Up at the University of Nike, athletics reigns supreme.  A professor in U of O's Department of Biology put some numbers to that in an R-G editorial today.  

...the university has benefited from $678.5 million in capital building projects in the past 10 years. A closer look, however, reveals that $409.5 million, or 60.4 percent, of this money has been spent on athletic infrastructure, including the Autzen Stadium renovation ($89 million), the new baseball stadium ($21 million), Hayward Field renovations ($9.89 million), state-of-the-art weight rooms and medical facilities for athletes only (estimated $8 million), an academic learning center also only for athletes (estimated $20 million), an indoor football practice field ($16.6 million) and the new basketball arena ($200 million plus $27 million for the land and $18 million for parking).

What’s the justification for a public university directing 60 percent of its capital expenditures over an entire decade toward a nonacademic auxiliary unit whose annual budget is only 8 percent of that of the entire university?

What about the long-standing administrative promise to renovate our severely outdated undergraduate dorms, a promise now on hold because of the $200 million borrowed for the arena? Top administrators also promised to find substitute graduate student housing to replace the Westmoreland complex, which was sold because, in the words of a nonacademic vice-president, it was an “under-producing asset.” It may be lost on our administrators, but the University of Oregon’s biggest asset is people, not buildings.

The same story is retold when it comes to our recently completed fundraising campaign. The university raised $845 million from incredibly generous donors. Of that amount, $323.9 million, or 38 percent, went towards athletics.

Some of the money was raised or donated with strings attached, but his point is valid.  Meanwhile, few disciplines at the U of O have a strong reputation when it comes to the quality of education they provide or the research they conduct.  In Kiplinger's recent ranking of 100 of the nation's major universities on academic quality, cost, and financial aid, the U of O was a lowly 88th.  But, that was an improvement...it was dead last when I blogged about it roughly two years ago.  

What about the university president hiring an athletic director who paid $1.8 million to buy out the contract of his predecessor? Or the university president allowing a senior vice president to be employed three-quarters time at the university at an annual salary of $141,000, while also working three-quarter time and earning an additional $84,000 per year at an outside job? Direct or perceived conflicts of interest should not be tolerated at a public institution.

Then there is the campuswide salary disparity issue. We have staff members on food stamps, graduate students with stipends so low that they need second jobs to support their families, and faculty salaries far below every other AAU institution.

Yet we have a university president who received a $158,321 raise, or 28.45 percent, this year to $714,774, retired university administrators rehired at significant salaries for minimal jobs while drawing full Public Employee Retirement System pension benefits, and athletic coaches making millions — including one not yet appointed who has been promised $7 million over five years. Seven million dollars for one person at a state institution!

In comparison, my own biology department’s annual budget of $3.99 million supports 82 faculty, staff and graduate students.

Some of those coaching salaries are the cost of doing business nowadays.  But, the faculty salaries in the Oregon University System continue to rank amongst the lowest in the nation.  Within the system, the U of O's are highest.  As I've noted before, many of the K-12 teachers in Jackson County earn more than the faculty at Southern Oregon University.  

Union influence matters.

TypePad is a having a problem with the comments section of some of its blogs, including mine...I can't even make comments at the moment.  Sorry, and hopefully it will be back soon.

While it certainly hasn't been dry at my place the last couple of months, neither has it been particularly wet.  In fact, December marked the 11th straight month with precip at or below average (June was the tie).  Over that period, precip was just 56 percent of average. 

The last two rain years (Sept-Aug) produced similar totals, averaging 6.23" light.  I'm already 5.31" inches light this rain year.  It's time for a wet--well, really wet--January. 

The following NOAA map shows that much of the West was dry last year.  Josephine County is shown in the 80-90 percent of normal precip band, but I barely topped 70 percent of normal.  Just unlucky I guess...

Happy New Year! 

A Mop of Hair:  Hair is biodegradable, but not rapidly so...it doesn't rot on our heads, but neither does it collect in massive quantities at sewage treatment plants.  Some things readily cling to hair, like oil.  For years now, one of the tools available to folks trying to limit or clean oil spills is hair. 

