“Hey, can you hold my phone?”

Said every girl I’ve ever hung out with, ever. I turn into a walking purse every time I’m with a friend of the opposite sex. People don’t want to have to lug around a giant purse and or not wear their favorite clothing, so I oblige. I feel bad for my friends who are forced to choose between style and pockets, which is ridiculous.

Lots of women just carry their keys and phone in hand until they finally give in to letting their male counterparts hold on to it. Nobody wants to walk around all day holding their stuff, so I have no problem hanging onto their things in my spacious pockets.

Lack of pockets for women isn’t going to end the world. It’s just one of those things that bothers me. I can fit an entire graphing calculator into just one of my jean pockets while a woman’s pockets can barely hold a tube of chapstick, if they even have pockets. Half the time they’re just ironed on designs there for decoration. Sometimes they’re there but sewn shut. Worthless.

A pocket shouldn’t only be there for decoration. A pocket is there because you’re an idiot and would lose all your valuables if they weren’t accessible to your hands at all times. Pockets should serve a purpose. They’re there to make life easier, not harder.

It’s quite amazing how many pockets guys have at their disposal. From shirt pockets, sweatpants pockets, to even kilt pockets, clothing is stacked in our favor. Not only do men have numerous pockets, but they’re also huge. I’ve been able to hang onto to three phones, two wallets, and a pair of keys in just my jeans pockets alone. Why shouldn’t women receive the same luxury?

Surprisingly, this problem isn’t new. It goes back 400 years. Starting in the late 1600’s, men had pockets sewn into their coats and trousers, pretty similar to what we see today. It was a different story for women.

Sure, women had pockets too, but they were external pockets that went around their waist underneath gowns and dresses, according to the Victoria and Albert Museum of fashion and design. These hidden handbags were accessible through slits in their gowns and were mainly seen as decorate pieces. Women’s pockets were for style, with some even being embroidered. Pockets went out of fashion in the 1790s when the dress style changed so that these pockets would ruin the line of the dress. This is when handbags started to increase in popularity.

It wasn’t until WW2 when large numbers of women were entering the workforce, taking on traditional male positions, that pockets started to return. Women started wearing men’s overalls and trousers as they took on their roles in factories. It soon became commonplace for women to wear these kinds of pocketed pants as casual wear. Lots of women today want to look skinnier and have an hourglass shape, so the pockets were either shrunk or removed by clothing manufacturers.

Sadly, it makes sense why the fashion industry doesn’t include practical pockets in their designs.  It’s cheaper to make those favorite pair of skinny jeans of yours without pockets. Your loss is their gain. Furthermore, with the loss of all those pockets, those same companies now have an ideal market to sell their bags and purses to.

After talking to Susan Sokolowski, an Associate Professor with the UO Product Design department, I learned that when designing the side-seam pockets in jeans, manufactures use a person’s hand size for the dimensions of the pocket. Since women have smaller hands, they get smaller pockets, which doesn’t help with today’s giant phones.

It was at this point into my research that I expected the fashion police to break down my doors and take me away for knowing too much, branding me as a conspiracy theorist, but no one cares. Every knows pockets are biased against women, but no one bothers do anything about it.

It’s one of those everyday problems that people notice but don’t talk about. It’s a minor inconvenience that has an obvious solution. Why not make women’s pockets larger and more numerous?

Pockets are sexist towards women. The fashion industry needs to adapt and evolve to fit the needs of the modern working women.

So until that day comes, sure, I’ll gladly hold your phone.

Find out what goes on behind the scenes at the University of Oregon central kitchen, which prepares meals for students who live in University housing.

Take a tour of the prop room under Robinson Theater in the Miller Theater Complex and enjoy all of the old treasures stored there.

Inspired by Dr. Seuss, Roald Dahl and Lewis Carroll, a pair of University of Oregon students have taken their love for these tales and created an adventure of their own: Down The Manhole, a story of bunnies and psychology.

Illustration from ‘Down the Manhole.’ (Courtesy of Louis Cicalese and Cesare Bisbocci.)

