Public affairs:

• Old news: Somehow, I managed to miss UO cheese Richard Lariviere’s by-then ancient diagnosis with prostate cancer when I was putting together the last digest. I apologize for that if somehow my oversight led to your missing it too. So formalized is the vocabulary of offering sympathy in print when this sort of thing happens, that if I were to do so, I could only hope I was being sincere. Instead, in solidarity, since mustache-growth and fighting prostate cancer appear to have been equated by our culture now, I refuse to shave my upper lip until Lariviere is puttering around that office in good health again. The UO has promised Lariviere will recover swiftly and completely; Jim Bean will preside in the meantime. (Register-Guard, UO Matters, Associated Press, KTVL Medford, OC, Emerald)
• Shames: The University of Washington’s athletic director said this about the UO’s academics: “It’s an embarrassment what their academic institution is, and what’s happened to them as far as their state funding has gone. In my mind it’s a wonderful athletic facility but they’ve watched it at the expense of the university go really down.” Corr! Gah! (Sports by Brooks, UO Matters)
• Competitive medicine: Oregon blood banks are trying to harness the UO-OSU sports-hate to persuade us to try to outbleed our rivals. (Emerald)
• Car movements: Remember, Franklin’s going to be congested. (KVAL)
• Flooring and hardwoods: Over the weekend, a few journalists appear to have mistaken the Matthew Knight Arena floors for catnip. “Iconic … stories woven together … spectacular … innovative … unique … immediately recognizable … unlike anything in college basketball,” the Guard pants, adding “not orange” for good measure. “Art,” screams USA Today. (NESN, ESPN, etc.)

Opinion:

• Letters: The Guard‘s readers call for more suffering and less of the type of democracy that involves mail-in fliers. The Emerald indulges a Colorado resident’s desire for a brief weed-ramble.
• Editorials: The Guard makes some opaque noises about fiscal apocalypse, concluding that employment is more important than inflation; then it cheers on the possibility that state attorney generals might tear apart unscrupulous mortgage-foreclosers. The Emerald joins arms with EmX opponents.
• UO Matters criticizes the administration for not upgrading its computing sooner because of what it says about financial priorities.
• After years at the UO, Emerald editorial honcho Tyree Harris has finally met people who like their roommates. (Emerald blogs)
• UO student Teeona Williams blames income disparities for the disproportionate death toll breast cancer takes among black women. (Emerald)
• The director of a non-profit organization encourages people to adopt. (Register-Guard)
• Reasons the UO thinks you should give it money: Oregon Football gets Trafton B. a little misty eyed, and he also likes shooting pool. (UO’s online begging bowl)

Scene:

• There’s a new Oregon Voice out there, and I’m not going to give a bullet point to every article. OV honcho Noah DeWitt’s editor’s note (p. 2) bills it as “an alternative to the tired ethos (pun intended) of other campus journals.” I assume he means he believes half of his articles aren’t crudely written, his publication has demonstrated it is a viable target for advertisers, the editing has scrubbed and polished the text clean, ideas are not cribbed from other campus magazines, and the articles do not teeter on the edge of libel. If that’s his definition, the magazine is an utter failure. It is just another campus journal, subject to all the pitfalls that face the rest of them, and DeWitt’s holier-than-thou attitude is wholly unjustified, not that the Commentator’s holier-than-thou attitude is. But all things considered, it is actually a very good campus magazine.
• More OV: The best article in the issue is Grace Pettygrove’s (p. 18) about Lariviere’s proposal, which she rubbishes. She opens by criticizing the single worst article I ever wrote for the Emerald, which I’m fine with. Then she questions the degree of influence the proposal will give private donors. That’s something nobody, even Oregon’s most vigilant journalistic watchdog, Brent Walth, not only seems to have failed to ask, but seems not to have considered important. Who are these private donors meeting with candidates for the UO presidency telling them to privatize the school?
• Even more OV: Best of the rest of the articles: A hilarious, unhinged advice column (p. 6) that tought me a great deal about cats and flatulence. A biting critique of the school’s sports culture (p. 7). A jarring meditation on the subliminal promotion of cannibalism by cereal companies (p. 4). Worst of them: Tyler Pell’s article about Jews in campus media (p. 4-5), not because it mentions Lyzi Diamond’s religion (who cares, although the pull-quote is kind of non-classy), but because Pell doesn’t actually do the journalism to learn that the editor-in-chief of the Emerald is Jewish, or the writing to actually make a point (Unless he’s trying to satirize the laziness of people who make the Jews-in-media pronouncements, in which case it doesn’t come through clearly enough). An article about skateboarding that appears to be a Q and A with the writer’s interview subject when it is in fact a Q and A with the writer (p. 24)
• The Emerald’s Andrew Hitz starts comparing Restoration-era fops to modern hipsters. You think you know where he’s going with it, after a very redemptive column about hipsters and their obsession with American Indians a couple of weeks ago; then he changes course and appears to cheer the rise of the Tea Party. Were his intentions ironic? You be the judge.
• A string quartet has been in town! There was a play based on a movie! A movie was well-cast! A band you haven’t heard of is coming to town and you might not have the money to see it! People are pleased with (Emerald)
• Look at some Halloween costumes! Woody Allen’s new movie is better than Jackass 3D! Mushrooms are food! (Ethos)

Sports:

