CHEERS for Oregon State University – both campuses. The Cascades campus increased enrollment by 2% compared to last year, and the students are taking more classes than usual. The main Corvallis campus set a record with a 2.2% increase in enrollment, taking the population over 34,000 students. Yay School! [Sorry, our editor wishes she could be in college forever, so don’t tell her she can or she’ll never come back to work]
SHIVERS to the coming weather. Whether it’s rain or whether it’s snow, the weather is going to be chilly. So OSU encourages you to get out there and put your gardens in order, because the weather might just hurt things, whether you want it to or not.
CHEERS for art and for local artists and for campaigns to let local artists show their art! Anyone who is an artist should be finishing up their artworks and getting them in by November 19 for the #ImagineTheFuture juried art show presented by the Benton County Historical Society. Hurry! There’s only a week left! [We get nearly as excited about art as we do about school!]
APPLAUSE for alumni opening their mouths and asking… for help making the Survivor Advocacy and Resource Center [aka SARC] at OSU… well, less crappy. The alums worry that SARC’s lack of resources, and some attitudinal problems, won’t allow them to do all they can for the people who come to them. So, they have created a petition to get people to stand with them as they try to do better. The petition is asking [nay, demanding!!] a conversation with the university to determine better ways to assist students, teachers, and staff to survive hostilities they’ve experienced. [The Advocate has been calling SARC out since 2017, but that was before the completely predictable F. King debacle, so let’s hope the petition helps.]
BOOS & HISSES for three men who allegedly beat up a local woman near the 7-11 on NW Kings Blvd. They allegedly used transphobic and homophobic slurs as they did this, and raised an un-alleged furor amongst the community. The injured woman is going to be fine. Our deepest hopes go out to her for a speedy recovery and a happy ever after.
WHOOP-DE-DOO for the feds as they begin to reverse some of the idiocy done between 2016 and 2020! [You know what we’re talking about, I mean, do we really have to say the name? We do? Okay. *sigh*] Trump era reductions of spotted owl habitat are being overturned in Oregon, Washington, and California. There will still be excluded protections in about 204,000 acres – and, yes, some of those acres are in Benton County. But some of the otherwise likely-to-die owls are going to live. [Whew!]
TEARS for the trees [for the trees have no eyes… wait, that’s not how The Lorax goes… is it? anyway…] as we see more trees having to be destroyed because of Dutch elm disease. This tree ‘cancer’ will destroy even the largest and most beautiful of elms in a matter of days, and it’s very contagious [for the trees have no immune systems… is that it? anyway…] Elm trees that have stood for too many years to count are being chopped up and added to the trash bin at horrendous cost to their current owners – a cost which used to be covered by the city of Portland. [for the trees have no legitimate owners… not quite Seussian, although true…] If the owner doesn’t fork over the money, which tends to be in the multiple-thousand-dollar range, and at least schedule the tree removal within 30 days, they are looking at civil penalties and liens placed against their home. [for while trees do have souls, the city of Portland does not.]
JEERS to Pacific Power for not keeping things as tidy as they should have been. That uber-dry vegetation, added to weather warnings of once-in-a-lifetime winds then combined with electricity, lit up the state in 2020. Fire investigators hired by people suing the power company have officially called out the dry weeds and electric poles not mixing well for creating a perfect storm during a climate-changed wildfire season. [Look, we know that saying they should have tidied things up now, in 2021, as the rains come down and after the wildfires have done their damage, is like saying that someone should have killed Rasputin before he made Czar Nicholas II even crazier – it doesn’t fix the problem, but it does explain the unfathomable.] Lawsuits are still pending.
JEERS for Oregon school districts firing their superintendents. There have been three so far this year – Kevin Purnell who was canned for abiding by the state’s mask mandate, Melissa Goff who was shown the door for holding values that differed from the school board’s, and Dr. Joe Morelock who was told not to let the door hit him on the way out for standing up to a school board that sees Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ+ Pride as political statements.
So… these three people will likely find new jobs in new school districts, but what have we lost? They took care of our kids for years [I mean, Goff began her career as a middle school teacher!] and they got kicked to the curb for standing by the law, by their values, and by kids who might be victims of prejudice. Dear Oregonians, we should be better than this! Dearest Corvallisites, we need to be on the lookout for this kind of crap so we don’t have to live it!
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