OC FUNDING SLASHED
The PFC voted today to approve the Executive reccomendation of an 11% decrease for the Commentator’s budget. Despite considerable discussion, the PFC was unwilling to consider either a 2.5% increase, or level funding. The proceedings were strictly by the book, but next year the “Senate Midterm Grades” feature should run sometime after the PFC hearing. Not that the whole affair wasn’t brutally viewpoint neutral. Incidentally, 90% of the Commentator’s budget is printing costs, and an 11% cut will make a noticable dent at a time when we’re distributing over 1,000 issues before the folowing issue comes out. Luckily, we had an incorrigible optimist in Vice Chair Micah Kosasa, who cheered us up to no end by calling it “a bump in the road.”
The whole evening was rendered complete by sitting in on the Survival Center’s budget hearing, where the proud co-directors of a program with an $18,000 budget got all huffy over 50 bucks coming out of the “Community Gardening” line item. “I feel like we asked for something, and it just got sent back,” pouted one Survivalista. So did we, so did we. Best moment of the night (except for the Ty thing, maybe) was the PFC approving a line item marked “Propaganda.”
February 16th, 2007 at 5:16 am
Fucking typical. Can’t reform the precious stipend model, because those kids work so damn hard at ordering pizza on everyone else’s dime, but you’ve gotta cut the OC by 11%, you know, fiscal responsibility and all.
I’d note, however, that publishing more regularly nips that in the bud quite nicely. More issues = fewer reasons to think y’all aren’t using the money. There will always be the “we don’t like you because you’re mean” aspect, but at least nobody’s violating any Constitutional amendments this year.
February 16th, 2007 at 9:23 am
Yeah, well the first step will be simply printing more of each issue. Also, I’m thinking some kind of “Spend More, Stupid” sign in the office might prevent this in the future.
February 16th, 2007 at 10:35 am
I agree wholeheartedly with the sign idea. I’ll post more about this today or tomorrow once I get a chance.
February 16th, 2007 at 11:25 am
Good call on the sign, Ted. I think it’d go well pretty much anywhere, it should also be bright pink.
February 16th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
You guys should splurge on really expensive and environmentally damaging inks, like copper and gold and neon green.
February 16th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Done
February 16th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Last night I had a dream, a prophesy of a budget system that doesn’t rely on pesky spending patterns, a system that eliminates the necessity to spend the entire budget awarded to a group. This vision came from the accounting gods or maybe from a combination of giving blood, endless circular logic, coup d’états and old pizza. Either one resulted in a good trip.
In my vision the ASUO had purchased a polygraph machine with over realized funds. A group would make budget request while monitored by the polygraph. Allocations were based on the truthfulness of promises to use a budget responsibly during the next year, a far more accurate criteria then previous spending. No longer was a group’s future programming hampered by past over budgeting, misspending or leadership mishaps. The PFC was finally freed of its earthly budgetary bonds, instead allocating by the honor system. Peace and budgetary bliss reigned for a millennia as the incidental fee dropped to one dollar a year and all groups were fully funded.
Convert and be saved for I am the budgetary Messiah of the ASUO. I will begin my search for twelve disciples to evangelize the message of accounting heaven. Applications for Judas are available. Biblical names only please.
February 17th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
I love how one of the few groups that uses their i. fee money strickly for printing publications that go out to the student body, not for parties, staff, and gifts for guest speakers…get their budget chopped. Congrats to the PFC for f***ing up as usual.
February 18th, 2007 at 7:02 am
When combined with all the horror at the very idea of stipend reform, that really does come across as pretty egregious. Not only are they not going to stop paying themselves ridiculous stipends out of student dollars, they’re going to go after the groups that don’t.
Speaking of which, keep an eye on the budgets for the Insurgent and the Voice. IIRC, the Insurgent already gets more money than the OC, and the Voice was getting pretty close…
February 18th, 2007 at 7:55 am
A few years ago I know the Insurgent got more money, and more in an amount that almost exactly matched the stipends they paid themselves.
February 18th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Maybe it’s time you take on some corporate donors. How hard would it be to pull in a some fat cat Libertarians for a yearly donation of a few hundred bucks? You could milk the shit out of ‘em by making it out to be an attack on freedom of speech and the the marketplace of ideas because, essentially, that’s what this is. The other option is to switch the focus a bit. You know, promise to mail your journal to our poor, unjustly incarcerated state pen felons. You’re aware of the real problem though. You’re too fucking WHITE. You’re bordering on supremacy you damned bigots. No wonder you don’t get more money. Wake up and smell the fucking diversity! It’s time you put a self-pitying racist like Ty Schwifferdouche or an Arab-hating Jew like Rosenheimberger on your staff.
