just as
their opposite numbers are so fond of calling their opponents
"communists." But a fascist is not the same as a conservative,
or even a reactionary; just as a communist U not the same
as a liberal, or even a radical.
Unless we understand something of history, unless we have
absorbed and analyzed the past, we cannot make rational
judgments about the present it is as futile as expecting a self
styled "doctor" to diagnose a patient without ever having studied
medicine. No matter how much common sense, good will and
natural aptitude he may have, he is not equipped to distinguish
among ailments or prescribe for health.
"Those who do not understand the past are condemned to
repeat it," Santayana once warned; and radicals are as prone
to this misconception of history as anybody else perhaps more
so today, when we know that all the old formulas won't work
but are still in the dark as to what will work.
"Relevant" studies should mean relevant to the whole human
condition, to man as a totality, in his work, his play, his love,
his feelings, as much of his economic and social arrangements.
Relevance partakes of the past as much as it projects into the
future; "what's past is prolog," said Shakespeare, in the truest
line he ever wrote.
Editorial 'From The Southern Oregon Siskiyou
Sept. 2, 1971 )
Find time for madness
"A man must have a little madness in order to be
free." "I have found both safety and freedom in my
madness; freedom of loneliness and safety from being
understood, for those who completely understand us,
enslave something in us."
Nikos Kazantakis
Each year students wander back to this institution.
Some are the products of untried dreams while others
dreams discarded, have become creatures of habit.
Most have felt that the educational process has
demanded a certain criteria of performance from them.
Few have felt that it is their right, a necessary and basic
right, to demand an established level of performance from
the system itself.
Ideally, there should exist a positive tension between the
two forces, pulling towards the same established goal.
Too often, however, students allow their educational needs
to be subjugated by their environment or the system itself.
Freedom to leatn demands a constant reevaluation of
one's particular place in time.
Freshman arrive ready to experience and to learn, only
to discover their idealism shattered, their dreams non
existent. They too join the ranks of the apathetic.
It is this final subjugation of one's self that the above
quotation refers to.
Students: Find madness. Find the ecstasy of the question
that can never be fully answered. Demand of your
educational experience relevancy and meaning. Demand
of yourself the constant outlook for difference and change.
Find time to be free. Find time for madness.
M.W.N.
COMMENTS
To the Editor:
As readers of the Rogue News,
we have observed some bad
policies for a school newspaper.
First, the newspaper does not
cover school activities enough.
Instead, it talks about things that
happen downtown or in some
other town w hich could be read in
a daily newspaper. Also the
newspaper wrote a story about
events which happened in the
past. Such as the faith healer
article in the recent edition of the
Rogue News which was about a
woman who healed people in the
1940's and IS.IO's. In the same
edition there was an article about
birth control. Articles such as
these have nothing to do with
school.
Second, we noticed the people
who are recognized most in the
paper are people who do the most
organizing and running the
paper; such as the editor,
managing editor, and feature
editor.
Third, the people who manage
the staff w rile most of the largest
articles and write on the things in
which they are personally in
terested. One such article was
about the food co-op and other
downtown stores. This article
headlined the last edition of the
Rogue News, a few of these
articles are fine, but when the
major part of the newspaper is
made up of these articles it
becomes less interesting to the
reader. The kinds of articles
which appear in the Rogue News
would be most likely to interest
the liberal person.
Fourth, the pictures in the
paper should have stories to go
with them. The teenagers of the
month is a good example. All the
picture showed were two teen
agers looking at each other and
under the picture it said that
these were people selected as
teenagers of the month. The
caption did no! tell why they were
selected. People who look at the
picture immediately start look
ing for a story to explain why the
people were selected.
Fifth, the sports page should be
all sports and should not consist
of anything else. Wrestling,
basketball, and all other sports
which take place at the school
should be reported. The sports
page should not be made of small
sports briefs. Sports is very
important in our school.
Sixth, Kogue News is the school
newspaper. Since it is the school
paper it should serve the school,
not the school newspaper's staff.
It is a school paper not a daily
paper for a town.
These six items are what we
think are some of the bad policies
of the Rogue News. We certainly
hope that the staff will try to
improve the school newspaper
and make it more interesting to
its readers.
Teresa Fowler
Brenda Gabrielson
Gayle Boozer
To the Editor:
After reading the past two
issues of the Rogue News, we are
becoming acutely aware of the
over-emphasis on the use of
drugs and the "head" scene at
A. U.S. To be sure, this is nothing
other than an excellent example
of slanted reporting. The past two
issues have contained many
connotations concerning the
amount of drug use at our school
We believe they can find more
interesting things of more public
interest than articles on drugs,
hidden meanings and word plays.
Hasn't enough been said al
ready? Marcia Wixey
Laurie F. Jones
Todd Ragland
Victor Zboralski