Not Worthy

In Search of Whirling Dervishes

Please, everybody, don't get offended if I say something negative about you or someone or something you're overly defensive about. I have neither the time nor the patience to trade hate mail with one or any member of the ODE editorial people. These are just the things I think. For example, this weekend, I had the apparent luck to attend some kind of a mini-Horde-fest in my de facto backyard, the sunny EMU lawn. I suppose it was actually called an Earth Festival, but outside the "CELEBRATE THE EARTH" sign by the stage, it just seemed like an acid-casualty ice cream social. The music was what the Emerald politely referred to as "eco-folk". Frog was there, wagon and all. I've never seen more hemp in one place in my life. I got to use the witty phrase "Trustafarian" to great effect. Members of my group swore they'd seen Jonathan Collegio twirling by the front stage, but my prejudices would point to the contrary. A double life, perhaps? Not exactly my scene, but I'll be honest here: I think hippies are funny. I mean, not the kids hanging out on the lawn between Chapman and Condon tossing around the frisbee and listening to Phish. No, they're good kids. They're friendly. They're in school. They help pay the incidental fees that allow me to write the trite nonsense that I find amusing. The hippies I speak of are the die-hard Deadheads with Father Time beards, purple-tye-dyed-mumus, unkempt hair, and the unmistakable fragrance--the kind of resident that earns Eugene its "hippie town" reputation.

The real question, I suppose, is: where do these people come from? A friend of mine once tried to follow these people in a vain attempt to figure out where they came from and what could be done to stem the tide. No such luck. They stereotypically disappeared into the sides of VW minibuses, ten and twenty at a time, in some bizarre version of the clowns-in-the-car routine you probably have heard about but never actually seen. Do they exist outside of these concerts? Are they real people, or does some unknown party pull them out of the back storage room, dust them off, wind them up, and turn them loose so they can twirl for my entertainment? Do they have jobs? Do they legitimately belong to society as we know it? How do they hear of these events? How can these people go about twirling without bumping into each other? Have they tapped into the natural rhythm of their life force, alternately ebbing and flowing as one conscious entity? How can these people buy food? Are they the ones responsible for the oft-used yet invariably stupid term "dank nugs"? These are a few of the questions that plague my existence. Even though I have no capacity for human emotion, I feel the need the need to be fair. These hippies that I make fun of were indeed there for a good cause: to save the riverfront from being developed by the same faceless corporations who probably own a smaller company that the speakers came from. (I said probably --I don't intend to imply that I actually researched anything I've said here.) The brilliant, David and Goliathesque plan, if I understand it correctly, is to be described in the next few sentences. First I must use up ink to build a fanfare for what could very well be the get-rich-quick scheme of your dreams. I saw it with my very own, but apparently untrained eyes, because I think I missed something. What happened was, at the behest of the girl with the microphone, they raised their arms into the air... contracted their muscles... and then relaxed. That's all. Really. This was the brilliant plan.

And I suppose it worked, too, because they all cheered and everybody seemed happy. I should probably try that sometime.

Who Really Wears the Tassels in the EMU?

Since coming to campus, Dusty Miller and students have agreed to disagree about one simple thing: who controls the Erb Memorial Union (EMU).

Miller, the Director of the EMU, has gone on record many times as saying he is a servant of students and student interests. Of course, this is the same man who feels that the EMU is not a student union building so much as a community center. This basically means that Miller is more beholden to a bottom line than what students may or may not want out of the building their forebears built.

Some may remember the recent flap about selecting the coffee vendor for the EMU. Many students complained, the EMU Board balked and a new selection process has been instituted. One of the major issues was the fact that not only were students not involved in the selection process, but student representatives -- including the EMU Board itself --werent even informed that the selection committee had been formed and was reviewing applicants.

At an EMU Board meeting where the coffee selection debacle was discussed a representative of the coffee committee defended the process by saying that selection of vendors for the EMU has traditionally been a task of the EMU Administration and not one that students needed to be bothered with. Several members of the EMU Board, including Jenna Wasson and Geneva Wortman, expressed concern that this position was, at best, disingenuous in the wake of a study commissioned by the EMU that indicated students are definitely concerned about the vendors that are allowed to operate out of the building. Further the survey presented some criteria that students wanted vendors meet including a preferences for local vendors and organic products.

This, the EMU Board argued, coupled with the ASUOs well-known stance of greater student inclusion in decisions that effect students, should have tipped EMU Administration off that perhaps the standard operating procedure should be reevaluated.

The skirmish over the choice of coffee vendors probably seems fairly petty. Nevertheless, it may only be the first volley in a war between the EMU Board and EMU Administration.

The rift between the two bodies seemed to open wider this week when Miller and the Board fought over space reallocation within the building. The dispute centered around Room M111, which will soon be open.

The EMU Board hopes to shuffle current EMU Administrative offices around in order to open up space for student programs, most notably ASUO Legal Services and the Model United Nations. Miller, on the other hand, wants to expand EMU Administrative offices into Room M111. In an apparent gesture of appeasement, Miller said the EMU could renovate the space that Office of Student Advocacy (OSA) currently occupies, allowing Legal Services the expansion room it needs to adequately house John Davidson, a member of the Legal Services staff. While this option is apparently alright with James Britt, Director of OSA, it would cost the EMU thousands of dollars to do --thousands of dollars the building doesnt have. Not only that, but this would still leave the Model United Nations out in the cold.

The real bone of contention, however, was not Millers proposal to expand his administrative offices, but his unwillingness to consider the Boards proposal. Asked at one point by a Board member if he would accept the Boards proposal if it was officially passed as the will of the body, Miller reportedly said that he would not accept the Boards recommendation.

Miller then backed up his fighting words with the assertion that the EMU Board has no jurisdiction over allocation of administrative space (as opposed to student program space), according to one observer.

Ironically, this comes on the heels of EMU Board Chair Kim Guevaras assertion to the Student Senate that the student-dominated Board does, in fact, call all shots for the EMU.

Currently, no action has been taken by either Miller or the EMU Board concerning this latest controversy. This is surely not the last salvo in the battle for control of the EMU, though. Of course, the smart money is on Miller getting his way: with a largely new EMU Board next year, it stands to reason that EMU Administration will be able to convince them that expanding administration offices is the most is the course of action that best serves students.