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Sean Jin Appointed to PFC

April 9th, 2008 by CJ Ciaramella

OC contributor Sean Jin has been appointed to PFC Seat One in the ASUO by a vote of 7-5-1. He was recommended to the position by ASUO Exec Emily McLain, who addressed the Senate and noted that Jin “is really involved all across campus.”

Jin then was given an opportunity to speak, saying he would work to bring better “outreach, transparency and professionalism” to the ASUO. Many of the senators had good things to say, noting that Jin was very qualified and experienced for the job. Sen. Jones called him a “Johnny-on-the-spot all around campus.”

Jin’s connection to the OC was brought up numerous times, surprisingly not as negative as one would expect. Sen. Zavrel actually suggested that Jin’s appointment was a good thing because it brought more diversity to the senate. That’s right, you heard it here: The OC improves diversity.

However, Sen. Diego Hernandez disagreed. “Sean wrote an article in the last issue of the Oregon Commentator that I found really offensive,” he said. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable with him on this body.” Of course, Hernandez was referring to the article where Jin called out the MCC on their rampant hypocrisy. Hernandez later went on to say that he considered Jin’s article “hate speech.”

But wait, you say. Where’s the asinine quote from Nate Gulley? Here you go: “I just think it needs to be understood that the Oregon Commentator isn’t a campus media source,” Gulley said. “It’s a student program.”

O RLY? I guess putting out a magazine and writing a daily blog about campus affairs doesn’t make you a media source anymore. The ‘Ol Dirty better step it up, lest they too become just another student program.

Congrats to Sean.


Countdown to Obama

March 21st, 2008 by CJ Ciaramella

People are already lining up in droves for the Obama rally tonight at Mac Court. Lawn chairs and blankets are set up all along the lawn in front of Esslinger. A guy is selling Obama “hope” t-shirts and probably making a killing.

I went down to the ASUO controller’s office and asked if the student government was shelling out any money for the event. It was hard to get a definitive answer, but I was told that no incidental fee money was spent that the controller knew of. We might request the purchase orders to verify all of this.

I also finagled my way onto the press list, so expect a write-up of the rally.

Here’s the Register-Guard write-up of the pre-Obama ballyhoo, complete with a lede about ASUO Senator Nate Gulley crying when he found out he was going to miss the rally. Wow, it must be real tough for Gulley, being stuck over in Hawaii on the student body’s dime to discuss “environmental racism” and all. My heart goes out to him.

Finally, here’s an article on Obama from The Onion.


Nix resigns

March 11th, 2008 by Ossie

Derek Nix, campaign manager for the Oregon Action Team slate and candidate for a PFC Senate seat, has resigned from his position as Student Senate Administrative Assistant. In his resignation letter, sent out Monday morning and acquired via a public record’s request, Nix said verbal conduct in the workplace that may be interpreted “to cause professional harm to my position in the ASUO and worse, to my personal safety,” led to his resignation effective immediately.

Over the last two weeks, I have been subject to repeated workplace harassment that threatened me with my job, the details of which have been reported to the Personnel Committee, but it culminated Thursday when Senator Gulley threatened me with physical injury. Senator Gulley had and has no evidence to support his slanderous accusations at Wednesday night’s Senate meeting. Read the rest of this entry »


Taken aback part deux

March 4th, 2008 by Ossie

Take Back the Campus was what it was. I’m a little embarrassed at my own ignorance of the situation; I thought it would be more of an open forum. Silly me. It was obvious that a lot of work went into this. But just because one works hard doesn’t mean the results will be good. There were numerous petitions made, cameras, Zane Kesey was there, many (so many!) student presenters and the rest of the works. Yet, not much was accomplished with all these resources.

There were about 100 students who attended. I figure at least half were ASUO insiders and about half of the rest left half-way through. Some of the speakers were good, some were not. Depending upon the audience, some ideas were good and some were not. All together the forum informed maybe 25 students about issues that have been in the newspapers for weeks and months.

When it was all said and done, there was one dissenting voice. When the presentations were over and it opened up to “an open forum,” Ryan McCarrel asked to use the podium. In the past few weeks, he has been creating discussion via e-mails with political science students about apathy. He had a prepared statement, which he was not allowed to finish, about the need for change. Now imagine the irony of it all. On the chalk board “MAKE CHANGE” was written huge and “APATHY” with a slash through it was there too. McCarrel spoke about the problem of widespread apathy within the student body, and the desperate need for a change to better the student body as a whole. Sen. Nate Gulley yelled out “bullshit”. Sen. Patrick Boye interrupted to call out the Oregon Commentator (not sure why; we hadn’t said anything). It was obvious that those in charge did not want to have a discussion about change or apathy. They wanted to finish their job and go home.