Cesare B. Bisbocci and Louis Cicalese, two UO psychology students from the graduating class of 2016, attempted to simplify dense psychological concepts for a younger audience in their one-hundred page children’s novella, written for a middle school reading level.

Illustration from ‘Down the Manhole.’ (Courtesy of Louis Cicalese and Cesare Bisbocci.)

This coming-of-age story follows two rabbits, a mother and son named Beatrix and Enzo, who fall down a manhole and turn into humans. They embark on a journey to return home, all the while encountering strange and magical creatures, including Tenza, the beach Yeti inspired by the Dalai Lama, and stone carver Pietro Swoleman, whose character is based in Japanese mythology, said Bisbocci.

The book attempts to make many psychology theories more approachable for all ages, said Sarah Voigt, a UO psychology graduate and friend of Bisbocci and Cicalese’s.

“My parents never went to college, so I try to explain these complex theories to them, and I think a book like this would be really helpful for them to grasp some of the concepts,” Voigt said.

Bisbocci says he fell in love with children’s books when he wrote Le Lapin Des Pins, part of a creative project in his French 203 class. The assignment made him realize that writing children’s books was his life’s passion and worked harder on the book than any other college project.

Illustration from ‘Down the Manhole.’ (Courtesy of Louis Cicalese and Cesare Bisbocci.)

After being spurred by friends and his advisor UO Psychology Professor Jeffery Measelle, Bisbocci decided to create another children’s book for his senior thesis for the Clark Honors College. He approached Cicalese, a comic studies minor, to illustrate the book in Sept. 2015. Cicalese has drawn 30 images so far and plans to have a total of 50 for the book.

“There’s a lot of the magic that the illustrations have added to this story,” Bisbocci said. “It really complements the story well, because there are subtleties that are only in the illustrations.”

Illustration from ‘Down the Manhole.’ (Courtesy of Louis Cicalese and Cesare Bisbocci.)

Bisbocci chose bunnies as the novella’s protagonists, he said, as they were easy for him to draw, something with which Cicalese jokingly says he personally struggles.

“Actually I think I’m the worst at drawing rabbits out of everything in the book,” Cicalese said. “That’s why I’m glad they’re only on like, one page. “

The goal of the book is to teach mindfulness, Bisbocci said. In Down The Manhole, a group known as “mirror people.” This group of characters explains to the protagonists how gender exists on a spectrum using reflections and mirrors to illustrate their point.

Bisbocci and Cicalese aim to have their first draft done by the end of July. Their ultimate goal is to get the book published, but their back up plan is to put the book online for free as a downloadable PDF.

The duo has many other ideas for children’s books in the works, making Down the Manhole the first of many from this storytelling team.

Illustration from ‘Down the Manhole.’ (Courtesy of Louis Cicalese and Cesare Bisbocci.)

14 people were killed and 17 wounded in a mass shooting that took place in San Bernardino, California today at roughly 11 a.m. The motive of the of the shooting is unclear, but it is believed that there were at least three assailants, according to a press conference with the San Bernardino Police Department.

The assailants attacked with long guns and are believed to have fled the scene in a dark SUV. The attack occurred at the offices of Inland Regional Services, a facility that offers services for people with developmental disabilities, according to police.

All injured have been taken to various hospitals as authorities are continuing to sweep the building. No weapons have been recovered at this time and the assailants appeared prepared.

“These were people that came prepared to do what they did, as if they were on a mission,” said San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan.

Information subject to change as the investigation unfolds.

Note: Officials originally stated that 14 people were injured, but later updated the number to 17. 

Olivia Decklar Contributed to the post

A car accident  with a Ford white taurus and a U-Haul occurred between 11th and 13th Ave. on  Hilyard St. Nov. 18th. The accident was called in at 1:46 to the Eugene Police Department, according to The EPD’s Public Relations Officer, Melinda McLaughlin.

The taurus was un-drivable after the crash, and the incident blocked traffic in the central lane of the road.

One of the drivers reported being injured and experiencing some pain, while the other driver was unhurt.

The University of Oregon Office of International Affairs announced that all 13 UO students studying abroad in France at the time of the recent Paris terrorist attacks are safe, and that the faculty member in Paris has flown home. None of the students were near Paris at the time of the attack, except for two Global Education Oregon (GEO) students and one UO faculty member.

