Word on the street is that Hillary Clinton is making a “surprise” visit to campus tomorrow. Nobody knows where; nobody knows when. My ultra-reliable sources say she will arrive as mysterious, black-masked avenger, swinging down from the chandelier, drawing her rapier and challenging scurrilous Obama supporters to defend their honor with steel. Or not. I’ll update this as more news comes in.

Nonie Darwish, an Egyptian-born American writer and speaker, will be on campus Thursday, May 22, 7-9 p.m. in Lillis 282. Darwish is the author of Now They Call Me Infidel: Why I Renounced Jihad for America, Israel and the War on Terror. She has a rather atypical perspective on the issue, so regardless of one’s stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict, this should an interesting lecture to say the least.

The event will be hosted by the College Republicans. For more information, check the Facebook event.

So as I was wandering through the EMU, eating pizza and glaring at Don Goldman, as is my wont, I noticed a strange new publication sitting on the racks - The Weekly Enema. Being immediately impressed by its 4-page, junior high layout (it’s actually an 11-by-17 sheet of paper folded in half), I decided to peruse it at my leisure. Read the rest of this entry »

Ol’ Dirty Editor-in-Chief Laura Powers has filed three grievances against the Senate Vice President Patrick Boye, Sen. Billy Hatch and the remainder of the Senate over-realized fund committee for deliberately violating Oregon’s Public Meeting Law.

The Student Senate over-realized committee met last night in what members said was an unofficial meeting after no public notice of the meeting was provided 24 hours in advance, a violation of Oregon Public Meetings Law.

A notice of the meeting was e-mailed at 2:06 p.m. The meeting began at 7 p.m.

… Powers told the committee it would not be in compliance with the law and the meeting should be postponed. Senate Vice President Patrick Boye said the meeting would continue in an informal capacity.

The committee discussed the proposals for over-realized fund projects, did not take minutes, did not follow Robert’s Rules of Order and used a voting system of thumbs up, thumbs down, and sideways thumbs, Powers said. It is unknown if they took a recess to play Heads Up Seven up.

Senate President Athanasios Papailiou sent out public notice last night at 7:01:39 p.m. that the Senate over-realized committee will be having a meeting today at 7:00pm in Room 175 of the Law School – in order to approve the proposal that was created last night – and that the Senate meeting has been moved to 7:20 p.m. I hate to be a stickler, but the notice went out 23 hours, 58 minutes and 21 seconds before the meeting, making it also invalid.

Powers said she requested the senators be penalized one month’s worth of stipends.

As advertised in the Ol’ Dirty this week, there will be two open forums held by the Smoke-Free Task Force to hear public opinion about proposing a smoking ban on campus. The first is tonight from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. and the second on Thursday from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m. Both are in the Knight Library Browsing Room. Comments have a three minute time limit and must be “respectful and relevant to the topic.” It’s time to start shaking those fists toward the nicotine Nazis.  

Did the Washington Post switch stories with the Onion today, or something?

President Bush said yesterday that he gave up golfing in 2003 “in solidarity” with the families of soldiers who were dying in Iraq, concluding that it was “just not worth it anymore” to play the sport in a time of war.

“I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf,” Bush said in a White House interview with the Politico. “I feel I owe it to the families to be as — to be in solidarity as best as I can with them.”

Some people give their lives for their country. Some people wave goodbye to their children, who’re deploying overseas, not knowing if they’ll ever see them again. President Bush gave up golf.

America appreciates his sacrifice.

As you can see, yesterday’s smoke-in was pretty awesome. We also got a nice letter about it, which you can read below the fold. Read the rest of this entry »

As reported in the Daily Emerald yesterday, the University of Oregon is under investigation because its “Underrepresented Minority Recruitment Program” may be violating civil rights laws:

The Department of Justice has information that the University of Oregon may be engaged in a pattern or practice of unlawful discrimination against newly hired non-minority faculty members with respect to the disbursement of salary and other employment benefits via its ‘Underrepresented Minority Recruitment Program,’” according to a letter sent to University General Counsel Melinda Grier that is signed by David Palmer, chief of the employment litigation section of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Emerald piece does a pretty good job of summarizing the issue, so I’m not going to get too far into that. In any case, the jury’s still out as to whether or not the program is illegal or not, so it’d be unfair to condemn as unlawful a program that may in fact be perfectly legal, as President Frohnmayer asserts that it is.

Basically, the program gives monetary incentives - to the tune of $30,000 a year for 3 years - to departments that hire minority faculty who are under-represented in the field. According to this article from 2007, the average amount of money allotted for new non-minority hires is roughly $7,000 per year for the same period - a clear disparity based solely upon race (it’s not clear if “minority” in this case also refers to religious minorities, homosexuals, or other cultural minorities).

While Melinda Grier says that “the money goes to the professor’s department, not to the professor,” the Emerald article makes it clear that this isn’t really the case:

The funds can be used for anyone in the department to start a new program, but a portion of the funds do go directly toward the minority hire, which is what’s drawing controversy.

It is “appropriate and common” to use the funds for “direct support to the new faculty member as part of a negotiated start-up package (e.g., research and travel funds, summer pay, course buy outs, equipment),” according to the program’s description. [emphasis added]

Whether or not this program proves to be unconstitutional, all of this seems rather amiss. Russell Tomlin, the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, defends the program and the ongoing quest for campus diversity by saying “we’re trying to do something that makes the world better.”

