Straight Out of Big Rock: October 2007

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Modified Forests

Modified forests could severely impact natural land

In my opinion | Expel me

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 10/24/07

Oregon has a growing self-perception, and reputation, as being a leader in the local and natural food craze. While "local" may be easy to define, it is harder to define what we mean when we say "natural."

A lot of the anxiety behind consumers' demands for "natural" foods comes from fear of the unknown. Will genetically engineered organisms spread their modified genes to their formerly "wild" counterparts and irrevocably alter the "natural" world? Maybe it's already happened. According to an article from Capital Press, "The West's Agricultural Web Site," there are as many as four million genetically improved Douglas Fir "super trees" growing in about 790 test plots in Washington and Oregon.

While that may sound like a lot of pollen blowing unchecked under the summer sun, one has to choose how to interpret the information. One could side with the official line, pushed by forest products companies like Weyerhaeuser that focus on the benefits that could be had by faster reforestation after clear cutting or fire. Or one could side with the anti-modification advocates who not only push a more sensational story, but in the past have backed up their views with vandalism and arson. One such case in 2001 actually helped U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken give Stanislas Meyerhoff a 13-year prison sentence, and qualified him as a terrorist.

In contrast to the dramatic measures used by some modification opponents, the corporate story, at least according to Weyerhaeuser, says that what is occurring in Oregon's forests is quite natural and nothing to pay much mind to. Weyerhaeuser will tell the press that their trees that display remarkable disease resistance, rapid growth, and straight trunks are not actually "genetically modified," but rather are just "genetic families" that have been bred for their desirable qualities. This is reassuring. As a discerning public we have generally acknowledged that breeding is acceptable, and a slightly controlled choice of which little fir tree gets to push its straight trunk into genetic futurity is just good business. Corporations will claim that breeding better, more disease-resistant organisms will also help with humanitarian problems, from hunger to global warming. It is, in short, inevitable, desirable progress.

The problem, however, begins to develop when Weyerhaeuser markets these same straight little trees as "genetically improved" stock for when "things are too important to be left to chance." Just a little looking will reveal some of the steps that they have taken in order to assure high survivability and growth rates.

When the Tree Biosafety and Genomics Research Cooperative at Oregon State University was still known as The Tree Genetic Engineering Research Cooperative, they publicized their work with "Roundup® resistant" trees. Aside from the obvious involvement of Monsanto on this project, Weyerhaeuser also helps fund the tree lab at OSU.

The old TGERC Web site still has information posted about their hundreds of lines of transgenic trees that "have demonstrated high levels of tolerance and no detectable growth loss after multiple Roundup® applications…[and others]…that contain a synthetic gene from the cry3a strain of Bacillus thuringiensis…showed strong resistance to the cottonwood leaf beetle…and enhanced growth rate." Here is where forest products companies end their tale and the anti-modification advocates pick it up.

While the most inflammatory propaganda from this camp will go on about "frankenforests" of genetically modified trees that will devastate native forests and change the entire notion of what the natural world is, there are more reasoned arguments that intelligently refute the economic and humanitarian claims of corporations. The coherent core of these counter-claims takes a step back and looks not only at the trees and how they fall into the saws and pulps of our economic cycles, but how they stand as organisms within a larger cycle of plant and animal organisms in the places we call our forests.

In their publication, "Genetically Modified Trees: The ultimate threat to forests," the Friends of the Earth argue that the reason we should not genetically modify our trees, and thus our forests, is because we are not the only creatures who value trees. Insects, birds, and animals do not acknowledge property and national forest boundaries. They will eat or use whatever tree they happen to encounter and, for example, a tree with insecticide properties could pollinate across boundary lines, impact insect populations and disrupt an entire food chain.

This possibility of broad pollination raises a darker part of the issue: property. If, in two or three generations, forest life contains modified genes through cross-pollination, will the companies give up their ownership of that modified gene, or will we, the people, have to give up the trees that make up our forests?

We should not allow for that possibility. We should resist technological determinism when discussing whether or not we should modify organisms' genes, because giving in to its apparent inevitability will allow the genetic composition and fate of our world, and eventually our bodies, to be established by corporations' economic concerns. This local and worldwide issue is one in which you don't want to miss the forest for all the trees.

jgrenzsund@dailyemerald.com

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Social Basis for Torture

Safety allows citizens to turn blind eye to torture

In my Opinion | Expel me

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 10/17/07

Truth is like love. It only exists when you believe in it, and trying to force it out of someone else is just a bad idea. Yet we accept the idea that we can force the truth out of people when we really need it, when the lives of others depend on the acquisition of information that veraciously corresponds to actual movements of money, people, material and ideas that constitute a terrorist threat to the United States and our allies.

In fewer words, we have ways of making you talk.

About two weeks ago, rights activists and Bush administration officials were again critiquing each other, using the rhetoric and nuance of what does and does not constitute "torture" when referring to the United States' methods of getting people to answer questions "truthfully."

Many individuals and groups here in the U.S. identify themselves as accepting neither torture nor the administration's double-speak about torture definitions and practices. However, in having to admit the failure of all recent attempts to truly remove torture from our truth and security-making mechanisms, we all have to accept torture. At least momentarily, while regrouping for a renewed reasoned approach, opponents of the practice of torture have to accept that it is still factually integral and present in the way this country extracts truth from and makes security in the world. But maybe - and stay with me on this one - just maybe we should stop resisting, or "not accepting" torture on the level of its manifestation, and take this current pause to look at the constructive process that serves as the source of torture.

The issue of torture is really split into two parts: one that politicians and activists want to discuss, and one that they don't. The first part holds the matters of what constitutes torture, if those measures are needed or even effective. The second part is a critique of the social role that torture plays, and the correlation between the theory of the construction of this social role and the ramifications of its actual practice.

Generically speaking, any social construction can be seen to come from a social desire, which creates a demand, which is then filled by social resources. For example, say we want to fight disease. This desire creates the demand for disease-fighting solutions, which is filled through social discourse, methods and practitioners that give us modern medicine. Likewise, a social desire for fighting fires results in the social role prescribed for firefighters, and so forth.

Then say we want to protect our idea of peace, liberty and freedom. What do we get? Well, in addition to developing an understanding of what these concepts may mean, we get a state structure to arrange peace, and we get soldiers to protect it. While the methods of this state can vary greatly, we end up with a situation in which the ideas that we had hoped to protect with a state are now completely contingent on the continued existence of that state.

In other words, the state's own existence becomes more important than the ideals it was constructed to protect. Once this is achieved, the methods of state existence and influence are self-justified because the social ideals rely upon the social structure, not so much the other way around. This sounds reminiscent of a Hobbesian desire to end fear through absolute truth and governance, and for good reason. The state's last resort for dealing with opposition is not reason, but coercion based on violence, and in turn based on fear. Fear to end all fear.

At this point, we are left to look at the methods of state influence that are commonly accepted to sustain our society's ideological ends. It takes almost no thought to encounter the ethically perplexing concept of war. In this paradox of killing to save lives, murder on massive scales is repeatedly justified through the relationship of happiness and state influence. But we accept this activity of mutually premeditated murder as a condition of humanity and of our nation's existence. We also, though less openly, accept the idea of killing civilians as part of a military campaign - it was done repeatedly throughout the early 1940s. However, we are forced to pause when we consider the systematic infliction of pain and suffering on an unarmed individual in the name of extracting the truth in order to protect the homeland's ideals. We pause, but do we not accept?

Even if it makes us uncomfortable because of the ethical ramifications, the use of interrogations in order to gain information has long been a part of the United State's methods of winning wars and protecting the homeland. We accept the methods because we value the protection of our comfort. In fact, torture's sociological role is inextricable from the United States' methods of control because torture is a fundamental element of state influence, and we base our happiness and security on the success and longevity of that influence.

I don't know if anyone can ultimately know when an interview moves from interrogation to torture, but the definition will likely continue to evade us, while the practice will not. The truth is that torture may not result in truth, but it satisfies a social emotional appeal, both towards protecting ideals, and serving an idea of justice - or at least self-justification.

jgrenzsund@dailyemerald.com

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Computer memories

Computer memories are just fleeting dreams

In my opinion | Expel me

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 10/10/07

The death of a computer pulls its whole lifetime down with it. I am still haunted by the loss of almost four years of keystrokes and favorites, music and photos - vaporized, corrupted, devoured by some nameless virus that the techs at the help desk couldn't hack out.

Common wisdom would have me equate this experience to the supposed cleansing properties of fire - how natural devastation maintains a balance and offers the chance for new life. But a computer crash is not a forest fire - it is a house fire of modern intellectual and social life. Digital letters, photos, resumes, music, videos - all things we accumulate with the vague thought they make us who we are, and some day we'll sift through it and make sense of ourselves. But what do you do when that source of self is gone?

