I’m seriously late in getting this posted…I apologize for those of you who are allergic to blog dust. I encourage you to watch this video. 42 Japanese-Americans were expelled from Oregon State University during World War II. This is the video from the OSU commencement ceremony in June when these individuals were given honorary degrees. These degrees cannot undue what was done in the past, but they can encourage those of us today to prevent injustices like this so that they never ever happen again.

I returned from yurting to see that ORblogs is going to be shut down.
I then read in my rss reader that ORblogs might be resurrected.

Thank you for reading and contributing to the site. ORblogs has stopped gathering post excerpts from Oregon blogs, though the current weblog directory will be available for another 30 days.

When I started ORblogs in March 2003, there weren’t many good ways to find bloggers living in a particular area. And because I had recently moved to Corvallis, I wanted to learn what I could from people living near me. The site personally put me in touch with bloggers across the state, taught me a lot about Oregon and its cities (including Corvallis), and I hope the site did the same for others. I feel ORblogs served an important role for Oregon blogging by gathering independent voices across all spectrums into one place where everyone shared a common geography.

I’m shutting ORblogs down now because the site continues to grow and the job of maintaining the site at the level I feel is necessary to keep it valuable has grown with it, putting it out of the bounds of a hobby. I wasn’t able to make ORblogs self-sustaining financially (let alone turn it into a job), and I can no longer devote the time to the site that it needs to grow. Blogging has changed significantly in five years, and blogging is no longer a hobby for many—it’s a job. Commercial blogging isn’t as interesting to me as the personal web and that factored into my decision as well.

Thanks again for making ORblogs what it has been over the years. Please take a last look through the directory, find your favorite Oregon blogs, and subscribe to them in your newsreader if you haven’t already. There are some spectacular voices in Oregon blogging that I will now have to read another way. I still believe it’s important to read locally while I read globally, and I hope you agree and continue to make the effort.

— Paul Bausch (9/4/2008)

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Went yurting unplugged.
Oregon serenity.
Back to work today.

Yurts are available in Florence, Oregon at the Jessie M. Honeyman Memorial State Park.

Registration is now open for WordCamp Portland. More than 50 people have already registered! I wonder if Matt Mullenweg will make a guest appearance?

WordCamp Portland will be held at CubeSpace on September 27th. You can head over to the Agenda page to check out the details, but we’ll kick things off with a couple large-group speakers including Lorelle Van Fossen as our keynote speaker. The middle of the day will feature several small-group breakout sessions with a variety of topics. Attendees can pose WordPress questions to our “Ask the Experts” panel before dinner. After dinner, we’ll have a bunch of rooms available for unconference-style sessions to be determined by the attendees on the day of the event.

We’re now accepting registrations for WordCamp Portland. The advance registration fee is $10 which includes lunch, dinner, a WordCamp Portland T-shirt, and entry into drawings for door prizes.

Follow WordCamp PDX updates on Twitter.

Audio from an Oregon Public Broadcasting program, “The White State.” A look at the history of Oregon, and what factors have contributed to the state’s relatively homogeneous racial makeup.

The program features Dr. Jun Xing, Professor of Ethnic Studies at Oregon State University. Dr. Xing is an editor of the book, “Seeing Color: Indigenous Peoples and Racialized Ethnic Minorities in Oregon.”

Save the date; WordCamp Portland will be held on September 27th, 2008 at CubeSpace.

WordCamp is a gathering of WordPress folks. Whether you consider yourself an enthusiast, developer, designer, marketer, or writer, WordCamp is for you. The event organizers are currently working out the details of the conference format and schedule; stay tuned to the WordCamp Portland site for more information.

I hope to attend the Portland, Oregon WordCamp. I will proudly post at WordCamp Portland on my WordPress-powered blog while wearing my WordPress t-shirt whilst drinking java out of my WordPress mug

via Silicon Florist

In 1942, xenophobic U.S. officials enacted policies that resulted in the internment of over 100,000 Japanese American citizens. 42 Japanese American students at Oregon State University were forced to leave the university and sent to internment camps. Most did not ever return to OSU. On Sunday, June 15th, OSU awarded honorary degrees to every Japanese American student who was unable to complete their degree.

via the OSU Admissions Blog

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Sergeant Dave Hendrie said: “I think the thing that was shocking to me and gave me a better understanding when people talk about white privilege, it’s offensive to me, it feels like a judgment term to me but having watched this specifically as it relates to housing practice and how that works, we talk about white suburbia and here it is, it was a policy that these were the only people allowed to move out there, was whites. So I have a better understanding of white privilege. If I was a G.I and I’d come out here I’d have been able to get a loan for a home, wheras that same advantage would not have been given to Chuck. And to see that as part of the government instituted process of giving loans was disturbing to me.”

Yes you did just hear a Portland Police Officer changing his perspective of white privilege. There’s plenty more discussion, all of it equally fascinating, and you get to find out who Chuck is, after the jump.

via Blogtown, PDX

Life@Lane is a “student moderated blog” at Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon. I happened to stumble upon the site while checking out some summer classes at LCC. The blog is prominently advertised on the Lane Community College homepage.

I scrolled down through several posts and was intrigued by a post titled “Would The World Be Better With Women As Leaders?” The post basically says that women are emotional and therefore are not capable of being leaders. Jeffrey, the writer of the post and student at Lane, states in a response to a comment that “i don’t think my gender is superior i just don’t think women would be a good world leader.” Unbelievable. How can Lane Community College support this blog? How can Lane Community College stand behind this overtly sexist post/comment?

Here is the initial blurb about the blog via the LCC Marketing and Public Relations Office:

LIFE@LANE, A STUDENT MODERATED BLOG, launched from Lane’s homepage. Topics are generated by Lane’s Student Service Associates. Student blogs are common at four-year institutions. Lane is among the first community colleges to host a student blog. The purpose is to provide a communication tool primarily for current and prospective students and to increase “community” access.

How in the hell does this blog “increase ‘community’ access”? Student blogs are a common method of providing student insights into the student experience at a college/university. Student blogs are supposed to build community. They are not supposed to perpetuate stereotypes. It seems that Jeffrey, the student blogger at Lane, wanted to generate controversy and not build community. Marketing and Public Relations officials at Lane Community College should post an apology on the Life @ Lane blog, fire Jeffrey, and start moderating the commentary of the Life@Lane blog. I highly doubt that this is how they want life at Lane Community College to be represented.

Oops.

The University of Oregon is steering hundreds of freshmen to off-campus apartments next fall because its dorms lack sufficient room to handle an unexpected surge of enrollment.

The university expects 3,800 freshmen next fall, a 400-student increase, which will exceed dormitory space and force the university to provide more classes and services.

Some parents are anxious, angry and disappointed, and some students have chosen to go elsewhere because of the housing shortage, says Robin Holmes, vice president for student affairs.