February 18th, 2007 at 11:52 am
Nick: I served with Rosenberg, I know Rosenberg, Rosenberg is a friend of mine, YOU don’t know Rosenberg.
February 18th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Nick: The last sentence there brought you to their level. Schwoeffermann’s writing speaks for itself, but Rosenberg is far, far from the twisted stereotype you invoked.
Our doors are open to anyone and everyone. Our staff is, as a matter of fact, fairly diverse, and the only thing preventing it from becoming more diverse is just a general lack of interest in working for the Commentator. We take whoever comes to us, and we choose and write stories based on who is willing to do the work. We write a magazine for everyone on campus, and I know people who disagree with certain aspects of our political slant but still enjoy the magazine. That’s how I got roped into this damn thing…
February 18th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Well, we don’t take everyone who comes to us, and that decision is based on work quality. The Commentator succeeds because those people who contribute get a lot of benefits from it. Definitely not monetary benefits, but work experience and the chance to grow as a writer or grow in other areas.
We must have stood up for something right since we have enemies…
February 19th, 2007 at 12:24 am
Forget about a sign. Put it on the back cover of the next issue.
February 19th, 2007 at 2:08 am
Haha. I wasn’t trying to say you weren’t diverse. I never knew you guys to be so sensitive. I meant you’re not diverse enough, and you never will be by the Senate’s standards. I see the problem though… not that it was a divine revelation. You said it: “…a general lack of interest in working for the Commentator.” Maybe pitch it to the journalism students as a way to get published and aid their carriers… Don’t call it work, call it opportunity, like the Ol’ Dirty does. Or, accept defeat and keep posting comments on this blog about how the student government has incorrectly assumed that your magazine doesn’t do enough in contributing to the ‘cultural and physical development of the University.’
As for putting myself “at their level,” I think that statement is a sneaky way of looking like you disagree, but to anyone who can read, it’s obvious you agree. Everybody knows Schwifferdouche is a racist, and who can forget the months of attempting to somehow stop Iran from doing what not even the United Nations could get Iran to do: end its nuclear proliferations. If you won’t acknowledge his attempted perpetuation of a culture war and his goal of bringing it to our campus, at least accept the fact that Rosenheimlich has a lower intellectual capacity of a Sara Hamilton. And he’s not even an entertaining idiot. Lastly, I really don’t appreciate you claiming that I’m at their level. You know how insulting that is.
February 19th, 2007 at 10:37 am
The Commentator staff have and do go into journalism classes–I think the main issue here is the fact the Commentator is not stipend based. You get paid working at the Emerald.
I may have disagreed with Jon Rosenberg on the senate resolution on Iran, and that time could have been spent on more locally effective efforts but “Rosenheimlich” is beyond awful.
Nick, you really are coming across as unintelligent and tactless.
February 19th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
emily is dead right. My first involvement with student government came when I opposed the Iran resolution. Jon was the first ASUO figure I ever mocked, back in the summer issue’s “OC Asks.” What Jon does have is the ability to disagree with someone about a single issue, but still work to find common ground on other issues. This quality alone makes him a better Senator than most, and a poor choice to single out for criticism.
And yes, I’m sensitive about the diversity issue. At the PFC stipend model reform, I was accused of “making a magazine for white people.” As ignorant as the criticism is, it hurt, and as much as I hate feeling defensive about the issue, I am. And guess what, vaguely anti-semitic swipes at Jon’s last name have nothing to do with the level of discourse I want to see on this blog.
February 19th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
It is always nice to see such a high level intellectual discourse on this campus… I would like to thank the Commentator for providing a forum for allowing all persons of all views to post on their blog and write in their magazine. While I might disagree with certain positions taken, I feel that such information and understanding of oppposing views helps solidify and enhance my own views. It is unfortunate; however, that certain people do not have this same level of discourse and must stoop to ridiculous, overtly prejudice comments… anyway that is my philisophical mini-rant for the day. Whish I had been at the meeting… :(
February 19th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Well stated, Niedermeyer. Also, check your email, dammit.
February 19th, 2007 at 4:44 pm
Again, for the record, the OC website is entirely funded by private donations. Not a penny of student fees goes into maintaining the OC website.
February 19th, 2007 at 4:52 pm
[…] Ted previously reported, the Commentator budget has been cut by this year’s Programs Finance Council. Knowing that […]
February 19th, 2007 at 11:20 pm
It probably doesn’t help your (the OC’s) credibility to try and be more diverse by putting out the Hate Issue, and more specifically, an article entitled “I Hate Diversity.” Granted, it was written by Anthony Warren (that initofitself explains a lot…), and I know that the Commentator isn’t responsible for what was written, but sometimes you just have to come to a common ground on this campus. This doesn’t mean giving up your credibility as a “conservative journal of opinion,” it just means that more people read the OC than you think, more now than ever before, and you should realize that people could take offense to what is written. Obviously, this isn’t a basis for funding purposes, but it is a basis for the overall appreciation for the Commentator in the current setting that it’s in.
