Being as it’s dead week, the ODE was kind enough to share its reporters’ opinions on where to study. Of course, there are other noteworthy coffee shops (Full City and Vero for starters), not to mention Sweet Life. However, there are other alternatives:
Rennie’s Landing, 1214 Kincaid St. — It’s right next to campus, so you can stumble to class five minutes before it starts. Perfect place to grab a pitcher and watch a game or read a textbook.
Eugene City Brewery, 844 Olive St. — Bring your book and order a pint and a burger. On Fridays Eugene City has a trivia night. Since it’s dead week, I’m sure the trivia will be on “organic chemistry” and “microeconomics”.
The Bier Stein, 345 E 11th Ave. — Incentivize your studying by buying yourself a beer, one for every chapter you read, one for every hour you study, one for getting out your notes….with so many reasons to study and Cheba Hut next door, it’s a guaranteed win for everyone!
Reser Stadium, 105 Gils Coliseum, Corvallis — Screw finals, its CIVIL WAR.
Just received an email from the UO Office of Communications regarding a kidnapping and assault near campus, and a separate incidence of assault on campus.
From the email:
KIDNAP AND ASSAULT
On Saturday, November 20, 2010, at about 11:30 p.m., a University of Oregon student reported being the victim of a kidnapping and assault. The victim stated that she was walking on 15th Avenue, between Alder and Kincaid, when an unknown individual grabbed her arm and told her to come with him. When the victim refused, the suspect cut the victim’s wrist with a key, which caused a superficial laceration. The suspect forced the victim to walk with him to a campus bench, where she was able to flee. The victim described the assailant as a white male, mid-to late-20’s, slight husky build, with brown hair, light beard, wearing blue jeans and brown running shoes.
ASSAULT
In a separate incident occurring at approximately 12:10 a.m., a University of Oregon student reported being the victim of a sexual assault near Gerlinger Annex. The victim stated that an unknown individual pushed her into a wall and then groped her. She was able to escape after pushing the suspect away and screaming for assistance. The victim described the assailant as a white male, mid-20’s, brown hair, beard, husky build, wearing blue jeans, a black collared button-up shirt and dark shoes.
Within minutes of receiving the second report, University of Oregon Department of Public Safety Officers detained an individual matching the suspect’s description. After being positively identified by the victim, the suspect was arrested and lodged in the Lane County Jail on a charge of Sexual Abuse 1. The suspect arrested in this crime has a similar description to the suspect in the Kidnap and Assault crime.
Anyone who has information about either incident is asked to contact University of Oregon Department of Public Safety at 541-346-2919.
Updates about the situation or investigation will be available at http://safetyweb.uoregon.edu
In a stunning display of independence and maturity, 400ish freshmen rioted in the intersection of 14th and Patterson last Friday, the 24th. It took about 50 police in SWAT gear to subdue the drunken masses, which finally cleared out a little after midnight (can you say after-riot party?). Tear gas was thrown, street signs torn down, and nine people arrested on alcohol-related charges. UO President Richard Lariviere called the rager “completely unacceptable,” and pledged to improve the University’s relations with the surrounding neighborhood. Longtime West University residents seemed nonplussed by the incident, stating that it was, “earlier this year than in previous years.” The damages, which also included broken car windows (not cool, Freshies,) will cost the city about $10,000.
Both police and citizens have speculated on the cause of the riot, one theory being a deficit of large houses that, in years past, could accommodate tens of partiers. Without these Animal Houses smaller apartment parties have become the norm, but with small space and loud people come the inevitable spillage of drunks into the street.
One may wonder what this ridiculous episode means about the incoming class of ’14 and the future of UO partying in general. Clearly, these freshmen are ready to get their swerve on right away and at unprecedented levels. True, the first exhilarating taste of freedom can go to one’s head, but their overly enthusiastic antics spell problems for the rest of us. Increased party patrol vigilance will be a definite result, and pissing off residents could mean police visits to your house if your little Gleek party gets a smidge too loud.
If only there was a place where underage students could gather and get super shitfaced without getting arrested. Imagine, a gymnasium sized room to which freshman alchies could bring their 30-bombs and cheap handles and drink their little brains out. It wouldn’t need anything inside, no chairs, no decorations, just let them bring their pong tables, boomboxes, and nude playing cards. Who would need to riot when you have a chill spot like that?
Personally, this writer believes the true victims in this incident are the street signs. Every street in the West University neighborhood is a mish-mash of aging houses and pop-up apartment complexes that shit all looks the same. It is easy to get lost and impossible to find what street you’re on due to a large amount of missing street signs, which the city refuses to replace. It is understandable that they are frustrated with stupid kids stealing them all the time, but is there truly no way to bolt that them down a little better? It appears, from looking at the remaining signs, that they are just thin rectangles that slide in and out of a metal frame. Let’s try something a little more substantial, hmm?