I can actually examine my life through crashes and corrupted discs and see the dust of lost files and virtual documents as I excavate my short postmodern life. My first 'computer' was really just a pile of 5-inch floppy discs. They were followed by a monstrous hand-me-down PC with a 512 megabyte hard drive and a monitor that displayed DOS prompts in jack-o-lantern orange text. I quickly abandoned the modem-less behemoth and went back to the pile of discs and university computer labs, though I upgraded to the 'durable' and 'advanced' 3-inch discs. After about four more years of this I finally got myself a used IBM laptop - with color display, CD ROM, and a dial-up modem. I had officially entered the computer age - in 2001.

The IBM boasted a 2.4 gigabyte hard drive and about 128k of RAM. I was in heaven. Along with a 56k dial-up that ran about 12kps, there was nothing standing between me and the world. But this feeling was short-lived. Hungry for more than the little machine could handle, I upgraded from Windows 95 to ME so I could run newer software, and pushing for more than I should have hoped for, I botched an install of XP and the little box rolled up its blue screen.

It could have been revived, but why? I had seen the limits of the five-year-old machine and those limits were crushed under the need for speed and memory. Well, that and my complete lack of operating system know-how. But I had a premonition about me, a techie neophyte, trying to put XP on an old machine, so I wrote all my files to a CD before the operation. The computer was dead, but my files were safe.

After the IBM died I dropped a couple chunks of my post-undergraduate paychecks into my first ever new computer. I had three requirements for my new processor-based friend: a good memory, strong, and a good sense of humor - because those paychecks weren't very big. With the help of the local Best Buy I came home with a 40 gigabyte HP Pavilion and stepped into a new world: USB, CD/DVD RW, wireless Internet. These were things I scarcely imagined, and I thanked the techno gods for feeding such wonders to the lowest brackets of computer consumers.

For close to four years my HP, Sriracha, never let me down. I dropped it on concrete, shattering pieces of plastic, but not its functions. It spent a year with me in the dust and exposure of Afghanistan, never failing to write more photo files or play a bootleg DVD. For me it became invincible, a Swiss account for my most precious images and observations of life. This is what modern technology can do for us.

Then came a black Wednesday. For no reason, Sriracha refused to boot. I panicked, tried again and again. The tech at the help desk tried everything he knew, and then asked me for my system-restore discs. It was over. The Sriracha I knew was gone.

He handed me back the same box that I had brought in, but it would never be the same. The same scratches and stickers were there, but when I turned it on, it looked at me with blank eyes. "Hello, would you like to register me now or later?" Keystrokes and clicks that would have brought me to the friends, places and sensations that composed my life only mocked my mortality with empty folders and Alzheimer-like introductions. There was no proof of what I had done and who I had become since I started saving files on the HP - the time intervening simply no longer existed. In fact I had the sensation that time as we construct it is no more stable or real than files on a hard drive.

Since the crash, I've given Sriracha back its old name and set up my folders in the same way, to the best of my memory. And even though I'm mimicking the same method of storing photos and documents, I'm trying to remember that it is not the memories that we save on discs that make us who we are, but the memories we carry and access in our minds and share not through the Internet, but through human contact. Our minds have to be the primary place where we keep the memories that are dear to us - everything else is just back-up files.

jgrenzsund@dailyemerald.com

If a full metal jacket flaps its wings in Central Asia...

Separation impossible after acting in the art of war

In my opinion | Expel me

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 10/3/07

Moving a plan moves life. And if the plan went right - which it rarely does completely - my brother left for Iraq last night.

I've made a similar trip myself - not to Iraq, but to Afghanistan. I'm looking over that old journal right now, analyzing it to see if there is the same mixture of fear, excitement and awe that I remember feeling on that first long dark flight to the other side of the planet.

My notes from that trip seem so pragmatic, never raising a note of critique as to why exactly I was going to this Central Asian country, nor a bit of wonder as to if I would make a return flight. I wrote about the immense darkness, the surreal experience of drinking beer and watching movies at 32,000 feet on the way to a war-torn land of dust and rock where I would help kill people - but I left out the killing people part.

I'm not surprised by the absence of critique early on in my journal. I remember feeling it, living it, but I also remember knowing that I would only remain sane if I kept it at a distance by joking about it, shunning its emotional appeals, and, as often as possible, preventing it from leaving the tip of my tongue or the tip of my pen. Erase, delete, and move on.

I can recognize this split, this desire to separate beliefs and ideals from obligation and action, not only in myself, but in our country as a whole. And I think it is easier for a country to live with this conflict than it is for an individual to justify it to her or himself, especially over long periods of time. The most valid question I ever get is why. If I do not agree with the theory of war, why did I join the military and allow myself to be made into a soldier? I have no fully sufficient answer, only a confused sense of duty to the country that raised me, and of course, curiosity.

I mean, who does not want to experience the thrill of a meaningful life? While our nation places rock stars, presidents, inventors, activists and millionaires as historical markers, military members also hold this mystique as a way for the average person to make history, to be involved in actually shaping the world. I resisted this pull for years, putting in my best effort to become a rock star, but in the end, enticed by college money, I bit into the military myth. I would face death, and thereby know life.

When we invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, I accepted the inevitability that I would walk the ground where Alexander the Great led his army, and the Mujahideen defeated the great Soviet Bear. I would be a part of history.

Once the first six months in Afghanistan went by, the critique of my actions crept back in. But it was cynical, limping, crippled - the best of my human compassion beaten daily, lied to, denied food, rest, and exposed to the anxious elements of war. Just do your job. We're making a great difference. It can't be changed. The better we target, the fewer lives will be lost. Threats from mortars, rockets, bombs, the unseen, the fellow service members who declare they have snapped, yet still carry live ammunition. The plan of war is words, and it is easy to critique words. The action of war is people, their tools, and their beliefs and orders, and it is much more complex to critique people.

The point I need to make here is that if I had never partaken in the action of war, I would probably believe that I could critique the words of war and remain separate from its actions. My disagreement would somehow separate me from the action, and absolve me of responsibility for the war. I could critique without participating. The fact is that citizens cannot absolve themselves of responsibility for U.S. foreign policy, because basic participation in, and dependence upon the economy, government, and society binds their personal, daily, individual movements to the country's larger historical movements.

If civilians could truly absolve themselves from responsibility because they have not walked foreign soil with loaded weapons, veterans could logically do the same because they did not make the war plan. We are all just people with ideas that may or may not be at odds with our actions.

But we have to take responsibility for those particular actions. Paying taxes, carrying a passport, voting, not voting, spending money, questioning enemy combatants - none of these are disconnected from our country's existence. Holding and espousing personal and political beliefs that are contrary to U.S. policy is not enough to disconnect oneself from one's country, or even its most aggressive and violent foreign policy. It is all connected.

Through economic, political, and even philosophical connections - while I am now living comfortably and safely here in Eugene, paying taxes, not worrying about rockets - my brother is arriving in Iraq. I believe in his safe return.

But so what? Even the three front-running Democratic candidates for president now say they do not think they could get the U.S. out of Iraq by the end of their first term. Don't let their words absolve you of your responsibility for how you affect our country's actions.

jgrenzsund@dailyemerald.com

Censorship

Fire this... FUCK CENSORSHIP

Editorial | The purpose of the headline on this editorial is to show that we support college newspapers' right to run profanity

By: Emerald Editorial Board

Posted: 10/2/07

Because of a printing error, Page 2 of the Emerald's Monday edition was replaced with a page from The Daily Barometer, the student newspaper at Oregon State University. The content that should have run on that page has been re-edited and appears in today's issue. View a PDF of Monday's Page 2 here.

Usually the Emerald won't run the word "fuck" at all, much less in a bold headline. Desperate times call for desperate measures, however, which makes this the perfect moment for a strong statement in support of free speech.

Our bold text is not meant to be sensational, but is in response to another strong statement, one from the editorial board of the Rocky Mountain Collegian, the student newspaper at Colorado State University. Their statement was written in response to the Sept. 17 Tasering of Andrew Meyer, a student at the

Original Source

View a digital copy of what the Rocky Mountain Collegian's editorial looked like here.

University of Florida, during a question-and-answer session with Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry.

The incident was recorded on video, and found its way to online file-sharing sites such as YouTube in a matter of hours, where it has been viewed more than 2 million times. People nationwide have expressed shock and outrage over what many have since deemed excessive use of force on the part of police. Rather than writing a lengthy editorial on the topic, the Collegian's editorial board simply wrote, "Taser this... FUCK BUSH."

Because the readership of college newspapers is college students, nearly all of whom are adults, they should be allowed to print profanity without fear of retribution. The purpose of the headline on this editorial is to show that we support college newspapers' right to run profanity.

Nevertheless, the controversy over the four-word editorial has attracted national media attention. Supporters and opponents of the editorial have all been vocal in expressing their opinions on the matter. When the university held an open forum to discuss the issue last week, 300 people gathered in the classroom to take part, and 200 more lined the hallways outside.

