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“Preoccupied with Pokemon.” Media digest Jan. 18, 2011

You want amusing? Is that what you want? Yeah? Well maybe a Pokemon card of blathering Fat Joe tribute act Phil Knight made by Emerald opinion bone saw Tyree Harris will satisfy you. If you’ll ever be satisfied.

You can also see other celebrity Pokemon cards at his blog, although sadly none of the others are directly relevant to the UO. Tyree’s recently launched site seems a little bit preoccupied with Pokemon, not that I’m complaining. I love Pokemon as much as the next American whose childhood took place in the late 90s. I definitely daydream of stalking as-yet undiscovered species through the jungles of Thailand and steppes of Nepal occasionally with only my trusty Geodude for company. What of it?

Public affairs:

  • Paying things off: The UO was supposed to charge $10 people trying to watch Thursday’s Oregon Basketball game, but it became apparent that the school charged people who weren’t there for the game too. Now people are being encouraged to go to purse-string custodian Frances Dyke directly for reimbursement. It seems likely that the $10 charges will be going to pay off the arena’s underground parking structure, which is for the moment inaccessible on game day to all but those on friendly terms with someone who has given $1 million or more to the UO (Emerald).
  • MLK Day: Was the occasion of a poetry reading for a UO student (Register-Guard), as well as other events (Emerald).
  • Stratification: The UO is evidently the U.S.’s 70th-best school for computer science (Indian Jobs). Also, according to earlier posts on this site, UO is third for special ed, in the top 15 for architecture, 58th for business.
  • ASUO: Programs Finance Committee members are dropping like flies (Emerald). The ASUO Senate is trying to find a freshman to be its friend (Emerald). Let me also say that I’m disappointed that I never got to refer to the ASUO Senate/Oregon Basketball(M) duo of Erin “Dana” Altman and Janet “Aaron” Brooks; also, the woman former ASUO President Neil Goldschmidt sexually abused died at a tragically young age (Oregonian).
  • More crime: A guy accused of the biggest Ponzi scheme in Washington state history allegedly got his start swindling when he was elected treasurer of the UO’s Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, then embezzled all its money (Seattle Times).
  • An education? Useful? Who knew (Statesman Journal)?

Opinion:

  • Letters: The Guard’s readers accuse alternative schools of racism, talk about rhetorical strategies and talk mourning.
  • The UCLA Faculty Association is interested in Richard Lariviere’s funding proposal (UCLA Faculty Association). A blogger from the University of Chicago calls him “one of the few Deans I’ve ever encountered with a backbone” (Leiter Reports). Another asks whether his proposal would be applicable in Michigan (emutalk.org).
  • The Emerald’s JoAnna Wendel ponders the psychology of sporting rivalry. “You can’t jokingly throw a cup of piss,” Wendel says. Technically speaking, this guy proves her wrong in that regard, though he may be in somewhat poor taste. If UO cheese Richard Lariviere gives the Emerald an interview, let it be remembered that the newspaper once used the phrases “cup of piss” and “flaming bag of poo” in the same article, and that we can thenceforth consider those terms “presidential.”
  • The “New Partnership” is mentioned here, but there’s not much concluding going on (AJM’s Blog).
  • UO Matters says the civil rights struggle didn’t really succeed, at least where schools are concerned.
  • Editorials: The Guard: boo state citizenship legislation! Also, Oregon should try to take other states’ ideas for addressing budget problems as well as its own.
  • Some people don’t seem so much to like poverty or outsourcing or concise, clear posting (HULIQ).
  • A blogger criticizes the creation of the ASUO sustainability coordinator position based on the erroneous assumption that it is taxpayer-funded, as if anything at the UO is taxpayer-funded, let-alone the fee-funded ASUO. And the blogger even cites Rockne’s article, which does not say the position is taxpayer-funded (Bookworm Room).
  • It wouldn’t be a good idea for you to consume herbicides and pesticides, did you know? (Register-Guard)

Sports:

  • Oregon Basketball (M): Lost to the Hated Bruins (Emerald); Was once the national champion, you know (KVAL); Is so short!!!!! So short!!!!! (Emerald)
  • Oregon Basketball (W): Also lost to the Hated Bruins (Emerald).
  • Oregon Track: Is doing well, at least (Emerald).
  • Oregon Fishing: won a tournament (Statesman Journal, KEZI).
  • Emerald sports-lizard Robert Husseman predicts Oregon Football will be in the Rose Bowl, but not the Natty, next year (Emerald).

Some thoughts only obliquely related to the the UO, if at all, from today’s news.

  • Martin Luther King, Jr., Day seems to be a time to celebrate when times are good and a time to mourn when times are bad.
  • I have heard the phrase “tall firs” so often in the last three months.
  • Ditto “natty.”
  • It is strange, at least to someone who did not grow up in this state, to think of “neighboring Nevada,” but Nevada actually is Oregon’s neighbor, isn’t it?
  • Last MLK Day, Emma Kallaway fired her multicultural advocate. How weird was that? It was also the first story I wrote during my second stint at the Emerald.
  1. For the record, Phil Knight would have a retreat cost of at least three.

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