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Archive for April, 2009

Big Fire on Franklin

April 14th, 2009 by Vincent

You’ve probably noticed the clouds of acrid smoke choking campus since about 3pm or so. That’s because the building next to the “Louie’s Village” restaraunt down on Franklin Blvd. is currently in the process of burning to the ground.

Franklin is totally closed to traffic at Alder St., so don’t go down there.

[EDIT]

Unless you want to take pictures.

[UPDATE]

According to KEZI, the building is vacant. That means the electricity is probably shut off. My guess? Squatters.

[MORE]

Word on the street is the “Clean Air Project” will be organizing a campaign to ban smoke from blazing infernos from campus, pointing out that they have “a right to clean air.”

Grievance Watch: The Gloves Come Off

April 13th, 2009 by CJ Ciaramella

Today’s ASUO elections grievance count is five for a total of five so far this election season. Coincidentally, voting in the general elections started today.

After a relatively peaceful first week, we have now entered the “FUBAR phase” of elections. From my understanding, most of the grievances were against the Oregon Action Team, but at least one was filed by the OAT concerning this banner. I’ll see if I can rustle up the documents tomorrow.

By the way, I set the official Commentator over/under for grievances at seven. Anyone want to place some bets?

From Our Adoring Fans

April 13th, 2009 by CJ Ciaramella

Last week the Model United Nations was on campus, and we received this thoughtful note from a young highschooler/diplomat:

On a side note, I’ve always wondered about how countries like Iran or North Korea get represented in the model U.N. I mean, is there a 15 year-old girl sitting there calling for the destruction of Israel?

On a further aside, The Groovy Fascists is a good band name.

On Being a Moral Midget

April 12th, 2009 by Vincent

I spend my time studying the Caucasus. It’s what I do in my free time. It’s what I’ll be doing for the better part of the next decade as a graduate student.

So, while it’s no secret that I’m not a fan of our current President, I respected Barack Obama’s repeated promises to recognize the Armenian Genocide for what it was: the systematic murder of ethnic Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

Unfortunately, as with so many other cases, the candidate of “Hope” and “Change” has once again revealed himself to be little more than a cynical opportunist who’s more than content to blow smoke up the electorate’s ass and otherwise continue with the policies of the past, in this case choosing to kowtow to Turkish “sensibilities” rather than live up to promises he’s made in the past.

Christopher Hitchens writes:

President Obama comes to this issue with an unusually clear and unambivalent record. In 2006, for example, the U.S. ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, was recalled for employing the word genocide. Then-Sen. Obama wrote a letter of complaint to then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, deploring the State Department’s cowardice and roundly stating that the occurrence of the Armenian genocide in 1915 “is not an allegation, a personal opinion, or a point of view, but rather a widely documented fact supported by an overwhelming body of historical evidence.” On the campaign trail last year, he amplified this position, saying that “America deserves a leader who speaks truthfully about the Armenian genocide and responds forcefully to all genocides. I intend to be that president.”

[…]

It is now being hinted that if either President Obama or the Congress goes ahead with the endorsement of the genocide resolution, Turkey will prove uncooperative on a range of issues, including the normalization of the frontier between Turkey and Armenia and the transit of oil and gas pipelines across the Caucasus. When the question is phrased in this thuggish way, it can be slyly suggested that Armenia’s own best interests are served by joining in the agreement to muddy and distort its own history. Yet how could any state, or any people, agree to abolish their pride and dignity in this way? And the question is not only for Armenians, who are economically hard-pressed by the Turkish closure of the common border. It is for the Turks, whose bravest cultural spokesmen and writers take genuine risks to break the taboo on discussion of the Armenian question. And it is also for Americans, who, having elected a supposedly brave new president, are being told that he—and our Congress too—must agree to collude in a gigantic historical lie.

Were it any other President, it would be tempting to simply write off Obama’s fairly radical shift as little more than giving more value to good relations with a regional power like Turkey than with a political non-entity like Armenia. But, as noted above, Obama’s pre-election rhetoric on this issue was unequivocal.

Obama campaigned as the candidate of “change.” Sadly, it seems that “change” often applies to the President’s ethics, from “don’t ask, don’t tell” to warrantless wiretapping. Sadly, it seems that we can add the Armenian Genocide to the list.

Way to go, Obama.

Prick.

Piracy out of Africa

April 12th, 2009 by Sean Jin

For several years, as the the Somali state has spiraled down into deeper and deeper chaos, piracy in Somali and international waters around the failed nation has threatened to close off vital shipping lanes through the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. Piracy has only gotten worse in the last couple years as the political situation in Somalia has deteriorated even further.

