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