February 20th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Oh Jesus (Christ?). Ted, don’t act like I’m accusing you of being a bunch of bigots. The Emerald received the same criticism from the Mosaic writers who went in one day and saw that there were few women and no people of color. When 80 percent of the university (and state) is white, diversity is hard to achieve. And I don’t hate Jews or racist black people. I just like to make fun of stupid people. Notice I didn’t say anything about him being wrong because he’s Jewish or Schwifferdouche being wrong because he’s black. They’re wrong because they’re idiots. Don’t get hung up on the pseudonymes. It’s for the idiots’ own protection.
February 20th, 2007 at 10:36 am
Student: Glad the full-sized picture of “glorious leader Reagan” across from Anthony’s piece tipped you off that maybe our values were not exactly in line with his. This makes the point that in many ways the Commentator does more for “diversity” as a general concept then a lot of other student groups, simply by allowing people with different opinions to work together on a magazine. And if you are one of those people that can’t look past the “well-taught” measures of diversity, our board of directors is made up of a latino, a woman and a token white male (me). Think the Hate Issue is “bad for diversity?” maybe this year we will reprint current contributer and former editor Sho Ikeda’s hilarious “I Hate Whitey” piece. The point is this: we want to reach intelligent, critical alcoholics everywhere. If you think we aren’t reaching a specific group, explain what it will take. Are we going to become “A Journal of Sensitive Opinion” or “A Journal of Total Equality of Everybody” anytime soon? No, but we aren’t any less diverse for it.
Nick: Ok, whatever.
February 20th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
>at least accept the fact that Rosenheimlich has a lower intellectual capacity of a Sara Hamilton.
Okay, Nick, I’m calling you out. You use a german word to substitute for a partially Jewish last name. That says quite a bit about yourself.
Secondly, you don’t know Rosenberg. I know Rosenberg. He’s a smart guy. He’s got street smarts.
It makes me wonder if you’re someone who is just got an axe to grind against certain people…
February 20th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Is this “Emerald” Nick or “Former ASUO” Nick? Either way … wow.
I mean, Rosenheimlich? Really, dude?
February 20th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
My money is on Hudson, as he is a bitter man!
February 20th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Hudson didn’t have a history of anti-semetism, however.
February 20th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Making fun of somebody’s last name is anti-semitic? Hey, I’ve fielded my share of poked fun, depending on which Nick I am. I’m either short or yellow (only a certain group of people will get that. No, it’s not a racist comment about Asians.)
Have any of you ever told a dead baby joke? How about a dumb blond joke? Yo’ mama? I won’t go so far as to say these are OK and therefore black and Jewish jokes are, too. But I won’t only becuase I know most people have told a joke about a black person or Jew. I love how most of you have commented on a name rather than the point. Kudos to Niedermeyer.
February 20th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Okay, I get the short bit: Nick Hudson is, like what, 5′3? But “yellow”? Is Nick Wilbur suffering from jaundice?
Actually, I doubt Nick is either, but it’s fun to speculate, isn’t it?
February 20th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Hahahahaha.
February 20th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Nick is obviously Nick Wilbur, the so-called yellow journalist.
February 21st, 2007 at 1:29 am
“This makes the point that in many ways the Commentator does more for “diversity” as a general concept then a lot of other student groups…”
Neidermeyer - I guess this depends on what your definition of “does more for ‘diversity’” is. I would agree with you and say that the OC provides a “unique” opportunity for diversity, because of what you stated above. But I woudn’t jump to the front of the line and say that you do more for diversity than a lot of other student groups. I think that student groups simply approach diversity differently than a publication, in the fact that they put on cultural events showcasing cultures, show movies about different countries, bring speakers to talk on a variety of diverse subjects, etc, most, if not all of which, are free for the general public to attend to engage in this form of diversity. But I believe it is unfair to say that student groups are wasting money putting on events like these. I’m not quoting anyone, it is kind of just a general feeling that I have been hearing. Basically, I believe that student groups approach diversity differently than the OC or any other publication, such much so that you can’t really compare them to one another.
February 21st, 2007 at 3:31 am
Student-
Show me a good definition of “diversity,” and I’ll show you a PFC that is always, at all times, 100% “viewpoint neutral.” What makes the Commentator different from other groups, dear anonymous fellow insomniac, is that we think for ourselves. Imagine for a moment, if we were a group like all the others, what would we be discussing? We’d be whining about discrimination against republicans, the lack of a “conservative studies” department, or we’d be lobbying to have students pay for Ann Coulter to come to campus. After all, these things technically would make the campus more diverse, no? It may be sacrilege to say on this campus, but most of the time when groups say something is “good for diversity,” they mean “good for our agenda.”
