Image provided by: Clackamas Community College; Oregon City, OR
About The print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1977-1989 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 14, 1981)
opinion With a bat Beating the post Christmas blues By Mike Rose about brutal murder. Be pa Mobs of people with a crazed tient, you tell yourself. She' look in their eyes. Blaring at the just a sweet old lady. It’s vet decimal of a 747, “Silver possible that she’ll kick o Bells,” “Silent Night” and before this time next year. A “Frosty the Snowman .Had a you can do is hope. At dinner you can expect th Very Shiny Nose” or whatever. Kids bawling and shoppers usual holiday fare, compress® swearing. Shell-shocked store sawdust fruitcakes with epox clerks trying to be pleasant. fruit. Pumpkih pie that’s actual “Merry Christmas,” they say ly made from squash. ( through tightly clenched teeth. course, there’s turkey; and o It’s sort of like stuffing a tihy course there will be turkey lef cage full of rats. tovers for days: turkey soup Christmas shopping, just one turkey salad, turkey casserole of the joys of the holiday turkey tacos, turkey surprise season. Alas, it’s all over. The The list is endless am relatives have left and, with revolting. some luck, won’t be back until Look what the tide wash® next year. Gifts have been up. My favorite*, Cann® returned for cash. Maybe you cranberry sauce, the kind tha broke even in terms of die doesn’t have any wholi money you coughed up for cranberries at all. It slides on gifts: The odds are, you didn’t of the can in a big glop am You’ll need the money for quivers like" a salted slug. In some new car floor-mats. The cidentally, this type o inside of the car has had a sour cranberry sauce was spawn® stink ever since New Year’s’ from early genetic experiment Eve. No amount of washing with sewage sludge. It | and scrubbing can completely originally intended to be us® get rid of the lovely aroma of against the Germans am clam dip, beer and vomit. Japanese during World War II Drinking and driving don’t mix. Today, most of it is bred in ai Another nauseous matter is abandoned salt mine in Uta! the. annual invasion of obnox and is gathered by lobotomized ious relatives. Aunt Lenore tells criminals. the funny story that she tells Taking down the Christmas jected to “a brainwashing pro every year. The one about how tree and tossing it in the trash cess” and chooses to illustrate she caught you and so and so can be a sad occasion. Havi her erroneous claim by describ behind the garage having a you ever tried burning it? Wai ing some type of event where pissing contest when you were until the tree is good and dry thousands chant “Yes, We 8 years old. .Everyone has a and then touch a match to it Believe” or “Amway or No good laugh. Even your Poof! It’s great; It’s like havira Way.” During my career with girlfriend. You fondle the July fourth early! The kids will Amway, I have seen many fireplace poker and fantasize love it. distributor events (including Feedback«»** some attended by thousands of dependents rallied to my sup persons) but not once have I port. heard anyone using the chants Thanks to all Meeting the* thousands ol Prouty refers to so confidently. This writer’s false vision of To the Editor: people in our County, anc I wish to extend my sincere especially at your College; what Amway is and does climaxes with the outrageous thanks to the students of has provided me not onl| falsehood that “Amway people Clackamas Community Col with more insight and I have a CULT that tears people lege for your efforts on my greater understanding of the away from their family and behalf in the campaign for problems you face, but alsc friends who can’t ‘See the -Clackamas Cdunty Commis- with a personal dedication to Light’ of ‘Amway or No Way’.” sioner. Republicans, the future. Nearly 75. percent of all Am Democrats, and In- Bev Henderson way distributors are operated by husband and wife partner ships. Most of these involve the family’s children actively as well. Anyone familiar at all with Amway could list many THE PRINT, a member of the Oregon Newspaper Publishers Associa cases where parents, children, tion, alms to be a fair and impartial journalistic medium covering the grandparents and even aunts . campus community as thoroughly as possible. Opinions expressed in and uncles all operate their THE PRINT do not necessarily reflect those of the College administra own independent Amway tion, faculty, Associated Student Government or other staff members of THE PRINT. distributorships. My letter would run far too office: Trailer B; telephone: 657-8400, ext. 309 or 310 long if I were to cover in detail editor: Thomas A. Rhodes each error of fact and percep assignment editor: Matt Johnson; news editor: J. Dana Haynes tion that appears in Prouty’s ar arts editor: R.W. Greene; feature editor: Steve Lee sports editor: Rick Obritschkewitsch ticle. This covers only some of photo editor: Duffy Coffman the most glaring distortions that staff writers: Linda Cabrera, Edward M. Coyne, Amy DeVour, were printed in your Tamara Isackson, Tom Jeffries, Mike Rose, Susy Ryan newspaper. staff photographers: Brenda Feltman, Ramona Isackson, Sue Hanneman Sincerely, typesetter: Kathy Walmsley; graphics: Lynn Griffith Of The Print feedback——-— Amway editorial a sham To the Editor: An opinion column in your November 19, 1980, edition contained numerous entirely false comments about Amway Corporation. Since I have no idea how to contact directly the person us ing the byline of Karen Prouty, I am asking you to correct the many errors she made. Perhaps printing my letter would be the-simplest way to set the record straight for your readers. First, there is no requirement in Amway that any of the more than 750,000 independent distributors of our products purchase any specified amount of inventory at any time. Prou ty’s claim that “You wind up with a contract you signed as a newcomer in the business that obligates you to sell $100 worth of products that you can’t possibly fulfill without tak ing the money from your own pocket, because if you don’t fulfill the contract, your business, the people working under you, and your profit—all go to that friend of your (sic) who showed you the business” is an example of totally distor ting the facts. Actually, the penalties Prouty, cites áre ap plied against sponsoring distributors who violate either of two very specific Amway rules against overloading those they sponsor with inventory they cannot sell. To prevent such “inventory overloading,” Page 2 Amway requires the sponsor ing distributor to buy back any unused, marketable products or literature remaining when a distributor leaves the business. If a sponsor fails to repurchase such materials, he or she can be subject to the penalties Pro uty listed. The rules also specify clearly that if no sponsoring distributor will repurchase such leftover inventory, Amway Corporation itself will do so. In fact, the corporation provides and fulfills an absolute money- back guarantee on any of the more then 300 Amway pro ducts plus more than 2,000 brand-name goods sold through our Personal Shoppers Catalog Service. Second, the initial invest ment buys far more than that Prouty described only as “a lousy blank chalkboard, a cou ple of pieces of fancy chalk, and an empty notebook.” In fact, the Amway Sales Kit. (which sells for about $20) con tains all the product literature, forms and information needed to start your own Amway business. An optional Product Kit offers ten of Amway’s most popular items which are easily demonstrated and sold. Third, Amway simply does not “seduce newcomers into the business” or try “Exploiting, among other things, Christiani ty and a Positive Attitude.” The writer also contends Casey Wondergem falsely that somehow Corporate Public Relations newcomers to Amway are sub- Officer staff cartoonist: J. Dana Haynes advertising and business: Dan Champie adviser: Suzie Boss Clackamas Community College