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Archive for March, 2010

ASUO Senate March 31, 2010.

March 31st, 2010 by Drew Cattermole

I had some technological issues and was not able to work the Cover-it-live feed during tonight’s senate meeting. Alex Tomchak has it over at the Ol’ Dirty if you want to check out some play by play. Tonight’s meeting was very low key. There were four budget requests, two from NALSA moving funds within their account for a recent alternative spring break event.

Appropriate Dispute Resolutions or ADR came in for a special request asking for $2,500 for training new workers. This will send five students to train in domestic relations mediation. The request passed unanimously.

Ethos Magazine’s surplus requests was approved for $856.

After special requests,  a representative from Curbtasers came to the senate meeting urging the senate to pass a resolution in support of their campaign to limit taser use in the Eugene Police Department.

How to do everything wrong

March 31st, 2010 by D

Last night at the ASUO executive debate, Cassi and Lucas (dark blue shirts) left the debate because they felt that “there were no undecided voters here” and that it was a waste of time.

Looks like they made up for that political blunder by doing something even more ill-advised. Here’s an e-mail we’ve received. It’s original senders are Cassi and Lucas.

“Looks like we did a little mess up. We had this great idea to sit in coffee shops and let people come talk to us, so we made signs that said “Let’s talk” and went to find a place for a suitable discussion. We posted up in the EMU to wait for people to talk to us, Cassi got some lunch and we sat for a minute and looked around with our signs up. Three minutes later, we noticed a guy snapping a picture of us on his iPhone. We went to talk to him, and he said “you can’t campaign in the EMU.” Immediately our red flags went off and we took the signs down and went down to find a member of the Elections Board to talk to. We found President Kallaway and she advised us on how to deal with it.”

Just like Rousseau’s mistake with the printers, you have to know the rules before you do anything. If they left the debate to go strategize, don’t you think they could have avoided something like this?

By the way, if you’re “that guy with the iPhone” we’d love to see that picture.

ASUO Election Q&A

March 30th, 2010 by Drew Cattermole

Let the games begin: OSPIRG, Rousseau to see grievances filed

March 29th, 2010 by D

Tony Mecum just e-mailed us and informed us that he will be filing against OSPIRG and Amelie Rousseau, respectively. For OSPIRG, the grievance centers around the fact that there was pro-OSPIRG messages written on chalkboards all over campus (see above).

For Rousseau, it centers around her misuse of ASUO office space to print campaign materials.

For OSPIRG, Mecum’s suggested punishment is that they not be able to campaign on campus for 24 hours. For Rousseau, Mecum suggests removing her from the ballot entirely. This would seem egregious except for the fact that a pink “no campainging” sign has been on the ASUO office for months–that’s the place Rousseau works by the way–and her “accidental” breaking of the rules seems rather blatant.

I saw one of those messages on the chalkboard in Lillis 282 today. I did the honorable thing, and changed it say say “Vote NO on OSPIRG.”

After all, fair’s fair.

Anti-OSPIRG rally tomorrow

March 29th, 2010 by D

The Reality Check campaign (blue shirts) will be hosting an anti-OSPIRG rally tomorrow in the EMU Amphitheater at noon. I’ve already been told by one student that the 3 kids they interacted with, who were wearing CCC shirts (red shirts) and lobbying kids to support OSPIRG were not, in fact, even students. With the fact that Amelie Rousseau has violated ASUO campaign rules already, it looks like things are beginning to get into full mcdisasterfuck mode. I look forward to grievances being filed.

Here’s the press release:

Tuesday March 30th
12:00 PM EMU Amphitheater
Rally against OSPIRG

The Reality Check campaign will be hosting a one hour rally against special interest group OSPIRG’s request for a budget. The event will consist of information on why OSPIRG should not receive funding, as well as a display of just how much money is going off campus. Join us as we fight the embedded interests of the ASUO that for years have been lobbying and mishandling your hard earned money.
For questions contact Jeremy Cabalona, campaign manager for Reality Check
541-285-7696

ASUO Election Polls A Go-Go

March 29th, 2010 by D



Sunday Best

March 28th, 2010 by D

Why would the College Democrats put Fox News stickers all over their door? Seems counterintuitive.

Sunday Best

March 21st, 2010 by D

Ross Coyle/Oregon Commentator

ASUO Senate President Nicholas Gower shows that he still knows how to class up the student government at a Senate meeting Mar. 17th

ACFC benchmark increased

March 18th, 2010 by D

Through intrepid reporting (read: text messaging) I’ve learned that at Senate last night, the ACFC benchmark was increased from 5.6% to 6.41%, allowing for an extra $28,196 to go to LTD, and ridding the ASUO of having to allocate surplus funds to cover the budget.

Emerald ends winter term with a bang

March 17th, 2010 by D

In the past two weeks, we’ve seen some pretty horrific things printed in the Emerald. It’s not that we weren’t aware of them–far from it. We were just too busy trying to get our papers finished, what with being students and all.

Of course, what we’re talking about here is the two gems printed on Mar. 2nd and Mar. 8th, respectively. Tyree Harris’ “Western perspective is not culture” was an article that did not have a high enough word count to fully address the issues concerned. Trying to make the plea that “white, western culture” was something that disconnected people of color, Harris inevitably made the mistake of being racist, “Caucasians can go their whole lives being ignorant of minority struggles and live happily ever after.” This was responded to in a letter by UO student David Delmar on Mar.5th:

“What is a “Caucasian perspective?” Is the author truly asserting that by virtue of a shared skin color, the University student born and raised in Oregon shares a common, inherent “perspective” with the University student born and raised in South Chicago? Is this not a racist assertion?”