J. David McSwane is the editor in chief of the Collegian. But following the editorial, which ran Sept. 21, his days as editor may be numbered. The nine-member Board of Student Communications at Colorado State will meet on Thursday to decide whether disciplinary action against McSwane is in order.

Whatever the board decides, it will send a powerful message about how much freedom students at Colorado State can expect, and exactly what and who the First Amendment actually protects.

The First Amendment was written into law with the intent of guaranteeing free speech, and protecting the right of individuals to express their views - no matter how unpopular, and seemingly hateful, they may be. The First Amendment gives Ku Klux Klansmen the right to march in parades; it protects civil rights leaders and neo-Nazis alike. Unfortunately, it does not prohibit universities from curbing the speech of students working at most college newspapers.

Although exercising free speech often seems to go against what many would consider wholesome and good, this is truly its chief function. Protecting unpopular views, although perhaps contrary to our instincts, upholds our country's status as a free democracy.

The Collegian's editorial clearly lacked context. It was published with nothing about the rationale behind its four-letter expletive, and with no explanation of what it was in reaction to. If the Collegian wanted to make a point, it should have taken the measures necessary to ensure that point was understood.

Despite the editorial's obviously poor execution, McSwane should not be punished for its content. When Andrew Meyer was Tasered by police in Florida, it was seemingly for nothing more than talking too much. By using just four words, the editorial board at the Collegian has, in effect, triggered the same response.

Free speech cannot be curbed unless it endangers the immediate safety of the populace. Although we do not necessarily agree with the sentiment the editorial expressed, under no stretch of the imagination can the actions of McSwane be considered a promotion of imminent lawless action.

Even though Colorado State can punish McSwane for what may have been a violation of its policies, we hope it will stick to the message it states on its Web site and "support strong student editors and station managers, and reinforce their right to make content decisions independent from University administration involvement or interference" and refrain from sending the wrong message about political speech.

Punishing McSwane would show that the editorial independence Colorado State claims to give its student journalists is only independence until they produce something controversial. That kind of de facto censorship is far more offensive than any four-letter word.

Although the Emerald is independent and has no University oversight, it does have a board of directors that could choose to fire our editor for running the headline on this editorial.

Emergency Alerts

Preventative measures more important than new alerts

Editorial

By: Emerald Editorial Board

Posted: 9/28/07

While different universities' methods of notifying students of campus emergencies is getting a lot of press and administrative attention, less exposure is given to possible methods and policies for preventing campus violence, such as shootings, before it happens.

Earlier this month, the University of Oregon sent out a notice listing and described the methods of communication that may be used to notify the campus community in the event of an emergency. The stated purpose of this notice was to demonstrate to students, employees and visitors that their security and safety is the University's highest priority.

In all, the University lists ten possible methods of notification, including e-mail, the local media and voicemail to campus phones. The notice stresses the importance of redundancy in the system and even offers other methods that the University is exploring.

One possible method would enable automated "reverse 9-1-1" calls to all cell phones in a geographic area. We support this sort of innovative approach, as people nearly always carry their cell phones with them and it would not require any maintenance of a large database.

However, another possible solution is much more obtrusive and may be outdated: a public address system. The installation (and what we trust would be periodic testing) of a loudspeaker system would be both an overreaction and an intrusion into campus that would be reminiscent of police states or military camps.

But the addition of one or two more methods to ten existing methods is an over-redundancy that demonstrates a single-minded approach to the problem. This problem that we all hope to never revisit is a student violently assaulting and murdering fellow students, faculty and staff.

While the issue of immediately notifying the campus community that such an awful event has occurred, or is in the process of occurring, is extremely important, we must not forget that the problem is not notification, but that the event occurred at all.

As the University revises and updates its emergency response plans and methods, the issue of violence prevention and intervention needs to be a visible part of the overall policy. Up to this point it has not been.

While we understand that the University's emergency response plan must take into account all emergencies whether they are natural, accidental or premeditated, we need to point out the current absence of coordinated, campus-wide violence prevention program.

A campus shooting will not be prevented by immediate notification that it has already happened. A campus shooting will be prevented when the University assembles a taskforce to address the issue, coordinates the efforts of the Office of Student Life, the Student Affairs Office, the Counseling Center and the Department of Public Safety and publicizes the steps that all campus community members can take in preventing such horrible events.

Models for such a program are the University's approach to sexual assault prevention, suicide prevention, and discrimination. Campus violence prevention needs to be given similar attention so that when a member of the campus community encounters the signs of violent behavior, she or he knows not only immediately where to turn, but also knows that the University has a professional and effective plan and system in place to address the issue.

This is how the University will truly demonstrate to its community that their security and safety is its highest priority.

Invest Wisely

Investment in education as serious as a mortgage

In my opinion

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 9/26/07

While the economy teeters because of defaults on high-risk mortgages, I would like to take a peak at the other big-ticket loan industry here in the states: Education. Along with owning your own home and having some kind of family, it rounds out this whole American-dream, pursuit-of-happiness thing that we're all chasing.

As much as I would like to dismiss the bulk of these dreams as economic and psychological manipulation by "the man," such judgment would be hypocritical because I'm educating the hell out of myself, and I truly hope to get one of those mortgages some day.

While we may not declare full-blown nihilism and denounce all things advertised, we need to see the lesson that the subprime mortgage crisis is trying to teach us about consumerism - something about not always getting what you want, and sympathy for the devil (thank you Mr. Jagger). The short of it is that we, as students, must approach education critically, because it is a consumer product.

The point of looking at it this way is that we'd be fools to think the education loan industry has not borrowed a few tricks from the home loan industry. I mean, look at us - we're going to college like never before. And why? It's a fear of failure, hope for happiness - and stellar advertising. Take this and then realize that our economy relies on people buying products they don't actually need, or can't afford, or both, and you'll see education for what it is: a product for sale in a capitalist society.

This isn't to say that we don't need products - of course we do - especially homes and education. And I believe there is some truth in the claim that an educated individual with a stable home is less likely to resort to violence to affect change in the world, but I also believe that no amount of education or stability can guarantee either peace or a reasonable society. As a country we claim to be led by educated individuals, yet we often resort to violence and coercion in affairs both foreign and domestic.

What it means is that often education becomes just a fashion label that people throw out as a marker of status. "Nice Ph.D. Where did you get it?" "The University of Wyoming." "Oh, mine is from Harvard." People try to dismiss this trivialization of education, because it is so important in what we recognize as a "civil society." But in truth the shallow social status of degrees and institutions often becomes more important than the individual's experience of gaining a degree in education.

What if advertisements, your parents and school counselor all told you that to be successful in today's world you needed to use a certain product for four to six years. Sounds familiar, right? Buying an education is what got you here. But instead of college, let's say they promoted a certain skin cream that costs about $20,000 for one year's supply. You could buy it, believe it, and possibly make it work- or you would be flat out incredulous that they would make such a claim.

So how about the four-to-six-year education product? Some people buy it in order to move on as quickly as possible, to have a great career and a fabulous life. Others buy it just to have it. You know - hang out, meet people, take cool classes and go to parties.

While the former view time and money spent on education as a serious investment in their future, the latter tend to view the years and loans as a seriously great way to spend life right now. After all, there are asteroids, viruses, car accidents and a global war, and we may not make it to graduation. So live it up while you still can.

But no matter how happily you are rushing through to get your degree, or not rushing at all - I savored my seven-year undergraduate career - you have to lose the fantasy that college and education will somehow magically transform you into a rich and successful individual. If you believe that, you'll likely buy a Hummer because it will make you strong, or bottled water because it will make you healthy (and you'll buy the books I'm going to write because they will make you enlightened and witty. Please buy my books).

But seriously, the fact alone that you are here is excellent, and you should stay until you finish your degree. We need a nation of critical, reasonable, and skilled individuals, ones who can communicate with each other, pay their mortgages and student loans off, and drive a stable economy.

What you should not do is just be here because someone told you to buy it. Buy an education because you know what it means to you. Whether you leave after a year or two - about one in five of you incoming students will - or stay for a decade or more, remember that true education encompasses life far beyond college. Arrogance and superiority, whether in the second grade or in graduate school, shows you've failed at the university of life, whereas a bit of humility and compassion is the most intelligent investment you can ever make.

jgrenzsund@dailyemerald.com

Reader Response

Josh Grenzsund's column about drugs lacks coherent reasoning

Letter to the Editor

By: Scott D. Austin

Posted: 9/25/07

I suppose I ought to stop being surprised and baffled by the inane lunacy that discharges from the orifices of University of Oregon undergraduates. I certainly was exposed to enough of it, and endured its mind-numbing effects when I was both an undergraduate and graduate student at the fine institution myself. Nevertheless, Josh Grenzsund's babbling piece about substance use and the "recreational" aspect of college ("Have a good trip, see you next fall... maybe," ODE, Sept. 17) begs my response, for whatever it may or may not be worth to the peanut gallery.

