Last Tuesday, or perhaps it was Wednesday, I was riding my bicycle home down Alder St. While passing The Lorax, I noticed a man strapped to a light post, climbing up. He was perhaps 25 feet high. He seemed intent on his task, sliding the straps and pulling himself up.

I rode past, not thinking much about it. Then, Thursday afternoon, I saw a press release with his picture in front of the capitol building. He is part way up a flagpole with a banner hanging under him that reads, “Schools or trees? We want both.” According to OregonLive.com, Perry Graham, who climbed the flagpole in Salem, is a member of the Cascadia Forest Defenders. On their website, the group expresses their desire for Gov. John Kitzhaber and the Oregon Land Board to “decouple public school funding from state forest management.”

The land board approved a plan for the Elliott State Forest last October which notably increases logging and clear-cutting with the revenue contributing to the Common School Fund.

By chance, I met Perry at a friend’s house about two hours ago. He, our mutual friend, and other friends were hanging out, discussing our midterm woes and other things when he brought up a photograph one of his fellow protesters took using his phone.

Myself: ”That was you? I saw you practicing the other day!”

Graham: “On Alder?”

Myself: “Yeah! How high were you in the picture?”

Graham: “Probably about 60-70 feet.”

Myself: “How was that?”

Graham: “It was really surreal. I strapped myself to the pole and I was like, ‘Oh fuck, I’m on the pole. Oh fuck, I’m climbing up. Oh fuck, there’s a cop right there.’ ”

Myself: “What were their reactions?”

Graham: “I didn’t talk to them. I had a liaison communicating information.”

Myself: “Oh, I see. Was that because you were so high up that they couldn’t, like hear you without yelling? Or because you didn’t want to talk to the cops?”

Graham: “I mean, kind of both”

Myself: “Right. So, how long did you train for this?”

Graham: “I practiced for about 5 weeks before and pretty intensely the last week.”

OregonLive.com’s post:

Perry Thompson Graham, 23, climbed about 80-feet up the pole at 7:45 a.m. He stayed aloft for about 90 minutes before he came down voluntarily.[...] After his arrest, Graham was taken to the Marion County Jail. He will be charged with disorderly conduct, criminal trespass and criminal mischief, according to a police press release.ell, Wednesday morning, climbs flag pole in front of the capital building in Salem.

The flag was still hanging when Graham descended the flag pole. Apparently, rented equipment was needed to remove Graham’s protest banner from the flagpole.

If you haven’t yet, skim it now. More nods and firm handshakes for Sam Stites and the ODE for its front page exposé: the cost of the Ducks Football, Inc Rose Bowl trip last January.

Well the magic number is $1,599,307 and the magic word is muthafuckinexcessive.

$220,107 was spent on transporting the 212-piece armada of players and staff for nine days. That’s $1038 per immortal football being.

Oh wait. Food and lodging for the fleet was $404,356. That’s an additional $1907 per person.

So in all we’ve got $2945 per footballer.

But more curiously is how much the Athletic Department spent on transporting an “official party” to accompany the armada: $123,851 for the transportation of 56 people. Now that’s $2211 per “official party member.”

Food and lodging was $95,483 for the civilian gaggle, an additional $1705 per person.

2211+1705=$3916 per official accompanying partygoer.

The ODE tells us that “the official party consists of athletic department officials, representatives of the University’s third-party rights holder IMG, and 6 students whose names were redacted from the list.”

It included UO Provost Lorraine Davis and “family” along with OC darlings Ben Eckstein and Katie Taylor.

 

Ah, it’s all so clear now. Thank you, Sam Stites. Thank you, dearest ODE.

The numbers y’all found gives much elucidation on as to why the Athletic Department can gross $88 billion  but can only afford to..

1. Pay only 3% overhead back to the UO when other departments like University Housing pays %7

2. Run the athlete-only Jacqua Center on intended-for-students general state funding until this lucky break

3. Not set up an academic scholarship that was agreed to be started in 2006

4. Try and weasel the ASUO into giving them a budget raise, then subsequently deny any chance of more student tickets at Autzen

Because now I know that the Athletic Department has more important things on their tab. Like paying for lavish, all-inclusive $3916 So-Cal getaways for our greedy, beloved Athletic Dept bureaucrats, some “third party rights-holders,” and students like Katie muthafuckin’ Taylor.

Read the tab itself here.

 

 

 

Adam Nathanial Yauch, a great hero and matchless artist of the innovative group The Beastie Boys– the three original proponents of fighting for our right to party– has passed away. He sadly lost his long battle with cancer this morning.

Having announced his battle with a cancerous parotid gland and lymph node  in July of 2009, MCA, along with fellow Beasties Ad-Roc and Mike D, postponed their new album and tour. Just last month, The Beastie Boys were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame– only the third hip-hop group to accomplish this.