The product was invented by Phil McCory, a hair stylist in Huntsville, Alabama. While watching television coverage of the 1989 Valdez oil spill, McCory noticed the difficulty volunteers were having cleaning the fur of otters. "I thought if animal fur can trap and hold spilled oil, why can't human hair", said McCory. In a home experiment, McCory stuffed 5 pounds of hair he'd cut into a pair of his wife's pantyhose. He tied the ankles of the nylons together to form a ring shaped collection bundle. Then, filling his son's baby pool with water, he poured a gallon of used motor oil in the pool and then dunked the pantyhose. Two minutes later he pulled out the nylons and noticed the water was crystal clear. "Not a trace of oil was left in the water", said McCory.

And not only that, but the hair is reusable.

Human hair does not "absorb" (or soak in) oil as does cloth, but rather it "adsorbs" (or holds on to) it. A product such as a polypropylene mat "absorbs" oil, and the oil bonds to the material, so much so that the oil cannot be extracted. But with the OttiMat the oil is "adsorbed", meaning that the oil is adhering to the surfaces of the hair. The mat can be wrung out for re-use 100 or more times. In fact, during an oil spill cleanup, up to 98% of the oil can be recovered. Each cubic foot collects 7.8 gallons per two-and-a-half minute use.

That's great for big spills.  With smaller ones, the mats can rapidly be fouled by picking up all sorts of stuff. 

With the millions of pounds of hair cut from American heads each year, supply shouldn't be an issue, right?  No.

A Lack of Capitalism:  It's cheaper and easier in the U.S. to dump hair in the trash than it is to collect and try to sell it.  That helps explain the following. 

To help with oil spill cleanup, Matter of Trust, Inc., an ecological public charity, collects salon hair clippings and sends it to nonwoven needlepunch factories. These factories make hair mats that Matter of Trust uses for cleaning up oil spills. They also stuff this hair into recycled nylon stockings to make "booms" which help contain and soak up the oil spills...

Yes, they're imitating the OttiMat mentioned above.  Matter of Trust uses human hair (from the head only), fur from groomers, waste wool, horse hair, etc.  Those donating the hair bear the cost of sending it to San Francisco.  If salons, groomer, etc. want to put up a poster showing what they're supporting, they can order one for $15.

What does one do with the oily mats when they're worn out?  Matter of Trust has been doing some manpower-intensive experimenting with ways to recycle them. 

So, first you soak up spilled oil with hair, then you turn the oily hair into compost with mushrooms. Mother Nature doesn't make waste, only opportunities. You just need to pay attention to her clues. For eons, she has been hanging oily bangs in front of our eyes and giving us nail fungus on our toes for a reason. But, she's concerned that humans are a bit slow as a species, thus clearly in need of an extra nudge.

The author was too busy trying to be clever to mention the fact that they layer the hair mats with straw and add oyster mushroom spawn.  The result is part compost, part mushroom farm, grown on an impermeable surface (plastic sheeting) to ensure that none of the oil escapes. 

Root Toupée:  A goodly number of the hair mats used in the above effort weren't made by Matter of Trust, but by a company called SmartGrow...which donated 1,000 of them.  Those mats are actually designed to function as a type of mulch and slow-release fertilizer, helping plants with moisture and nutrients while providing a barrier against weeds. 

The mats stored in southern Miami-Dade County are part of a world marketplace for human hair. Uses range from the obvious, such as false eyelashes and wigs, to the more obscure: it's a common raw-material source for l-cysteine, an amino acid frequently used in baked goods such as pizza dough and bagels.

China and India exported more than $154 million worth of human hair last year, according to United Nations trade statistics. They are Blacker's main suppliers.

"It's not processed or dyed like a lot of hair we have here," said Blacker, whose own hair is silvery and neatly cropped.

We ship grass straw to China, and China ships us human hair.  That makes the waste products useful, but talk about inefficient when it comes to fuel usage.  Some nurseries are big fans of the hair mats, which qualify as organic and may even help repel deer.  

Evidently the concept of using hair on crops make some people queasy.  Good thing they have little idea of how many other gross things go into growing tasty foods.     

SmartGrow relies on two hair brokers — in China and India — to procure the hair, which is boiled in 120-degree water, dried, loaded onto 40-foot boats and shipped via waterway to a port city in China. Then it is transported to the small town of Zhaoyuan, home of the SmartGrow factory.

