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UO E-clips, Sept. 23
Top stories for September 23, 2008: Honk, honk, beep, beep, yeah … KVAL News 13 reports the return of students and traffic jams beginning today on the UO campus; the Los Angeles Times reports an UO-led study on 2,000 years of wildfires; renewed search for UO mathematician turns up no clues, KVAL reports; and the New Republican quotes UO economy blogger Mark Thoma in a story on Jagdish Bhagwati, author of a new book "Defense of Globalization"
Expect traffic jams near UO as students return (KVAL News 13): At the start of each new school year, thousands of students who spent the summers elsewhere flock back to Eugene. Those students planning to live in the University of Oregon’s on-campus dormitories will come in droves Tuesday and Thursday. The flood of students in past years not only has snarled traffic on the UO campus and completely blocked Agate Street, but also has backed up onto Franklin Boulevard, affecting travel for Eugene residents throughout the day. This year, university staff have divided the influx into two groups, with about one-third of the 3,500+ dorm-bound youth scheduled to come to campus on Tuesday, September 23, and the remaining two-thirds arriving on Thursday, Sept. 25.
Climate drives wildfire activity (Los Angeles Times): The biggest overall influence on global wildfire activity in the last 2,000 years has been climate, according to a new study that also shows humans have played a significant role in fire levels in recent centuries. Researchers looked at charcoal levels in hundreds of corings of ancient lake sediments and peat from around the world. … Patrick Bartlein, a University of Oregon geography professor and one of the study authors, said climate is regaining the upper hand as the dominant force.
Weekend search turns up no sign of missing UO professor Daming Xu (KVAL News 13): After three days of a resumed search for missing University of Oregon math professor Daming Xu, the search was suspended with no plans for additional searching. Xu disappeared Nov. 4, 2007, while on a day hike near Olallie Mountain in the Three Sisters Wilderness. Two weeks of searching came to an end due to unfavorable weather and dangerous conditions having turned up only one clue: half a copy of William Sullivan's "100 Hikes in the Central Oregon Cascades" found in the French Pete drainage south of Highway 126 and Cougar Reservoir. Over the weekend, 45 searchers from Lane and Marion counties put in another 400 hours combing the wilds for signs of Xu. No clues were found.
Free traitors (New Republic): Jagdish Bhagwati is a humble man. He will tell you so himself. Describing the effect of his book In Defense of Globalization during a speech at the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) last fall, the Columbia economist politely refused credit for single-handedly dampening growing concerns about the fallout from free trade. … "I think, even on the right, you hear it more and more," says Mark Thoma, an economist at the University of Oregon who runs the popular blog Economist's View.