When the Civil War got really close, all I could imagine were the little Eugene ducks throwing quacking tantrums and the beavers around Oregon nervously chomping on bits of wood.

 
Last week was very bird-filled as we gobbled all through Thursday, then quacked up a storm on Friday. The Civil War game was a wood-chomper to say the least that involved high stress levels after halftime – this is where I blame Matt Leinart for his excessively chipper attitude towards Oregon coming out on top. UO got the W in the end despite the jinx, and Leinart apologized for the little faith he had in Oregon State.
A couple NFL bird-teams also had wins this week, among which were the Seattle Seahawks who beat the Pittsburg Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals who dominated the San Francisco 49ers during Sunday Night Football. Unfortunately for a not-so-chipper Chip Kelly, his Philadelphia Eagles suffered from a pretty big defeat against the Detroit Lions, 14-45, on Thanksgiving Day. Cue all the sad fans eating away their feelings, one inhale of mashed potatoes at a time. Better luck next week, boys, when you play against the Cheetahs – also known as the Brady Bunch, also known as the New England Patriots.
As for Thanksgiving next year, the Eugene community will have another expensive option to get their groceries from. If you haven’t noticed, a 33,750-square-foot Whole Foods Market is being built at the corner of E. Broadway Ave. and High St. Its opening was delayed six months to fall of 2016. It was planned for it to open earlier next year, but late this summer, workers thought they came across some historical artifacts on site. They got an archaeological excavation permit back in September from the Oregon State Historic Preservation Office and everything. Anti-climactically, the only thing they found was an old brick – a very old brick that dated back to the 1880s. After getting the news, Dan Giustina, the property’s owner and local businessman, said something like, “Forget century-old artifacts and build on!”
Giustina voiced his opinion, and now it’s your turn with course evaluations! It’s time to either be your silent-self, where you just click through the online surveys to get your grades on time, or be passive aggressive and rant anonymously about your instructors, or you can actually be effective and give your teachers helpful feedback AND sign your name. Just a reminder, if you don’t sign your evaluations, your instructors and professors will not read your written comments. I think everyone should do the third option. If your teachers have been great – let them know. If they’ve made you contemplate getting a refund and scratching your eyeballs out every class – do us all a favor and comment accordingly. All evaluations are due by 7 a.m. on Monday, Dec. 7.
Now, let us go global. For the next two weeks, 120 world leaders will be discussing things in Paris, France. By “120 world leaders” I mean the big leagues: President Obama, German Chancellor Merkel, Chinese President Xi Jinping and 117 others. And by “things” I mean an international climate change plan. If their goal is met at the summit and a solid plan is birthed, then it would be the first time ever where the entire world will finally come together for the environmental crisis that we’re facing. Also, Paris – quoi? Leaders decided not to cancel or move the UN conference because of the terrorist attacks that occurred a few weeks back. As a result, security is strong and a lot of conference events were cancelled. None of this stopped demonstrations from happening, though. People in Paris and throughout the world marched and rallied to put more pressure on the world’s leaders to come up with a concrete plan to fight global warming. Yay, activism! Boo, that 200 people were arrested after clashing with riot police.
Freedom! We Americans got a little more breathing space once midnight struck Saturday night, Nov. 28, and an eerie dial tone was all the NSA heard on its end. The NSA phone surveillance program that started after 9/11 (and that we only found out about because of Edward Snowden) came to a halt after Congress said so. Now, the NSA can only get phone activity information of certain targeted people, whatever that means. I guess this can all be taken as both good and bad. We do get more privacy, but does this mean life just got a little less safe? I’ll leave you with that.