The mass of strands is loaded onto an old-style needle-punch machine, formerly used to make carpets.

It also comes cut up into cube form.  But just in case you think there are only a couple of hair brokers...

India has thousands of hair exporters. But sources are few. The biggest one is Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam in Andhra Pradesh. The hair collected from the tonsuring is reportedly separated into five different varieties. The 600 barbers employed by the temple shave the pilgrims’ heads 24 hours a day. Last year, it auctioned around 80 tonne of hair worth Rs 60 crore [$12.35 million].

The hair exported from India is either raw or processed/polished. The profit margins are around 15% and 50% respectively. Not a bad deal considering there is a huge demand for Indian hair in France, UK, US, Canada, and a few other European countries.

Twenty-four hours a day doing that? 

Tonsure is the practice of some Christian churches, mystics, Buddhist novices and monks, and some Hindu temples of cutting the hair from the scalp of clerics, devotees or holy people as a symbol of their renunciation of worldly fashion and esteem.

But at least they can take pride in the fact that their hair is helping someone grow a nice plant or soak up some oil.

Dust to Dust:  The following was published last week regarding using hair cubes as fertilizer.  The researchers certainly chose an eclectic mix of plants. 

The study compared the productivity of four crops: lettuce, wormwood, yellow poppy, and feverfew, grown in commercial growth medium using untreated control, noncomposted hair cubes at differing weights, a controlled-release fertilizer and a water-soluble fertilizer. Results showed that, with the addition of hair waste cubes, yields increased relative to the untreated control but were lower than yields in the inorganic treatments, suggesting that hair waste should not be used as a single source for fast-growing plants such as lettuce.

Zheljazkov suggests that, "once the degradation and mineralization of hair waste starts, it can provide sufficient nutrients to container-grown plants and ensure similar yields to those obtained with the commonly used fertilizers in horticulture. However, it takes time for the hair to start degrading and releasing nutrients, as is reflected in lower yields in the hair treatments relative to the inorganic fertilizers for lettuce and wormwood."

Again, no surprise that hair is slow to release its nutrients.  And then the researchers tacked on the following statement.

Because of possible health concerns, further research is necessary to determine whether human hair waste is a viable option as fertilizer for edible crops.

Uhhh, human testing--though uncontrolled--is already being done.  Back to those SmartGrow mats...  

The mats range in size from 25-foot sheets that can be custom-cut for row crops like tomatoes to golfball-sized cubes to tuck around the roots of potted ficus trees.

Wal-Mart began selling the mats for home gardeners last spring [2007] in about 60 stores in central Florida. Dollar General just signed on to sell the smaller-size sheets at 1,000 of its stores.

The mats have been around for a few years, though only recently do they seem to be somewhat readily available.

A couple of newspaper companies with significant footprints here in the Northwest have themselves been in the press in recent days because of their financial problems.  Both are suffering not only the typical newspaper ills (sagging circulation and ad revenue) but from choosing a bad time to assume a lot of debt.  First... 

Lee Enterprises Inc., publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and other newspapers, said in a regulatory filing that it will have trouble paying its debt over the next two years because of severe reductions in revenue.

...

In the Pacific Northwest, Lee publishes The Times-News in Twin Falls, Idaho; The Daily News in Longview, Wash.; and in Oregon, The World in Coos Bay, the Albany Democrat-Herald, and the Corvallis Gazette-Times. 

Lee said in a regulatory filing Wednesday that it generated sufficient cash flow in 2008 to reduce its debt by $102 million. But it will need to tap a revolving credit agreement to pay off $143 million in bank notes in 2009 and more than $166 million in notes due in 2010.

In addition, Lee has $306 million in debt it assumed when it bought the Post-Dispatch and the rest of the Pulitzer newspaper group in 2005. Pulitzer had taken on the debt in 2000, and those notes come due in April 2009.

Lee said negotiations were continuing with lenders to extend or refinance the Pulitzer notes, but the prospects were uncertain given "the abnormal condition of the domestic credit markets and the overall recessionary operating environment."

This link lists all of Lee's papers and their circulations.  The company began last year at $14.65 a share and closed today at $0.41. 

