The annual Lake Shasta trip (ungracefully) passed us. Sasquatch came and went. And, what midterms? It’s time to prepare ourselves for the final round of spring term procrastination full of nostalgic reminiscing. Seniors, this is it. There are only a couple more weeks left for us to bask in life as an undergraduate, and think about the ups and downs that will come in our post-grad experiences.
One negative that I foresee is the possibility of not being taken seriously by people since we’ll be new to this whole adulting thing. Sure, many of us are financially independent and are able to take on responsibilities, but our opinions may still go unheard at times and that’s when we need to be the loudest.
Take the topic of zoos, for example. These are outdated facilities that house wild animals for human curiosity, but with developments like the Internet, I don’t see any reason for zoos to still exist. I have never taken pleasure in anything being caged up, and if more “adults” would listen to me, the events this past weekend at the Cincinnati Zoo wouldn’t have occurred.
On May 28, a 4-year-old boy fell into the enclosed space of a gorilla named Harambe, resulting in Harambe being shot and killed by zoo officials for the safety of the young child. A video from the scene shows Harambe dragging the kid through water for a few minutes – what many saw as the gorilla protecting the boy – but the debacle ended with a bang. Many witnesses and social media users were heated about this fatal decision that took place, since the gorilla’s breed is endangered, and because the animal didn’t seem to be dangerous. The group consensus focused mainly on blaming the parents for not watching their son more closely.
Further news on this story came out on May 31 when a Daily Mail writer wrote a heinous piece on the young boy who fell into the gorilla habitat, specifically targeting his family. The story was not received well by readers because of its racist tones since the boy’s father, Deonne Dickerson, was the subject of the story, along with a number of crimes he committed in the past like kidnapping and drug trafficking.
Again, none of this would have happened if people like me and groups like PETA were taken more seriously and wild animals were freed from the constraints of a zoo.
Some kids who probably made their parents proud this past week were Jiram Hathwar and Nihar Janga, this year’s National Spelling Bee co-winners. With Hathwar’s final word to spell being Feldenkrais, and Janga’s being gesellschaft, the country (and many nail-biting students at the UO Recreational Center) watched the two boys equally earn bragging rights for the rest of their lives.
Another addition to the list of boys who can pat themselves on the back this past week is UO junior Sulman Raza who did the unthinkable on May 27. At the NCAA Men’s Golf Championship finals, Raza actually made golf exciting to watch. The South Eugene High School graduate elegantly sunk a par putt on 18 – aka he got the ball in the hole in the expected amount of strokes it would take an expert golfer – which ended with the UO men’s golf team knocking out both LSU, the defending champion, and this year’s No. 2 seed, Illinois.
This is significant in that Oregon men’s golf has been relying on Aaron Wise for quite some time now, but Raza undoubtedly came to play. On Wednesday, June 1, UO beat out Texas in the final round, taking home the university’s first NCAA men’s golf national championship.
I hope athletes and audience members alike have been carrying a kerchief in their khakis and keeping up with their allergy remedies while watching the parTEE this week, since the pollen count in Eugene is hard to PUTT aside.
Local Eugene news station KVAL has nicknamed the city “Achoo-gene” because the “Grass pollen is so high it is difficult to count,” according to Oregon Allergy Associates. To put things into scope, a “very high” amount of grass pollen on the ole’ NAB scale is above 200, and the amount in Eugene as of May 31 was 873.
However, if you have been personally victimized by local allergens before but haven’t been suffering this week, it may be because your allergy is to tree pollen, rather than grass, which was only at a moderate level. No runny nose, itchy eyes or throat closure for you Glen Coco.