One wonders if this isn’t somewhat begging the question.

Today’s Metal Monday is going with an “up in smoke” theme for two reasons. First, the OC hosted the first Springtime Great American Smoke-in down in the EMU amphitheater. Freedom-loving students proudly lit up their cigars, pipes and cigarettes, and there was much harrumphing had by all. In fact, it was so much of a success that OC Publisher Guy Simmons vomited freedom-chunks all over the ground after smoking two fat stogies.

Second, a report released on Friday by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy found that teenagers who frequently smoked pot were twice as likely to have experienced depression within the last year. Of course, this is from the same government that also told us that smoking pot will make you shoot your friend in the face and run over little girls on bicycles. And never mind all those other studies that found no causal relationship between marijuana and mental illness.

Good thing we have that watchdog press, though. “High teens down and out” says the Boston Herald headline. “Report: Depressed teens, marijuana a dangerous mix” warns CNN.

But if all that sensationalism doesn’t scare Little Timmy away from the bong, try this: Compared to their sober peers, teenagers who regularly smoke marijuana are 100 percent more likely to start bands like Electric Wizard.

On a very metal side note, check out this graph from the Boston Herald story:

Even more disturbing, three teens in Texas were arrested this week after they dug up a child’s grave and turned his skull into a bong. The remains are believed to be that of an 11-year-old boy who died in 1921.

As if the protests about Tibet and other gripes about China weren’t enough, it seems that the Beijing 2008 Olympics have struck again: lumber prices are rising from growing demand for boards for Taekwondo training and insufficient supply. With the looming recession and a housing market already in collapse, this is only adding to the negative forces in the U.S. economy by raising construction costs for homes and furniture. Read the rest of this entry »

Former President Clinton will give a speech at the UO EMU Ballroom tomorrow night at 8:30. Be sure to thank him for helping torpedo his wife’s campaign and his party’s chances in the general election! Good work, big fella. Just remember to stay away from those girls at the soft serve in Carson.

And if you have $1,000 to $33,100 to spend on a man who voted for campaign finance reform, why not attend the John McCain “Portland Finance Reception” tomorrow night at the beautiful airport Sheraton? Because nothing defines a straight talkin’ man of the people better than holding a closed door $33,100/head dinner at a crappy airport hotel.

Update: More on McCain’s speech here.

You can send Hillary Clinton an e-card wishing her a happy Mother’s Day. But what to say? There’s so many possibilities. I was thinking maybe: “Congratulations on fulfilling one of the seven phenomena of life. Only six more to go to prove you’re not a satan-robot!”

Hat tip to the always classy gals at Wonkette.

Over at The Weekly Standard, Matt Labash spills the beans on how he has survived 12 consecutive White House Correspondants’ Association Dinners. The answer?

I part with these secrets reluctantly, since when I lecture in schools, I like to tell the kids not to drink unless it’s for a very good reason, like making the pain stop. But our twofold approach is simple: (a) Have no shame, and (b) ingest copious amounts of free hooch. Neither is usually a problem for us. We are, after all, journalists.

Cheers to that.

Well, Vincent, Katy and I tried to get press access to the Obama rally yesterday. We didn’t have press passes, but that didn’t seem to be a problem last time. Unfortunately, some irate Obama staffer told us that having our names in the masthead of the magazine wasn’t good enough. So much for the audacity of hope. Vincent and I decided we didn’t really want to see Obama anyways, especially if he was going to be such a dick. Properly embittered, we left to cling to our guns and religion. (Actually, being deficient in both areas, we mainly ended up clinging to booze).

Okay, so I’m not a big fan of Barack Obama (and his dick of a handler not letting the Commentator through the press line last night didn’t help score any points, but I’ll let CJ post about that…). I don’t think he’s the best choice for President, and I don’t like the messianic everything-to-everyone posturing of his campaign. As far as I’m concerned, there are tons of perfectly legitimate criticisms of the man. Nevertheless, I’m beyond tired of all the drummed-up “controversies” that keep cropping up every couple of weeks or so on right-leaning blogs. Until now, the most idiotic of these was the Case of the Missing Flag Lapel Pin. Heinous!

Alas, after dragging my hung-over self out of bed this morning to check my usual blogs, I see that not one but two silly new stories are making the rounds. First off, evidently Senator Obama mis-spoke during a speech up in Beaverton and said that he’d visited 57 states.The horror! How can he not even know how many states there are in the Union he wants to lead?! How such a dolt could ever be considered qualified for the Presidency is impossible to imagine.

Second, scholars of history are savaging the benighted Senator for suggesting that he would consider meeting with unfriendly heads of state, in the tradition of other American Presidents like FDR, Truman, and Kennedy. Evidently FDR and Truman meeting with Stalin doesn’t count, despite the fact that the United States had been staunchly anti-Soviet from the very start, because we were both fighting Nazi Germany at the time. Citing Kennedy’s meetings with Khruschev is also apparently off-limits because um… Kennedy had more experience in politics than Obama does… or something. And never mind Nixon going to China or Reagan meeting with Gorbachev. None of that matters, you see,  because Senator Obama clearly needs a history lesson, otherwise he’ll end up just like poor old Neville Chamberlain.

Jack Kelly ends his post on Real Clear Politics thusly: “The lack of historical knowledge among journalists is merely appalling.” I couldn’t agree more, chum.