Eugene, say hello to 5,000 pounds of pure rainbow bliss.

The man-made color bombs that will be thrown during this Saturday’s Color Me Rad 5k are a combination of cornstarch and food coloring – perfectly safe if any powder gets in your mouth, but not without a “chalky” taste and texture according to freshman Kathleen Tran.

“We never call it paint because it actually, I think, confuses people to hear the word ‘paint’,” said Gretchen Willard, Color Me Rad public relations director. “They think of it as painting on a canvas and it’s not paint at all.”

Tran — who took part in The Color Run, another powder-based event last September — says her experience with the powder was not uncomfortable.

“I think the main thing to watch out for would be your eyes. If it gets into your mouth that’s no problem at all, but I didn’t get any in my eyes with the sunglasses on and I think almost all runners wear sunglasses or they just shut their eyes when the powder is being thrown at you,” said Tran.

Based in Utah, the first run took place last April and was initially inspired by the enormous Holi celebration that is held annually in Salt Lake City. This year, Color Me Rad runs will be held in nearly 100 cities throughout the United States and Canada.

“Eugene was a great choice because there’s a lot of runners and a lot of really active people,” Willard said.

Around 4,000 are expected to take part in the 3.11 mile course will start and finish by Valley River Center after winding around the Willamette River. Powder and liquid-based color stations (water added to the cornstarch concoction) will punctuate the course, with volunteers ready to douse participants in color.

“My favorite part is definitely seeing people have fun while they’re participating in fitness,” Willard said. “I think that it’s great that it also supports a local charity, so it’s so many things at once.”

This particular run will benefit the Relief Nursery, a nonprofit organization in Eugene focused on preventing child abuse and neglect.

“It’s also fun to see a lot of people who are first-time runners try their first 5k, and I think they don’t feel pressured, they don’t feel like they need to be the fastest person out there,” Willard said.

Willard, who has participated in several Color Me Rad events (including the very first run), says that although the run looks messy, event cleanup only takes around two to three hours. Rain takes care of what a water truck and sweeper miss, marking a tidy end to a brief moment of vibrance under Eugene’s gray skies.

The fight for the NCAA championship title may be over for men’s basketball, but Oregon has been recognized for another achievement. The Alliance to Save Energy, a nonprofit organization based in Washington D.C., has named the university one of the top eight most energy-efficient campuses in the NCAA tournament.

Other schools on the Energy Efficient Eight list included Duke University, Syracuse University and the University of California, Berkeley.

“It’s always an honor to be recognized by others for our efforts,” said Christine Thompson, planning associate for the campus planning and real estate department.

Thompson was responsible for helping develop and execute the Oregon Model for Sustainable Development that was adopted in July 2011 and is geared toward saving and improving energy and water use, as well as promoting sustainable habits among individuals on campus.

The Alliance to Save Energy highlighted some of the results of these goals, stating that the UO saved $98,000 after swapping out 33,000 T12 lightbulbs for T8s that save more energy. The organization also mentioned that the UO requires all new buildings to be 35 percent more energy efficient than the Oregon Energy Code. This requirement is 15 percent higher than the internationally recognized Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification.

The Lillis Business Complex and the Living Learning Center were also noted for their use of solar energy and light timers.

“There’s an expectation that the University of Oregon be a leader in this field, so it’s a point of pride that we’re able to meet these expectations,” said Steve Mital, sustainability director for campus planning and real estate.

Mital also said that a local, national and global reputation as a green institution would attract faculty and students with similar outlooks on sustainability and hopefully fuel the success of campus goals.

“Since the 1970s, the university and the state of Oregon have been national leaders in establishing sustainable practices,” said Thompson. “Ten years ago, the university became one of the first universities in the nation to develop and adopt a plan for sustainable development of its campus.”

Thompson said that as a member of the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, the university has implemented its own Climate Action Plan that was approved by former president Richard Lariviere in 2010.

