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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 23, 2004)
Housing standards ordinance approved I 7 A An independent newspaper www. dailyemeiald. com Since 1900 \ Volume 106, Issue 63 \ Tuesday, November 23, 2004 Web logs transform expression methods Blogger is one of many services available to make blogging easy and accessible for Internet users BY ANTHONY LUCERO NEWS REPORTER Through the Internet and blogging soft ware, the voices of the masses are now being heard loud and clear. Blogs (short for Web logs), have changed the way people commu nicate with friends and family, express their views of the world and even the way media report the news. Blogs have made a huge splash since serv ices like pioneer Blogger (blogger.com), Live Journal (livejournal.com) and Movable Type (movabletype.org) began automating the process for bloggers, allowing neophytes and experts alike to create and easily update a per sonalized page with interactive features like comments, “trackbacks,” to see who has visit ed entries, and options to e-mail entries to others on any computer with Internet access. Paul Bausch, a former Blogger senior devel oper, worked at the company until January 2001. He said blogs came at the right time as people were getting on the Internet and read ing blogs. “The ability to type into a box, push pub lish and have it up on the net instantly is pow erful,” Bausch said. Bausch’s Web site, onfocus.com, was one of the original blogs on the Internet along with those of other members of the Blogger team. “We were living our philosophy of putting our lives on the Internet,” Bausch said. Bausch, who now independently develops Web sites and maintains ORBlogs.com, a Web site for Oregonian bloggers, said blogging is powerful because entries are able to reach a worldwide audience, but he wants to see more focus on smaller communities and local news. But even Bausch said he didn’t anticipate blogs would become a system for pundits and watchdogs to express views outside of main stream media and even correct headline stories. The best example of bloggers’ impact is when the “blogosphere” cried foul at CBS News and Dan Rather by publishing docu ments that invalidated President Bush’s Na tional Guard service. Blogs proved, through the font type on the documents, that the doc ument was a fraud created on a word proces sor despite CBS’ insistence it was not. Final ly, the blog Little Green Footballs (littlegreenfootballs.com) recreated the docu ment in Word and showed how identical it looked to the CBS documents. “The power of blogs to influence the news media and paint a more detailed picture of world happenings is all very empowering and, frankly, amazing when you consider that the whole blogging phenomenon is just a bunch of people posting on the Web,” Univer sity student and blogger TYevor Sehrer said. Sehrer, however, said his blog, Life as News, focuses on him and his circle of friends. Created to send press releases to friends in lieu of repeating a story several times over, Sehrer’s site mimics the tone of the media as he reports on breaking develop ments in his life such as “Really Cool Leaf Ex amined, Put Back On Ground” and “ Area BLOGS, page 12A Danielle Hickey | Photo editor The allure of alcohol Exercising freedom, fitting in and daily pressures are among reasons why students start drinking BY AYISHA YAHYA NEWS EDITOR Among the many facets of student life, drinking alcohol is one aspect that has become heavily embedded into college culture. Each weekend, hun dreds of students stream into bars and parties or settle down in their living rooms to have a drink or two. Yet, for some students, it’s never just a annK or two ana it s not uncommon to hear students regale friends with tales of week end mayhem, getting “wasted” or “black ing-out. ’ Clearly not all college stu dents drink. Re sults from a University Health Center survey conduct ed in May 2004 showed 87 per cent of Univer sity students drank last year; 13 percent did not. But with about 1,400 al cohol-related deaths each year among stu dents aged 18-24, according to a National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcohol study, and a tide of other outcomes such as injuries, property damage and PART ONE OF TWO The Culture of Drinking Today: Why do students drink? Wednesday: What is the impact of drinking on the campus community? In a survey conducted In spring 2004, 87 percent of students reported having an alcoholic drink within the 2003 - 04 school year. Bret Furtwangler | Graphic artist sexual assaults, the culture of drinking at colleges has garnered national attention as a critical problem. This fall, for instance, two teenage students died in Colorado from alcohol poison ing. Samantha Spady, a 19-year old student from Colorado State Uni versity, drank the equivalent of 30 to 40 beers and shots before she died, ac cording to the New York Times. Other siuaenis nave aiso aiea in Arkansas, Virginia and Okla homa this year, according to the Times. Most of our college students on this campus and nationwide are not high-risk drinkers,” said Sheryl Eyster, the assistant dean of students and associate di rector of the Of fice of Student Life who also heads the Uni versity’s Sub stance Abuse Prevention Team. “For the most part, 80 percent ot the drinkers on this campus are re sponsible drinkers.” Drinking still has the adminis tration’s attention though. ALCOHOL, page 8A Examining ASUO Student senators submit proposal for punishment Group takes responsibility for conduct code violations; retreat committee may be formed BY MEGHANN M. CUNIFF NEWS REPORTER ASUO officials have proposed ad ditional office hours for student leaders, the formation of a retreat committee to prevent future viola tions, possible community service on campus and restitution of the student fees used on the Sunriver re treat to punish attendees for violat ing the student conduct code by consuming marijuana and alcohol on the trip. The proposal, which was sent to Student Judicial Affairs Director Chris Loschiavo Friday, is awaiting his approval before it can be voted on at a public meeting, ASUO Vice President Mena Ravassipour said. When the vote will take place is still unknown. The proposal outlines what steps have been taken and what ASUO officials will do in the future to reprimand those who violated the student conduct code — and subsequently Oregon Administra tive Rules — by smoking marijua na and drinking alcohol on the Oct. 8-10 retreat. Because the ASUO is taking re sponsibility as a group for the con duct code violations, it is up to the group to decide what actions war rant what punishments, Ravas sipour said. Strauss and Ravassipour are un sure how the decision to draft a group punishment was reached, but Strauss said there seemed to be a consensus that because they are all student leaders, “it was just the re sponsible thing to do.” ASUO officials previously sug gested the possibility of cleaning MacArthur Court after basketball games to help fundraise the approx imately $3,200 in student fees that were spent on housing and trans portation for the retreat, but the sign-up deadline for cleaning has passed, Ravassipour said. Both Ravassipour and ASUO Public Rela tions Director Nathan Strauss said they are unaware of any other fundraising possibilities. Attendees are still looking to ASUO, page 12A II Programs Finance Committee Nearly $5 million in incidental funds available for groups ASUO responds to a request to revise current model and pay more attention to campus group spending BY MEGHANN M. CUNIFF NEWS REPORTER Budget hearings for incidental-fee funded groups began Thursday, but a needed revision to the current stipend model for these groups cre ated a glitch in the ASUO Programs Finance Committee hearings. To allow the ASUO time to draft a new model, any group that uses the current stipend model will have to wait until January to have its 2005 06 budgets approved. ASUO had to implement the changes after Uni versity President Dave Frohnmayer sent the ASUO a letter requesting a revision of the current model, citing a need for greater attention to be paid to the amount of money spent on stipends, ASUO Controller Rosie Sweetman said. PFC budget hearings will take place several times a week until the end of February, allocating nearly $5 million in incidental funds to cam pus groups. Anywhere from five to 15 group budgets are approved at every meeting, depending on the amount of time each approval takes. ASUO Controller Christina Diss said PFC members and ASUO con trollers meet with group representa tives prior to their budget hearing to help the group draft a properly for matted budget and answer ques tions. A representative from each group presents the proposed budget to the PFC, which then hears the ASUO executive’s budget recommendation for the group. Decision are made based on the two proposals. The PFC must approve both a group’s mission statement and its budget. Mission statements are general ly unanimously approved but budgets are often subject to PFC, page 7A