To start, let me point out a tremendous flaw in your reasoning, Mr. Grenzsund. One who chooses, for whatever reason, to abstain from the use of controlled substances such as heroin or marijuana, and who further chooses to consume substances such as alcohol in moderation rather than extreme, is not at all necessarily boring; neither are they, ipso facto, destined to support ballot initiatives limiting people's freedom to choose a sex partner, or who one can or can not join with in matrimony. While we're at it, why don't you actually spell out the ballot initiatives you're choosing to sneer at instead of being coy, Mr. Grenzsund? I realize you have very probably never been challenged in your spewing forth of rhetoric and ill-tempered humor, but there are those of us who are actually familiar with Ballot Measure 36, and the battle that culminated in its eventual passage by the voters of this state. But then, according to you, it is perfectly appropriate to claim success on ballot initiatives you happen to favor, and then to tell the "ignorant" 56 percent that they are quite fascist when an election doesn't happen to go the way you like. How enlightened of you.

There are, believe it or not, many people, myself included, who choose of our own volition to abstain from the consumption of drugs and the over-consumption of alcohol, but who would never consider legislating such restraint onto other people. Are we less significant because we have a different view and outlook on life than you? How puritanical of you, Mr. Grenzsund. Precisely how are you different from Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, again?

Scott D. Austin
University alumnus

Have a good trip

Have a good trip, see you next fall...maybe

In my opinion

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 9/17/07

Congratulations. You've made the cut to attend this illustrious West Coast institution - an NCAA powerhouse, home of respected environmental law, journalism and physics programs, and bastion of pseudo-hippie illicit drug use.

In short there's something for everyone. And as you make your way through this establishment, the classes you choose to take over the next four years will make up one significant part of your professional identity. Choose wisely, because your academic major will greatly define you - both in the work force and in the social world.

The other very significant aspect of the construction of your professional and social identities will depend on how you approach the non-academic "recreational" aspect of college life. Sure, recreation can mean clubs, organizations and sports, but let's cut the crap. College recreation orbits around two large social objects - alcohol and drugs.

Your overall identity will greatly be defined by your participation in these areas over the next four years because your use or non-use will greatly influence who you associate with, the activities you partake in and your relationship with the law.

For those of you abstaining from every substance from heroin to caffeine, I can't relate to you, so you should stop reading this. The next time I have any interaction with you straight-edged freaks will probably be when I'm voting for your opponent in some election or fighting one of your proposed constitutional amendments to limit individual rights.

For those of you who are currently recreating or considering trying something harder than Dutch Bros, don't just follow the crowd, do a little research and approach your enrollment in drug courses sensibly.

Anti-drug propaganda teaches you to parrot out the phrase that "marijuana is the gateway drug," but two other substances lead more people to illegal substance abuse - alcohol and tobacco.

CDC statistics on substance use among high school students show that by their senior year 47 percent of students have tried alcohol and 23 percent have tried tobacco, while only 19 percent have tried marijuana.

Interestingly, the use of these "big three" substances remains fairly stable from high school into the 18-25 young adult age group. Nationwide about 53 percent of young adults drink alcohol, 23 percent smoke cigarettes, and 16 percent smoke marijuana, according to CDC and Department of Health and Human Services statistics.

Of course most of the stigma associated with the illegality of students' use of alcohol and tobacco is mitigated by the fact that people age out of the illegality of those substances. Conversely, marijuana is among the drugs listed on Federal and State Controlled Substance Schedules, so a user of marijuana maintains this stigma of illegality.

Controlled substances are broken into five categories, or schedules, that correspond with the severity of the penalty for use, production or possession. Schedule one drugs include heroin, LSD, ecstasy, peyote, mescaline, psilocybin and marijuana. Schedule two drugs are opium, cocaine and methamphetamine, while schedule three drugs are amphetamine, depressants and PCP.

This is information you should definitely consider before seeking out and taking drugs. The surprise, to me anyhow, is that marijuana is listed on schedule one while something as destructive as meth is on schedule two. But these schedules are greatly arbitrary and should only be used to gauge the level of relative illegality of drugs.

In truth, any drug can screw up your life, and there are plenty of "lifelong abstainers" who have screwed up professional and personal lives without the help of any drugs at all.

Conversely, many people have very successful lives after using drugs. Though he used cocaine, you will see that Sigmund Freud still carries massive sway in academics. Though Bill Clinton smoked pot, we elected him president for two terms. Even presidential hopeful Barack Obama has admitted to smoking pot - and inhaling. He also smokes cigarettes and still he has a great chance at the presidency.

Use of certain drugs and abstention from others in college will ingratiate you to some people and mark you as a pariah to others. For example, you heavy pot smokers are probably not hanging out much with those who draw the line with Coke - the drink, not the powder. And you straight-edgers - I told you to stop reading - you probably don't spend time at bars and kegs. Your drug use transcript is a social code for who and what you want to be associated with, and what you don't.

Also, as society changes, the attitudes towards the past or current use of certain substances will go in and out of favor and there is always the possibility that drug laws established in the early part of the 20th century will be overturned. Remember the 18th and 21st amendments - goodbye prohibition, and good riddance.

In our country, illegality of a substance does not end its use and likewise legality does not translate to ubiquitous use. But also, your drug use or abstention will influence your relation to the law, to society, and will likely affect you for the rest of your life.

But it's a free country, and you are completely free to break the law. So, welcome to the University of Oregon, keep your arms and legs inside at all times, and if you so choose, enjoy your trip : ).

The Drug Enforcement Agency says that more than one in 10 of you will.

jgrenzsund@dailyemerald.com

Take a Hint

Rove's resignation leaves inept Dems shaking over future

In my opinion

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 8/20/07

A mere moment after Democrats began applauding Karl Rove's resignation last week, the atmosphere has changed to one of gloating and fear.

Liberal commentary is split about evenly at this point. The more brazen spectrum is triumphantly declaring that Rove's resignation is more proof of an administration embattled from within and sinking fast.

Another group, more skeptical and paranoid, has quickly turned to theories that Rove's move out of the White House is not a sign of retreat or defeat, but an aggressive step in support of the Republican bid for the presidency in 2008, or even in 2012.

Both the former and the latter reactions to the resignation display Democrats' primary fallibility - an ineptitude in framing the debate, augmented by a constant reactive rather than active stance.

I don't have a solution for this terminal condition, nor, obviously, do Democratic leaders themselves. It's certainly not for their lack of trying, but I always get the sense that 21st-century Democrats are back-seat-drivers.

Sure they can nag you until your eyes pop out, that you should have turned left, but they only speak up after the country has passed the intersection and is heading in one hell of an unforgiving direction.

Though Democrats have a vision of the nation and want to be in office to lead it there, they will regularly be bested by Republicans because Democrats lack a certain type of moral character that allows one to go beyond what may be deemed prudent and appropriate.

Republicans, though rife with a vocabulary of Christian prudence, do have this relentless drive to push and stretch what is credible and appropriate. That is truly punk-ass.

Think about it. Who would be more natural in liberty spikes and a Misfits t-shirt- Nixon or JFK, Reagan or Carter, Bush (either one) or Clinton (either one)?

Actually I think Hillary Clinton could sport a mohawk quite nicely, but when it comes to fighting wars, invading sovereign nations and facing down a nuclear superpower, Republicans have more punk points than Shane MacGowan and Sid Vicious put together.

Sure, Kennedy had the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban missile crisis, and Clinton had Somalia and Kosovo, but these don't compare to the bravado of Panama, the Cold War arms race, Iraq, and Iraq again.

So, back to Rove - the epitome of aggressive domestic political campaigning. He is ruthless, determined, effective, flirts with illegality. In short he has a domestic record that is comparable to the Bush administration's foreign policy record and 2003 invasion of Iraq.

With a reputation as the man behind the man, much like Dick Cheney, of course Rove's adversaries are going to be suspicious when he says he's done. Additionally they are jealous.

They're jealous because with an individual as shrewd and effective as Rove, Democrats could have had Gore in the White House, or even Kerry.

But this comes back to that certain moral fiber. Republicans know how to attack and Democrats are generally poor defenders because they want to be attackers but lack the aggressiveness.

For Democrats this is scary stuff.

It's scary because in this sense conservatives are extremely radical and unscrupulous. In comparison Democrats come across as victims - always seeking compromise, sharing, peace and hoping to all get along, but rarely able to take control of a campaign situation.

When Republicans like Rove go after a power position, they believe not in sharing power, but taking power.

Just taking power, whatever the cost, is a simple plan, and with its simplicity comes effectiveness. Democrats want to take power in order to share power, but this policy represents a basic weakness because it can be targeted as a paradox that signifies indecisiveness.

