UO E-clips, June 28-30

Trials dorm life nostalgic, economical, fun (Register-Guard): Torrion Amie is having his first experience living in the dorms -- 14 years after he attended college. So far, he said, so good: He didn’t have to deal with meeting a new roommate when he moved into his room at the Hamilton Complex on the University of Oregon campus. His wife, Kelli, has claimed that spot. And even the cafeteria food is good, he said. Amie wasn’t alone in his sentiments -- at least 650 spectators sprinted to claim dorm rooms in Hamilton during the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Trials at discount prices that ranged from $49 to $59 a night, including three meals a day, UO officials said.

People ready to act on climate change (Register-Guard guest viewpoint by Bob Doppelt): A flurry of e-mails flashed across my computer last week from people distressed about the lack of progress on global warming. Call me an optimist, but I don’t see things this way. I think we are on the verge of taking big steps toward tackling the problem. Experts in behavioral change know that people progress through fairly predictable stages when making a major shift. They normally start in a stage of disinterest. They don’t know a problem exists, don’t think it’s serious, or have little interest in changing.

Book Drive for Iraq (Slate Magazine): It's quite common to read, usually from liberal opponents of the engagement in Iraq, that George W. Bush's administration hasn't asked the American people to make any sacrifices. I must confess that I never quite understand this criticism. As a society, we collectively contribute a great deal from our common treasury to give Iraq a fighting chance to recover from three decades of war and fascism and to prevent it from falling into the hands of the enemies of civilization. …Among the projects already underway are an M.B.A. program in concert with Hochschule Furtwangen University in Germany and an English preparatory program run jointly with the American English Institute at the University of Oregon.

'Dung' happens on History Channel special (USA Today): Don't be a party pooper when it when it comes to History Channel's All About Dung (premiering tonight, 9 ET/PT). Clearly, there are enough references to this bodily excretion to make preteen boys double over with laughter, including repeated references to poop, feces and more -- not to mention toilets being blown up, dung beetles, a fecal-matter spitting game popular in South Africa, and several partakings of food and drink laced with the unusual spice of human and animal waste. … Halls visits eastern Oregon's Paisley Caves, where DNA from fossilized human excrement uncovered by University of Oregon archaeologist Dennis Jenkins eventually pushed estimates of humans' presence in North American back to 14,300 years, 12 centuries earlier than previously thought.

Emotional skills key to child’s ‘school readiness’ (Register-Guard, by Mona Ivey-Soto, a social worker and educator pursuing her doctorate in early intervention at the University of Oregon): The buzzwords of “school readiness” pervade the headlines of mass media, and grace the conversations of parents, educators and researchers all concerned with the fact that increasing numbers of children are not adequately prepared when they enter school. This preparation is not for a lack of alphabet familiarity or being able to count to 20, but rather highlights the large numbers of children who aren’t able to self-regulate.

Attention class (Boston Globe): In the fast-paced, distraction-plagued arena of modern life, perhaps nothing has come under more assault than the simple faculty of attention. We bemoan the tug of war for our focus, joke uneasily about our attention-deficit lifestyles, and worry about the seeming epidemic of attention disorders among children. … According to this model, first proposed by University of Oregon neuroscientist Michael I. Posner, the three additional networks are independent, yet work closely together.

UO professor's 'Styrobots' stand tall in art world (Associated Press, appearing in the Statesman Journal): Walking through a darkened corridor of Lawrence Hall on the University of Oregon campus, something against the wall catches the eyes of Michael Salter. It's a wheel from a chair or desk, just another of society's discarded items, but it's something that might just end up in his art someday. He scoops it up in midstride. "I thought it was kind of interesting," Salter says later at his studio. "Things have a way of kind of hanging out in here. And then sometimes they move on, sometimes they just sit around."