I have to hand it to ‘em. This year, the Ol’ Dirty Emerald has truly lived up to the name we’ve given them. They’ve been getting dirty. And I mean real filthy. There was this, and now there’s this—heavy ODE assailment on the Oregon Students Association’s (OSA) involvement in the ASUO.

Well this time around they’ve got a gaggle of former ASUO members who have come out of the woodwork to accuse the OSA of giving hush-hush endorsements to ASUO executive candidates. These prize candidates, coincidentally, usually end up winning the elections. Apparently this has been going on for years.

In a fucking stretch of a comparison, the former ASUO gaggle has romantically dubbed this process “Fight Club.” Look, if we’re going to compare this shady bullshit to a David Fincher film, it had better be to Se7en. Why? Because the thought of all of this makes me want to chop off Gwenyth Paltrow’s head and wrap it in a package.

According to Sam Dotters-Katz, the OSA, or an outside organization, picks out “a student leader as their preferred ASUO presidential candidate well before elections, and aids that individual with campaign trainings, resources and potentially other forms of assistance.”

Yeah yeah alright. My favorite testimony though, comes from former ASUO Senator/Fight Club Member Sara Hamilton:

“When I was an intern and was selected to run on a slate that outside organizations supported, I was asked to meet in the basement of a bank on a Saturday morning,” Hamilton said. “I have no idea what organizations they were affiliated with. They told us that outside volunteers would be brought to campus during the weeks of the campaign to help us out.”

Okay that’s kinda Fight Club. But I wish she elaborated on how she made her way into the basement of a bank. I also wish she had elaborated on how banks have basements and how they’re available for student advocacy organizations to hold secret meetings in.

Anyway, in the ODE there was another nice anecdote from another member of the former ASUO gaggle about an overheard conversation in an elevator. She said she heard a United States Student Association (USSA, parent of OSA) coordinator from an Arizona campus apologize to an ASUO presidential candidate for the organization not choosing her. That sorry ASUO presidential candidate in the elevator lost the election that year.

Ultimately, the OSA is accused of this ASUO election/ASUO executive meddling to ensure they are funded the upcoming year.

After that though, the ODE article’s thesis dilutes itself like usual. There are contrary statements from other OSA-loyal gaggle members that try to assure that the OSA remains strictly non-partisan during elections.

So I’m taking this Logic & Inquiry class. And before we get into any conclusions, I want to practice my reasoning by laying out the factual OSA premises for you.

1. The Oregon Student Association (OSA) is an outside organization, a statewide advocacy and organizing non-profit that:

• a.Lobbies in “student interests”
• b. Organizes “student campaigns” on college campuses
• c. Supplies students with “materials, field packets, formal publications” in order to campaign
• d. Provides student “training & leadership development”

2. An OSA representative teaches the ASUO internship class

3. The OSA is funded by the I-Fee.

These, in addition to the former ASUO/Fight Club gaggle testimonies, clearly suggest corrupt OSA influence and involvement in the ASUO.  But emphasis should be added to “suggest.”

Are the effects of the OSA’s influence and involvement actually measurable, accountable?

No.

Is anything going to come of this?

No.

Why is this important then?

Well, the ODE has been hard at work with a compelling series of articles about an almost certainly inappropriate relationship between the ASUO and the OSA. It’s important because this is really promising student journalism. Great job, Emily.

Really? That’s it?

Yes. Welcome to the ASUO. The slimy, unaccountable, unchanging thicket of politically driven students (and non-students! <3 OSA, OSPIRG, etc.) that use student I-Fee money to pay the salaries and pursue the far-flung interests of lobbyists not affiliated with the UO. All we can do is talk shit on the OC blog. So start talkin’

In an unsurprising turn of events, the ASUO Constitution Court decided Friday that they cannot—or will not, rather—remove Ben and Katie from office.

It’s finally official. The ASUO Executive can literally get away with anything.

The Commentator would like to officially congratulate Ben Eckstein and Katie Taylor for the utter devoid of punishment they have received after maintaining a year’s worth of unremitting, unsurpassed cunning and deceit.

The crux of the Court’s decision is below, and you can read the entire decision here.

 Without much more than circumstantial evidence,

this Court simply lacks any persuasive basis with which

to reach a factual conclusion of the Respondent’s intent.

While the Court could speculate as to the Respondent’s

intent, it is the Petitioner’s burden to produce such

evidence. Therefore, this Court cannot conclude that

the Respondents committed an egregious violation

because there is insufficient proof of the Respondent’s

intent in committing the fraudulent act.

The Oregon State Board of Higher Education has drawn up a proposal for the possible establishment of those independent, institutional boards for every school under the Oregon University System that we’ve been a hurtin’ for.