Indeed, Delmar pointed out the logical fallacy in Harris’ argument–that he was himself grouping the experience of individuals by race. Oops.

Mohamed Jemmali’s guest commentary “Food, water should be free for all” was patently absurd, with Jemmali lending us insight into the world of farming, “With hydroponic technology, we can now grow anything with just water and electricity, and we do!”

Obviously privy to some kind of wizardry unknown to the general populace, Jemmali went on to explain that, “Like air, water, food and electricity can now be free.” The very next day, concerned citizen Nick Stachelrodt sent an e-mail to the Commentator (as did another graduate student) with the fitting subject line “Unicorns, sunshine and rainbows and shit” in response to Jemmali’s commentary.

“Now I’ve only done hundreds of hours of organic farming and I’m not terribly acquainted with hydroponic farming but I’m pretty sure it takes a little more than water and electricity (fuck it plants don’t need nutrients).

Also concerning his “every vegetable and fruit would become equally available everywhere” hypothesis, I’m pretty sure that there are these things called climates and these things called seasons which might require Mohamed to have to consult the great gaia and captain planet in order to fix.

He goes on to explain how water will be free via desalination (which is of course is a completely inexpensive uncomplicated process) and how electricity will be free (because those windmills maintain themselves).

So in short he is absolutely bat shit crazy which is fine in its own right, but the fact the the Emerald actually published this garbage is asinine.”

On Mar. 15th, UO Political Science undergraduate Ben Rudin took an economics-based approach to tearing down Jemmali’s commentary.

“If we force people to produce and serve food for nothing, have we made the cost of food any lower? No, we’ve merely shifted the buyers’ current share of the cost to the suppliers.

The very technology Jemmali refers to (desalination and hydroponic technology) was not developed due to generosity; it was developed due to the profit motive.”

Not only was Jemmali’s grasp of the science behind hydroponics at fault, so too was his basic understanding of its role in the free market economy (as a side note, it sounds like Mr. Rudin should turn in a staff application. I’ll be expecting it.)

My advice to the Emerald editorial staff? Say “no” a little more often.

Now that D’Andrea is a student again, can someone please save that place? Tomcat is only one man.

(Also, we scooped the Emerald. Twice.)

Special ASUO Senate, ACFC meetings announced

March 16th, 2010 by D

ASUO Senate President Nick Gower is calling a special Senate meeting tomorrow night (6pm, EMU Walnut room) in order to adjust the ACFC’s budget benchmark from 5.6% to 6.41%, allowing for an extra $28,196 (from what I can tell, going all to LTD). Here’s how Gower outlined the motive for the meeting in an e-mail:

“I understand this is highly uncustomary, however it is procedurally legitimate – if the body goes through the proper steps – and would eliminate the need to draw from surplus to cover the deficit in what we allocated to ACFC and the difference in the amount negotiated with LTD.”

This comes on the heels of an e-mail earlier today from ACFC Chair and ASUO Presidential hopeful Alex McCafferty calling a special ACFC meeting tomorrow as well, at 5PM in the Walnut room.

No wonder everyone quits the ASUO. You couldn’t even get me into room 319 to put together an issue during finals week. These kids are still going to meetings. Yikes.

M-a-s-o-l-i, Like The Football Player

March 16th, 2010 by Drew Cattermole

Police have released the 911 call from Max Wolfard of SAE. My favorite part is the girl in the background when she finds out the laptop was stolen by Masoli.  Below is the video from Downtown Eugene News.

Does anyone know how to teach 9th grade English?

March 16th, 2010 by Celia

Central Falls School Superintendent Frances Gallo fired a total of 94 teachers, administrators and assistants on Feb. 22 because of poor student performance.

With a graduation rate of less than 50 percent and abysmal standardized testing scores, Gallo implemented the “turnaround” model of reform or, the removal of all staff.

The firings come after the teachers’ union rejected six conditions Gallo presented to improve the school.  Those conditions were: extending the school day by 25 minutes, requiring teachers to tutor students weekly for one hour before or after school, eating lunch with students once a week, undergoing more rigorous evaluations, meeting once a week for 90 minutes to discuss education and planning, and attending two weeks of paid professional development in the summer.

Other than the professional development, extra compensation did not accompany the proposed conditions.

(more…)

UO tennis courts vandalized

March 15th, 2010 by D

This photograph was taken of the tennis courts on the back side of the turf fields. Looks like someone is really sticking it to the man by defacing public property–property that everyone’s money will go to help clean up.

Great job, activists. You’ve sincerely shown just how little you understand.

UO dorm vandalized

March 14th, 2010 by D

Oregon Commentator/Kiefer VerSteegh

This image was taken from one of the outer walls of Bean West, near the Hamilton complex. Apparently somebody thought that the dorms (or the university) was much like that of a repressive regime. Does that mean that Dick Lariviere is comparable to Stalin? According to the meaningful social commentary spray-painted on a college dormitory in Oregon, yes. Yes he is.

No word yet on finding the perpetrators. Must solve other spray paint-related crimes first.