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Archive for August, 2007

Tag and Trapezoids kill

August 30th, 2007 by Sean Jin

In twp separate but related incidents, public schools banned the game Tag and suspended a 13-year old kid that drew a gun that looked more like a trapezoid with smiley faces.

Wow. The series of school shootings that happened a few years ago shouldn’t be ignored, and I think schools did a few things right when it came to responding to threats of violence. But this is taking it way too far. The drawing didn’t even LOOK like a gun. What’s more is that preventing students from drawing weapons will not take away their fascination in them. What kid didn’t play soldier or pretend to shoot people with their finger guns?

On the other hand, I agree with the suspension of the kid. If he is that deluded to think that a gun looks like that and has smiley faces on it, he should learn a lesson.

The justification that the Colorado school uses for banning Tag is absolutely ridiculous. “[Tag ] causes a lot of conflict on the playground”. Conflict is an inherent aspect of life! Every conflict I have been through has made me a stronger person. If these kids don’t know how to deal with conflict young, what are they going to do in Middle and High School, college, and in the real world? What the hell is happening to our country? Our country is turning into a country full of sissies. These schools banning Tag are deluding our nation’s youth into thinking that life is fair, that there are no winners or losers, and that everyone can live in harmony without scraped knees. Bullshit.

Leonardo DiCaprio Tries Desperately to Be Modern Day Thoreau

August 29th, 2007 by Tyler

In case you didn’t know, Leonardo DiCaprio has a new ecological documentary coming our titled the “11th Hour”. It is supposedly bad. Supremely bad. How bad? Well, when the co-founder of Greenpeace is calling your film a fraud you know that you’ve got a problem on your hands.

As a lifelong environmentalist, I say trees can solve many of the world’s sustainability challenges. Forestry is the most sustainable of all the primary industries that provide us with energy and materials. Rather than cutting fewer trees and using less wood, DiCaprio and Berman ought to promote the growth of more trees and the use of more wood. …

DiCaprio’s movie, The 11th Hour, is another example of anti-forestry scare tactics, this time said to be ‘brilliant and terrifying’ by James Christopher of the London Times.

While The Students Are Away…

August 29th, 2007 by Niedermeyer

…everyone else and their little brother is weighing in on the Phil Knight donation and Academics vs. Athletics generally, over at the Register-Guard blog. Everyones favorite nutty professor even stops by to raise the level of discourse by claiming that Frohnmayer supports drunk driving and therefore only pretends to dislike Fanconi Anemia.

Now where were we? Oh yeah… why doesn’t Phil Knight just give every professor at the UO half a mil each? Wouldn’t that be better?

We’re Number 1 (Duh!)

August 29th, 2007 by Sean Jin

A story published in Reuters today noted the USA as the most heavily armed society in the world, on a gross scale and per-capita scale. Apparently, we have enough firearms to give 90% of our population a gun, and U.S. citizens own 270 million  of the world’s 875 million known firearms. Second up per-capita is Yemen (wtf?), Finland, and Switzerland.

What is more interesting to me is the fact that we have such good registration of our firearm ownership. Sure, we’ve got a lot of guns lying around and we’ll shoot the shit out of you (and each other) but at least we’re open about it.

Foosball is the Devil!

August 29th, 2007 by CJ Ciaramella

Last week, the Eugene Weekly ran a piece written by U of O professor Jim Earl criticizing the sports fetishism of colleges and universities in America. Fair enough, you might say. He could have a point, considering the U of O is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a new basketball arena, while its dorms rank among the worst in the nation. But does Earl tackle this problem? No, he goes for the gusto and attacks sports in general (and football, specifically) for their inherent moral wrongness. I’m not joking; this man is the ultimate killjoy. Check it out:

“What bothers me, really, is what football is teaching the kids about life. Take a bunch of high school kids, many of them from tough backgrounds, and just shower them with luxuries like private jets and air-conditioned lockers with Xboxes. Fulfilling their crudest teen fantasies is teaching them something? What, that life is a game? Great lesson.”

But that’s just the opening salvo, my friends. The main meat of Earl’s diatribe is based on a meeting between him, The Frohn and the late, great Bill Moos. Earl is yammering away about his tweed jacket or some other shit when he accidently makes an awkward faux pas. (more…)

Shameless Plug

August 28th, 2007 by Sean Jin

So guess who was a total badass and hiked up Mt. Pisgah at 1 in the morning last night and took a bunch of pictures of the lunar eclipse?

Young Republican Supports Ron Paul

August 26th, 2007 by Sean Jin

In the video linked below, CNN is interviewing two university students, one Democrat and one Republican. CNN asks them who they think will take the primary for their respective parties, and are absolutely shocked when the Republican says Ron Paul. However, Miss GOP’s arguments make a lot of sense. Ron Paul really is a true conservative, and the majority of the Republican party has strayed from their traditional values.

The Democrat student, on the other hand, is the epitome of stupid Democrats. She doesn’t answer the question asked, and repeatedly generalizes, saying that “I just want a Democrat in office.” Has the thought ever crossed her mind that many politicians identify with one of the two big parties FOR political, not ideological reasons? Democrats vary from “gun-control, free pot, let all illegal immigrants have citizenship” crazies to moderates that say “we should stay in Iraq but change the course and maintain a strong presence abroad”.

I hope that not all Democrats are as dumb as she is. I know that these are just two people out of millions, but the Republican is clearly more of a thinker in this case, and solidly wins my confidence.

