Then again, the ad also doesn't say that the "successful candidate" will inherit a bit of a train wreck, the demise of the Bill Moos era in a $2 million buyout.
It doesn't say that the "successful candidate," like a character in "Lord of the Rings," will be entrusted with the Thus Far Impossible And Yet Very Important Job of building a new basketball arena by quickly earning the trust of the single donor essential to making that happen.
The decision will be Frohnmayer's, and should be. In my view, at some point, after the groundwork is done, Frohnmayer needs to get on an airplane, or walk over to the Casanova Center, and come back with his arm around his choice. End of story.
That the process doesn't seem closer to that now is disconcerting, given that Frohnmayer and Moos were discussing exit strategies since early last fall, but perhaps that's the process-laden nature of higher education vs. the get-it-done pace of private business.
But there should be a sense of urgency now, a sense that each week that goes past is a week lost toward building a new and ever-more-expensive basketball arena. Price said Frohnmayer "wants to have the person named by April 1, and my goal is to have it done before that."
Where will the search lead? If there is a three- or four-person short list for Oregon - and Price indicated that the university isn't quite that far yet - then, in my view, it should include Tom Jernstedt, the Oregon grad from Carlton who is NCAA senior vice president, and Vin Lananna, the high-powered and visionary associate athletic director and director of track and field, and it would include the best sitting athletic director available, and perhaps an "X factor," if you will, an outside-the-box choice.
At this point, it seems unlikely that the list would include Kentucky football coach Rich Brooks, the former Oregon coach who also served two years as athletic director here. Brooks, who just led Kentucky to victory in the Music City Bowl, said Friday that he is "getting very close" to signing a new deal with the Wildcats that would add three years and a rollover clause to the year he has remaining on his contract.
"A funny thing happened to convention-defying political courage, at least in the case of Sen. John McCain. It used to be that McCain's willingness to boldly follow his principles was considered the gold standard of selfless political principle. Now, the media portray the same boldness as primarily a drag on McCain's political ambition....
Thus, there's yet another layer to what, at the moment, is the tragic irony of John McCain. He is exhibiting just the sort of go-it-alone bravery the media pine for -- at a time the media are uninterested in celebrating it, either because they consider the war lost or are obsessed with the primary-season horse race. He finally is getting the additional troops for Iraq that he has long advocated -- at a time when it might be too late and when support for the war is collapsing. He is winning over the Republican establishment that once loathed him -- at a time when the GOP brand is significantly degraded.
There is no justice in any of this. McCain began calling for more troops almost immediately after the invasion and criticized Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld back when he was still a GOP icon. President Bush has come to see the merit of McCain's view on the conduct of the war, but belatedly.
This has created the most tragic irony of all. After a long period of being distant from or hostile to President Bush, McCain is closer to him than ever, just as Bush is at his lowest ebb of public support. Bush sank McCain's presidential hopes in 2000 with his enmity; he might sink them in 2008 with his amity.
McCain's attitude has been that the political considerations don't matter. Whether he has been bucking an administration of his own party (originally) or public opinion (now), McCain has been standing like a stone wall for the proposition that the war must be won and that our effort must be commensurate with the high stakes.
The political world might yet turn in McCain's favor. He's losing support among independents and the press, but you can't win a Republican presidential nomination with just their support, as McCain learned in 2000. With Republicans, his support for the surge isn't hurting and might be helping. Perhaps the surge eventually will work, vindicating McCain. Even if it doesn't, he will be able to argue that the tactic could have worked had it been implemented back when he first called for it, and he still might be the kind of tough leader voters will want in the more dangerous international environment created by a failure in Iraq.
But none of this is guaranteed....
All that will be sorted out during the next year. In the meantime, as the windy Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel congratulates himself for his bravery in sponsoring a nonbinding resolution representing an anti-surge position supported by almost 70 percent of the public, and as poll-conscious Republicans flee from Bush, John McCain is steadfast, and the very picture of courageous political leadership."
If you are my age this picture brings back warm memories from childhood. Before Sesame Street, Mr Rodgers, and Captain Kangaroo there was Kukla, Fran and Ollie in black and white during the golden age of TV. What ever became of Sky King? Click on the title above for a link to the Wekipedia listing for Kukla, Fran and Ollie.
