Year In Review

No Mas, No Mas

This is the way the year ends. This is the way the year ends. This the way the year ends. Not with a bang but a whimper.

It is precisely this time of year which we gather amongst ourselves to discuss what has happened over the course of the last nine months. I, in particular, have my own special ritual. It usually begins with me turning to my manservant Standish and rudely yelling "Bring in the bottled lightning, a clean tumbler and a corkscrew!" I then kick him like a dog until he manages to drag himself out of the room, at which point I lock the door and sulk bitterly and periodically sob like a sissy mary--for weeks.

Am I being overly dramatic here? Yes, yes I am. But this is merely a manifestation of my bitterness, and I'd like to think I'm entitled to it. Do not begin to underestimate my feelings at this moment; I am bitter, hear me roar. If you are reading this and you happen to be a member of student government, the university administration or campus media, you're running about an 80 percent chance that I have zero respect for you. How, you may ask, can I make such a claim? Because I can. I have no use anymore for such questions. I have based my outlook for the future, my evaluation of this past year, nay my entire epistemological worldview on a simple postulate: I was right and they were wrong.

Of course I am bitter and I don't care what you or anybody else thinks, but for the sake of making you finish reading this article I will attempt to justify this statement, rather than admit that one heart string is still resonating softly with altruism. And I can think of no better way of doing this than looking back at the year that was.

The EMU and Other Strange Birds
I returned to the EMU this year, and it immediately hit me how much I hate the place. There sighs, lamentations and loud wailings resounded through the stale air, so that at first it made me weep; strange tongues, horrible language, words of pain, tones of anger, voices loud and hoarse, and with these the sound of hands, made a tumult which is whirling through that air forever dark, and sand (from construction) eddies in a whirlwind.

I really don't like those in student government and I'll get to that shortly, but this year things were so bad that the building these people inhabit became the embodiment of their own personal rot. First of all, you had to walk all the away around the building for half the year, because they were busy constructing an amphitheater with student money that students didn't vote on or even necessarily want. Last year when I asked student leaders why students didn't get a chance to vote on spending $325,000 of their own money to improve their building I was told that "Students aren't educated enough to make this kind of decision." Read: You're dumb.

With that kind of logic behind the project, I wasn't surprised when the amphitheater turned out to be way behind schedule and way over budget. Hey, it's only money. But wait--there's more. Halfway through the year, the students on the EMU board and administration approached the student senate for another $325,000 worth of student money from the same fund that they used to fund the amphitheater project. They said that they needed to put in a cooling system to keep students from passing out in the heat ($25,000 kaa-ching!) and another $300,000 (kaa-ching!, kaa-ching!) to put in an elevator in order to make the building handicap accessible and comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Now having known about the ADA for years now, the administration should have been preparing and fundraising for this elevator for a few years now. Student government should have also been aware of this before they thought about remodeling the amphitheater--why should they spend money on a frivolous improvement when that same money was needed to simply make the building comply with federal law? And further, why had the EMU administration not been saving up for these contingencies earlier, since the ADA has been in effect for years now?

The answer, my friends, is that they knew they could just keep taking your money. They did this with your money even though they took it from a fund that was set up for emergencies, not to compensate for gross mismanagement. The EMU board abuses students, and the EMU administration abuses them. But no one listened to me; I was just a student lowest of the low on the food chain. I told them not to spend money on the amphitheater. And because they spent the money need for necessary improvements on that sinkhole of cash, when it came time for the necessary improvements students had to pay more than was needed, as well as jeopardize their reserves. Then to add insult to injury, at the last regular student senate meeting of the year, two EMU board members (Jenna Wasson and ASUO president Geneva Wortman) expressed their concern that the EMU administration was ignoring student concerns and *gasp* manipulating students on the EMU board.

Yes, yes, just another instance where I said this months ago and was ignored; another instance where I was right and they were wrong.