We have so vainly sought after this elusive concept of an “independent governing board” after the OUS  fired our much-missed President Richard Lariviere.

Well the fact that a proposal has been proposed should be a sign of progress, right? Wrong. Read the excerpt that describes the institutional board’s role in the hiring and firing of university presidents below, and read the entire proposal right hurr.

OUS recommends a system in which the institutional board hires and
reappoints the president with the advice and consent of the OSBHE.
Presidential evaluations should be a joint effort between the institutional
board, the Chancellor, and the OSBHE member serving on the institutional
board. Termination should be the responsibility of the institutional board after
consultation with or with the advice and consent of OSBHE.

Alright OUS. We wanted an institutional board so we could do these things without your advice and consent. Why are you so fucking unaccommodating? Give us autonomy, or give us death.

Anyway, blah blah blah, they will vote on it in June. Read some statement from some OUS bureaucrat named “Di,” here.

 

Sunday, April 22.

The ASUO Constitution Court heard the Dotters-Katz v. ASUO Executive grievance publicly today, and the OC couldn’t cover it live on the blog because there weren’t any fucking outlets in the room. Not sorry.

The grievance was filed by former ASUO President and current UO law student, Sam Dotters-Katz, against our current, beloved ASUO President Ben Eckstein & Vice President Katie Taylor. You can read our earlier coverage of the allegations here,  but the grievance is basically an attempt to compel the Con Court to “invalidate the office” of the current ASUO Executive due to the “egregious misconduct” that was the sneaky, conflict-of-interest contribution Charles Denson made to the Ben & Katie ASUO presidential campaign of last year.

Anyway, the ASUO Constitution Court put on quite the show. They wore robes and had DPS officers present. It was all very pseudo-official.

We were all wondering why this was happening in the first place. Because if you know anything about anything, you would know that grievances are filed on the reg amongst the ASUO but never are these grievances heard publicly, and hardly is the Con Court ever seen. So to start, the Court explained that the hearing was being held because of “the merit of the petitioner’s claim, and the stature of the respondent’s office.”

The introductions of both Sam Dotters-Katz—who will be referred to from now on as “SDK”—and Ben Eckstein—who will be referred to from now on as “Beckstein”—were short and disjointed due to the heavy interruption by the Court. I can assure you that both SDK and Beckstein were visibly upset that they couldn’t hear themselves talk for the fifteen consecutive minutes they were expecting to have to do so.

I.

This first part of the hearing was conducted with the burden of proof on the petitioner (SDK). It went a little like this.

1) The Court asked about the statements Beckstein made in this Ol’ Dirty Emerald article. SDK says they’re proof of guilt. Beckstein says that his statements were speculative.

2) The Court discussed the varying definition of “fraud.” SDK used a Webster’s definition. Beckstein used a 5-part US Legal Dictionary definition, claims that SDK would have to prove that respondents were guilty of all five facets of the definition.

3) The Court asked when both petitioner and respondent found out about Denson’s contributions: SDK heard it through “the rumor mill” in the days before the ODE article came out. Beckstein found out a short time after the transaction had been made. Our favorite response came from VP Taylor, who cited “I read about it in the paper like everyone else.” God we love her.

Then there was a brief recess because Chief Justice Schultz said it was “getting hot in here.”

 

II.

The second part of the hearing was framed in a way in which the Court could hypothesize the guilt of the ASUO Executive. Listed below is what was touched upon.

1)     The Court asked respondent about the detrimental effects on the election that could have been caused by Denson’s contributions: Beckstein asserted that contribution transactions wouldn’t have been known to voters, and that the Ben & Katie campaign was openly pro-OSPIRG so nothing was hidden.

2)     The Court asked respondent whether or not Denson intended to change the outcome of the election with his contributions: Beckstein says that “even if he had that intention, he couldn’t achieve that end by making a contribution.” And if the election results were indeed affected by his contribution, Beckstein cited ASUO Elections Coordinator Cedar Cosgrove to argue for the “ambiguity of the elections rules.”

3)     The Court asked petitioner about the suggested remedy for this injustice: SDK made clear that he was not asking for “impeachment for non-fulfillment,” but for the Court to “invalidate” their winning of office. SDK went on to say something like “If compromising election information comes up later, they candidates aren’t immune to the rules, just because they kept a secret for so long or because there’s a month left in their term.” Beckstein rebutted saying that SDK was asking for “the disenfranchisement of thousands of voters.”