More Proof That The Inmates Run The DPS Asylum

August 25th, 2007 by Niedermeyer

So, we’ve been getting lots of late night, pro-DPS advocacy in our comments sections lately, as has the ODE. Interestingly enough, all of these comments have come from UO computers too, leading one to believe that perhaps DPS staff have been a little, erm, distracted from their duties of late. We had no idea how bad things had become though. A new blog, This Turkey Is Done has appeared, as a countdown to the departure of the unloved current interim director of DPS, Richard Turkiewicz. It features such stunning critiques as photo comparisons to an actual turkey, and excessive use of the nickname “Dick.”

The best part? An admonition to

be sure to leave comments here from your home computer on your own time.”

What a bunch of pros!

Endorsements

August 24th, 2007 by Sean Jin

As CJ pointed out to me yesterday, the Student Insurgent featured the ad-hominem letter by Diego Hernandez directed towards me that he submitted to the ODE a few months ago. Coincidentially, this is a part of the process that got me to join the Commentator.

Anyways, I picked up the Insurgent today (and disinfected my hands after touching it, of course) and found out that our dear friends at Suite 1 did not only post D. Hizzle’s letter, but wrote an entire article about the Multicultural Center. They endorsed the MCC, amonst a number of things, as a place that ‘serves as a safe and respectful environment’ and ‘promotes leadership development’. I must have missed Respect and Leadership day at the MCC, because it is anything but that for anyone that isn’t far-left liberal. But then again, the article is in the Insurgent, we never expected them to tell the truth, anyways.

I don’t know how proud the MCC should be for being endorsed by the Insurgent like this. It’s like if the LGBTQA were publicly endorsed by the Alliance of Sodomy Supporters.
Featured next to the MCC article in the Insurgent is a very poignant and elegant piece calling for the abolition of prisons due to the ‘mistreatment of transgender prisoners’. What I want to know is how can someone be a misogynist (woman-hater) if they can’t even determine the gender of the person they are hating on?

If you’ll excuse me, I have to go de-louse my hands.

WTFcats

August 24th, 2007 by Sean Jin

You know that journalism has reached an all-time low when a magazine uses LOLcats as its cover.

But then again, it is just the Eugene Weekly.

Lord forgive me

August 23rd, 2007 by Ossie

Shame on you for clicking on this link.

Nas was right

August 21st, 2007 by Sean Jin

Hip-hop is dead. Nas said so. As if the mere existence of MIMS and Fergie weren’t enough evidence of this, now TIME magazine is now acknowledging that hip-hop sales are plummetting, as they outline in this article. I’ll admit it, I’m getting tired of hearing that someone’s “Hot cause’ he’s fly, and I ain’t cause I’m not.” Or R. Kelly thinking that he’s clever rhyming on the same word. Or entire hip-hop songs consisted of words being spelled. Or how it’s raining and I need an umbrella-ella-ella-ella.

But I think TIME is being defeatist. It is trying to reassert white supremacy over the minorities. “[Hip-hop] is collapsing because they can no longer fool the white kids”, says Richard Nickels, manager of the Roots. I guess now that they’re busy not being fooled, they will have more time to spend on oppression and racist activities. But I will not stand for that! Hip-hop is not dead, at least, not for me. There are three pre-conditions that must be met before hip-hop is dead. As long as hip-hop continues to:

  • Keep the additions of new words on Urbandictionary.com high
  • Give Nate Gulley insight on how to appeal to the minorities
  • Keep the standards of music/lyrical quality very, very low

then it is doing its job.

Ballot season commences

August 21st, 2007 by CJ Ciaramella

Well, it’s that time again in Oregon – ballot season. Ever since Oregonians caught on to this whole ballot initiative business, they’ve seized upon it with the zeal of a hyper-active bonobo monkey (That one’s for you, Ted). More below “the fold.”

UPDATE: Here’s the actual legal mumbo-jumbo that Oregonians in Action filed against Measure 49. Is there anyone around here with the requisite lore to decipher such a scroll? (more…)

An “Unprecedented” Gift

August 20th, 2007 by Ossie

Pat Kilkenny
  The most prominent names associated with the University of Oregon gathered for an evening full of high emotion on Saturday, capped off with host Phil Knight’s announcement that he and wife Penny has pledged a $100 million gift to create the Oregon Athletics Legacy Fund; it is the largest gift ever given to the University. 

UPDATE: The Ol’ Dirty finally got their story posted. Took ya long enough!

(more…)

Press Conference at 3:30: Knight to dish out the cash

August 20th, 2007 by Ossie

 

Apparently, Athletic Director Pat Kilkenny has better things to do than meet with the Oregon Commentator. When OC Editor In Chief Ossie Bladine, that’s me, showed up for a scheduled 2 p.m. meeting today, he was kindly told that Kilkenny must reschedule due to a press conference today at 3:30 p.m. Bladine spit and cursed loudly on his way out the Cassanova Center.

 

An anonymous source to the Register Guard stated that the athletic department will announce a $100 million gift from Phil Knight to go toward the building of a new basketball arena. Check back to the OC blog for a full report of the conference.

 

In other sports news, UC Irvine baseball head coach Dave Serrano is in Eugene today and tomorrow to discuss the open position as the skipper for Ducks baseball. Serrano was named the 2007 Coach of the Year by Baseball America and led the Anteaters to the College World Series in only his third season as coach.