Down the road, Mital hopes to see more students involved in sustainability projects that go beyond the classroom. One example of this is the Community for Ecological Leaders offered as a living option to those in the dorms. Students can go on orientation trips to locations such as the coast and farms to learn about sustainability and attend lectures throughout the year.

For now, Mital is preparing for the Emerald Ecochallenge that will take place from April 15 to 22 during Earth Week. Participants choose one or more challenges they would like to tackle, with the suggestions ranging from simply turning off all lights when you’re not using them to volunteering at places like Food for Lane County.

Eighty-seven-year-old blues artist B.B. King will be in Eugene for a concert at the Hult Center Silva Concert Hall on March 10. The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m., and the cost of tickets ranges from $39 to $69, according to the Hult Center’s website.

He is considered to be one of the most influential artists of the blues genre and was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

It has been five years, but the question still pops up.

“Hey, this is really weird, but were you ever on ‘MADE’?”

Turns out, the answer is yes. In 2008, then-high school senior Diana Kiester was selected for the show after MTV held an open casting call at Roseburg High School. Now, as a fifth-year senior at the University of Oregon pursuing a double major, Kiester still believes the experience was completely worth it.

“The theme of my show was ‘dream date’ because — senior, never been kissed, never gone on a date before, not really good around boys and so the main thing I wanted to get out of it was self-confidence and being able to be more assertive,” Kiester said. “I guess, a self discovery sort of thing, and that show definitely helped out a lot with that.”

For those who have seen the show or are interested in trying for a chance to pursue one of their dreams, “MADE” will be holding its second open casting call at the UO this Friday. Casting interviews will be held in the Career Center from 12 to 4 p.m.

“Last year, we had a nice sized turn out of between 40-50 students,” said Ryan McRae, associate producer of “MADE.” “We never know how many students to expect but are always happy when heartfelt and passionate students come out.”

In McRae’s eyes, passion and energy are also two things that help an audition stand out, but he also encourages those auditioning to relax and have fun.

“Don’t be afraid to be yourself on it (the audition tape) because the point of it is self-improvement,” Kiester said.

It’s fair to say that Kiester’s senior prom was on the level of a fairytale straight from the land of Taylor Swift music videos. However, Kiester says that very little of what happened to her was scripted.

“It actually wasn’t that staged. My episode, the only thing I was ever really told that they asked me to do was, ‘Hi, I’m Diana. You just saw me get MADE.’  That was it,” said Kiester.

Although she’s still nerdy (and happily so), Kiester says the experience was less about reworking her personality and more about being in tune with her surroundings.

“If you get chosen, no matter how many challenges, you (need) to meet every single one of them because it’s certainly interesting on the show, but they designed these challenges to be to your benefit as well,” Kiester said. “It was not so much changing as to becoming more understanding of my environment and about different impressions with people,” Kiester said.

As someone who acknowledges that she was overly obsessed with anime in high school, Kiester definitely still identifies as a geek, but says the show helped her broaden her interests to include things aside from anime and manga without leaving them behind.

“I actually did all the illustrations for an indie game and I still definitely draw quite a bit, but I treat that more as a hobby, as a side type of thing,” said Kiester.

The business and Japanese double major hopes to someday gain the freedom to incorporate her art into her career but is currently focusing on honing her business skills. She is also working to secure a job in Japan in the comics, video game or pop culture industry.

Kiester also keeps in touch with her two coaches, camera people and Trae who was (spoiler) Kiester’s prom date. As for the boy who (another spoiler) turned Kiester down? Kiester laughs.

“I haven’t heard from him since and good riddance.”

Twenty five hundred student tickets to the Dalai Lama’s May 10 lecture were snapped up in a matter of about 20 minutes after becoming available today at 10 a.m., according to University spokeswoman Julie Brown. Sophomore Taylor Makin was one of the lucky ones.

The biology major set an alarm on her phone for 30 minutes before tickets became available and says that she was definitely watching the clock for the opportunity to secure a spot at what she describes as a once-in-a-lifetime event.