Here is the speech that McCarrel didn’t get to finish. Read the rest of this entry »


Still Weirded Out by ASUO

February 23rd, 2008 by Sean Jin

It’s Saturday, and I’m still trying to figure out the weirdness of the last Senate meeting. It wasn’t loud, it wasn’t crazy…it was just weird. And there are a lot of things going on that the student body needs to be aware of.

Senate Surplus is currently at $138,550. Woohoo…spend away!

ADFC is projected at coming in with a NEGATIVE benchmark this budgeting season. I don’t think  Senate really understood because the reaction was largely nonchalant. While I’m not entirely clearly on what happens to the money that ADFC doesn’t use (I guess it rolls back and lowers the I-Fee?) the point is that an ASUO Finance Committee is NOT raising its money usage.

Apparently the SRC Advisory Board has determined unilaterally that it is an advisory body, and not a governing body, thus it doesn’t have to follow Oregon Public Meeting Laws. They are making their hearings private and only available to people that email the Board chair for pre-authorization. Apparently the Board chair doesn’t want ‘politically powerful’ or ‘strongly opinionated people’ at the meetings. Wow.

Weird moment of the meeting: Senator Billy Hatch made a motion to ‘Commend President Emily McLain for being a strong student representative”. The motion passed 14-0-1.

Senator Boye later presented cookies for everyone, which totally negated any political disagreements I’ve had with him.

In discussing the new arena project, some Senators and the Executive brought up the points that the priority of the University seemed to have shifted from Housing and Student Buildings to the Arena once the donation from Knight was passed through. Apparently the University is reporting the projected F-bond debt as being under the 7% they were allowed, but they are not saying how much. Noting that Professor Bill Harbaugh has also been hounding the Administration for information that should be public but isn’t being made public, Senator Gulley irrelevantly managed to slam Harbaugh, as well, calling him “Not the best champion of equality” and “Not very genuine”. Uh huh. Yeah.


Rumble in the Board Room: Feelings Hurt

February 14th, 2008 by Sean Jin

The meeting started off with an inauspicious start, as Permias Eugene (an International Student Group for Indonesian students) bumbled in with a couple surplus requests. Thankfully they got what they need for their event, Indonesia Night, but this was a clear example of the ever-continuing visibility issue with ASUO. Its own student groups don’t even know how to make special requests. In fact, I have to say that it’s impossible to know how to make special requests without sitting in on ASUO meetings.

Note to self: Increase accessibility of ASUO to students.

Read the rest of this entry »


The Scoop On Why Donnie Flew the Coop

January 18th, 2008 by Ossie

After a 15 minute discussion about whether or not to have a discussion, followed by recess, and then another discussion – with three motions made to get the heck out of there in the mean time, two rescinded – the ASUO Senate finally decided to have a discussion about the resignation of Senate Vice President Donnie Kim. Read the rest of this entry »


Senate reels in the Tra La La

January 11th, 2008 by Ossie

First off, the ASUO Senate decided Wednesday to allocate $8,256 from the surplus funds for a free concert by Günther, yes, that Günther. As reported in the ODE:

“Günther thanks you all as well. Very much.” Read the rest of this entry »


ASUO Update

November 6th, 2007 by Sean Jin

Whoa, it’s Tuesday already, and I realized I hadn’t made my ASUO update.

Good call on the move for a paperless Senate. Working with programs, I know how crappy it can be to have to make 21 copies of every thing firsthand.

From my understanding, ADFC is being renamed the ACFC (Athletics and Contracts Finance Commitee) and will handle contracts, which are currently done by PFC (?). I’m not clear on the implications of it, but the decision to go forward with it seems pretty set, so it’s not like my opinion matters anyways.

Read the rest of this entry »


Yay ASUO Senate

October 25th, 2007 by Sean Jin

Here’s the update on the ASUO Senate’s latest meeting that nobody cares about.

Big things to note:

The appointment of a new PFC-at-Large, Meili Yu. Congrats to her. It was quite obvious during her confirmation that the non-fiscally responsible senators were already trying to pressure her into being…liberal with money. As always, the resumes for ASUO appointees look great, but the real question is how well they will stand against pressure from the various political sides. My hope would be that Meili isn’t so easily pressured into just handing out money to student groups when they whine for it.