Once Democrats have to address such an accusation, a justified accusation at that, they're on the defensive, reacting, fighting to stay above water and depending on the buoyancy of a political platform - pro-choice, anti-war, pro-social services, pro-environment - to float them into office.

So now many Democrats are very afraid. Rove, a very effective and shrewd political architect, is leaving the spotlight and the Democrats who fear the worst are jumping to the conclusion that he is planning another attack.

Some think he may be submerging in hopes of torpedoing Democratic presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

On the political timescale this would be a sudden move, and some days I get the sensation that both Obama and Clinton may just be capable of running each other aground by November 2008.

Other commentators say that the target is 2012. And if the performance of the Democrat-led Congress is any indication, a Democratic president from 2008 to 2012 would likely line things up just right for a Republican resurgence.

So let's say that the Democrats take the White House next year. It may happen, but it will be on an anti-war plank and once in the house, that president will have to walk that plank.

Now, traditional Democratic behavior would drag U.S. involvement in Iraq through all four years and leave that party broadside and prime to be sunk in 2012 for continuing the current administration's failure.

What that president will have to do immediately to have any credibility by 2012 is to pull a Republican move and unilaterally withdraw from Iraq - be a leader, take power, take control, and bring the Democratic vision to this country. Period.

Oh, and recruit Karl Rove.

Reheated Meaty Treats

Spam always leaves a bad taste

In my opinion

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 8/13/07

Urgent!

Dear Friend, Sorry to be intruding on your privacy. I am Clancy Jefferson, a solicitor at law. I am 59, a citizen of Great Britain, living in Middle Eastern Nation.

Please do not feel sorry for me as you read this.

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Turn yourself soft to hard in an instant.

A breakthrough in science has created a diet supplement guaranteed for penis enlargement. Tests show that males from around the world after using MegaCock plus for 5 months average increase was 3.4 inches! Fantastic, PERMANENT RESULTS.

Thanks to John from the United States and David from Australia for sharing before and after pictures and letting us show them on our Web site.

Before investing in this fantastic product, I was the personal legal consultant for highly reputable national of your country who used to work here as head of a petroleum servicing company.

William H. Bowling III, aged 74, made a fixed deposit of fund valued at USD$18,750,000 with a Financial Company here and unfortunately lost his life when tainted meat products were served aboard Syrian charter boat shortly after leaving Jimbaran Bay Luxury Resort in Bali, killing all 37 aboard.

Next of Kin documents except others vital to location still in my possession.

Recently, Governing Board of Financial Company contacted me to produce Next of Kin to lay claim to Fund or be confiscated by Financial Company.

All attempts proved unsuccessful, but contact with the embassy of your country leads me to this proposal.

Under clear and legitimate agreement with you I would like to present you as Next of Kin to claim Fund. You are entitled to 40 percent of Fund, I will take 50 percent, and 10 percent will go to costs of transaction.

Send immediately for confidential processing your name(s), telephone and fax numbers, contact address, bank name and account number.

Do not forget that a transaction of this magnitude requires sincerity and confidentiality. I look forward to your urgent response.

The above composite shows how spam can contain anything, and it has a lot in common with the meat product SPAM® because you really don't know what you are getting, even after you bite in.

According to the Hormel Company that markets SPAM®, it contains only, "ham, pork, sugar, salt, water, a little potato starch, and a mere hint of sodium nitrite to help SPAM® keep its color."

While ham and pork may seem like the same thing to a preserved meat neophyte, per to the SPAM® Web page, "ham is technically taken from the upper rear leg of the hog. While pork can describe meat from several different delicious cuts."

Most of us take this to mean that pork can be anything - anything - that comes from a dead pig. Mmmmm- delicious.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission describes spam as "unsolicited commercial e-mail." While it is made of the same parts as a legitimate e-mail - subject, body, closing, and a little bit of information to keep you interested - what it actually contains is usually as random and mysterious as your average undisclosed pork cut.

Even if you've never been curious enough to open a spam message, you can pretty much tell from the subject lines what categories of contents there are.

My favorite is penis enlargement products. Just how big, how fast, I always wonder.

Then there are the solicitations to claim your big prize, the hot stocks to watch, the cheap prescription drugs and the ubiquitous scams that claim to be from individuals who need your help to transfer, invest, claim, or donate large sums of money.

It is this last sort, known as the Nigerian scam, that actually gave rise to a Web site dedicated to scamming the scammers.

The site, 419eater.com, serves as a forum for individuals who are "scambaiting" hobbyists. That is, they respond to scam e-mails in the attempt to lead them on and keep them from pursuing an actual victim.

The code 419 is a reference to "Advance Fee Fraud" in which the scammer will ask for an initial fee payment to initiate the promised return of a large sum of money.

The name "Nigerian scam" was given to this type of fraud because it seemed to originate from Nigeria and other Western and Southern African Nations. However, according to 419eater.com, about half of all 419 scam attempts now originate from other countries across the globe.

Despite the truly global nature of this type of scam, the scambaiting hobbyist has to contend with allegations of racism, and a look at the "Trophy Room" of the Web site gives good reason why.

The site claims that scambaiters do not target any specific nationality or skin color, but the scammers who have been baited are almost entirely African and black.

While the idea behind giving scammers a taste of their own scam may be something to cheer for, a look at the Web site is nauseating, and it absolutely goes beyond good taste.

Much like Hormel says SPAM® could last forever because it's "like meat with a pause button," e-mail spam will always be there, but if you partake in it in any way, it will likely leave a bad taste in your mouth.

I find that parody is the best way to approach both.

Move over motorists

Move over motorists, angry bicyclists are all the rage

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 8/6/07

Forget "share the road" - let's share the road rage.

Motorists may currently have a monopoly on road rage, but cyclists are gaining ground because road rage transcends transportation type and crosses lane designations.

Although I see this trend, most times I am still accustomed to seeing the cyclist-motorist interface as being passive-aggressive. That is, the cyclist passively resists or crumbles under an aggressive honk or shout of a motorist.

But then bikes aren't equipped like their petro-powered relatives. There's little in the world quite as pathetic as the cheery "ding-ding" of a bike bell as a retort to a five second blast from an auto horn - unless it's the "eeerh-eerh" of one of those clown horns some cyclists put on their bikes. Bikes just don't exude the aggression that cars do naturally.

But sometimes the meeting of steering wheels and handlebars is one of aggression on aggression, pedal-power to horsepower - a virtual fisticuffs of transportation righteousness. In these cases it is not the machine under the operator, but the operators themselves who become the center of gravity in a critical mass of mobile angst.

As an anecdote to illustrate the former circumstance of cycling pacifism, about two weeks ago I was driving south on Olive Street, off of 5th Avenue, when the driver of the car ahead of me started losing his cool.

This is a stretch of road without bike lanes, but it is a designated bike route and has a stop sign or light at each intersection.

A woman was cruising along in the southbound lane, displaying all the signs of just being released from a bike rodeo - helmet, reflectors, taking her turn at the stops and even signaling with her left arm each time she slowed for a stop. She could have been filmed for a road sharing training video.

However, just behind her was this 20-foot-long 1970s Oldsmobile boat-mobile. This thing probably came in just shy of 4000 pounds, likely had a V8 built for leaded gasoline and was certainly belching enough light blue exhaust to smoke a horse.

The driver of this dream machine shared the modern sensibility of his auto and began honking his horn at the cyclist, lurching the car menacingly, and swerving as if to dart around her and gain half a car length before the next stop.

Even given the 19-to-1 weight ratio, the woman kept her cool and proceeded to each stop with the flow of traffic in front of her. The most she did to acknowledge the obnoxious auto behind her was to deliver a curt cyclists "stop" arm signal at each stop.

This continued until 11th Avenue, where the cyclist continued straight ahead and the auto roared off to the west.

Such a display of restraint, what some may mistake as timidity, actually takes big balls, brass, huge, massive. But at the same time, a pacifist approach may not actually change the attitude or behavior of an aggressive motorist.

The driver of that Olds probably just looked at the exchange as an annoyance and an anomalous challenge to auto dominance. A display of more open aggression may sometimes have a more productive effect on how people share the roadways.

I witnessed just such an even only a couple days after the Olive incident. I was riding my bike westbound on 17th Avenue and a woman in her mid-20s was about a block ahead of me.

I heard a car, similar to the Olive Street Olds, approaching from behind and moved far right to let it pass. Oftentimes on residential roads I will ride within inches of parked cars' mirrors or swerve in between them to let a motorist pass, and I've seen many other riders use this technique as well.

When the car approached the rider ahead of me, however, she only moved to the right edge of lane, not to the curb.

The driver sped past, shouting, and the cyclist shouted back. The driver slammed on his brakes and made to get out of his car, but the cyclist unflinchingly made forward to meet him.

