The Year in Review

Ever since Geneva Wortman and Morgan Cowling "snatched" the 1998-99 ASUOExecutive, two significant forces have governed the course of student lifeon this campus: nothing, and nothing.

Recently, the two were allotted 750 words by the Oregon Daily Emerald torecap their achievements during the past academic year. It comes as nosurprise that the tone of the column was not unlike that of an attorneydelivering the closing argument in defense of a client who is obviouslyguilty of multiple grisly deaths. That's right: Geneva and Morgan mayindeed be chainsaw killers.

Not two paragraphs into their year-end summary, they pull out thetotalitarian trump card: "[the students] are allowing the dominantparadigm of racism, sexism and homophobia to prevail in society forever."Dominant paradigm? Forever? Did you steal this from the Nation, or yourWriting 121 essay on oppression? These are strong words at face value, butin reality, it's empty rhetoric. You'd have to be a fool to actuallybelieve that these social ills are the "status quo" in 1999 Eugene, Oregon.The same open-minded population that passed medical marijuana and assistedsuicide legislation is oppressing ethnic minorities, not to mention 51% ofthe population? In the 1960's, campus activism had a substantial role inchanging society. Today it's mired in quicksand and will claw desperatelyat any isolated incident that may offer a chance of generating socialoutrage. There aren't many good battles left to fight, but the torch iscarried on, inspiring more annoyance than social change. Trainspotting'sBond connoisseur Sick Boy subscribes to a unifying theory of life that isof particular relevance here: "At one point you've got it, then you loseit-then it's gone forever." Wortman and Cowling make several references to"the good fight" of student government, but the fact is, its casualties faroutnumber the victors. As the year draws to a close, the look back is nota very pretty view; in fact, it has been an unredeemable mess.

Are you disgusted by this? Well, you should be. Judging by the annualelection figures, however, you're not. You're apathetic. So am I. Youdon't give a shit. Neither do I. It's been proven that most of thestudent body doesn't even know what the acronym "ASUO" stands for, muchless do they care about what happens at student senate. (You'd besurprised to find out how much money the senate controls. You could findout, if you knew where to go. I don't.) And that's fine. It just isn'tworth it. So nothing in this recap is relevant to the student body.Still, I feel, out of journalistic ethic, if nothing else, that I mustphone in some kind of "the year that was" bullshit, just in the off chancethat anybody's out there. Let's get it over with.

The Bob Dylan/Van Morrison concert at Mac Court, Sept. 24
One of Wortman and Cowling's campaign promises was to bring more concertsto Mac Court. This is something the monolithic Athletic Department hasmore say in than the ASUO Exec ever will. (The AD said "no" to a RollingStones Autzen appearance last year because the football team had topractice.)

The Dylan/ Morrison show was the Cultural Forum's lone victory, yet theystill managed to piss everyone off: those who found out that generaladmission did not mean festival seating, those tortured at the hands ofoverzealous security, and even Van Morrison, who was hurried off-stagebefore he felt he was done. The Emerald, however, was typically enamoredof the "lifetime achievement award" they pretended to see. All I saw was acouple of old-timers riding past glories to a sweet paycheck, and a groupof kids unrepentantly enabling this kind of cultural cannibalism.

Winners: Your parents, who got to stand outside and smoke a joint likethey were 20 again.

Losers: Your respect for anyone involved, including the leading acts.

Give a Shit Quotient: 20%-Most students weren't even in town on September24th.