This last year alone, there were over 40 successful hijackings and over 15 ships are currently being held for ransom, with over 250 crew members held hostage. The first mistake that the civilized world is not taking more forceful action against these pirates. It doesn’t help that the ships’ crews are lying down and waiting for the ships’ owners to pay up the ransom. The fact that these ransoms are being paid is encouraging piracy, because these impoverished young Somali men know they can get a (relatively) easy payout from this. (more…)

You’ll need two forms of official identification and a recent bank statement for that kidney transplant

April 11th, 2009 by CJ Ciaramella

Over at Blue Oregon, a guest columnist has penned a beauty of an article titled, “The right is hunkered down in the hinterlands.” Besides the fallacious assertion that conservatism has now been relegated to extras from Deliverance, I found this passage particularly amusing:

Lately, I’m talking with people who are outraged about health care, but against any type of single payer program, in which “some government bureaucrat” will make their health care decisions. Inexplicably, they seem to prefer those decisions being made by a corporate bureaucrat intent on making a profit.

Someone give this man a remedial economics textbook. You see, it’s that “intent on making a profit” part that’s the difference. Shitty government agencies don’t have to worry about making a profit, which allows them to stay perpetually shitty (e.g. the post office, the DMV, etc). When was the last time you went into a private medical practice to be greeted by some rude hag and forced to sit in a smelly waiting room for a couple hours, only to find that you didn’t have the right type of identification, right type of payment or some other esoteric, mind-bending requirement?

To put it simply (as many here and elswhere have): Imagine the DMV managing your essential life-functions.

“Karl Rules! ‘Cause He Kicked All the Bad Guys in Their Jewels!”

April 11th, 2009 by Vincent

A few months ago, I wrote about the publication of a comic book version of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital. Not to be upstaged by the Japanese, Red China is planning to stage Das Kapital: The Opera:

Normally disdained by revolutionaries as a bourgeois art form, the show’s producers insist that in the confident, modern-day People’s Republic, opera is a novel way to explain the proletariat’s triumph in the class struggle.

[…]

Mr He, who is best known for a stage adaptation of a martial-arts spoof, plans to open the production in Shanghai next year, and will borrow elements from Broadway musicals and Las Vegas shows. There will, however, be no trivialisation of the book’s core messages: an economist from a local university has been asked to ensure that it remains intellectually respecful of Marxist doctrine. [emphasis added]

Marx + opera + Jackie Chan? This could be worth seeing.

(more…)

Debate Wrap Up

April 11th, 2009 by Drew Cattermole

After last year’s ASUO election that featured seventeen grievances and a heated presidential debate, I was pumped for this years annual ASUO shitshow. Alas, the grievance count still remains at an all time low and the debates were anything but entertaining.

The thunder that sparked the debates last year is gone and this debate seemed nothing more than a elongated question and answer session. Half the time the candidates answered questions sitting down, the other half was candidates talking about outreach.

There were two main issues touched upon during the debates. Campaign spending seemed to dominate most of the debates as the first topic questioned the  Oregon Action Team’s morality due to campaign funding. The second biggest issue was whether or not student tickets to football games are more important than funding late night LTD transit to students in the Kinsrow Area.

Sure, over spending on campaign funding is an issue in the current economic climate, but to attack a persons morality on campaign funding is ludicrous. True Blue stuck to one of their main campaign points during the debate stating several times that there campaign budget is $2009 (because it’s the current year, get it? nudge,nudge).

Breakdown of the campaigns during the debates.

Oregon Action Team

Michelle Haley handled questions about the campaign spending with honesty and used clearly explained reasons for her campaign budget, while other candidates just pointed out that they spent more on the slate so far. Ted Sebastian the VP candidate offered up the idea of having a bar on campus ( we will hold you to that if you win).

Students First

Carina Miller talks really fast. I mean really fast. I do not understand what their platform is yet. Gower seemed to be the real talking head during the debates, but came off more pissy than anything else. The guy knows what he is talking but acts like  a stuck up thirteen year old girl when he has the mic.

True Blue

Nick Schultz is really good about public speaking, honestly. But I am getting really tired of hearing about their spending cap for campaign finances. These two were a real bitch to film (shameless plug warning. New Oregon Commentator News with Debate Coverage to be posted in the next week) as Nick Schultz is a solid sixteen inches taller than Lidi Soto. Also Soto seems to get a bad case of the giggles when talking in public.

Emma and Getachew

Boring.

iGov people

These guys don’t stand a chance in the election, but made for the most interesting duo during the debates. Their platform is seriously flawed though. How can they expect a student body in which less than 20% vote on ASUO be responsible enough to allocate $11,000,000 through Duckweb? Props for the effort though.

Conclusion

When are we going to get past campaign finance issues and on to the real issues? We want fire, we want grievances, we want something newsworthy to come out of these elections. Also last year at the elections there was a vast amount of soda and those huge pizzas from pizza pipeline, this year there was carrots, broccoli and ranch dip for snacks. Fucking recession.