“I was thinking before I got it that I really, really hoped that I’d get it because it’s hard — the way they distribute football tickets,” said Makin. “I almost never get a football ticket, so I wasn’t all that hopeful that I would get one.”

Makin was able to log in immediately and is “stoked” to hear His Holiness’ lecture.

“I’m not really sure what to expect exactly because I’ve never listened to a speaker of this magnitude before,” said Makin ” … I’m just excited to see what it’s going to be and (I’ll be) keeping an open mind. I hear that he’s very funny, he has a big sense of humor.”

The next date students will be able to purchase tickets is at 10 a.m. on March 11 when they go on sale to the general public. Tickets will be $20 and are limited to two per person. The event will also be streamed via the University’s main site.

University faculty and staff will be able to buy tickets for $20 at 10 a.m. on March 7.

The University’s Cultural Forum will host a free Radical Something concert tonight in the Great Room of the Global Scholars Hall. The concert will last from 8:3o-11 p.m. and will also feature Mac2Matt and PropaneLV.

“When I first saw the Global Scholars Hall I envisioned a concert there and I thought it would be a great venue,” said Sam Arabian, a junior in charge of regional music for the Cultural Forum.

Arabian also chose the Global Scholars Hall over a venue like WOW Hall because it would be accessible to more students. Because it’s a smaller event, Arabian organized the concert himself.

“I’m kind of used to it,” said Arabian. “I’ve been putting on concerts since high school so I’m pretty used to the stress, and things not going according to plan, and last-minute changes. The whole nine yards.”

Arabian says he enjoys putting on good concerts and believes tonight’s show will be well worth attending.

“It’s an awesome band and it’s going to be a really fun show, that’s for sure,” Arabian said.

A male University of Oregon student was approached by an unidentified man with a knife who demanded money, according to a Campus Crime Alert (PDF) released by the UO’s Police Department. The incident occurred on early Friday past midnight and took place east of the Education Annex and Parking Lot 20 near the Pioneer Cemetery (PDF map here).

The student was able to escape by pushing the man and running away. He described the suspect as a black male in his early 20s, about six feet tall, medium build and wearing a dark-colored jacket with a hood and dark jeans.

Anyone with information should call Eugene Police at 541-682-5111 or UOPD at 541-346-2919.

Earlier today, the University’s Mapping History site was featured on Boing Boing, a popular internet culture blog that started out as a zine in 1988. Although the mapping history site is a joint project between history professor James Mohr and classics and history professor John Nicols, the pair have invited students to partake in the project since it began in the ’90s.

Mohr is grateful for the recognition, but says that it is especially exciting for the students who worked on the project.

“It’s a terrific example of how undergraduates can get involved in serious academic research,” Mohr said.

The site features different aspects of American, Latin American, European and African history that Boing Boing science editor Maggie Koerth-Baker describes as “fascinating and fantastic.” 

According to Mohr, the idea for the project spawned from his and Nicols’ unhappiness with regular hard-bound atlases.

“We were both very dissatisfied with traditional hard copy historical atlases and we felt that with modern digital technology we could make historical maps much more informative than they were in printed form because we could move things,” said Mohr. “So you could watch a battle unfold instead of trying to figure out a bunch of arrows and different colors.”

This Saturday, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., will be in Eugene to meet with WWII and Korean War veterans at the Oregon Air and Space Museum. Wyden will also present the museum with an American flag that has flown over the Capitol, according to a press release. He will later attend the men’s basketball game against Stanford at 5 p.m.

Wyden is currently pushing to legalize hemp and has submitted a new bill that aims to lift a 50-year-old prohibition.

The Campbell Club. Just another wild party gone wrong or an excessive use of force? In the swirl of contradicting accounts between a witness, police and residents, University of Oregon senior Caleb Palmer offers his perspective on what he believes sparked the confusion.

“I know that two of my friends that have a lot of know-your-rights training are very knowledgeable about these kind of things, approached the cops and simply said, ‘We do not consent to you being on our property right now,’ at which point the cop actually took my friend by the collar, grabbed him by the collar and said, ‘You’re under arrest,’” Palmer said.

