This week is "Love Your Body Week"

by Marie Knapp

People in our society believe that it is not okay to be fat. "Fat" is not even a word that most people enjoy using, and by using other words, it is implied that "fat" is negative in itself. Discrimination based on weight is considered to be socially acceptable practice. This plays out in a number of ways. Fat people have trouble getting health insurance or are forced to pay higher premiums. Stores often to do not carry clothes in larger sizes. The $40 billion a year diet industry depends on people not accepting their size, and perpetuates the idea that fat is problematic. Advertisements, magazines, and other media almost always show fat people as unattractive, lazy, or the punch line of a joke. Kids are sent to weight-loss camps instead of regular summer activities. People are constantly preoccupied with their weight, and reassure others that they are not fat. And most people will not date someone who is fat.

Fat oppression exists even at Lewis & Clark. Gaining weight is considered to be a negative aspect of college life, and people buy into the myth that being fat means being unhealthy. In reality, fat people can be healthy, active, and physically fit, without shedding an ounce in the process. Insecurity about their own bodies leads some people to criticize fat people for imagined laziness and gluttony, while unhealthy skinny people are almost never told to watch what they eat.

The controversy over whether fat people should be allowed to live their lives without having skinny images forced on them or being told they must lose weight to be healthy needs to be further discussed. Our own individual fears about the sizes of our bodies should be put to rest, but this is easier said than done. With this in mind, Hypatia (your friendly campus feminist group) encourages everyone to attend a fun and exciting presentation by author and activist Marilyn Wann this Monday, April 15, at 7:30pm in the chapel, as part of International Love Your Body Week.

Marilyn is the author of "Fat! So?" a book encouraging both womyn(sic) and men to liberate themselves from a society that only values skinny people. She will be presenting her opinions on how the diet industry makes people believe they need to lose weight, and how to overcome the idea that somehow fat discrimination is justified. Mostly, she will encourage the idea that fat people are not endangering their health and don't need to be told that they are. Come hear what Marilyn has to say even if you are skinny, if you hate fat people, or if your fear of fat is making you count the number of calories in your lunch. Come also if you think you are fat, if you want to be fatter, if you love your body, or if you want to be inspired by a fat revolutionary who will help you stop hating your body and start treating it right.

Letters to the Editor

An open letter to the Administration

I am flabbergasted to find myself writing this letter. Throughout my four years at Lewis & Clark I have seen countless controversies, both big and small, come and go. Sometimes I participate, sometimes I observe, and sometimes I don't know what has happened until it's over. Until now, however, I had not encountered a moment in which I felt that the college so truly deserved my scorn. Over these past weeks and months, I have read the Pio Log with an eye to Buzzy's columns regarding faculty governance, I have participated in a seemingly endless discussion about the responsibility of the college to contracted workers, have read a report and attended an informational meeting about the uselessness of diversity at Lewis & Clark. They have all been rather interesting.

So, as a business (and I have been assured that LC is a business), what sorts of responsibilities does the college have to the people who work here? Does the college have a responsibility to allow professors (the most highly educated people of our society) to govern themselves? Despite the painfully obvious answer, I guess that jury is still out.

Does the college have a responsibility to help educate the janitors who work for the college but who are paid by Skyline? The jury has decided No. From a business perspective LC is like any other business in that we are not obligated to provide employee benefits to workers if we aren't the ones paying them. But the crux of the problem is not the issue of who pays the workers. The crux is that we are not a business comparable to ANY other. This college directly employs (again) the most learned people of our society, and produces yet more fine thinkers. Yet amidst all of the knowledge, reason, intellect, and protest bombing around this place, those that determine the direction of this college remain remarkably untouched. If it is not our responsibility to ensure that society progresses instead of remaining pitifully stagnant, who's is it? If institutions of education don't make an effort to address the problem of education in this country, who will?

And as I pose these questions, it occurs to me that LC's administration is not interested in addressing the progress of education nor of society. If they were, the CAP report could not have so ignorantly suggested the "phasing out" of numerous diversities on this campus while uselessly core-ing away students' academic options.

Lewis & Clark College is evidently under the influence of an administration that decreasingly values international diversity, international studies, study abroad, the miscreants that roam the campus, and the upstarts that educate them. Nor does it esteem the very curriculum of that hallowed Inventing America. Don't proselytize to us about the values of democracy in that ever-loved class and then remain apathetic in the face of our dissent. I, for one, will not say, to hell with it, I'm out of here. Hasta la victoria.

-Amber Spradlin

Crew Team Disappointed with PioLog Coverage

It was disappointing to open the last edition of the PioLog and find that the only mention of the crew team to date was a single paragraph on the second page devoted to the unfortunate boat accident that occurred last month. While ultimate Frisbee, basketball and softball all merited mention in the sports pagesólast time I checked crew was a varsity sportórowing was relegated to general news, and then only included due to the sensational nature of the story. To look at the paper, one would think that all we do is screw around on the water of the Willamette, but there's a little more to it than just very early mornings.

