Feature

At Year's End

By Brian Boone

Long ago - we'll say the 1950s - college was reserved for intelligent, highly motivated, achievement-minded future leaders of the community; those who were not up to the task were soon weeded out. Over time, universities like this one have relaxed their standards to the point where almost any mildly retarded high school graduate with a debit card can attend college.

It wouldn't be so bad if the morons around campus would just blend into the grass and stay out of basic university operations, so the rest of us could go about our business in peace. But they don't. On this campus, the dumber you are - the more notable you are. As the 1999-2000 school year ran its inevitable course, the visibility and power of campus idiots grew exponentially.

It was a time marked by political and public relations debacles that tried the patience of the university community. The year began like any other: UO President Dave Frohnmayer helped exactly one student move into the dorms for a generic photo op; the standard issue ASUO Executive promises of tuition freezes and increased diversity; and the lame Emerald columns by lame Emerald columnists, skewering the foibles of college life.

GENOCIDE AWARENESS PROJECT

But the tone of the year (i.e. overblown outrage followed by useless public discourse) quickly set in with the Genocide Awareness Project's display, brought to an EMU amphitheater near you by the fledgling student group Justice For All. Bent on sickening the populace into a pro-life stance with massive, unavoidable posters of aborted fetuses, the GAP brought many important untruths to light. First, that the Holocaust was a minor tragedy that killed a handful of people - nothing compared to the insidious tragedy of a woman's right to choose. Justice For All apparently thought the best way to create an open forum on abortion was to visually attack anyone who walked by. Justice For All's free exploitation of the practice they aim to stop, coupled with their casual disregard for the Holocaust and the Jewish race as a whole - makes you wonder if Bible Jim was somehow involved. Expect more next year: Justice For All is now a funded student program. If luck prevails, the Abortion Fair could be a yearly occurrence, sandwiched between the ASUO Street Fair and the biannual keep-or-ditch OSPIRG controversy.

FROHNMAYER'S ARRYHTHMIA

Campus life was more than useless debate and protesters with nowhere to go, at least when President Frohnmayer was struck down by a touch of extreme physical distress. "The Frohn" experienced a heart arrhythmia, first believed to be a heart attack, while attending a conference in Washington, DC. The Frohn was rushed to the fortuitously-nearby Bethseda Medical Center, where he was treated and spent his recovery. Over that fateful weekend, the UO community was glued to its televisions, newspapers and online news services, in pursuit of any little bit of available information: Is he okay? Is he getting better? Is he dead yet? We didn't bother to check before we ran our overwhelmingly popular and well-received "Dave Frohnmayer: 1940-1999" cover in the fall. Apparently he's still alive, so good for him, I guess.

INITIATIVE 2000

No matter how barbaric or physically dangerous, certain things are essential to the college experience, and such traditions must be upheld forever. This includes an almost inhuman consumption of cheap, effective booze at that old bastion of collegiate alcoholism, the frat house. Then came sagging fraternity enrollment, followed by Initiative 2000, which threatens to permanently end the Delta House-inspired lifestyle of Jello shots, keg stands, shooters and beer goggles. Initiative 2000 is a pledge by fraternities and sororities promising to not hold functions that serve alcohol, or even keep alcohol of any kind at chapter houses (yeah, right). All of this is purely image related, selfishly motivated and has nothing to do with alcohol safety - the Greek houses get kickbacks for signing on.

WTO / BATTLE IN SEATTLE

Eugene and the surrounding area made the national news a couple of times, most eminently when a considerable number of anti-capitalist demonstrators and political activists made good on their promise to shut down Seattle via riots and vandalism during the WTO conferences in November. This was the major national news story for a week or so, bringing the national press back to Eugene for the first time since June of 1999 - also because of anarchists. Older generations, which had once labeled us apathetic and jaded, now called us reckless and hypocritical. They also decided that the Eugene branch of the anarchist population represented the entire array of protesters in Seattle, which isn't fair: some of them were probably from Springfield.

WHEREFORE ART THOU, Y2K?

To those of you just now crawling out of your Y2K bunkers, I'm sorry to report that a computer glitch did not destroy the world on January 1, 2000. No martial law, no nuclear winter, no cannibalism, no nuthin'. Even the Space Needle survived. Kind of a letdown. All we really was extraneous news coverage of children in every time zone dancing around while fireworks went off at the major landmarks behind them. Nevertheless, winter break was two days longer to allow for any national mishaps - apparently, the end of the world would have been fixed in two days, just enough time for school to start up again.

