• The welcome news this
week is that Special Counsel
Robert Mueller’s investiga-
tion into the Trump Admin-
istration’s corrupt ties to
Russia has borne its first
fruit with three indictments.
The headlines were all about money-laundering charges against Paul
Manafort and Rick Gates, but the real news was the secret guilty plea by
former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, who made a deal to rat
out Trump and his cronies. The deal is “on the condition that your client
continues to respond and provide information regarding any and all mat-
ters as to which the Government deems relevant,” says the prosecution’s
letter to Papadopoulos’ lawyers. We like the sound of that.
• Former Eugene Weekly news intern Kenny Jacoby scored a jour-
nalistic coup last week when Sports Illustrated published his lengthy and
well-researched account of how the University of Oregon and its head
basketball coach, Dana Altman, allowed Kavell Bigby-Williams to play an
entire hoops season for the Ducks while under investigation for forcible
rape in another state. Jacoby, who interned here last spring, is still an
undergraduate in journalism. That guy will go far.
• Speaking of UO in the news, the school’s president, Michael Schill,
penned an Oct. 24 op-ed in The New York Times entitled “The Misguided
Student Crusade Against ‘Fascism’” in which he decries the “tactic of
silencing, which has been deployed repeatedly at universities around
the country,” saying it “only hurts these activists’ cause.” Schill told The
Register-Guard that he “had known the protest was likely so he recorded
a video of his planned speech Thursday and released it Friday online.”
So wait, rather than devise a plan in which the students might get heard
and he could deliver his own remarks, Schill planned to be pushed off the
stage? That’s not being silenced, that’s using his position, a strategy the
protesting students couldn’t employ.
• Jefferson Smith has just won a wild contest for one of the coveted
jobs in Oregon politics and public life. Starting in January, he’ll be the
director of the Oregon Center for Public Policy, the think tank based in
Portland that grinds out the research behind progressive policy. Steve
Novick, former Portland commissioner, also wanted the job, along with
other candidates — and some funders weren’t happy with either. Smith
started the Oregon Bus Project in 2001, served in the Legislature, lost
a race for mayor of Portland and then helped found the nonprofit radio
station XRAY.FM. Quite a record. Now he will be a big player in the battle to
keep Oregon blue.
• Big news in Manhattan is the sale of the iconic Lord & Taylor build-
ing to WeWork, an office rental company started seven years ago and
now valued at $20 billion, according to The New York Times. Big news in
Eugene is that one of the founders of WeWork is Miguel McKelvey, who
grew up and went to school here before seeking his fortunes in the Big
Apple. He’s the son of Lucia McKelvey, one of the founders of Eugene
Weekly, then called What’s Happening.
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eugeneweekly.com • November 2, 2017
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