I saw him glance in his mirror, hesitate, and if a 3000 pound auto can be made to slink off humiliated, he made it so.

Of course these are two isolated incidents and cannot speak to the whole of the roadway sharing experience here in Eugene.

First of all, Eugene is one of the top cyclist-friendly towns I have ever lived in, definitely on par with Missoula, Mont. And for that I salute Eugene.

Secondly, no matter how much some people advocate perfect harmony between bikes and autos, it shall never be. There will always be stereotypical "bad" cyclists who flout the rules of the road just as there are "raging" motorists who would rid bikes from auto roads altogether - one fender bump at a time if need be.

But the bulk of traffic will move courteously and safely on all sides, and that's what we really need. So if motorists and cyclists are to truly share the road, cyclists need to share everything, including a demeanor appropriate to each biking situation.

While each individual responds differently to frustration and confrontation, just as calling out "on your left," is appropriate on a bike-pedestrian trail, in some situations, nonviolently of course, a very courteous "up yours" may be appropriate on bike-auto roads.

jgrenzsund@dailyemerald.com

There was this one time

Memories of the nightmarish nights outlast the good

In My Opinion

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 7/30/07

If things go according to custom, I'll spend about one third of my life asleep. So far I'm about on track.

Roughly speaking, though I've been alive on this planet for a little over 30 years, I've been unconscious, dead to the world, for about a decade. In human terms that is quite a long time, and if I reach 90 I'll have spent the equivalent of my current total age in the world of the unconscious.

There are a lot of theories and studies about why we sleep, what happens when we sleep and what relation our sleeping life has to our conscious life, but I'm interested in a slightly more practical aspect of losing consciousness.

I think of sleep as a bodily demand much like hunger- it is a requirement that will drive an individual to extreme lengths and unexpected means. Much like a lack of food can force someone to consider or resort to cannibalism, lack of sleep can make someone attempt to sleep places that would otherwise be unthinkable.

Most people shun sleeping in cars or bars or under a highway overpass, but necessity is the mother of such actions and sleep will find always find a way into our daily lives. The demon of sleep rarely rests, always preparing to drag one out of the corporeal world and into the hallucinatory state of nightmares and dreams.

Sleeping in a home or hotel can offer a degree of comfort and predictability, but when we choose to or are forced to sleep elsewhere, it can be difficult to find any place where you won't be disturbed, much less a comfortable place where you won't be disturbed.

This experience of sleeping away from home, for those of us fortunate enough to have a home, is greatly determined by four factors: whether it is planned or unplanned, covered or uncovered, with bedclothes or without and of course whether the weather is tolerable or not.

While you have probably had a memorable planned night out that has turned into a disaster, it is the unplanned, uncovered, no-sleeping-bag, crappy weather night out that you will remember forever.

If you have not had at least one of these yet, you may consider yourself lucky, so far, but no one is free from the risk.

The worst night of sleep I have ever spent feels almost too much like a nightmare to have actually occurred.

First of all it was on a bus trip from New York to Great Falls, Montana. Hell to start with. On top of that I had just been dumped by a gorgeous woman who was already sleeping with someone else, I had missed my non-transferable return flight and I had already spent a torturous day and a half on various Greyhounds passing through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and so forth.

At one stop in Wisconsin the marquee at a hotel read, "My boss told me to change this sign, so I did." It was a foreshadowing of the surreal night to come.

Night fell, and between trying to sleep I did my best to foster a smoking habit at each stop. Both attempts failed.

I had almost drifted off at about 1 a.m., when the driver pulled the bus into Fargo, North Dakota. He herded everybody off the bus and when asked when we would continue towards Montana he replied, "I don't know." Then he disappeared.

The two or three benches in the small Fargo bus station were already full, but the small group of guys who headed down the block to see if the porn shop was still open left much of the floor along the walls empty. I took a corner on the floor up against the soda machine and stared out of half-closed eyes.

Between the sleep-deprivation induced hallucinations, the nicotine fidgeting and the recently-dumped depression, Fargo became a lower level of Hell, inhumane torture- worse than Disneyland. Somewhere between the Rage Against the Machine on my headphones and the polyester-clad ladies on the bench across from me I lost consciousness. There were lines of people milling about in circles, shouts and explosions from outside, and zombies pressing up against the frosted glass windows.

I returned to consciousness in the morning twilight, passing out of Bismarck, with a sensation of disorientation, uncertain if the recent experience was real or not.

I have also resorted to sleeping outside in the January snow at 8,000 feet, in the dirt of a parking lot alongside Interstate 90 and on the Gulf Coast sand with nothing but my arm for a pillow. These types of experiences stand out much more boldly than a routine sleep.

Try as I might I can rarely drag the thoughts and experiences of the approximately 10,000 good nights of sleep that I have had out into this conscious world. They remain greatly autonomous, lost unto themselves. But I have found that the more uncomfortable or awful a period of shut-eye is, the larger a part of life it becomes and remains.

Where good comfortable sleep in a familiar bed disappears into non-existence, thousands of unmemorable nights falling into a void resembling premonitions of death, exotic or traumatic sleep remains alive, a piece of life that you can hold on to, speak about, carry, and share.

I look forward to the next terrible sleep, and to keeping another night of life alive in my memory.

Doh!

With a hypothetical mayor, Springfield could have won

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 7/23/07

Springfield, Vt., will host the premier of "The Simpsons Movie." How could Mayor Sid Leiken allow this to happen? How could we, collectively as residents of the Willamette Valley, as Oregonians, allow this to happen?

I was crushed when I heard the news…third place. What a travesty. Like all good Democrats, when something like this happens, I blame those we elected.

I don't live in Springfield, so I did not vote for Mayor Leiken, but as a Eugene resident he was my Springfield mayor, and I hold him accountable for this horrible loss of face.

While lamenting this loss I started musing about hypothetical Springfield mayors and how they would have gotten Springfield, Ore., to host the premier and go down in history as The Springfield.

Sure, a real-life mayor has a lot to deal with that has nothing to do with a cartoon movie, but given the once-in-a-lifetime chance to earn the title of "Simpsons' Hometown," you've got to do it up like it really matters.

Clint Eastwood was the mayor of Carmel-By-The-Sea, Calif., for a couple years in the 1980s, so he offers a great starting point for this voyage through the hypothetical.

Given the low-key reputation of Carmel-By-The-Sea, I doubt Clint had to deal with any of the punks and hard-asses that his characters have had to outwit, outgun and otherwise get the better of.

The police blotter in the local weekly paper, the Carmel Pine Cone, lists complaints such as dogs pooping in yards and rundown cars driving through town. The headline to one of this week's top stories is, "Cat rescuer chastised for trespassing."

I bet our Springfield police and mayor have never paid mind to such infractions and concerns, and if they ever start, I'm sure that the docket will be filled in an hour or two, leaving crank bakers and thieves to their own devices.

But let's say that Mr. Eastwood was given the opportunity to run our Springfield, with the challenge of helping it win national recognition as the closest real-world equivalent to America's favorite trashy cartoon city. I rest assured that Clint would rise to the occasion.

He would wander into town on horseback and in a couple minutes I'm sure he would have no trouble finding someone in Springfield to start a fistfight with. Later, a kind individual would inform him that someone he beat the crap out of was the brother of the feared tyrant who was bent on keeping Springfield down and out of the running in the Simpsons contest.

Eager to make a buck and do the morally right thing at the same time, he would take on a whole small army of well-armed and angry men. Of course Clint would emerge victorious and all the survivors would be free to vote our Springfield into the pop culture history books.

Not everybody would take such a violent approach. Certainly Martin Luther King, Jr. would have taken a different path to lead us to our dream.

I expect he would have given a rousing speech about the visible injustice that would be done not only to Springfield, Oregon, not only to the "The Simpsons," but to the entire nation and its moral fabric if we were to stand by and allow such amoral bias to occur.

He would have advocated nonviolent direct action, like a sit-in at the television station or a march down Main Street and a rally in front of New Max's Tavern.

The city would have ground to a halt and everyone would have realized the gravity of the situation. The online poll would have been overwhelmed with votes and our Springfield would carry its head high, proud of itself and its place in the world.

Some mayoral solutions, however, would be much less involved, or at least much less publicly apparent.

Paris Hilton would have linked free clips of her video to the voting page and the more you voted for our Springfield, the more video you would be able to see.

J. Edgar Hoover would have placed surveillance on everyone he even vaguely suspected of supporting one of those other Springfields. Phone tapping, quiet raids and eventually soft-spoken visits to those suspected agitators would have brought the population in line.

I'm sure Michael Chertoff, head of the Department of Homeland Security, has taken a few notes from the Hoover playbook and would look after our well-being in much the same way.

If Dick Cheney didn't want to organize an invasion, completely destroy the city and then rebuild it as a more democratic and free Springfield, he may just offer to take each one of the non-supporters out hunting.

