Uh, no comment. No description. Just play the file.

There is copyrighted music in here, so I’m reserving all rights.

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(Updated)

An anonymous commenter just pointed out something important that I inadvertently left out of the RED light story, namely that Senator Gerner in his official capacity has been using the nickname “RED” for a while now. Two emails sent to all UA students from rtucker at email.arizona.edu [spaces added] regarding a proposed student technology fee contain the moniker. The respective emails were sent Jan 19th and Jan 23rd. Both looked similar, but I’ll post one to refresh memories. [HTML edited for brevity]

You were sent this message in accordance with U of A policy on email.

Dear Student,

Recently the Board of Regents postponed increases the Information
Technology Fee to $100 due to a lack of student voice in the fee
increase. As a result, students, staff and faculty have worked together
to create a survey designed to identify student information and
technology priorities. Participants in the survey will be entered into a
drawing FOR ONE OF FIVE $50 AWARDS.

http://www.arizona.edu/survey/123.htm

This survey is a result of university and state leaders taking an
interest in student priorities and your participation could directly
affect the outcome of this fee. Please take a few moments to complete
the survey before Jan. 26 by clicking this link:

http://www.arizona.edu/survey/123.htm

This survey should take approximately 10 minutes to complete. All
respondents will be entered in a drawing to win one of five $50 awards.
Thank you for your participation! Please refer any questions, comments,
or concerns to Steven Gerner. The state is listening! This is our chance
to be heard!

Thanks,
Steven “Red” Gerner
Student Body Senator
[phone number]
sgerner @ u.arizona.edu

An earlier post also mentions Gerner’s efforts concerning the student technology fee, but looking back, I see no mention of the “Red” moniker.

Addition of commentary (7:45 a.m.): Indeed, this looks to cross an ethical line. It’s clear that “Red” is not a longstanding nickname, or we would have seen it during Gerner’s senatorial campaign last year.

Full disclosure: Steven Gerner and I are former classmates from a political theory class and are registered as friends on Facebook.

Note: The email address rtucker @ email.arizona.edu is that of Raquel Tucker who according to the Daily Wildcat is an applications systems analyst in the Registrar’s Office. Emails from the address are a regular occurrence, announcing things such as student health insurance, registration deadlines, and tax information. For the most part, all of the emails concern official university business, so despite the appearance, the emails are not spam.

(Updated)

Much like last year, the current ASUA campaign strategy looks to involve packing people into large Facebook groups named for potential candidates, and then putting things up declaring a "campaign" immediately when the campaign begins.  This year’s campaign begins on February 12th according to the elections website, but I’ve been noticing some activity.

Remember Team Yellow?  A similar strategy looks to be back in the works, as three recent Facebook groups have declared an apparent alliance of "RED."  These include:

• RED - It’s more than a color
• The Awesomeness of Steven ‘RED’ Gerner
• I love James "RED" Pennington-McQueen
• Amy C. Drapkin is RED Hot!!!

I’m not assuming anything malevolent here, but what we’re definitely looking at here is an inevitability of a system where "official campaigning" is only allowed to take place within a specified amount of time.  Regardless of what the elections commissioner might think about this, it’s only fair that everybody finds out and is allowed to follow suit.

If anything makes this "RED" team a painfully obvious preliminary campaign, you might try reading one of the group’s walls…

Moreover, I was hoping that these elections would rise above petty slogans and monikers, but there was also no reason to think they actually would. 

Full disclosure: Steven Gerner and I are former classmates from a political theory class and are registered as friends on Facebook.

Reposted due to a server change.  I’m having to use university servers right now because I can’t use Archive.org when using copyrighted music and sound effects.  Please me know if you’d be willing to host a couple of mp3’s for me. Originally posted on September 8th, 2006.

We’re making more fun of Facebook on the podcast today.  Yes, I am a Law and Order fan.

How to listen:

Play episode | RSS 2.0 Feed (podcasts) | Subscribe with iTunes or other podcatcher

Reposted due to a server change.  I’m having to use university servers right now because I can’t use Archive.org when using copyrighted music and sound effects.  Please me know if you’d be willing to host a couple of mp3’s for me.  Originally posted on September 6th, 2006.

Facebook!  It’s where everybody knows your name!  And you know everybody else’s name, et cetera!