If you like reading about silly freshmen making a fuss on a Friday night, you can read about it in the Register Guard and the Oregon Daily Emerald. From the RG article:
“The mass of people was admonished to disperse, but ignored commands, continued chanting obscenities, threw bottles and projectiles at officers, broke car windows and tore down street signs,” [Eugene Police Lt. Doug] Mozan said in a statement. “Tear gas was deployed only after the admonishments were ignored and when the crowd began throwing objects at police.”
The end of the Daily Emerald article shows a real victory for students, with President Rousseau making the best statement of her presidency yet:
ASUO President Amelie Rousseau condemned EPD’s response to the event, and said she believes that the use of weapons against students was an uncalled-for escalation of force, and identified it as “crude and disproportionate.” She also said that she believed the incident has affected her views on whether or not DPS should adopt a sworn and armed police force pending the passage of state legislation.
“I think this should make all students and the University administration think twice about bringing this type of intimidation on to campus.” Rousseau said, “This is exactly why we don’t want a police force on our campus.”
There was totally a riot in Eugene last night, in the West University neighborhood. Someone got a video:
Wow, freshmen are crazy. WELCOME TO COLLEGE, WOO! Sophie will have a longer post about it later. From what I hear, it was between 300 and 400 kids. Nuts.
ASUO President Amelie Rousseau was published in the Register-Guard this week, along with a UO alum and a grad student, with an opinion on the UO’s proposed riverfront development. As is the general student opinion on the riverfront, they’re not too pleased:
More than two years has passed since the University of Oregon announced plans for the Oregon Research Institute’s office building and parking lot along the banks of the Willamette River, yet construction has not begun. Instead, the university is burning through taxpayer money and public goodwill by defending a development plan approved when Ronald Reagan was president and mullets were fashionable.
Rather than rolling out the bulldozers at one of several viable sites that aren’t shrouded in controversy, the university has chosen to tout the proposed building’s green design features. Instead of addressing the fundamental problem with the site — that construction on the riverfront forecloses on all other options for using this precious public land for generations to come — the university has been tinkering with the placement of its 200 parking spaces.
They go on to appeal to the reader, mentioning taxpayer funding of this project and how there are other locations that might have been more appropriate had the UO gone through an extended public hearing process.
I can only imagine that Rousseau’s name on this letter shows that she is representing students and our thoughts on the riverfront projects. I certainly applaud that. But I also understand the University of Oregon administration’s reluctance to consult with students on larger-scale building projects. In reality, most students are either ignorant or apathetic, or both. This is more evidence of the UO’s inability to engage, but I think it goes both ways. The administration should be consulting with students on their development projects. Whether or not most students would care is another story.
I gave a review copy of By the Barrel: 25 Years of the Oregon Commentator to the Register-Guard when it came out a few months ago. I was mailing a package today when Ken, one of the postal clerks, told me that he’d read a blurb about the book in the paper recently. Needless to say, this was news to us here at the Commentator, where no one was contacted or interviewed for the story.
I’ll save you the “pithy” details, but writer Randi Bjornstad ends her review with a comment that, I should clarify, is right on target:
“[Scott] Camp’s pithy bottom line sort of sums it up. Depending on your personal philosophy, “By the Barrel” will put you somewhere on the continuum between outrage and hero worship.
In any case, glad you’re keeping your standards the way you like them, RG.
The Pacifica Forum hosted its meeting, “Everything You Wanted to Know about Pacifica Forum but were Afraid to Ask” today in the Walnut Room of the EMU, and never has so much been said by so many about so little. The meeting began quietly, with a distinctly hostile attitude permeating the room. Picking up steam, it climaxed in a student leaving the room in tears after a heated confrontation over rape epithets.
But mostly the hate speech debate ran in circles between Forum member Billy Rojas and Michael Williams, a member of the Eugene Anti Hate Task Force. The core of the debate revolved around prior Pacifica meetings which many students allege advocated violent acts towards Jews and other minority groups. Emma Kallaway had a strong opinion against the forum, stating she didn’t want the forum in the EMU at all.
ASUO President Emma Kallaway called the forum to leave the EMU, saying "I don't want you here."
Beyond what amounted to a giant circle of “You’re hurting our feelings and making us feel insecure” countered by “Because we can” the single most intelligent point was put forward at the end of the debate with “why should we care?” The Black Tea Society does nothing but give these wackos more power when they attend meetings with signs and yell “Get off my campus!” As it was well put forward, no one is rushing to join the forum, maybe it’s time to stop caring and take the wind out of these wacko’s sails.
[The comments to this post have disappeared. The Commentator did not moderate them and believes it to be a technical error on the part of wordpress. We are working to return them.]
As a lover of all things “jerky” I find vegetarians and vegans impossibly difficult to understand. Lucky for me, there’s some sane people still out there who console my straying conscious back into the right.
In a particularly interesting article written a few days ago, science columnist Natalie Angier wrote about the viability of ethics-based veganism – a topic I’m sure we’re all familiar with given our own geographical location. In her article, Angier noted that vegans often argue the ethical way of consumption is choosing not to eat meat. In the opinion of Angier (and myself), the choice hits a few snags. Angier highlighted the more ridiculous points of the argument:
“Before we cede the entire moral penthouse to “committed vegetarians” and “strong ethical vegans,” we might consider that plants no more aspire to being stir-fried in a wok than a hog aspires to being peppercorn-studded in my Christmas clay pot.”
