TO THE EDITOR
TONY’S CUSHY JOB?
The slur on Tony Corcoran in last week’s
letters column (Bill Smee, 10/16) is unwar-
ranted and, charitably, comes from a lack of in-
formation. Tony will be one of three members
of the Employment Appeals Board (EAB) after
he is confirmed by the Senate. The EAB is not a
sinecure or a “cushy” position.
There are two kinds of boards and agen-
cies in Oregon. One sort has volunteer mem-
bers who set policy and hold public hearings.
They are not paid. They set policy to be car-
ried out by the paid staff, who are on the job
full-time accomplishing the work of the
agency.
The other kind of commissioners are
themselves paid staff. They work full-time
and are paid for full-time work. The EAB is
this kind of agency. The EAB receives ap-
proximately 3,000 appeals of unemployment
hearings in a year. The board reviews the
transcripts and files and writes decisions
which can then be appealed to the Oregon
Court of Appeals. The job is legal, technical,
and demanding. Transcripts can run from as
little as 30 to as many as several hundred
pages. Each transcript must be reviewed for
adequacy of the facts to support the conclu-
sions, and a decision reached whether to af-
firm, reverse or remand the decision on ap-
peal. The files include exhibits and other doc-
uments.
Parties submit or attempt to offer addi-
tional exhibits and arguments after hearing.
Most parties do not have attorneys. Their in-
expert letters and pleas must be read espe-
cially carefully to determine what legal argu-
ments they raise. The EAB then reviews the
hearing decision for the adequacy of the rea-
soning , and itself writes a Board decision.
Each of the 3,000 appellants and the thou-
sands of parties on the other side of these
matters expects and deserves a prompt and
correct decision in each case.
I could go on, but my point should be
clear. Tony is not in line for a “cushy” job
with big pay and little work. He will work as
hard as a member of the EAB as he ever has
in the Legislature, a union organizer, or any
other job he has held. He will take a seat that
is supposed to be for a friend of the worker,
and workers need someone like him in that
position.
Gretchen Miller
Eugene
PATERNALISTIC ’TUDE
Ben Fogelson knows “what women are
good for,” or more precisely, what’s good for
them (“Oregon’s Daughters” commentary,
10/8). By referring to the women who appear
in the “Oh Girls” calendar as “young daugh-
ter” and “little darling” he dismisses them as
helpless victims of male voyeurism. He fur-
ther implies that these women are, or should
be, ashamed of their appearance in the calen-
dar (by hiding their involvement from their
fathers). The article is a classic of female dis-
empowerment, written by a man who knows
how a woman should behave.
Despite his rationalizations, it is clear that
Mr. Fogelson displays the typical puritanical,
paternalistic attitude towards women that is
so prevalent in our society.
Erik Wright
Eugene
POOR SPORTS
If the defensive, insulting and demeaning
letters of David Jensen and Mark Zacchino
(10/9) were representative of the support for
EW having an Oregon football insert, that
would be reason enough to terminate the in-
sert.
Their personal attacks aside, these two
writers incorrectly assert that Oregon football
brings in “gobs of money” to the university
that “helps fund the arts and academics that
the UO is known for.” In fact, until about two
years ago, the arts and academics provided a
$2 million subsidy to the athletics programs
which generate not one nickel for the finan-
cially starved arts and academics.
David Wade
Eugene
BY KAUKAB JHUMBRA SMITH
Longing for Chaos
Stop sign, schlop sign — I miss my crazy
Pakistani traffic.
I
failed my driving test today.
After the examiner walked away, I immediately handed the car keys to my husband
and told him to drive to the nearest IHOP. This needed a pancake antidote.
See, I’m not a bad driver. I didn’t fail because I’m unsafe on the road. In my eyes, I failed
because I’m too safe. I thought the test had been going pretty well, actually. And then, I
stopped when I shouldn’t have before a left turn, because I was afraid I’d get in the path of
an oncoming SUV. What I didn’t know was that some schmuck was speeding behind me and
had to slam on his brakes to avoid hitting me. (Didn’t you see my left turn signal, you jerk?)
He honked, I noticed the SUV had a stop sign and wouldn’t have hit me if I’d just turned, and
so, reassured, I turned left. I was stationary for perhaps five seconds.
That was five seconds too many, apparently, and got me an automatic failure. This
brings me to a sore point. There are too many stop signs in this country.
Let me go further. There are too many rules on the road in this country. In Pakistan,
where I come from, you go forth on the road armed with common sense, the ability to
read traffic signals and little else. Your safety lies in your ability to see oncoming mani-
acs and stop before they intercept your path. (See why I waited for that SUV?) You learn
to navigate in between colorful hand-decorated buses and lumbering donkey carts and
wobbly bicyclists, and learn the art of the slow crawl on busy streets where at any given
time there are 10 pedestrians crossing in front of you.
There are the insolent young men who deliberately saunter in your path, the protec-
tive father who hustles his sleepy school-uniformed child forward. There’s the young
couple riding pillion on a motorcycle beside you, the woman’s shawl trailing behind her
and making you slow down and pray it doesn’t catch in the wheel. There are the pot-
holes in the street you learn to avoid, and the speed bumps whose heights vary from
mountain to molehill street to street. You learn to judge each situation for itself — do I
stop, slow down or keep going?
If you want to make a U-turn, you look to make sure no one’s going to get hurt and
make a U-turn. If you want to turn left, you look around you and turn left without any of
this “turn lane” business. And here we come to another sore point about this driving in
America thing.
4 OCTOBER 30, 2003
The art of the slow crawl in Pakistan.
What is a turn lane except a blatant
waste of asphalt? I don’t get it. There’s an
entire strip of road lying vacant in the off
chance that someone will want to turn left.
Why can’t you just drive on that and turn
left when you want?
I guess in Pakistan we can’t afford to
waste money on empty strips of road.
Every inch must be used — even the pave-
ment. Come to think of it, we can’t even af-
ford pavements.
T
he only thing I enjoy about driving
here is the freeway, but that’s taken
me some time to get used to. I re-
member the first time I drove on the freeway from Eugene up to Washington. Holy cow.
The fastest I’ve ever driven in Pakistan is 60 km an hour. There is no room to drive any
faster, living in the middle of Karachi, a sprawling metropolis of 12 million people and lots
and lots of cars.
But here, now, I’m expected to do 60 miles an hour, and even then there are people
behind me blinking their lights. But at least there are no stop signs or left turn lanes on
the freeway. The freeway doesn’t try to control you with endless rules but leaves much
up to your driving judgment. On our frequent weekend road trips, my husband and I
cruise down an endless stretch of highway listening to Sherlock Holmes radio plays from
the 1940s.
This morning, I got a bad feeling the minute I saw I had a female driving examiner. I’ve al-
ways gotten along better with men. This woman, lean, blond and tough, was a little like
sugar-coated steel. See, that’s attractive in a man. In a woman, it’s just bitchy.
At the end of the test, the examiner tried to make me feel better by saying it had taken
her three tries to get her license. Yes, but she was also 19 at the time. I’m seven years older
than that and I’ve survived chaotic Pakistani traffic and I should know better, no?
She gave me an overly bright, sympathetic smile and walked away.
Sigh. Oh, for a stick shift. Right-hand drive. Waiting while a shrill, tinsel-bright bus
cuts me off at a traffic signal. That is home. That is driving. Not this oh-look-stop-sign-
left-lane-one-way shit. I miss my crazy Pakistani traffic.
Kaukab Jhumra Smith is a Pakistani journalist and teacher, educated at Brandeis University and currently an intern at EW.