...watching Mr. Bush's State of the Union speech. I thought it was darned good. Realistic, gracious, modest, sensible. I happen to think we should get out of Iraq yesterday, but I thought Mr Bush put forward his case well. And Congress responded graciously and generously on both sides of the aisle.
Then, whaam, as soon as the speech was over, ABC was bashing him, telling us how pathetic he was, how irrelevant he was, how weak he was, how unrealistic he was...suddenly it hit me. The media is staging a coup against Mr. Bush. They cannot impeach him because he hasn't done anything illegal. But they can endlessly tell us what a loser he is and how out of touch he is (and I mean ENDLESSLY) and how he's just a vestigial organ on the body politic right now.
The media is doing what it can to basically oust Mr. Bush while still leaving him alive and well in the White House. It's a sort of neutron bomb of media that seeks to kill him while leaving the White House standing (for their favorite unknown, Barack Obama, to occupy).The truth is that we are in a huge economic boom. We are coming off a mammoth real estate explosion that put the most Americans in history in their own homes. We have totally full employment. After decades of stagnation, real wages are rising. Gasoline prices are way, way down. The nation is wealthier than it has ever been (although this is very unevenly distributed). Opportunities for subsidized higher education are better than they have ever been.
Most important of all, who would have ever been rash enough on September 12, 2001 to say there would not be one major or even minor successful terrorist incident against the U.S. homeland in over five years? Who would have thought we would escape without more massive terror? But we have, and it is a foolhardy person who would say that's an accident. Bush may not have done it by himself, but he had something to do with it....
My point: let's be aware that Bush has presided over a lot of success in addition to substantial failure. My second point: no one elected the media to anything. If we let them lynch the man we elected as President we are throwing out the Constitution with the war in Iraq. In the studios and newsrooms, there is a lynch mob at work. Let's see it for what it is. We have a good man who has made mistakes in the Oval Office. He's the only President we have, and I trust him a lot more than I trust unelected princes of the newsroom.
The United States is talking itself into defeat in Iraq. Its political culture is now in a downward spiral of pessimism. In the halls of Congress, across endless newspaper columns, amid the punditocracy and on Sunday morning talk shows--all emit a Stygian gloom about America....
the Associated Press wrote from Washington before the State of the Union speech that "Democrats--and even some Republicans--scoffed at his policy." "Scoff" is a strong word, suggesting eye-rolling ridicule. (The line was so good that the AP ran it after the speech as well, under another writer's byline, this time from Baghdad.) But of course amid the giddy vapors of mass mockery, they all "support the troops."
Our slide to a national nervous breakdown because of Iraq is not going unnoticed. Australia's foreign minister, Alexander Downer, has been visiting across the U.S. this week. "I've been pretty worried about what I've heard," Mr. Downer said in an interview.....
"What concerns me about this," he said, "is that it's sort of an isolationist sentiment, subconsciously, not consciously, and that would be an enormous problem for the world. I hope the American people understand the importance of not retreating and thinking the world's problems aren't theirs."
You know the pessimism has turned manic when no one is allowed to depart the asylum. Sen. John McCain's support for Iraq and the new Bush plan is now being described in press reports as not only costing him support in the polls (the asylum's inkblot of reality) but worse, the support of campaign contributors.....
As a political strategy, unremitting opposition has worked. Approval for the president and the war is low. The GOP lost sight of its ideological lodestars and so control of Congress. But the U.S. still occupies a unique position of power in the world, and we are putting that status at risk by playing politics without a net.
On the "Charlie Rose Show" this month, former Army vice chief of staff Gen. Jack Keane, who supports the counterinsurgency plan being undertaken by Gen. David Petraeus, said in exasperation: "My God, this is the United States. We are the world's No. 1 superpower. This isn't about arrogance. This is about capability and applying ourselves to a problem that is at its essence a human problem."
At our current juncture, Gen. Keane's words probably rub many the wrong way. But there's a Cassandra-like warning implicit in them. The mood of mass resignation spreading through the body politic is toxic. It is uncharacteristic of Americans under stress. Some might call it realism, but it looks closer to the fatalism of elderly Europe, overwhelmed and exhausted by its burdens, than to the American tradition.