The Campbell Club resident says this moment is the tipping point that made Friday night’s events take a turn for the worse.

“And at that point it became very confusing — several people got involved, several cops got involved, actually came up to our property and started physically …” Palmer trails off.

“Physically trying to pull people onto public property to detain and arrest them,” Lee Andres said, another Campbell Club resident. Eugene Police have a different take on last Friday’s events.

“Typically, in a situation like this … our goal is to speak to the residents of the location and advise them why we are there and what the circumstances are in an effort to gain our compliance and get the situation resolved,” Eugene Police Sgt. David Natt said, who was not one of the responding police personnel. But residents refused to open the door. “It’s been described to me as the door was barricaded from within,” Natt said Sunday in an interview with The Register-Guard.

Sophomore Gavi Harmon was on Campbell Club’s porch when police showed up. She recalls officers acting aggressively and using strong language.

“I was really frightened. (It was) frightening and traumatic because I was out in front and I immediately stepped out of the way, away from all the action because I didn’t want my actions to be mistaken as violent in any way,” Harmon said. “So I immediately stepped away and then my housemates who were on the front porch were immediately arrested and taken away, and they told me to stay on the front porch so I stayed there, and I sat there for probably an hour and a half to two (hours).”

Harmon is being charged with a noise disturbance misdemeanor and was one of 14 individuals who attended an ordinance arraignment on Tuesday.

“I think it could’ve been handled better by both police and Campbell Club members,” said sophomore Elliott Fromm. “Both parties were in the wrong and things could’ve been handled more gently.”

Fromm is a member of Pluto the Planet, a local band that had been performing at the party. Police confiscated the band’s main synthesizer, guitar amp, and bass guitar amp — Fromm estimates that the equipment amounts to around $6,000 that none of the band members can afford to replace.

According to Fromm, when the band decided to leave after police arrived, Eugene Police initially told them it was alright to take their equipment with them. The members took as much as they could carry, but when they returned to pick up the rest of it, officers changed their mind.

“Outside upon exiting a police officer actually told us, ‘Oh your music wasn’t actually the reason police were called. You were not the noise complaint,’ but they proceeded to take our gear anyways,” said band member Tony Svenson in an interview with KVAL.

“Their reasoning they gave us was that it was evidence and they wanted to confiscate anything that caused noise, which in my opinion could be anything,” said Fromm. “You could slam two books together and get a noise complaint if they were loud enough.”

The band is currently trying to reclaim their equipment and are waiting for city prosecutors and Mayor Kitty Piercy to respond. Fromm has also been calling EPD every day and has contacted around 10 separate departments that have all redirected him.

“You know, Eugene’s slogan is ‘Eugene: a great city for the arts and outdoors,’ and our art has been taken away from us,” Fromm said.

However, Fromm says that the band doesn’t want to cause a hassle and only wants their equipment back so they can continue performing and creating music.

Andres and Palmer expressed frustration with Eugene Police, saying that officers had made a point to film the party for some time before approaching the house.

“Within the years that I’ve been here it might’ve been at most twice a year that police would come and cite one house member for noise. It’s been fairly calm and they just tell us to check with our neighbors to make sure we’re not upsetting our neighbors and then every time we do. And so we don’t understand why these parties that we’ve been having for years and years have all of a sudden become such a huge problem, or if they were such a huge problem before, I don’t understand why the police didn’t address it with us.”

According to Palmer, the party was a fundraiser for  Sappho: Queer Women’s Discussion Group, and it’s not uncommon for groups (such as The Geology Club and the Civil Liberties Defense Center) to approach the house about hosting parties.

“Most of the fundraisers we have are fundraisers for mostly student groups. We always have a safe space with water and someone who’s coherent/sober,” Palmer said.

Residents of the Campbell Club plan on attending next Monday’s Eugene City Council meeting to speak about the incident.

“We certainly will be attending,” Andres said. “We want to hear what the City Council has to say and we as a house would like to explain our side of things in a public forum.”