Hillary Clinton would try to ignore how she supported Cheney and tell you just to vote for our Springfield because you should.

And if it were up to Jimmy Hoffa, though it's probably all he could do, I think he would have even gotten himself dug up in our Springfield just to get a few more votes.

Alas none of this will come to pass. There will be no next time in this Simpsons contest, so we'll have to pretend that we're happy with third place and move on with what we have - our pride and our shame.

Terror Enhancement

Surprise! The government is distorting the law

In my opinion

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 7/16/07

Do you remember John Lithgow as Eric Qualen in Cliffhanger in 1993? If you like trashy action movies as much as I do, I'm sure you recall when he said, "Kill a few people, they call you a murderer - kill a million and you're a conqueror."

I would have liked to see one of the "eco-terrorist" defendants recently sentenced in Eugene put a twist on that line. He or she should have stood up in front of federal judge Ann Aiken and said, "Destroy $40 million dollars worth of private and government property and they call you a terrorist - destroy a whole country and you're a liberator."

Such a B-movie one-liner captures the farce that our federal courts system and our federal government are being reduced to.

Legal measures and definitions enacted to allow the federal government to prosecute terrorists are being selectively tailored to fit cases to which they do not apply. The sentencing of the convicted members of the "The Family," an Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front related group, represent just such a circumstance of misdirected legal angst.

Maybe the FBI and the rest of the Department of Justice are trying to outfit their domestic unrest containment took kits with new gear. Or maybe Judge Aiken is just aching to make a mark on her resume as an anti-terror trailblazer.

Whatever the motivation, neither the terrorism definition in Title 18 of United States Code, section 2332b, nor Federal Sentencing Guideline section 3A1.4, that refers to the USC, are designed for criminals like these arsonists.

USC Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 113B, §2332b(g)(5) reads that "the term 'Federal crime of terrorism' means an offense that - (A) is calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government by intimidation or coercion, or to retaliate against government conduct; and (B) is a violation of" one of a list of over forty specified areas.

Many of the items on the list refer to assassinations, acts involving air piracy, and events relating to nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. In short, most of them are what a reasonable and prudent individual would consider terrorism.

However, I must concede that there is one item on this long list that, per the letter of the code, applies to the defendants. Subparagraph (i)844(f)(2) and (3) of Title 18 read that requirement "(B)" can be fulfilled by proving that a defendant's actions involve a crime "relating to arson and bombing of Government property risking or causing death." There was no bombing or causing of death, but yes, there was arson and risk of death.

But per the spirit of the code, this definition is being erroneously applied. I doubt this same subsection would be applied to a defendant found guilty of the September 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon, though it certainly fits. This reeks of convenient hypocrisy.

In any case, the feds have written a bureaucratic dead end for arson cases. In USC Title 18, Part 1, Chapter 5 is dedicated to arson. However, in this chapter there is but one active section, Section 81. Originally dating to 1948, it refers to arson of items relating to navigation and shipping "within special maritime and territorial jurisdiction."

We need to ask why a section on arson of government property, or any other non-maritime property, is not included in the arson chapter, but accommodation for prosecution of arson is available under the terrorism chapter.

Section 808 of the USA PATRIOT ACT not only provides a terrorism definition for arson of government property, and property "used in interstate commerce," but it also cannibalizes USC Chapter 5, Section 81. That's right. Technically speaking, any arson prosecutable under the federal code is terrorism.

So that is 'how' arson became terrorism. The 'why' can be inferred from the source of how - because arson prosecution is one of the "Appropriate Tools to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism." More cynically, the code is written this way in order to consolidate legal and psychological power in the hands of the federal government.

By prosecuting members of extremist activist groups as terrorists, the federal government has expanded its jurisdiction and set itself up to coerce and intimidate the U.S. citizenry in a manner that may seriously infringe upon the first amendment.

Allowing the sentencing of the convicted arsonists to stand sets an extremely dangerous precedent for more creative sentencing to follow in the coming years.

Once lawyers can argue that an activist's actions move past an intent to "influence" and become "intimidation or coercion," they are half way to a terror sentencing.

Maybe these defendants will be protesters against a G8 summit, or people blocking traffic over immigration reform, or any other event where disruption or destruction of property involved in interstate commerce or communication occurs and anyone providing material support to or harboring anybody involved in such events.

Sympathetic or muckraking journalists even? Perhaps.

Yet there is no recourse against the U.S. government's blatant intimidation and coercion of governments and populations, be it regime change or a "shock and awe" campaign of bombing and death.

So here's another appropriate one-liner: Ask not what you can do for your government, but wonder what your government can do to you.

If it looks like bacon

If it looks like bacon and smells like bacon, it's still pork

In my opinion

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 7/11/07

Who wants $56 million?

That is how much Oregon's 36 counties will be sharing if Governor Kulongoski signs Senate Bill 994, which passed in the closing days of the latest legislative session.

Much of the press about this appropriation, tucked in the last sections of the bill, has highlighted how the funds are an unexpected "gift" for counties that will be struggling once the fiscal year 2007 extension of the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000 expires.

But the distribution of the SB994 funds, and justification behind it, is likely to cause tension for many reasons - and it should.

First of all, the funds are characterized as being a way to help pad Oregon counties' operating budgets in this time of crisis, but they are specifically targeted only at the maintenance of existing county roads. With many counties worried about how they will fund public safety, it is expected that budgets for roads would be slashed long before sheriffs, fire and medical services, which will themselves remain short.

Funding road maintenance will not enable counties to shift dollars they already won't have, once the federal government cuts off support. And we were lucky to see the current extension of federal payments floated through on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars funding bill. We should not expect that again.

Second, the bill appropriates a minimum of $400,000 to each of Oregon's 36 counties, including three that do not benefit from the federal timber-related dollars. Granted, timber counties will take the bulk of the funds - over half to just five counties - but including non-timber counties in a provision meant to aid timber counties undermines the principle underlying the move.

Third, the source of the dollars, which are to be drawn from the Oregon Department of Transportation, is likely to impact projects planned for state highways in various counties. Just because a county receives $400,000, or even a couple million, from ODOT, it does not mean that state roads within the county will receive maintenance. In fact unexpectedly shifting $56 million from the ODOT budget increases the likelihood that some counties will see maintenance or improvement projects canceled for the state roads within their borders.

Lastly, Oregon's counties already receive about $350 million annually from ODOT. If counties are in danger of losing dollars used for essential public safety funding, it makes more sense to directly fund the safety budget rather than fund the roads budget and hope that the counties can then find what they need to fund sheriffs, health and fire departments from elsewhere.

The closing lines of the bill reads: "(this) 2007 Act being necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health and safety, an emergency is declared to exist and this 2007 Act takes effect on its passage." Yet no sections of the bill, which includes sections on funds transfers and judicial salary raises, directly address the public peace, health and safety emergency that Oregon's counties are facing.

This is not a serious attempt to address the very real funding shortfall issue facing our counties which have been dependent first upon timber dollars and next upon federal dollars meant to replace the loss of federal timber sales.

A real long-term solution will address ways in which counties can rebuild their tax bases either by re-invigorating traditional industries or aggressively developing new ones- be it tourism, energy, or something else.

These are the bills our legislature needs to author and pass.

Once people get to know a little more about this sweet gift from the state, they will recognize that this appropriation has nothing to do with counties' budget crises. Pushed through at the last minute and not directly addressing the issue that it claims to, this is pork if I ever saw it.

Normally appropriations like this are labeled at the outset as pork, but our legislature has salted and smoked this funding and packaged it as bacon.

It reminds me of a great friend of mine who swears that she doesn't eat pork, of any kind - not for religious reasons, just out of disgust. Of course she'll even try to deny pork consumption between bites of a bacon burger or bacon - wrapped scallop appetizers. "Bacon is not pork. It's different," she says, "pork is just filthy, but bacon is yummy."

I wonder if our counties' citizens will apply a similar rationale to this $56 million pork buffet. Will they critique it for its short-sightedness and failure to address the issue in a more meaningful way, or will they take it, spend it and deny that it is what it is?

I expect many will do the latter, because our legislature really does make it seem more like bacon, not pork.

Strange things afoot?

Strange things afoot? Blame them on the wind

In My Opinion

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 7/9/07

If you go out and do something really strange in the coming weeks don't be too hard on yourself- it may not be your fault. When you bark like a dog at the bank teller or call the Secret Service about the ship coming from Gliese 876, again, you can blame it on the wind, literally.

There are many places around the world where both anecdotal evidence and serious scientific study has indicated that seasonal winds in some places can actually drive people crazy - the Santa Ana or Devil's Wind in Los Angeles, The Chinook Wind in Calgary, and winds in Geneva and Israel, just to name a few. Though these are among the most documented areas, similar occurrences can happen almost anywhere with hot dry summers - even here in Eugene.