• Oregon Football’s fun was ruined by a Hated Huskies team that refused to play the “hapless victim.” Getting iron-tipped gazelle Kenjon Barner back was pretty chill for OF, but losing designated finger Nate Costa was felt by all to be kind of lame. (Emerald)
• There was a conference Double-Yoo for Oregon Volleyball this weekend. Then it got an Ell. (Emerald)
• Oregon Basketball (W) coach Paul Westhead gives his players a week to get it right after a jammy game against the Hated Warriors. “It might be an appropriate wake-up call,” he said. (Emerald)
• Oregon Basketball (M) got off to a shaky preseason start against the Hated Beacs. (Emerald)

Public affairs:

• Democracy: Emerald reporter Ian Geronimo looks into the soul of the County Commission races on this year’s ballot and finds only pain. (Emerald)
• Unpopular initiatives: The effort to beat the UO’s riverfront development continues with efforts to drag Richard Lariviere before the UO Senate. (Emerald)
• Plants: The Emerald with a feature on an OSU program in Eugene.
• Literature: A novelist and her translator will be on campus Thursday* for a reading. (Ethos Magazine**)
• The obese: The U.S. government is trying to move part of nutrition labels to the front of food packages. (Emerald)
• Honesty news: The Oregonian with what appears to be a slightly harsh ruling of “false” on a Congressional candidate’s claims regarding his rival.

Opinion:

• UO Matters readers get deep on Richard Lariviere’s overtime policy and subsequent scolding. Of all the things in this digest, this one is worth reading.
• The Guard’s Editorial Board says Lariviere’s decision to give overtime to employees on furloughs was stupid but well intentioned.
• UO Matters also has praise for the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
• Emerald columnist Matt Tellam goes to meetings for the College Democrat and Republican parties and finds that, surprise surprise, they are boring and devoid of intellectual substance.
• Journalism student Becky Metrick pinch-hits an Emerald column about a girl who’s been through serious shit.
• The Emerald Editorial Board has taken over satirizing duties for the moment, and writes about students’ desire to sleep, frolic, and possibly have sex with one another.
• Editorials: An EWEB employee was sexually assaulted three times by her co-workers, and EWEB allegedly did nothing to stop it, which the Guard’s editors say  is emblematic of a larger problem.
• Letters: The Guard’s mailbag is surprisingly nearly free from suspiciously on-message, pro-candidate missives purportedly written by everyday citizens all by themselves. Instead, it contains attacks on the newspaper’s endorsements and a thank-you note to the police.

The Statesman Journal has a sloppy french-kiss of a goodbye to Frohnmayer:

Dave Frohnmayer wanted to be Oregon’s governor back in 1990. That didn’t happen.

But he has no regrets, and neither should Oregonians. Frohnmayer has charted the state’s direction through the thousands of lives he has influenced. For the past 15 years he has been president of the University of Oregon.

He leaves that job today, entering a well-deserved retirement, although he still will teach a bit at the UO.

Frohnmayer is the first native Oregonian to serve as president of one of the state’s large research universities.

He is a man of considerable personal grace and courage, someone for whom leadership and public service have been a lifelong calling.

Oh, brother. But wait, it goes on: Read the rest of this entry »

The Oklahoma Senate decided yesterday to shelve a bill that would have allowed concealed carry of firearms on college campuses to military veterans and those with firearms training. The bill, introduced by Republican Jason Murphey, faced strong opposition from students, faculty and administration on Oklahoma campuses, who said that it would have decreased safety rather than improved it. From the AP article:

University of Oklahoma President David Boren had argued the bill would hurt recruitment of students and faculty. It also would pose a dilemma for police trying to determine whether a person wielding a weapon was a “deranged gunman or someone who thinks he is doing good vigilante work.

I’m not an expert on police tactics, but why wouldn’t it be the same way that they determine real threats in any other situation? Thousands of law-abiding people carry concealed weapons outside of college campuses, yet the news pages aren’t splashed with stories of police accidentally gunning them down.

But I don’t imagine this would be a problem anyways, since the police habitually show up after campus shootings, just in time to clean up the bodies.

For more on the issue, check out Students for Concealed Carry on Campus. Also related are these stories about a Medford teacher who sued the school district for her right to carry. She lost but has since filed an appeal.

The register guard ran a story today that includes an interview with the Medford teacher who is challenging the ban on fire arms in the classroom, which was posted last month by CJ. The woman claims she is afraid that her husband may come to the school and hurt her, but after taking one good look at Gerry Katz, I don’t see how this guy can do any harm.

An anonymous teacher in the Medford Schood District is suing to secure her right to carry a concealed weapon in the classroom. This “Jane Doe” says her life has been threatened multiple times by an abusive ex-husband; however, the teacher says she and her lawyer are primarily concerned with asserting and reinforcing the Second Amendment.

Oregon, unlike many states, allows teachers with concealed weapons permits to carry firearms, but almost all of the school districts in Oregon, such as Medford, do not. Either way the case is decided, it would apply only to Jackson County, unless it went to a higher court. The teacher’s case seems strong, especially with her personal safety at stake. This could be a good precedent for future Second Amendment cases, such as (oh, I don’t know) the right of college students to defend themselves from insane gunmen.

Colleges and universities across the nation made a show of discussing safety issues after the Virginia Tech massacre but accomplished shockingly little. In the end, it was back to “lie prone on the floor and wait to die.” The University of Oregon followed suit, advising students to call our bumbling,  klepto (not to mention unarmed) campus security. OC alum Andy Dolberg ripped the U of O’s revised “safety policies” a new one.