The Ducks Football Season
Since the initial 48-14 Sept. 5 upset versus Michigan St., the Ducks wereon a roll, finishing 8-3 overall. They still managed to fuck up in thegames where it counted. This is a recurring problem in Oregon sports-asgreat as some teams are, they can still be counted on to lose the biggames. Case in point: the fabled Trail Blazers of the early 90's willforever be the Buffalo Bills of the NBA. If the Ducks' embarrassing AlohaBowl loss wasn't bad enough, losing to a vomiting UCLA on national TV was.At least the frustrating 44-41, Nov. 21 civil war defeat in Corvallis wasepic-all those in attendance concur, or at least those clear-headed enoughto remember it. Any game where underage fans can offer swigs of vodka totheir fifty-something counterparts is still a good game. The next seasonis still up in the air-Bellotti has yet to decide on a quarterback. WithAkili Smith (aided by the real Jerry Maguire, superagent Lee Steinberg)signed third to the Bengals, Oregon's offense could be in trouble. This isno doubt the fault of Geneva and Morgan. Even the Delta Gammas in theirmatching t-shirts aren't enough to push us over the top.

Winner: Amy Goldhammer, who gained new philosophical insight, discoveringthe "importance of the football fan" while supporting our "incredi-team."

Loser: Jason Maas, who warmed the bench his entire senior year, unless wewere up by at least three touchdowns.

Give a Shit Quotient: 75%-Everybody likes football, even those who pretendnot to.

The Halloween Riot
On Friday, October 30th, the Emerald came out swinging with three storiesrelated to last years' riot, and on the following Monday, they gave thisyear's riot the front page and the day's editorial. The riot this timearound was less impressive than the previous year's, but it garnered atleast as much media attention, if not more. The Oregonian even ran thestory.

The talking heads of the middle-aged, boring set shook their heads andlamented the state of today's youth, as parents often do, convenientlyforgetting that their parents said the same thing about their "long hair",or that their grandparents lamented their parents' "jazz music." DaveFrohnmayer will recall days of yore when the kids went rioting out at thecoast every spring break, if you ask him.

Of course, it was all of thirty seconds before someone blamed the media.Here, television takes most of the blame. While the local print mediaspent most of the time editorializing, unmistakably, against the burgeoningtradition, local television spent most of its editorial time scouring 17thand Alder for any signs of an uprising.

It was all for naught. Everybody knows that the Halloween riot of '97 wasthe truly epic one, and no matter how hard the kids try-and they will-youjust can't recapture the excitement of the past.

Winners: Eugene-area policymakers and "peacekeepers". Zero Tolerance, nowgoing strong in its second year, is a sure-fire way to pad the city coffers.

Losers: Residents of the West University neighborhood, and unhappy subjectsof the Eugene Police Department.

Give a Shit Quotient: 70%-Most everybody was in or around the riot, orwishes they were.

PRIDE Hall
If anything had a chance to go the distance, it was this. Though theproposal was debated on Bill Maher's (or rather, ABC Corp.'s) "PoliticallyIncorrect" and well-covered in the Eugene/Springfield market, theUniversity held firm that they felt the concept basically amounted tosegregation. This did not sit well with the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, andTransgender Alliance (LGBTA), who turned out for University town hallmeetings to overwhelm Dave Frohnmayer with accusations and pointedquestions. The result was a typical don't-ask, don't-tell unofficial PRIDEHall on the fourth floor of Carson. The Housing department hassemi-officially announced the floor as a LGBTA "cluster" for the next year.Like so many others, this game ends in a stalemate.

Winners: Bill Maher, who's desperate to keep his job the same way TimMeadows is over at NBC.

Losers: Anybody with the Legally Gregarious Barristers of the TransatlanticAssociation, or whatever they're called. I already told you, I don'tfollow these things.

Give a Shit Quotient: 10%-Some say higher, some say lower. Al Kinsey was aweirdo, but still a groundbreaking weirdo.

Elections
We won't even discuss the yearly turnout rate. Following last year'sgruesome spectacle, this year's turn at the plate was nothing if not adisappointment. Sure, Ralph Nader (or as we affectionately call him,Nader-Nader) caused a bit of a stir. And the Honesty-OSPIRG campaignerspredictably held each other at arm's length. But the Emerald clung to agroup of joke candidates, since any other angle on the yearly parade ofmonotony would have inevitably put them to sleep. Victory for theChen/Anoushiravani ticket was a foregone conclusion, though their landslidevictory in the primaries was somewhat interesting-if you happened to be astudent government wonk.