The theory is that hot dry winds from a desert, valley or plain carry with them a high positive ion ratio. To counteract these ions the brain triggers the release of serotonin and melatonin, which in turn triggers an adrenaline release. The adrenaline, however, is not as quickly renewed as the other chemicals, and the body's chemistry becomes unbalanced. Then people go crazy.

But the ions can affect different people in different ways. Those in their mid-twenties and younger may feel euphoric and energetic, while older individuals may experience more adverse results. Some physical effects can be headaches, dizziness, twitching of the eyes and fatigue. Psychological effects can include emotional imbalance, insecurity, irritation and anxiety.

Winds are not the only source of positive ions and their accompanying results. The positive ions from computer screens and a high positive ion ratio during full moons are also believed to cause similar effects. But neither of these can compare to days of extended exposure to a breeze of positive ions, the effect of which is felt by the entire population.

I grew up about 80 miles from where the great plains meet the Rocky Mountains, and thinking back, I am certain the lazy 100-degree air pressing down from Alberta must have carried a bunch of those Chinook ions. At least that would help explain some of the delusions my brother and I had in those summer days.

The Cold War was still a reality and living just an hour south of Malmstrom Air Force Base and its dozens of ICBMs undoubtedly colored our imaginations, but it may have been the winds that pushed us over the edge and saw us hiking out of town toward a distant grassy hill. While looking through binoculars from our yard we had noticed a spindly structure that resembled an antenna. Surmising this belonged to an underground Soviet spy station, we set out to expose the secret base.

It turned out that the copper wire from the small antenna went into the ground and any opening to the hilltop base was too well disguised and hidden for us to find. But the hike did reveal a surreal scene of the brown valley and small town waving like a mirage below us. It also revealed to us our next mission.

We spotted a small smoke plume just a few miles further south of town and determined that this was obviously caused by a recent UFO crash landing - perhaps even the previous night.

We rode out there the next day, stashing our bikes in a creek bottom at the first sign of trucks and people. We walked stealthily through the trees, following just below a ridgeline to avoid being seen by the men in green and yellow fire-fighting gear. They were a recovery team for sure, posing as a USFS fire crew.

The west side of the fire line was abandoned and we crept behind boulders and trees, covering our faces with our hands to protect them from the searing heat from the spot fires, hoping to catch a glimpse of the craft. But the heat and a foot full of hot coals and ash sent us back to the creek and back to town, certain that we had not seen enough to prove there was not a crash.

Days and weeks of high positive ion exposure could not have done anything to hold back our active imaginations, but if nothing else that memory illustrates one of the real issues that divides people and tears families apart - attitudes towards alien contact.

Mass exposure to destabilizing positive ions over the coming weeks may lay bare this hot-button issue that common wisdom would have you avoid at dinner parties. The UFO debate is something everybody has an opinion on and the differences can fracture even the most seemingly cohesive community. Eugene is no exception.

Right here in our town there are those who have been on board alien spacecraft and those who believe that a belief in alien abduction is grounds for institutionalization, those who prepare a shrine for the arrival and those who stock up on 7.62mm ammunition for the day they come, those who support our government's active exploration for contact and those who decry this as waste, those who declare that 'they' have been here for decades and those who debunk such claims, those who long for the intergalactic future of Star Trek and those who think God is the only alien being worth believing in.

So, breathe deep and keep your eyes open. No matter what it is, strange things are bound to happen.

The movement against immigration

The movement against immigration is doomed to fail

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 7/2/07

Tune in. Turn on. Keep them out.

This is the catch phrase for the Unites States' nationalistic culture of xenophobia. Self-deluded, misanthropic and doomed to fail, this anti-immigration sentiment has much in common with former Harvard professor Timothy Leary's endorsement of a drug culture in the 1960s.

During his lifetime Leary dropped more than 5,000 hits of acid in his quest to discover a way of life and living that was better than what U.S. society had made of itself. He thought that use of LSD could be a productive way to become sensitive to our individual and collective human capacity, to attune ourselves with this harmonious potential, and to purge ourselves of artificial and involuntary social impulses and regulations.

The current movement against immigration is based on equally heavy doses of mind-altering "substances" - economic and racial power. We've all heard people dose themselves with these ideas on radio, in print, and in person. "They're taking our jobs. They don't even speak our language." That's all you need to espouse and believe to start trippin' hard on a dangerous reality.

The more a person speaks like this, the more she or he is apt to assemble a version of reality that will support such views. Convinced that such a view is a viable reality, the more extreme and passionate a person is willing to argue that 'this is the way it is.'

This is the state of mind you hear about when people are so high that they believe they can fly, so they leap from a building or bridge. But then gravity takes over and the consequences occur not in the mind's hallucination, but in the hard physics of moving bodies. The economic fear and greed that feed xenophobia work like potent psychedelics, and the leap occurs when we allow or prompt our government to enact immigration and citizenship laws based on racial and economic factors.

We could concede that maybe, just maybe, anti-immigration advocates begin with an innocent attempt to make life better, but especially here in the United States, such an "ignorance-is-bliss" view is at least hypocritical and at worst nauseatingly immoral. According to the U.S. Census Bureau we are a nation that is 98.5 percent immigrants, and you can rest assured it is not the 1.5 percent Native American population that is drafting and enacting immigration laws, though they may be the only group logically entitled to do so.

Instead, current policies and tendencies are being endorsed by a United States citizenry that is continuing the centuries-old tradition of expansion and consolidation of the country's political borders. The United States spent much of the 19th century occupying, invading, negotiating and annexing lands to form a contiguous territory from the Atlantic to the Pacific and this impulse for expansion is manifested in the 21st century as a compulsion to maintain security for this cobbled homeland.

Economics, land and race have never been separate concerns for this country - from a constitution that partitioned rights along lines of race and citizenship, to the displacement of native populations to reservations, to bureaucratic manipulations that denied citizenship and land rights to former Mexican citizens after the northern half of Mexico was lost to the United States by the 1848 treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. This desire to preserve "America for Americans" has been increased by current social fears.

Adding global economic volatility and the Wars on Drugs and Terror to our traditional national insecurity is like the introduction of freebased cocaine to our national psyche, or maybe like dirty methamphetamine cooked up in a motel bathroom - we are a paranoid country, determined to keep "them" out, and not willing to admit that we are them. We are the immigrants of past decades, who came to this land for the opportunities it is rumored to afford. Instead of seeking to mitigate the difficulties encountered by new immigrants entering this mongrel land, we are jealous of our citizenship.

Encouraged by fears of terrorism we are watching this country carry out a de facto militarization of our southern border, local governments are enacting laws requiring proof of citizenship to rent an apartment, and our federal government is unable to come to terms with the historical reliance upon immigrant population and labor, be it legal or illegal.

Laws are an unavoidable part of our social organization, but when we approve laws, we need to recognize the root impetus for their creation, as well as the ways that they can be manipulated and perverted. Measures ostensibly intended to protect citizens and citizen-workers' rights may actually operate as systems of exploitation - refusing rights and protections to non-citizens, greatly based on racial and economic factors.

All these factors and movements are relevant here in Oregon, a state very proud of its 19th century 'pioneer' immigration that led to statehood in 1859. And as inheritors of this legacy, we have to recognize that most Oregonians, being non-Native American, are immigrants to a foreign land. Population statistics show that the state's new immigrant population is growing and Oregonians' individual and collective behavior in this time of change will demonstrate if we are deluded or not, if we are tripping on economic and racial power or not, and if we deserve to call ourselves citizens of this land.

jgrenzsund@dailyemerald.com

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Modified forests could severely impact natural land

In my opinion | Expel me

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 10/24/07

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Safety allows citizens to turn blind eye to torture

In my Opinion | Expel me

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 10/17/07

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Computer memories are just fleeting dreams

In my opinion | Expel me

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 10/10/07

Separation impossible after acting in the art of war

In my opinion | Expel me

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 10/3/07

Fire this... FUCK CENSORSHIP

Editorial | The purpose of the headline on this editorial is to show that we support college newspapers' right to run profanity

By: Emerald Editorial Board

Posted: 10/2/07

Original Source

Editorial

By: Emerald Editorial Board

Posted: 9/28/07

In my opinion

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 9/26/07

Josh Grenzsund's column about drugs lacks coherent reasoning

Letter to the Editor

By: Scott D. Austin

Posted: 9/25/07

In my opinion

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 9/17/07

In my opinion

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 8/20/07

In my opinion

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 8/13/07

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 8/6/07

In My Opinion

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 7/30/07

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 7/23/07

In my opinion

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 7/16/07

If it looks like bacon and smells like bacon, it's still pork

In my opinion

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 7/11/07

Strange things afoot? Blame them on the wind

In My Opinion

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 7/9/07

By: Josh Grenzsund

Posted: 7/2/07

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