One of the GEO students studying in Spain was in Paris with her father.

The university currently has no students or facility in Beirut or Baghdad, where other terrorist attacks took place last week.

A previous version of this article stated the UO students studying abroad in France had returned home. They are currently still in France.

Minoru Yasui, a graduate of the University of Oregon School of Law, will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom later this month, according to a press release from the White House. 

Yasui was a member of The Phi Beta Kappa Society at the UO in 1937 and was the first Japanese-American member of the the Oregon State Bar, according to the Minoru Yasui Tribute Project. A civil and human rights leader, Yasui fought against the military-enforced curfew order on Japanese Americans during World War II, as it was based on racial discrimination. He intentionally broke the curfew so that he could fight the order in court. During the legal battle, he spent nine months in solitary confinement.

In 1943, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the curfew and Yasui spent the rest of his life appealing the conviction. A federal judge overturned the conviction the year of his death in 1986. “Minoru Yasui Day” is celebrated each year on March 3 in honor of him.

Yasui will be posthumously honored with the award on November 24 along with 17 others, including musician James Taylor, baseball player Yogi Bera and filmmaker Steven Spielberg.

A mystery surrounds a shark with a jaw you have to see to believe. The helicoprion, or the buzz-saw shark, lived 290 million years ago and had a spiral like jaw full of teeth. Scientists are baffled on the exact aesthetics of such a creature, but a traveling exhibit on display at the University of Oregon’s Museum of Natural and Cultural History hopes to shed some light on the beast.

Created by artist Ray Troll, paleontologist Leif Tapanila and others at the University of Idaho, the exhibit contains 21 pieces of original art along with a variety of fossils, Kristin Strommer, the Museum’s Communications Manager, said.

Troll was inspired by the fossil of the shark’s spiral jaw, or whorl-shaped dentition, to create a series of art depicting how scientist’s theorize what the shark looked like.

Little was known of the buzz-saw shark when first discovered in 1899. Scientists have uncovered more fossil evidence since it’s discovery, which has changed how it’s believed the helicoprion looked and how it’s jaw functioned, according to National Geographic. It is this evolution of the buzz-saw shark Troll and others aim to capture in this art.

“I just knew it was cool from the very first moment I saw the fossil. I knew this exhibit had to be and it’s here,” Troll said.

In addition to the artwork, the exhibit includes a video on a computer monitor that introduces Troll, Tapanilia and all the people behind the design and creation of the buzz-saw shark exhibit. The exhibit also showcases a mechanical device that demonstrates how the shark’s jaws could have worked, Strommer said.

“They’re just really impressive animals. I was just looking around at all this artwork and it’s crazy to think these things existed at one point,” Aiden Midelton, a student at Lane County Community College said.

The UO is the fourth place the exhibit has visited, after being in Alaska, Washington, and Idaho, Strommer said. This is the second traveling exhibit to appear in the museum based on Troll’s work and is a site which the artist encourages all to see.

“You know, if you don’t see it, it’s really on you man. You’re like a total loser if you don’t see it. It would be totally cool if you do see it because then you’ll know, once you actually look at the spiral teeth, once you look at these giant mega fossils, it will blow your freaken mind, and you’ll have missed out on the event of the century,” Troll said.

Troll is famous for his signature, a cheeseburger, which he hides in most of his art. Make sure to be on the lookout for it when visiting the exhibit, Strommer said.

The exhibit opened Nov. 5th and will be on display until April when it will be shipped back to Idaho. It is free of charge to see for all UO students with school ID.

“These are cool, cool, cool, fossils and mind blowing art. See it to believe it,” Troll said.

A two car collision was called into the Eugene Police Department at 1:07 pm, Wednesday, according to Melinda McLaughlin, with the EDP.

A blue Porsche collided with a small compact on Kinsrow and MLK near Ducks Village. Moderate damage was reported on both vehicles with no people being injured. The wreckage blocked traffic on the east bound lane until it was later cleared. The Porsche was impounded.