How to listen:

Play episode | RSS 2.0 Feed (podcasts) | Subscribe with iTunes or other podcatcher

Update: I just figured out how to isolate the feed to the podcasts only.  You may want to update the feed address to make sure iTunes can see both current episodes.

Update II: I’m submitting this to various blog carnivals including but not limited to Showcase Carnival.

Perhaps this will satisfy the critics?

My roommates just had the genius idea of creating a Facebook group after the Men’s Resource Center parody previously on The O’Hara Factor. 

Here’s the new official pdf.

Many of you coming here today probably came as a result of seeing ads placed on Facebook.  So basically, I’m going to give you a quick lowdown on exactly what this blog is and how to get the most out of it.

• I built this with the intent of making it a group blog.  If you’re interested in becoming an author or simply want to know the story a little better, see the about page so you know where I’m coming from.  Note that you don’t have to be political to join up.  Theology, student life, etc., are all welcome topics.  You don’t even have to know HTML; I’ll help you with that.
   
• Not immediately apparent from the home page is that there’s a podcast associated with the blog.  You have the choice of viewing the podcast archives, subscribing using iTunes or another podcatcher, or if you understand how to use RSS best just take the direct podcast-only feed link and go from there.  I’m planning on doing more serious stuff with the podcast in the near future, so again, if you want to join up, hit up the about page.
   
• Comments are open to the public.  Unless you’re spamming or degrading another individual, I welcome all viewpoints in the comments.
   
• Finally, the Arizona Daily Wildcat and ASUA are not "the enemy."  I know I mentioned the whole toilet paper thing in the ad, but we’re here to productively discuss issues and promote positive change in policy and thought.

Thanks for reading the Arizona Growler.  Enjoy yourself.

Best Regards,
Garrett O’Hara

Hi there, "Sally Ride."  Yeah, I got your spam.  And guess what.  The SPAMINATOR got you.  Mmmm…spam.  It’s a first for the Arizona Growler since its reinception, too.  You ever tried feeding spam to a Wildcat before? 

This is a proud moment for the Growler.  In fact, I was so proud, I decided to purchase 50,000 Facebook flyers to celebrate.  They go up on Monday and last until Friday.  Have fun over there at IP address 70.184.120.41.

– Garrett O’Hara

A portion of the news feed on my Facebook account (friends’ names removed for privacy reasons, as if most of my readers can’t find out anyway)

The new (out)rage in the online college world is Facebook’s new "news feed".  Compiling information from "friends" on Facebook, the feed gives the user on-the-double information about people’s latest activities on Facebook, including posting on people’s "walls", friendships, "group" memberships, etc.

Let’s see: 

• eight of my friends posted on [name]’s wall.  It was his birthday yesterday.
• [name] and [name] are now friends.
• [name] hates the news feed.
• [name] and [name] are dating.
• [name] is weirded out by Facebook.
• and more…

A friend once joked to me in a private message on Facebook that it was "a stalker’s dream come true."  Perhaps this is becoming more true.  Not only is there a news feed for your overall circle of friends, you can zero it down to individual friends’ "feeds". 

The protest group mentioned in the image to the right currently has 26,853 members worldwide (mostly in the U.S., of course), but I think the protest is quite shortsighted.  First, the feed doesn’t show any information to which I didn’t have access in the first place other than times of instance.  For the most part, it only the information easier to find.  These friends’ profiles, as well as profiles of just about everybody at the University of Arizona who happens to use Facebook, are available for my viewing.  Even before "news feed", I could basically sit in a coffee shop, search for the coffee shop’s name on Facebook, find who admits to frequenting it, find pictures of people I recognize, and find out that the girl 20 feet from my port beam has a boyfriend named Mark Burton.

Fellow students, if you don’t want your entire circle of friends (let alone your entire school or the entire Internet) finding out, DON’T POST IT ON THE INTERNET!!!!

I support the news feed.  Overall it might encourage people to use a little more caution, which some of Facebook’s users really need to consider trying.

Oh, and that number I mentioned earlier?  Now it’s 29,080.  And I had just refreshed it ten minutes ago.  Actually, I’ve been refreshing it as I’ve been writing this, and the number was steadily increasing.  Let’s just say it’s going to be at least 80,000 by the time I wake up.