4)     The Court asked respondent a GOOD QUESTION that was along the lines of, “Had Katie & Alex been elected this year, and had their little political sabotage problem come to light far after their instatement into the ASUO Executive (in the way that this claim has), should they be removed?” Beckstein said he couldn’t answer because the facts were too different and because he was not part of the campaign. The Court rephrased the question to be more general, along the lines of, “Is there any circumstance in which violation of election rules can constitute removal of office?” Beckstein said yes, but not in this case. Beckstein went on to say, “The ASUO Constitution is supreme over election rules once a President and Vice President have been instated in office.” SDK thanked the Court for the questioning, and thought that Beckstein’s statement was crucial by admitting that there is indeed circumstances in which an executive office can be invalidated at a later date for violations of elections. With this, SDK urged the court to invalidate the current executive.

***

 The end was the best part.

As we approached adjournment, Beckstein argued that SDK’s grievance had political motives. Associate Justice Melka-Benevento apologized and admitted that it was her first year as a Justice, therefore it was her first year in the ASUO. She didn’t know what he meant by political motives. She even asked for him to define it. Of course, everyone else in the room knew what Beckstein meant. Everyone else in the room was an active member of the ASUO or campus media. But this poor, naive, Justice of the Court couldn’t even fathom the fact that our student government is fueled by political motives. I write about this shit on the daily and even I can’t fathom it.

The significance of this doesn’t lie in whether or not SDK has political motivations. The significance lies in the embarrassing truth that the actions of our student body President and Vice President were so serious, and the petitioner’s claim had so much “merit,” that the Constitution Court felt it necessary to hold what was essentially a public trial. Our President and Vice President are being tried for egregious misconduct and the Court is deliberating their removal.

They will deliver their decision by Friday, so yeah. We’ll letchu know then.

It’s over!

Laura Hinman and Nick McCain will assume their positions as ASUO President and ASUO Vice President at the end of the term.

Read some statements here.

DRINK

 

After receiving a bitchy email and having a personal confrontation with the man himself, I’ve decided to report the only good thing that has come from Ben Eckstein’s presidency FOR TWO REASONS:

1)      The Commentator fiercely champions fiscal responsibility.

2)      Beckstein will be publicly humiliated at the upcoming Dotters-Katz v. ASUO Executive trial this Sunday (4pm at the Law School, but we’ll be covering it live here on the blog!) … and we are capable of feeling a very mild strain of remorse.

So here’s what happened.

During negotiations to lower the amount the ASUO pays back to the administration, ASUO Prez Ben Eckstein caught the UO in the act … of overcharging the ASUO by %1 in overhead assessment rates.

The ASUO was being charged %6 when it should have been %5.

6% X 13,217,538 = $793,052
5% X 13,217,538 = $660,877

$793,052 – $660,877 = $132,175

Jamie Moffit, the UO’s new Vice President of Finance and Administration, will be payin’ us back the difference.

*Factoid: Athletics pays %3 overhead while the ASUO pays %5.

Dear Beckstein,

Thanks for saving students the ASUO $132,175. I’m sure your executive staff and the ASUO Senate will somehow manage to allocate this money to some project we’re morally opposed to/the majority of students won’t know about. Nonetheless, thanks a bunch.

P.S. We’ll be Team Sam D-K on Sunday.

Sorry ‘bout it.

xoxo,

the OC

Elections are finally sputtering to a halt. We can tell because notable ASUO proceedings have been pushed to page three of the printed Ol’ Dirty Emerald today. But before we update you on that, we wanted to encourage you waste your time by participating in our ineffectual student democracy before 5pm tomorrow. But most of all, we wanted to seize the opportunity to post this cute vintage pin-up thing.

Yes, we at the OC like to convince ourselves that people actually turn to our blog for this stupid ASUO shit, and thus, here is what we hope to be our final 2012 ASUO elections update. Enjoy.

1)      Irrelevant for the most part, last night Lamar Wise was reinstated as ASUO Senate President by the ASUO Senate. Last week, Con Court removed Wise in response to Senator Lindy Mabuya’s grievance that charged Wise of non-fulfillment.

The ASUO senate body made this decision after considerable efforts to “address the elephant in the room” that was Wise’s removal from office. And by “considerable efforts” I mean circular discussion about Wise’s character, an awkward weighing of the value of “cultural competency training,” and brief shit-talkin’ about current Senate VP (and only other Senate Prez nomination) Harlan Mechling.

*It is being said, yet has not been confirmed that this decision has been invalidated due to lack of senate quorum..

  Also!

 2)      Manny Garcia has removed himself from the current ASUO Elections ballot. He had the nerve (and the bizarre good fortune) to continue to run for a position on the Student Planning Construction Committee (SPCC) on the Ben & Lamar slate after the Katie & Alex campaign was dissolved.

As we had forgotten to report earlier, Blake Sedgley, the campaign manager of We Are Oregon, filed a grievance earlier this week that petitioned Garcia’s presence on the ballot after Garcia had admitted to having taken part in this.

We’re not offering any commentary on the implications of the Ben & Lamar campaign ever allowing Garcia to run on their slate … because it doesn’t make any sense / we don’t care.