Read the rest of this entry »


Emerald to Roberts, “Pay Up”

October 22nd, 2007 by Ossie

Kudos to the Ol’ Dirty Editorial Board for taking the position that the ignorance (or theft) shown by former Con Court justice Jereme Roberts, who “forgot” to repay a stipend he was given while not a student, is unacceptable.

The Green Tape Notebook – made up of the ASUO Constitution, rules and governing documents of all ASUO bodies – states that court justices must be current students. This is the very document justices are charged with upholding. If even one member serving on the court is unaware of such a basic rule, it is a sign that something is severely wrong.

Sen. Nate Gulley was disgruntled that the Emerald printed a story last week bringing to light that Roberts had yet to pay back the money. Those polecats in the Emerald had this to say:

A common joke among reporters is that if your story makes a politician angry, you’ve done your job. It is not our job to be friends with elected officials; it is our job to tell the truth. And the truth is, it is unacceptable for this debt to go unpaid.


The ASUO pulls another ASUO

October 11th, 2007 by Ossie

I can’t say I’m surprised by the ruling of the ASUO Con Court to not void the minutes of the June 13 Senate meeting. If you’re just joining us here on As The ASUO Turns, no minutes were taken of the meeting, but were scrapped together in an unorthodox and seemingly illegal fashion. The Con Court beings its opinion by explaining “this Court finds that meeting in question was held in violation of OPML,” then tells why it will allow for it.   Read the rest of this entry »


My take on ASUO

October 4th, 2007 by Sean Jin

Last night’s meeting was an interesting foreshadowing of this coming year in student politics.

I just have a few things that I want to clear up, though…there has been a lot of crap going on behind my back regarding me and writing for the Commentator. I’m not trying to piss anyone off (although it seems to happen quite often) and if anyone has a legitimate concern or complaint, I encourage you to bring it up to me. Otherwise…well…I guess you’re entitled to your opinion.

For the record, I intend on covering ASUO as non-partisan as possible, with a slight bias towards the senators that advocate more fiscal responsibility. However, I won’t hesitate to label anyone or call them out.

The most interesting part of yesterday’s meeting revolved around the appointment of Senate President. It’s clear that Sen. Jones has drifted to the middle of the table and possibly even the other side, although she came in with the Campaign for Change. Some of the senators were getting annoyed at the partisan tensions at the table, but Sen. Warnecke brought up a good point: politics is about debating and the battle of ideas.
He took the awards for “Senator with Most Common Sense” and “Doomcloud” of the meeting.

Other awards of the meeting worth mentioning:
Sen. Boye for “Let’s Just Stop Fighting”
Sen. McKenzie for “This Partisanship is Getting Annoying”
Sen. Rajabzadeh for “Quietest Senator”
Sen. Wilsey for “Most Mind-Controlled” (I have an illustration to go along with it, too…) – By popular request, I have added the illustration:

Sen. Brown and Sen. Gulley tying for “Loudest and Most Talkative”.

Senate should not be afraid of engaging in discourse. Frankly, I believe that it takes that pulling and pushing of different interests to make politics work. The dynamic of the table is now more balanced. With about a 5-6 senators from the ‘programs’ side, a similar number advocating fiscal responsibility, and the rest somewhere in between, there is potential for progress.

But deep down inside, we all know that this is just playtime for the student senators, and whatever goes on the inside…no one cares.


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.


Supreme Court to schools: “Integrate this!”

June 28th, 2007 by CJ Ciaramella

The Supreme Court ruled today in a 5-4 decision against school integration plans in Louisville, Kentucky and Seattle, Washington; the decision is a precedent that could be used against hundreds of similar diversity programs in public schools across the nation.

Chief Justice John Roberts summed up the majority opinion when he said, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” Ironically, both sides of the court used Brown vs. Board of Education to bolster their opinions. The dissenting minority argued that forced integration and diversity plans were in accordance with the landmark 1954 ruling, while Roberts and the other four justices claimed that such attempts flew in the face of what Brown vs. Board of education meant. Clarence Thomas, the only black justice on the Supreme Court, offered this:

“What was wrong in 1954 cannot be right today. The plans before us base school assignment decisions on students’ race. Because ‘our Constitution is colorblind and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens,’ such race-based decisionmaking is unconstitutional.”

It’s too bad Nate Gulley and his squadron of oppressed minority students weren’t around to accuse Thomas of “forgetting where he came from.” Of course, this doesn’t affect the University of Oregon, where we have our own little diversity plan, nor does it overturn the 2003 Supreme Court ruling that upheld consideration of race in college admissions. Read the rest of this entry »