Lee has a waiver from lenders giving it a reprieve from meeting the financial targets until at least Jan. 16. After that, a violation of the covenants could trigger an acceleration of principal payments, according to the Davenport-based company's auditor, KPMG LLP.

...

The company's debt problems "raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern," KPMG said in a report accompanying Lee's filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Meanwhile, the McClatchy Company (headquartered in Sacramento CA) hit an all-time low just before Christmas.  Here in the Northwest, it owns The Bellingham Herald, the Idaho Statesman, The Olympian, The (Tacoma) News Tribune, and the Tri-City Herald.  It also owns the Belleville News-Democrat, which my sister and I both delivered in our teens when dad was assigned in Southern Illinois (Scott AFB). 

The following, from a mid-December press release, shows how overall advertising revenues have been plunging. 

The McClatchy Company today reported that consolidated revenues in November 2008 decreased 19.4% and advertising revenues were down 22.4% compared to revenues in November 2007. The Company noted that the declines in print advertising were partially offset by a 7.5% gain in online advertising revenues in November 2008 compared to November 2007. For the first eleven months of the year, total revenues declined 15.9% and advertising revenues declined 17.8%. Online advertising grew 10.6% in the first eleven months of 2008.

The press release also noted that from November 2007 to November 2008, total paid daily and Sunday circulation dropped by 6.7% and 5.9%, respectively.

McClatchy began last year at $12.52 a share and finished today at $1.09.  The average newspaper stock "only" dropped 83 percent last year.  Switching links...

McClatchy has responded by cutting costs, reducing its work force with buyouts and layoffs. The company continues to pay down $2.1 billion in debt connected to its purchase of Knight Ridder Newspapers Inc. in June 2006.

I wonder if any politicians around here have been contemplating the following.

Frank Nicastro, who represents Connecticut's 79th assembly district, is asking the state government to do something to salvage The Bristol Press, a paper that may fold within days, along with The [New Britain] Herald. The papers' publisher, Journal Register, is in danger of being crushed under millions of dollars in debt, and can't afford to keep them open.

"The media is a vitally important part of America," Nicastro said, particularly local papers that cover news ignored by big papers and television and radio stations.

The Journal Register Company of Yardley PA publishes a number of smaller newspapers mostly in the Rust Belt. 

It sure is hard to figure what the media will look like a decade from now. 

Like most states, Washington is suddenly struggling to deal with a significant budget deficit.  Better late than never with the following proposal, which pertains only to non-violent criminals.

To save money, Gov. Chris Gregoire wants illegal aliens serving time in state prisons deported.

Her proposal estimates that deporting illegal aliens - who are serving or would serve time for drug or property crime convictions - will save the state more than $9 million in the next two-year budget.

...

The proposal would call for the state to come to an agreement with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, which would carry out the deportations. In Washington, there are about 350 prisoners who would be eligible to be transferred to ICE. On average, it costs the state $90 a day to imprison an inmate, Vail said.

It also includes allowing state workers to act as immigration agents in some instances, assisting ICE in processing illegal aliens under a version of the so-called 287(g) agreements, which are contentious among immigrant advocates.

Yawn...everything that has to do with sending illegal aliens home is contentious among immigrant advocates. 

Gregoire's proposal represents a policy shift toward illegal immigrants from a state that had largely stayed away from immigration enforcement. Washington, with its large agricultural industry, attracts a large number of undocumented workers, mostly from Mexico.

...

Gregoire's proposal would need approval from state lawmakers to be enacted, said Chad Lewis, Department of Corrections spokesman.

Washington would join Arizona and New York in having similar programs. Between 1995 and 2007, New York has saved an estimated $141 million by releasing more than 1,950 illegal aliens inmates to federal hands, according to the New York Department of Correctional Services.

Currently in Washington, immigration agents can comb local jails for illegal aliens. Once federal agents identify an illegal alien in jail, a hold is placed on the person, and the federal government waits for the local sentence is served before deportation procedures begin.

That's needlessly inefficient. 

Imagine how much money California (and its sanctuary cities) could save by doing this.  Heck, Governor Schwarzenegger just proposed $788 million in cuts to the Department of Corrections.  Amazingly, that's less than 2 percent of the budget problem he's trying to fix.