Not Worthy

You Have the Power

If you look down and squint real hard, you might see something the next time you use a urinal on campus.

The ASUO, under the guidance of President of Bill Miner and Vice President Ben Unger have taken a bold step in rape prevention: urinal gratings. Their plan calls for a brazen blue rubber urinal grating stamped with the phrase "You hold the power to prevent rape in your hand" on each to be placed in the bathrooms around campus.

Neverminding the cost of the project or the source of the funding, which have yet to be disclosed, the method alone seems shaky enough to sink this ship before it got out of dry dock. The next times you're in a men's room look around (unless you're in the bathroom at Rennie's with a bunch of drunks bigger than you are). For women and for those of you who may not have noticed (read: Bill and Ben), nobody looks in to the bottom of a urinal. The whole point of a urinal grating is that it catches gum, cigarette butts, crumpled up bits of paper with the phone numbers of ugly people on them and short and curlies. If you make a habit of giving a urinal bottom the scrutiny it would take to first notice and then read the aforementioned quote then you need help. Serious help.

In addition, a lot of men won't technically have "the power" in their hands. While that is one technique, there are those that prefer to lean forward, supporting themselves by placing their hands on the wall about their heads (also known as the "police position") as well as those that like to relax by putting their hands on their hips and swaying back and forth. For proof of this, just look at the floor under the urinal: if guys were taking the time to grab the thing and look at where they were aiming, there wouldn't be a slick sheen of urea down there.

Even so, the intention is good and we congratulate the new Executive team for implementing an idea worthy of being formulated at a Commentator staff meeting.

Housing Hijinks

By now most people know that the UO Housing budget isn't exactly operating in the black. What may not be known is that maintaining a budget doesn't mean the same thing to the University as it does to those of us who go to school here.

"A budget in our terms is a plan, not an allocation," says Mike Eyster, head of University Housing, who describes at leases half of Housing's $900,000 shortfall as part of that plan.

About 450,000 of the debt was incurred when Housing undertook the construction of the new Spencer's View project. The capital outlay for the apartments, which will be primarily for students with families, was well thought out before it was authorized by Der Swinefuror Dan Williams and implemented by Housing, according to Eyster. Williams: VP for Admin.

Of course there is one thing that remains unplanned: how long the new family housing will operate in deficit. Eyster said that currently there's no estimation of when the family units will start supporting themselves.

But family housing is only one of two components of the annual Housing budget plan. The other half of the equation, and the debt, is the residence halls. Eyster said that an expansion of services for residents lead to another $450,000 shortfall.

Longer dining hall hours, a new "Grab & Go" program in the Carson dining hall that provides take-out breakfasts and lunches to students with tight schedules and a miscalculation of the potential popularity of the changes caused the amount spent on food in the dinning halls to jump. "We just underestimated how much our food costs would be, " Eyster said.

Despite the $900,000 Housing will be laying out beyond the usual expenditures, it is incorrect to think of the department as operating in the red, Eyster said. He points out that all the money will be drawn from a reserve fund. Housing maintains for contingencies of this nature. The reserve fund is derived from money annually set aside for the purpose as well as any surplus money that Housing might have at the end of the year.

Eyster also stresses that the only effect on students is positive and that the costs of these shortfalls will not passed on to them. "[The $900,000] was the same as if a business decided overspend by dipping into the reserves, Eyster said, explaining that Housing is a self-sufficient unit on campus, supporting itself on the room and board fees students pay, "Nobody gives us money," he said.

You Play Like Jo Mama

I love the Duck sports events as much as I love anything in affiliation with this campus. The adrenaline of the basketball games, the vocal chord-blowing shrieking of the football games, and the relaxing feeling I get from sitting at a track meet in the beautiful and rare Oregon sunlight are the moments I truly live for

I have heard some mindboggling things in my many hours spent at these events; from some guy screaming, "I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!!" at Kris Johnson of UCLA (which is among the funniest things I've ever heard anyone say in my entire life), to chants of "Who's you daddy?", our extraordinary vocal crowd has amazed me time and time again.

What amazes me most about the chants, jeers and bitching from the Oregon crowds, however, is how often our own fans turn against our teams. More times that I can count I heard Michael Carson booed the second his booty left the bench. Even more innumerable are the shouts of, "WE SUCK!" at football games. The volume of trash I can talk against our own football teams outweighs the amount of trash I can talk when I play basketball, and that's more than the average shmo can imagine.

I really don't understand it. It's not as if anybody forced these people to show up at the games. Did someone come to there and tell them, "I'm going to hunt down your family and kill them if you don't come to the game tonight." Did any men in black one-day show up at their door with a picture of their pet and say, "Hey, see this dog? It's going to be a shaved German Shepherd if you don't got the Arizona State game."

And yet they come in droves, presumably to see the Ducks tear a team limb from limb, only to moan and bitch about how terrible we are.

Perhaps this is some physiological-vocal reaction to being absolutely inebriated at an event. I could imagine that. Maybe in some people the same muscle that triggers belches and farts, when faced with beer and football, releases nasty clouds of trash talking, which are directed at the wrong team due to how drunk they are. After all, you shouldn't get me wrong; I LOVE to scream obscenities, preferably random ones, at sporting events. I sometimes tape myself shouting insults like, "YOU PLAY LIKE JO MAMA!!!" and to hone them to perfect syllable balanced, anger weighted shrieks.

But never have I directly put down one of the players who works so hard to make money for the University and to provide entertainment for us. Never in my wildest dreams would I attempt to impact their performance for the worse, contributing to the losing of a game and forcing me to go home and cry myself to sleep.

I give much credit and praise to the fans that shriek obscenities at the right team, paint themselves and follow the Ducks loyally even in the most dismal season. These are the fans we have to look up to dressed in shinning green and yellow, shoulders squared, proud expression, a program in one hand, a sign in the other that doesn't say "John 2:22," and a duck call thing in their mouths.

So at the next sporting event you attend, dear readers, show some sense and morals. Scream obscenities at the OTHER team.