Headline of the Day

April 10th, 2009 by Vincent

One dead in pie factory explosion

Primary Results

April 9th, 2009 by CJ Ciaramella

The ASUO primary election results were just announced down in the ASUO office. With my ultra cool media privileges, I got to sit and watch the votes being counted while the candidate mob crowded by the window like cows at a feeding trough. Anyways …

Emma Kallaway and Getachew Kassa (team red) and Michelle Haley and Ted Sebastian (Oregon Action Team) moved on to the general elections. You can see the all the results here.

So Long, Fuckos!

April 9th, 2009 by Vincent

I’d heard about this a few days ago and was mightily amused to see that it was front page news at the Emerald, but that legendary booze and rohypnol joint, the Indigo District, is closing its doors as of Saturday night. While young whippersnappers might know the storied establishment chiefly for date rape and gun battles, when the establishment reopens under under its inventive new moniker “The District”, it will basically resemble… well… pretty much what the Indigo District was like when it first opened its doors, serving food and coffee during the day and switching to coke-fueled douchebaggery at night.

No word yet on whether the new ownership intends to install another stagnant, stinking pool of water with a vomit-clogged drain next to the door.

Elections Issue Online

April 7th, 2009 by CJ Ciaramella

Yep, the 2009 ASUO Elections Issue is now online for your viewing pleasure. Inside you will find everything you never needed to know about ASUO elections, as well as some great articles unrelated to the ASUO and its annual celebration of excess and inanity. Enjoy.

The issue should be back from the printers this week, maybe even in time for the actual elections!

Cyrus Hostetler: In His Own Words

April 6th, 2009 by CJ Ciaramella

If any of you follow Oregon track and field, you no doubt heard about javelin thrower Cyrus Hostetler’s monster throw at the Pepsi Invitational. (It was 271’10” – first all-time in the Pac-10, fourth all-time in the NCAA and an A” standard mark for 2009 IAAF World Championships, not to mention the leading throw in the world so far this year.)

But have you ever wondered what the athletes think of their performances – the ecstasy of victory, agony of defeat, etc? Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, now you can. Here’s part of Hostetler’s account of his throw, from his personal blog (where he goes by “King Cyrus,” natch):

I started my approach and pulled back, did my sideways cross over steps and hit the block leg. my hips cranked thru and my shoulder pressed forward, but my arm was still reached back and had not pulled thru, then at the last second my arm shot thru the point of the javelin, it was like I didn’t even use my arm, it just followed thru. I screamed and shouted. The throw had a low angle but it just didn’t seem to want to come down. I knew it was a big throw. I was thinking that I wanted to start to yell again, lots of throwers yell at their throws while they are in the air, but I normally just think those guys are dumb, and I didn’t want to be one of those guys. Lol. But I was just thinking “don’t scratch this throw!” I made sure the javelin landed before I walked off, and I was thinking “don’t trip” because rules say u  have to exit the runway in control, so hopping off, skipping, falling, tripping out of the runway is a scratch. I exited the ring and I was pumped.

LOL indeed, sir.

Election Observations – T-shirt Review

April 6th, 2009 by Scott Younker

The elections aren’t about the fashion choices of the candidates but the t-shirts for the various campaigns this year suck, and they suck hard.

True Blue – Actually has the cleanest of the shirts. They’re okay. [Not an endorsement of the team. I’m just saying that their shirts aren’t atrocious.]

OAT – Well, if day-glo lime-green and pink is the choice that suits you, okay,  but I don’t want to look like an irradiated watermelon.

The Red Team – I’m not sure who they are but I got accosted by someone in a red t-shirt last week with what looked like Communist propaganda imagery on it. Seriously, check these shirts out if you see one of their reps on campus. It’s very Mao of them.

iGov – Apple is wrapping its claws even tighter around college-age Americans with their new student government team. iGov, with crap indie music as well. Apparently, they don’t believe in shirts or color.

Students First – I think they’re the purple team in this race but I’ve seen a couple different colors on their shirts. In principle, their silhouette idea is good but in action it looks terrible. Mostly, I’m not sure what I’m looking at even though I know that I’m supposed to see the ASUO office. The trashcan silhouette is a nice touch though.

Side-note: In a non-T-shirt related note, Deborah Bloom has apparently decided that she is above last names and is running for the Senate Journalism Seat under the singularity, Deborah. This according to the ASUO Voter’s Guide.

A Win

April 4th, 2009 by Vincent

I forgot to mention it yesterday, but good for Iowa.

Money quote:

“We are firmly convinced the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective,” Justice Mark S. Cady wrote for the seven-member court, adding later, “We have a constitutional duty to ensure equal protection of the law.”

Yes.