ODE Columnist Bags on OSPIRG
‘Ol Dirty columnist Nik Antovich gives OSPIRG more bad press in today’s Emerald:
Lately OSPIRG has been under considerable public examination; I want to keep it that way, considering that the problems with this organization don’t deserve just lip service but action. This fiscal year we will be handing OSPIRG a check for more than $117,000- a ridiculous amount of money, none of which will be publicly accounted for by the corporation. However, we do know that more than two-thirds of that budget is used to pay the salaries of about eight researches and activists who work in Portland.
Antovich goes on to stump for CFACT, which is kind of the conservative version of OSPIRG, sans off-campus money dumping (allegedly). I have my reservations about CFACT; besides disagreeing with them on some key issues, I’m opposed on principle to increasing the incidental fee. However, it’s good to finally start hearing some substantial OSPIRG criticism on campus.
Is the recent bad press, as well as the election of Dotters-katz and Delashaw, whose platform included decreasing OSPIRG funding, a sign that the Great Hope might finally be realized? Holding your breath is probably inadvisable, although crossing your fingers couldn’t hurt.
[…] the Oregon Commentator:
Antovich’s column reads like a press release for CFACT. But I’m confused. Judging from its Web site, CFACT appears to be an elaborate joke perpetrated by MoveOn, Daily Kos or OSPIRG itself.
To wit, its brilliant satire of behind-the-times conservative college organizations:
“Pat Boone commends CFACT in World Net Daily column,” reads one hilarious, Onion-inspired headline.
The writing is utterly spot on, too. Take for example these passages from an article about how ridiculous modern food scares are, relative to the past, in light of people being critical of the nutritional value of fast food:
“They used to find lots of ‘witches’ when food was scarce. Oddly, the witches tended to be older women who could no longer grow their own food and depended on the village to support them.”
“Some ergot victims’ hands and feet turned black and dried up because the toxin restricted blood flow to the limbs — and then broke off at the joints! How’s that for a food scare?”
“In the 17th century, the real piper was trying to make the ergot victims feel better. In real life, the kids didn’t disappear — they died.”
Admittedly, it
The first thing that needs to be done, which Dotters-Katz has talked about, is for OSPIRG to become a student group, no longer a contracted service, to force transparency upon them.