Here's another interesting note. The Johnson Hall kids must have beenpretty self-satisfied to re-enact the demonstrations of past civil rightsleaders this May. Yet they conveniently forget that they were upstagedmonths earlier, as ASUO hopeful Brandon Hartley chained himself to a deskduring the debates to protest his 11th hour removal from the ballot. Youknow what they say: one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

Winners: Those who don't like the Prog Slate. This year, they failed tocapture the Exec, and Senator Eric Pfeiffer turned in his membership cardnot long after winning his seat.

Losers: That guy in the ASUO advertisement for the Elections. Did he knowwhat he was posing for? If so, is he ashamed of himself?

Give a Shit Quotient: Okay, fine-but in Da Vinci code: tnecrep neetfiF.

Other things that went nowhere:

Campus Cash
What happened to this? Wasn't it supposed to revolutionize the way you didbusiness on campus? Well, did it? At one visionary moment, UO card managerJoel Woodruff dreamed of a not-too-distant-future where students would useCampus Cash in EMU vending machines. What kind of utopian garbage is this?In truth, it's a concept that works like a charm at other universities-butthe UO, put simply, blew it. The card was not designed in a manner thatmade it useful to anyone, and people stayed away in droves.

The IACUC semi-controversy
Do you know who Sarah Brown is? Sarah Brown was apparently on theInstitutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) at one time. Then inJanuary, she was kicked off for some reason, supposedly because she was inSETA or another junta of the Survival Center collective, and there was asit-in or a protest of some kind for something or other. If you followedthis one closely, you need to find other things to do.

The Gardenburger Boycott
It's over. Dorm residents rejoice as they are no longer forced to dealwith anti-NORPAC propaganda while eating breakfast.

Jeremy Price Bucy
You know who you are.

Zuka Juice and Pizza Planet
More utopian visions from the EMU's idea people: a wider selection of foodin the EMU food court. The story goes like this: Zuka Juice (Starbuckswith Slurpees) and Pizza Planet (some type of Italian food) were to beavailable in the food court by spring term. Where are they? You can askSusan Racette, EMU business manager, at 346-6069.

The Special Elections
If Geneva Wortman and Morgan Cowling did nothing else this year to lose thestudents' trust, then this alone would still be grounds for dismissal in ajust world. Ethics were no doubt extraneous to the situation, or were atleast not represented in their actions. Wortman called it "a victory forstudents," but the only victors here are the blind, deaf, and mute peoplewho went unaware of the fiasco. The big, big number emerging from thisone? 1.8%-i.e. the exact voter turnout. Congratulations girls, forscrewing up all of student government-but you're only giving Scott Austinmore material to go with.

The EMU Amphitheater
It was the first full year of the amphitheater's existence. Shouldn't theEMU have pulled out all the stops? After all, they lost the Cherry Poppin'Daddies to an MTV gig for the opening last year, replacing them withtedious WOW Hall fodder Calobo. They owe us. But all we got was RalphNader, a couple of drumming guys, a few local bands, and Bible Jim. I'lltell you this: those drumming guys were the only bright spot in thatroundabout this year. The only people who won this one were Matt Scottenand Glen Banfield, whose $335,000+ over-realized legacy lives on.

The KWVA controversy
Played out entirely in Emerald letters-to-the-editor until the Commentatortook it on last issue, this is a situation that simply isn't going tobudge. The ASUO Exec may have dissolved the KWVA board, but it hasn't seenmany column inches in the Emerald, nor is it likely to put Frank Jezukewiczin front of a microphone upstairs announcing "You Enjoy Myself."

The Johnson Hall Sit-In
See story, page 9. We can't write any more on this than we already have.There isn't enough beer.

It wasn't that bad, was it? Well, have fun this summer, and unless you'relucky enough to have graduated or failed out, get ready to do it all againnext year.

William Beutler, a sophomore majoring in Journalism and English, is very,very tired.