For instance, during spring break as the majority of the campus left in no small hurry, we were here and rowing twice a day. It went something like this: wake up, row, eat, sleep, row, eat, sleep, repeat. I've never been so physically exhausted in my life, but there are no words to describe the feeling of a boat gliding underneath you, or of eight pair of arms and legs working together to achieve a goal, the things that make the work worthwhile. We continue to train twice a dayómornings on the water and afternoons in the weight room or on the ergs or other aerobic workoutówith approximately twenty-four minutes worth of racing left in the season to prove ourselves. We're currently in the middle of spring racing, a few short weeks that we've trained all year for. And I do mean all year: the distance races are in the fall, winter training is from November to February, and then the fun of the spring sprints begins. It's a lot of training for a very few races.

Which is why it's disappointing to read the calendar of campus events or the list of sporting eventsómentioning the games of every other varsity sportóin the Log every week and never see mention of a regatta. They're every Saturday from now until Finals week; this weekend we race at the Husky Invitational at UW, and next week is the Governor's Cup regatta in Salem.

I'd also like to take issue with the article in question for a moment: the coxswain is responsible for his boat, yes. But to imply that he "ran" into the fishing boat, or that he was not paying attention to the direction of the boat does a great disservice to these members of the team who do just as much as the rowers themselves. Simultaneously encouraging us to pull harder and work more efficiently, they steer through the mazes of fishing boats that congregate around our dock every morningóI would not wish for this job myself, and I have an incredible amount of respect for these team members who keep us rowers safe every day. What happened that morning was not a lapse of concentration on the coxswain's part or the result of some mistake in his steering. It was an accident; they happen; the situation was dealt with quickly and calmly.

To my teammates: let's continue making the effort to build this team into the best team it can be. Here's to the Willamette, the breakfast egg line, and to LC Crew.

-Marissa Reddy

CAP will compromise

Sierra Jenkins

It can be difficult to tell small, liberal arts colleges apart. They tout the same benefits: small classes, increased interaction with professors, a sense of community, easy access.

The recently released report of the Commission on Academic Priorities would have LC be even more difficult to tell apart from other liberal arts colleges. The commission has many good suggestions for improving the academic program at LC, many of which copycat similar programs or systems at comparable schools. The danger is that, in implementing these changes, the committee unnecessarily moves away from LC's most distinctive quality- its international focus.

The CAP committee compared LC to schools with similar rankings in U.S. News and World Report, including Colorado College, Earlham, Occidental, Skidmore and Willamette. Overlooking such factors as location, these schools are remarkably similar in curriculum. Many, in fact, also boast an international outlook. For prospective students, deciding between these small, liberal arts colleges can come down to minor differences. Often it comes down to a general feeling of what the college stands for. For many current students at LC, the vague attraction was LC's international focus.

LC makes itself out to be internationally aware, drawing attention to its International Affairs department and its unique and highly regarded study abroad programs. The second sentence of the on-line viewbook for prospective students calls LC "a national college with a global reach," and the entire booklet is infused with international flavor.

The CAP committee, going the opposite direction of most colleges, has recommended that the college actually narrow its international focus. Recommendation 1 in the CAP report is that LC should focus on Europe, the United States, and Asia, emphasizing China and Japan, in that order, followed by the Middle East. Latin America and Africa are deemed relatively unimportant in terms of both history and the future. Later in the report, the committee recommends eliminating the Latin American Studies minor completely.

The CAP committee's prioritization of regions of the world makes logical sense with perhaps the exception of placing China ahead of Japan in terms of relative importance. However, it is more important to compare how international studies classes fit into the overall scheme of disciplines. A school known for its international focus shouldn't be cutting back internationally focused departmens to the point that it is choosing between regions. How can someone be a true citizen of the world if they are ignorant of Latin America, which is contiguous to the U.S., and Africa, one of the areas most needing development?

The CAP's recommendations make me wonder for what purpose do they hope an LC education will prepare students. The mention of the importance of China's "contemporary strategic importance" would imply that the CAP committee would like to see fewer alumni in the Peace Corps and more in the State Department. This is to imply that an ignorance of countries not of immediate importance to the U.S. and wielding little power, although containing much of the world's population, is perfectly acceptable.

If Lewis & Clark wants to be a school with an international focus, not just give the appearance of being one, it must place the study of all regions of the world before other areas and not get to the point where regions must be prioritized. I value a traditional education. I think it's important to know our own cultural traditions before we can really try to understand others'. I even think Inventing America is worthwhile. However, just because we live in a nation that is a world superpower does not mean we must think only in Western terms of power and influence, holding our own tradition as the only one. I believe that the purpose of a liberal arts education is, indeed, the opposite.

Editor-in-Chief
  Erin Haick
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Are you there, God? It's me, James

by James Christie

We've all heard the following the story involving someone's 21st birthday. They go out drinking with their friends, getting really drunk, and end up doing something really embarrassing such as blacking out, vomiting into a toilet for a few hours, or on their drive home plowing through a troop of girl scouts. In fact this is what everyone expected me to do last week on my 21st birthday.