STUDENT SENATE INCOMPETENCE

This year marked the long-awaited public admission that most of the popularly elected student senate are incompetent, of unsound mind, and are wholly unfamiliar with Robert's Rules of Order. Accusations of misallocation of funds and failure to hold office hours led to much finger-pointing and buck-passing. The attempt by longtime rabble-rouser Scott Austin to impeach several senators proved futile, but did cause a number of senators to quit post haste, bailing on student govt, likely because the senate leadership was making the job unbearable.

ASUO ELECTIONS

Student Senator CJ Gabbe was a central figure in the ongoing senate bitch-fight, and over the past year has been involved in more scandals than any other student official in recent memory. The floppy-eared sycophant made an unsuccessful bid for ASUO Executive in the spring, amidst further allegations, grievances and questionable ethics. Gabbe and running mate Peter Larson sponsored an International Student Association coffee hour/voter information (read: Vote for CJ and Peter) meeting. Since they paid for the coffee and cookies and whatnot as an official campaign action, fellow candidate (and close runner-up to Mr. Austin in the ASUO heretic category) Autumn DePoe alleged that giving food to voters constituted bribery. The Constitution Court agreed, but could not remove Gabbe and Larson from the ballot due to an error on the Elections Board's part. So, the little weasels got off on a technicality. Eventual victors Hay and Jolly (as it were) used the unapologetic stance of their rivals to great advantage with a string of Got Ethics? campaign posters. Despite Gabbe's campaign budget of several thousand dollars, thirty dozen or so campaign volunteers/amateur spin doctors and unabashed manipulation of the system, they somehow lost the race.

SOUTHWORTH

OSPIRG sends the money it collects from student fees to its parent group/political lobby in Portland for reasons for them to know and you to not ask; it goes without saying that they are unethical, and perhaps even evil. Now, thanks to the Wisconsin v. Southworth ruling, they now have the Supreme Court's permission to inexplicably charge each and every student $9 for its meaningless political maneuvering. The case was brought by students at the University of Wisconsin who objected to paying incidental fees to support student programs they didn't agree with - foremost being the political machine called the PIRGs. After considering the possibility of allowing an option for students to direct their portion of the fees away from particular groups, the Court ultimately ruled that students must pay the fee, so long as it is distributed according to some unbiased, impartial method from Never-Never Land. Thus, OSPIRG et al, are safe - for now.

DO YOU AGREE WITH RYAN?

If drinking doesn't fill that painful void inside of you, then religion is surely your last hope. At least that's what Ducks football center Ryan Schmid - the utterly idiotic, goonish figurehead of the Do You Agree With Ryan? campaign - thinks. Our good friends in Campus Ministries unveiled the evangelical assault over a two-week period this spring, with the full cooperation of the Emerald, which was clued in long before the ubiquitous question was put in context. This venture can best be described as a third-rate Jesus wannabe backed up by a fourth-rate media machine. Alas, Ryan was not the Messiah, but when the son of God finally does show up, we'll recognize him not by the halo and trumpet herald, but by the football uniform, full-page newspaper ads, and slipshod rally.

WORKER RIGHTS CONSORTIUM

Blah blah blah blah student protests blah campus-wide division blah blah blah blah blah blah blah national media attention blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah down with Nike blah blah blah blah proper legal channels blah blah blah blah weeklong sit-in blah blah blah blah Phil Knight pulls out blah blah blah blah Sarah Jacobson blah blah blah blah victory for student democracy blah blah blah blah dead grass. 1999-2000 was another dismal year of posturing and inflation of things that, beyond campus, are incredibly minor. The GAP's dead baby gallery made people ill, frats went dry against their will, CJ almost got elected Prez, and Phil Knight won't give us any more money. Somehow, the world keeps on turning and we manage to get up each morning. The same things will happen next year, the year after that, and the year after that. Campus events may seem high-pressured and exciting to the handful of us who care - but will never, ever make a damn bit of difference outside this podunk town.

Brian Boone, a junior majoring in Journalism, is the designated driver for the Oregon Commentator