In 1966, Sen. George Aiken delivered a speech on Vietnam famously translated for history as "declare victory and go home.' " On current course, it looks like we may declare defeat and go home.
The Israeli people are facing the threat of a nuclear Holocaust, former US Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich warned the Herzliya Conference held by the Institute for Policy and Strategy at IDC Herzliya on Tuesday afternoon. Meanwhile, he said, the United States could lose a few million people or a number of cities to a terrorist attack with weapons of mass destruction.(To read the entire new article click on the title above for a link)
Gingrich, who addressed the conference via satellite from the United States, said he thought Israel's existence was under threat again for the first time in 40 years.
"Israel is in the greatest danger it has been in since 1967. Prior to '67, many wondered if Israel would survive. After '67, Israel seemed military dominant, despite the '73 war. I would say we are (now) back to question of survival," Gingrich said.
He added that the United States could "lose two or three cities to nuclear weapons, or more than a million to biological weapons."
Gingrich added that in such a scenario, "freedom as we know it will disappear, and we will become a much grimmer, much more militarized, dictatorial society."
"Three nuclear weapons are a second Holocaust," Gingrich declared, adding: "People are greatly underestimating how dangerous the world is becoming. I'll repeat it, three nuclear weapons are a second Holocaust. Our enemies are quite explicit in their desire to destroy us. They say it publicly? We are sleepwalking through this process as though it's only a problem of communication," Gingrich said.
The former House speaker expressed concern that the Israeli and American political establishments were not fully equipped to take stock of the current threat level.
"Our enemies are fully as determined as Nazi Germany, and more determined that the Soviets. Our enemies will kill us the first chance they get. There is no rational ability to deny that fact. It's very clear that the problems are larger and more immediate than the political systems in Israel or the US are currently capable of dealing with," said Gingrich.
'Time to come to grips with threat'
"We don't have right language, goals, structure, or operating speed, to defeat our enemies. My hope is that being this candid and direct, I could open a dialogue that will force people to come to grips with how serious this is, how real it is, how much we are threatened. If that fails, at least we will be intellectually prepared for the correct results once we have lost one or more cities," Gingrich added.
He also said "citizens who do not wake up every morning and think about the possible catastrophic civilian casualties are deluding themselves."
"If we knew that tomorrow morning we would lose Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem, what we would to stop it? If we knew we would tomorrow lose Boston, San Francisco, or Atlanta, what would what would we do? Today, those threats are probably one, two, five years away? Although you can't be certain when our enemies will break out," he warned.
This is not the fight we entered in Iraq, but it is the fight we are in. Every one of us wishes that this war were over and won. Yet it would not be like us to leave our promises unkept, our friends abandoned and our own security at risk. Ladies and gentlemen: On this day, at this hour, it is still within our power to shape the outcome of this battle. So let us find our resolve, and turn events toward victory...
If American forces step back before Baghdad is secure, the Iraqi government would be overrun by extremists on all sides. We could expect an epic battle between Shia extremists backed by Iran and Sunni extremists aided by al Qaeda and supporters of the old regime. A contagion of violence could spill out across the country — and, in time, the entire region could be drawn into the conflict.
For America, this is a nightmare scenario. For the enemy, this is the objective. Chaos is their greatest ally in this struggle. And out of chaos in Iraq, would emerge an emboldened enemy with new safe havens, new recruits, new resources and an even greater determination to harm America. To allow this to happen would be to ignore the lessons of September 11th and invite tragedy. And ladies and gentlemen, nothing is more important at this moment in our history than for America to succeed in the Middle East ... to succeed in Iraq ... and to spare the American people from this danger.....
The war on terror we fight today is a generational struggle that will continue long after you and I have turned our duties over to others.
IT'S A STORY THEY TELL IN THE BORDER COUNTRY, where Massachusetts joins Vermont and New Hampshire.
Yes, Dan'l Webster's dead-or, at least, they buried him. But every time there's a thunder storm around Marshfield, they say you can hear his rolling voice in the hollows of the sky. And they say that if you go to his grave and speak loud and clear, "Dan'l Webster-Dan'l Webster!" the ground'll begin to shiver and the trees begin to shake. And after a while you'll hear a deep voice saying, "Neighbor, how stands the Union?" Then you better answer the Union stands as she stood, rock-bottomed and copper sheathed, one and indivisible, or he's liable to rear right out of the ground. At least, that's what I was told when I was a youngster.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.....