Student Government 97-98 R.I.P.
Technically, I was a member of student government this year and, in case you were wondering, I do hate myself. Much of my contempt in this area is deeply personal, so rather than say so and so's an idiot or so and so is a bald-faced liar with no integrity let alone knowledge of the rules, etc. I trust you already understand this. If you grab a thumbtack, a blindfold, a bottle of whiskey and walk into Suite Four, your odds of winning the pin the tail on the jackass are pretty good. So I will try to keep my comments about people to a minimum, since I am just bitter enough to say something libelous.

In which case, I have very little to say.

The problem is that the kids in student government are @#$%?! dumb. Their duties are clearly outlined in a nice little green book which I'm sure over half of them haven't read. The brain trust in the senate and executive staff next year could maybe toast some bread. It's so dark in there that it's hard to tell whether we've hit bottom or this is just a ledge on the way down. Either way, these kids are in over their heads. It looks like there could be a serious attack in the legislature on student fees next year, and since this year's student government burned every possible bridge they had in the state legislature, their own incompetence could be their undoing. I don't have to agree politically with everything these students do; I just want them to follow the rules. If they did that maybe they wouldn't have to face ASUO Constitution Court charges twice every year. Maybe the legislature wouldn't be concerned about them. Maybe student government elections wouldn't be grossly illegal. Maybe I wouldn't always be right and they wouldn't always be wrong.

The Administration
You've really got not one but two governments here at the UO, what are you gonna do? Fuck one and make the other cook breakfast? But the reality is, I can piss and moan about student government, but really administrative decisions are often the decisive ones in your academic career.

Especially if something bad happens to you. This year was notable for two high profile cases involving the student conduct code, with student Danta Graham-Preston. Why does the University insist on trying capital crimes? If someone commits a hideous crime, then there should be a fair trial and they should be locked away from all members of society, not just the university community. Similarly, the University should not cultivate a climate where mere accusations can damn an innocent man. But University conduct rules extend far beyond reasonable constitutional provisions. That's why a student sued the University at the beginning of this year claiming he was wrongly accused. This is why University president and former attorney general Dave Frohnmayer won't uphold conduct code decisions. Why do they implement a code that they won't enforce? QUIT SCREWING WITH OUR LIVES ALREADY!!!!!!

But anybody who was paying attention when they rewrote the conduct code last year knew that it was going to be trouble. Oh, wait I seem to remember writing about that last year... oh yes, now it's coming back to me, I WAS RIGHT AND THEY WERE WRONG.

Campus Media: Is That Ink or Blood on My Hands?
I really think the Emerald hates us. I've been hearing about plots to dump balloons full of rancid mayonnaise and urine on me. I wish I was making this up. But it's true. They hate us and they don't understand us. They renounced me and my opinion specifically, in an editorial. They don't understand what it's like to work at a magazine that's personality driven. Sweet Jesus, they can't take a joke. They don't understand the function of commentary vs. straight editorial and straight news, which only makes sense because they have a hard enough time with those last two.

The Emerald will be remembered for two things this year: 1) running a full color editorial on blue M&M's and 2) putting squirrels on the front page. Every other story was either a rewritten press release and every other editorial was a rewritten article from the Nation that nobody on campus cared about. Do they have a natural talent for mediocrity? Or do they work at it? Good luck, Mr. Frank, you have your work cut out for you.

Oregon Voice--interesting editorial this current issue, but by and large still unreadable.

Student Insurgent--got better this year, but that's all the praise you deserve.

Oregon Commentator--occasionally sucks, but still the best publication for my money.

But you've endured enough, gentle reader. Let me assure you that this time next year, I will be gone, and I sincerely hope that I will be far, far away from all of this making money. I'll still be bitter, but I won't think about this enough to make me start hurling beer bottles at apartment complexes.

And though I won't be with you, I will be here in spirit because next year will suck even worse. Maybe while I'm gone all this nonsense will come to an end. Maybe my mere presence was the problem. I have a sneaking suspicion, the day the university ends, no one will be there, just as no one was there when it began. This is the joke, and I am in on it even though it is old and poorly told; out of spite, I may have hastened the end of the university just so I can enjoy the show. I will stand in the rubble and proclaim that, I was right, and finally do so with complete certainty.

Mark Hemingway, a senior majoring in Journalism, is Associate Editor for the Oregon Commentator