My loved ones would call me up and after wishing me a happy birthday would ask, "so are you going out and get s__tfaced tonight?"

"I don't know, Grammy."

"Well I remember my 21st birthday when IÖ" and then my grandma would go into this long winded story involving her 21st birthday, bathtub gin, and temporarily going blind for a few days.

I got similar stories from my mother, father, sister, aunty, and even my Christian fundamentalist uncle involving their own 21st birthdays.

"Nephew, just remember 1 Timothy 5:23 and John 2 when you're getting sloshed the same way those loyal followers of Jesus were in Galilee that night," my uncle told me.

I didn't have to have the heart to tell any of my loved ones that I was forsaking the family tradition of drinking myself silly on the night of my 21st birthday. It's

not that I never drank or that I had too much homework. I just didn't have the desire to drink nor did I understand why my family was making such a big deal out of it. It's not like they drink a lot.

I started feeling really guilty after awhile especially when I started thinking of all those alcoholic teenagers who were still unable to legally buy themselves alcohol while I being legally able was just sitting on my arse reading Emile Durkheim. If one of them had been 21 instead of me they would have been satisfying their loved ones expectations by drinking a lot of alcohol.

I could ask one of my under aged hall mates if I could buy them a 12 pack and insist they drink it. Maybe that'd make me feel better.

"Hey Tommy, can you drive me down to the liquor store so I can buy you a 12 pack and you can get drunk on it?"

"AhhÖokay. I'm just curious but why?"

"I just turned 21 today and I feel bad about not getting sloshed tonight as my family expects me too. So I guess by helping you get sloshed I'm somehow going through that ridiculous rite of passage."

"OhÖokayÖyou're paying for it right?"

"No, I'm might be feeling guilty but I'm not pathetic." (Of course, some would say that feeling guilty about not drinking on your 21st birthday when your family expects you to is pathetic. I can't believe I was feeling peer pressured to drink alcohol by my family. DARE never taught me how to handle situations like this.)

"I don't have money."

"Damn it!"

Now what was I going to do to alleviate my guilt? HmmÖmaybe I could call one of those pornographic hotlines located in a Southern State. I'm pretty sure you have to be 21 to use them. So calling them legally for the first time would kind of be like buying my first legal drink.

RingÖringÖringÖ "Hello, and welcome to 1-800-Wet-Bell, my name is Scarlet O'Horny and I am soÖ"

"Hey do you have to be 21 to ëuse' this?"

"No, you just have to be 18ÖohhÖI like ëem youngÖI'm sooÖ"

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," I said as I hung up the phone frustrated and still feeling guilty. But there was nothing I could do so I went back to reading Durkheim and my 21st birthday ended without myself exercising the legal right to buy alcohol.

The next day I walked down to a sports bar and entered what had been forbidden territory just two days before. I didn't know what to do so I did what everybody on "Cheers" would do. I sat down at the bar.

"What can I get for you?" the bartended asked.

"I don't know. I've never done this before. Something under five dollars that's good."

"Okay," he said as he served me a Pabst Blue Ribbon.

And as I finished my beer I remember thinking, "So this is what adulthood is like? When I was a child it always seemed more glamorous- more fulfilling."

Leash your mutt

by Megan Flowers

Now that the sun has graced us with her presence a few times the LC dogs are beginning to appear. I have two huge complaints about the majority of LC dog owners. First of all, the dogs are hardly ever on a leash. Secondly, the owners rarely clean up after their mutts.

Few owners would accept the idea that their precious angel is not loved by all. Shockingly enough though, many people do not care for dogs, and several are even afraid of them. Again, most owners look at their pup's face and question how anyone could not love such a cute mug. Owners even seem to think that dogs off leash are better behaved than if they're leashed. Do not delude yourselves. I have rarely seen a dog that well trained.

I'm not saying that all off leash dogs have owners like the San Francisco couple whose dog mauled their neighbor to death. I even own a dog myself, but she's always leashed. So is this a holier-than-thou commentary? No, of course not, I'm better than that. I've even broken dog owner etiquette by bringing my leashed dog into some of the buildings, but only when there are few people around and it's of a short duration of time.

On the other side of the fence I heard a rumor that someone kicked one of the library dogs in the face. Whether or not you like dogs there is no reason to kick a tethered animal. If you see someone abuse an animal but you can't bring yourself to lecture him or her face to face, at least report it to Campus Safety.

Tips if you want to be a better LC dog owner:

Do not let your dog off leash unless it is under a very well trained verbal command.

If you do let your dog off leash keep it close to you. Some people fear dogs; respect that.

Clean up after your dog. That means bringing bags with you.

If your dog is a barker, or generally doesn't like other dogs, do not bring it to campus.

Bring water for your dog. If you leave your dog tethered to a post for two hours outside the library at least have water for the poor thing. (If you leave your dog tethered to a post for two hours outside the library, why the hell bring the dog in the first place?)