Since this country was founded, each generation of Americans has been summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty. The graves of young Americans who answered the call to service surround the globe.
Now the trumpet summons us again-not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are-but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation"-a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.....
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility-I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it-and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
News item: Oregon agrees to give outgoing athletic director Bill Moos $1.825 million over 10 years, plus interest, to forgo the final 15 months of his contract.
News item: McArthur Court turns 80.
News item: Aaron Brooks hits another winning shot, and the Ducks bring down a second top-10 team in eight days, allowing Oregon to crash that list.
Hmm. Are circumstances aligning that would finally push Oregon toward construction of a new arena to replace the cozy but creaking Mac Court?
Maybe.
"It's not a very usable building," said Ducks coach Ernie Kent. "It's aging by the day. At some point in time, it's going to have to be done."
Three years ago, when players like Bryce Taylor and Malik Hairston were being recruited, it was partly on the suggestion they'd be in a new arena by now, a mega-playpen that was estimated at $160 million, far in excess of other comparable new gyms.
That got tabled for its cost, the Ducks hit a competitive dead spot, and the arena went to the back burner. Then Moos' departure was announced, and the widespread assumption - because of public differences between Moos and uber-donor Phil Knight - is that Knight now is more willing to unpeel about $100 million from a wad of bills in his Nike warmups.
And he might. But there could be more to it. Oregon president Dave Frohnmayer hinted recently the $160 million figure is too much - three years later - while Knight is known to be cool to any edifice less than a lasting monument to Nike, himself and the wonderfulness of Oregon.....
At issue is the most endearing, if outdated, college basketball venue west of Kansas' Allen Fieldhouse, one that hosted its first game Jan. 14, 1927, eight months ahead of Babe Ruth's 60th home run.
It has hosted untold rich moments, none bigger than the 1974 day when Oregon beat top-ranked UCLA to hand John Wooden's Bruins a second defeat atop the one Oregon State administered less than 24 hours earlier
Oregon center Gerald Willett, who famously battled Bill Walton that day and found himself on the cover of the next week's Sports Illustrated, summed up the dilemma the other day to the Times:
"You've got to have a new arena sometime, so you might as well do it," he said. "When (ex-coach) Jerry Green was here, I was kind of fighting it. I realized it was going to have to happen.
"I just know they're not going to be able to replace not just the history, but the emotion."
Newly elected Rep. Steven Kagen, a rich allergist who self-financed his campaign in Wisconsin, by his own account taunted President and Mrs. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and presidential adviser Karl Rove during a White House function for new members of Congress in December.
Kagen told a group of activists that after he found himself in the restroom with Rove, he blocked the White House deputy chief of staff's departure by holding the door closed. According to Kagen, he then said: "You're in the White House and you think you're safe. . . . My name's Dr. Multimillionaire and I kicked your ass."
The new congressman said he said separately to both Bush and Cheney: "Thank you for coming to Green Bay. I couldn't have won without you coming." Kagen also said he approached Laura Bush and purposely called her Barbara, the name of the president's mother. Kagen's remarks were reported in "The Scene," published in Appleton, Wis.
From the New York Post Editorial:
Tears run from the eyes of U.S. President George W. Bush during a ceremony in honor of Medal of Honor winner Marine Cpl. Jason Dunham in the East room of the White House in Washington, January 11, 2007. Cpl. Dunham was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously.
University of Oregon President Dave Frohnmayer announced Tuesday that he has appointed an eight-member "search team" to assist him in selecting the school's next director of athletics.
Frohnmayer said the team, headed by UO Vice President Allan Price, will be "poised for acting rapidly," with some team members - not necessarily the entire group - available to travel from Eugene to meet directly with potential candidates who do not wish to be identified publicly.
The final decision, Frohnmayer said, will be his alone. ".....
His successor, even on an interim basis, won't be Mike Bellotti, at least not as long as Bellotti also remains Oregon's football coach, Frohnmayer said.