As students, I’m sure we’re all aware of the high rate of property crime that exists in Eugene. Apparently the EPD is now actively trying to do something about it. They’ve launched an initiative with some very original ideas, like policing the high-crime rate areas more. Here’s an outline of their model:
My favorite part of the whole plan? That it mandates the EPD increase their presence in the University and Kinsrow areas, as they appear to be the highest concentrated areas of property crime:
The plan, according to the press release, is based on this:
“The Crime Prevention Unit’s personnel have been re-staffed from a stationary model where they were available for public visits at front counters to one where they work in the field in those neighborhoods where crime is occurring.”
Now I’m not saying this will turn out badly for students for sure, but I am skeptical of the fact that Eugene wants to devote more city resources (officers) to a non-tax paying area they typically like to bleed of municipal support (hence why 18th street remains in shambles).
Further, I think anyone who has seen a crazy methhead/bum riding down the street on a different bicycle every day understands that property crime, at least in the University/Kinsrow area, is principally due to Eugene’s transient problem.
I’m thinking increased patrols in the University and Kinsrow areas will probably end up bringing in more MIPs than bike-stealing hobos. Then again, I could be wrong and we could all be a lot safer.
I’m not even sure what to do with this one… the upper line reads “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression: this right includes freedom to hold opinions and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media…”
In compliance with that statement, I’ve blacked out the date and time for this event.
The original publisher of the Oregon Commentator, Dane Claussen, once said that the OC’s purpose was to print the news that, “the other publications are unable to tell you because of inexperience, incompetence or the narrow-mindedness of their staffs.” That was some 26 years ago and it seems the OC still has purpose. Not to continue to toot our own horn or anything but, as any regular reader of the blog knows (because we’ve been pimping it hard), the OC has recently published a 25th anniversary book edited by the current publisher Timothy Dane Carbaugh.
Call me crazy, but it seems to me students creating, printing and selling a 300-page hard bound history book completely on their own volition about a student organization that’s survived significant adversity for more than 25 years would be a newsworthy event. Which is why I am glad to finally announce that, now just about a month after the book was released, the Daily Emerald has gotten around to publishing a story.
You’d think that this would be the sort of thing that would hit the front page of any daily student newspaper, but here at the University of Oregon you’d be wrong. Instead, the story was buried deep in the “scene” insert. I would link to the article, but it is suspiciously absent from their online content. Luckily for them, we’ve published the article here.
I wonder if ol’ Mr. Claussen would chock this up to simple narrow-mindedness or gross incompetence? I can’t say, but you take a look at this editorial cartoon about Sarah Palin’s book recently published by the Emerald and you will probably agree that it is a real chicken shit outfit over there.
Do not ridicule someone’s “intellectual substance” if you are going to screw up the spelling of “rogue”.
Guy Simmons and I will be appearing on the KVAL morning news, specifically an interview with anchor Shelley Kurtz on Monday, November 30th.
It will be my first time on TV since I appeared on Ramblin’ Rod when I was 7. I’m not sure about Simmons though; he’s from Alaska, I’m not sure if that kind of technology has made its way up there yet.
Sadly, late Wednesday the founder of my favorite restaurant in Eugene, Papa’s Soul Food Kitchen, died of a heart attack.
According to the Register-Guard Ted “Papa” Lee was a well-known musician who helped many local musicians get started here in Eugene. His band 100% Delta Blues Stomp was planning on a west coast tour this year. The man was well known and well respected in the Whiteaker area and by many of the local media outlets in Eugene for his quality food.
The Eugene Weekly blog reported that Lee had been planning on expanding his restaurant’s services into catering and a line of sauces and pies.
If you haven’t heard of Papa’s it is one of the best restaurants in Eugene. The barbecue, atmosphere, and friendly staff were one of the prime reasons that I spent most of sophomore year there. Personally, the Eugene food scene is disappointing. Sure, places like Ambrosia and Agate Alley are good but to be honest they weren’t world-beaters. For the most part Eugene restaurants are good but it’s not like it’s something you’d come back to the city for.
Papa’s, in my mind, is one of those places. It reminds me of hole in the wall joints in Texas and the South where good food is made by people who put a lot of love into their food and you can taste. It’s just good Southern food, and I’m told the Mac and cheese is the best you’ll ever eat (I don’t eat cheese so I wouldn’t know) but I do know that the yams are goddamn amazing. Try the collard greens too, it’s not something you’ll see often in Eugene but it’s good. Not everyone will agree with me, I’m looking at you you soul-sucking vegetarians, but if you’re fan of barbecue than you should try Papa’s if you haven’t.
Have a drink for Papa this weekend because his restaurant is one of the best things about this godforsaken town, even if it is located across the street from Tiny’s Tavern where I assume shanking happens on a nightly basis.