We may be “the conservative voice on campus,” but I don’t see that as an excuse to promote stupid ideas and whiny petulance simply because “we have to fight the good fight.” I’d probably be “representing conservatives” better if we got the Senate to pony up the $10 grand, or whatever it takes to grace our campus with the presence of Ann Coulter, but it’s not worth it. I don’t think that groups are necessarily “wasting money putting on events,” but I think they could make more of an impact with less money. Then again, why would they try when the officials who give out the money are terrified of being portrayed as “against diversity” (whatever that means) and could care less if the I-fee goes up… again.
February 21st, 2007 at 5:50 am
“But I believe it is unfair to say that student groups are wasting money putting on events like these…”
Bait and switch.
“Making fun of somebody’s last name is anti-semitic?”
In this case, it’s certainly beginning to sound like it.
February 21st, 2007 at 10:51 am
Olly: Out of context. Jews should not report – under the guise of objectivity – on anti-Semitism just as blacks shouldn’t report on KKK rallies.
Rosenberger: If you’re reading this, and I’m sure you are, will you say something? Have I offended you by making fun of your name more than I’ve likely offended you by making fun of your intellectual capacity? Do you feel like you’re a victim of religious discrimination? If so, I apologize. I’ll do away with the pseudonyms in the future.
And Mr. Frank: Although Nick Wilbur may be an intelligent person for whom I’d be honored to be mistaken, and the Jack Nicholson look-alike Nick from the ASUO has his own qualities, such as an attractive girlfriend, don’t make assumptions.
February 21st, 2007 at 11:15 am
I linked the entire comment thread. I’m not sure how much more context there is to give.
And this is the exact disagreement we had in that contextless thread. Why the hell shouldn’t blacks report on KKK rallies?
February 21st, 2007 at 6:06 pm
Seriously? I mean, come on, I realized that sometimes really smart people miss the most obvious shit, but Olly, seriously? You don’t need to take a journalism class to know that predispositions can guide someone’s interpretation of an event. It’s not easy for someone to report on on issue or event in which they’re emotionally involved. Are you playing dumb? You’re not supposed to have an opinion when you’re title (reporter, staff writer, whatever) implies to the reader that you are “objective.”
February 21st, 2007 at 6:45 pm
If this is “yellow” Nick, I’m laughing my ass off right now. “Objective” like the way you covered “Keggergate ‘06″? Please.
February 21st, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Nick: “It’s not easy for someone to report on on [sic] issue or event in which they’re emotionally involved. Are you playing dumb?”
Not intentionally. You think (to take your example) only black people are “emotionally involved” in the ontological fact of a KKK rally? I would beg to disagree. And on your terms, I should not be allowed to write a news story about one, nor should any professional journalist I know, be they black or white or whatever else.
The fallacy here seems to be the idea of a perfect “objective” story, that recounts nothing but the relevant (to whom?) facts in the appropriate (to whom?) order and tells the correct story, as it happened (to whom?). Your ideal journalist is not capable of thought, or discernment, or anything as damnably subjective as style or taste. That ideal is not one to which intelligent people should aspire, although (given your previous comments here) it doesn’t really surprise me that you’re suggesting it.
February 22nd, 2007 at 8:39 am
Ah. I like! I agree that it could be difficult for anyone to write without predispositions about a KKK rally, for eg. Don’t fall victim to the same argument about “oh, nobody can be objective.” No shit. There is no such thing, but there is a necessary disconnect that the NYT staff writers have with their sources. Why is it that they’re not allowed to participate in public rallies themeselves if not for the existance of this ideal?
February 23rd, 2007 at 10:17 am
And Nick Wilbur didn’t report on the Emerald party, Ted. Jared Paben did. Wilbur was quoted because he was the hero who threw out the drunk asshole that hit Howell’s girlfriend in the head with a beer bottle. That Nick Wilbur, what a stud.
February 23rd, 2007 at 10:52 am
I was referring to the Dallas/Emily party expose. That was some journalism to be proud of.
February 24th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
I think it is time to bring up that Iran resolution!
February 26th, 2007 at 7:14 am
Ah. Dallas and Emily. Yes, I remember. Nick Wilbur hated Dallas Brown because he was the only one of the Senators who was receiving a stipend for not attending the required number of meetings. Singled out he was because of a personal grudge. What about his final column?
February 26th, 2007 at 9:39 am
A personal grudge against a specific politician is like hating a dog for pissing on the rug; they both do repulsive things because that’s their nature. Just like the dog, you must treat them as an animal which only cares about immediate needs and satisfaction. It’s not really their fault they do disgusting things all the time when their masters do not put them on their backs every once in awhile and assert dominance. Politicians are animals, and they must be treated as such.