Frohnmayer said he also has discussed the position with Vin Lananna, Oregon's director of track and field and the former athletic director at Oberlin College. "He's certainly a person of great ability," Frohnmayer said, describing their visit as "a very enjoyable, productive conversation." ....
Frohnmayer said he's looking for an athletic director who can take the athletic department to another level while addressing some immediate concerns, including the "high priority" of building a new basketball arena to replace McArthur Court; stabilizing the department's financial situation; shoring up relationships with donors; and improving the academic success of athletes. I think we already have quite a broad and promising field of candidates that others have identified for us, and that we've identified for ourselves," he said.
In addition to Price, the UO vice president for university advancement, search team members will be: law professor Michael Moffitt, chairman of the faculty advisory council and member of the intercollegiate athletics committee; English professor Suzanne Clark, co-chairwoman of the University Senate and former chairwoman of the faculty task force on intercollegiate athletics; Dan Williams, special assistant to the president for athletics and a former UO vice president with oversight of the athletic department; Melinda Grier, the university general counsel and adviser to the president on athletics; Willie Blasher Jr., a federal probation officer and former UO athlete who is a board member of the UO alumni association; Joe Gonyea II, a member of the UO Foundation board; and Dave Petrone, a board member emeritus of the UO Foundation.
Frohnmayer said he plans to have an initial meeting Friday with the team, which will identify, research and potentially talk with candidates.....
"We'll cast that net even wider, but on a very accelerated timetable to make sure we're considering the most likely and most appropriate candidates. This could be a situation ... where the committee is continuing to vet potential candidates even as I might be reaching a decision."
Frohnmayer said he remains hopeful that Oregon will have identified Moos' successor by April 1.
This afternoon the University of Oregon Ducks beat the # 1 men's college basketball team in the nation, the UCLA Bruins, at Mac Court aka "The Pit" in Eugene. The last time a # 1 UCLA team came into Mac Court and were defeated was in 1974 and I was there. It was back in the era of Coach Dick Harder and the "Kamikaze Kids". UCLA was led by a guy by the name of Bill Walton. Today I watched the Ducks win and the same magic was there. The 9000 + students and fans were yelling and jumping up and down and the scoreboard was jumping up and down as the 80 year old building shook. The Ducks led most of the game but the TV announcers, seeming to pull for UCLA, kept saying "plenty of time left" Well just as in 1974, time ran out for UCLA and the Duck fans stormed the court at the end of the game. Congratulations to the team, coach Ernie Kent and the Oregon Fans. After the disappointment of last year it was a great effort by the team.Go Ducks
On April 29 the bodies of Mussolini and his mistress were found hung upside down on meat hooks in Piazzale Loreto (Milan), along with those of other fascists, to show the population the dictator was dead. This was both to discourage any fascists to continue the fight and an act of revenge for the hanging of many partisans in the same place by Axis authorities. The corpse of the deposed leader became subject to ridicule and abuse by many who felt oppressed by the former dictator's policies.
On Christmas Day, the two were condemned to death by a military kangaroo court on charges ranging from illegal gathering of wealth to genocide, and were executed in Târgovişte. Before they were shot dead, Ceauşescu sang part of the "Internationale" and proclaimed that history would judge him well. His wife was screaming at everyone to go to hell.
The CeauÅŸescus were executed by an officer named Ionel Boeru who shot them with his sub-machine-gun.
The "trial" and execution were videotaped. The footage was promptly released in France and other western countries. Several days later, footage of their trial and pictures of their corpses (but not of the execution itself) was released on television for the Romanian public.
"After 22 years as vice president for administration, Dan Williams is about to take on a new role for the University of Oregon. On July 1, he will retire from his vice presidency to become a part-time consultant for the Department of Intercollegiate Athletics and will move from Johnson Hall to new quarters at the Casanova Center...."The president asked me to continue the portion of my work having to do with intercollegiate athletics," Williams adds. "Since I devote a quarter of my time to it now, that's how much time I am contracted for during the next two years"
Williams will continue his close, decade-long relationship with Bill Moos, director of athletics, and will assist him in the planning for a new basketball arena. Phasing into a consultant's role for the department rather than being its supervisor doesn't bother him as he is much more concerned with the urgent tasks at hand."
