Category Archives: Opinion

August 8, 2012 · 2:36 AM

Missoula gay beating a hoax

Baken

Updated: 5:24 p.m. Aug. 7

The Missoula Independent is reporting that Baken pleaded guilty in court today to filing a false police report.

“Joseph Baken pleaded guilty this afternoon in Missoula Municipal Court to charges of filing a false police report. He was sentenced to 180 days in jail and a $300 fine. The jail time was suspended.”

 

Pardon me? They did what? In Missoula?

It just didn’t make any sense. A gay man being beat up in Montana’s gay capital?

Well that’s what 22-year-old Joseph Baken, reportedly from Billings, told the world Sunday and Monday. Baken called Missoula Police Sunday after 4:00 a.m. to report a beating based on his gay sexual orientation outside the Missoula Club, a notably Griz Nation-oriented bar.

The story was perfect for a viral firestorm.

First there was the early online reaction. A picture of Joe in a collared shirt paired next to an extreme close-up of him with raspberries on eye, cheek and chin circulated in classic meme style across Missoulian’s Facebooks and on the page “Wipe Out Homophobia“, which has almost 500,000 fans.

Next, the Missoulian reported the man’s story with a short story lacking a byline that explained what the man told police. Gwen Florio later wrote a story that Baken may have been beaten because of his sexual orientation.

Baken

The story, if true, would have been a serious shock in an already nauseated and tired town that has two federal and an NCAA investigation happening just three weeks before the start of school at the University of Montana.

But a conflicting report came from the Missoula Independent, Missoula’s largest weekly, when it reported on its website that Missoula Police were considering charges against Baken for filing a false police report, as a video allegedly showing Baken fail an attempted backflip off a Missoula curb and landing on his face. 

So he didn’t do it? Well, it’s not yet for sure. The Independent’s web post (and rather accusing headline) hopefully indicates they know more than the public does yet. But within about two hours, the web community hit the brakes and pulled a 180 to reverse the reaction from sympathy to antipathy toward Joe.

Wipe Out Homophobia’s Facebook page issued another post around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday warning fans that the report may have been untrue: “Looks like we have all been had…” it wrote before posting the Independent’s video.

As of 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Missoulians have reverberated quickly around the video and potential false report. Stay tuned for updates from Big Sky Country News.

Updated: 3:45 p.m.

People have long since started posting reactions to the conflicting reports. A reminder should be noted that this is only preliminary, and that police haven’t yet charged Baken with anything.

Chad O’Brien, who said on “Wipe Out Homophobia’s” page he was from Missoula, wrote this:

“I’m a resident of Missoula, and the events surround Joseph Baken are a shame to my beloved city. I am also gay, so the story of the crime committed against him really struck a chord in me. That said, this article needs to be seen, in the spirit of an honest, intellectual debate.”

O’Brien’s last comment reverberates what state Rep. Ellie Hill was quoted as saying in the second paragraph of the Missoulian’s updated story on the beating:

“It’s time, regardless of what side of the aisle you sit on,” said state Rep. Ellie Hill, D-Missoula, who said she’ll introduce such a bill in the January 2013 legislative session. “What occurred over the weekend in Missoula evidences it.”

Her comments were like many others nationwide, that the attack definitely happened. It shows the speediness of news spreading these days. And it also obviously shows the potential quick spreading of false information.

Still, the Missoulian’s five-year veteran Gwen Florio is a solid cops and courts reporter, and only wrote what was said to have happened, not what happened.

Remember, it didn’t not happen, yet.

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August 1, 2012 · 10:47 PM

What’s going to happen with UM football?

By Taylor Anderson

The latest update in the Jordan Johnson saga has left UM football without an experienced quarterback, and in all likelihood, the Grizzlies will open up the season without one.

Johnson was charged July 31 with sexual intercourse without consent from an alleged February incident. He was immediately suspended from the football team and maintains his innocence while heading into court.

He probably won’t be back on the Grizzly football field. It’s hard to say whether he’ll even be back in a UM classroom with the sort of publicity engulfing the town for its sexual assault scandal that isn’t going anywhere soon.

After being accused by the victim of raping her, Johnson received a restraining order against him that left him suspended from the football team. The order was changed to a civil no-contact agreement, which allowed him to return to the team during the final five days of head coach Robin Pflugrad’s incredibly short reign at UM.

Five days after Johnson was allowed back on the team, UM President Royce Engstrom fired both Pflugrad and athletic director Jim O’Day without reason, opting to pay their salaries until the end of the year instead.

Now, with the NCAA, Department of Justice and Department of Education buzzing around campus and town, Johnson has likely thrown his last pass as No. 10 on the Grizzly football team.

A second blow comes at the fact that the Grizzlies spent the time developing Johnson at the lead spot before the rape charge. Now, after Johnson and Gerald Kemp—the Grizzlies’ only two experienced quarterbacks—are off the team, that leaves only Shay Smithwick-Hann, Trent McKinney or Brady Gustafson to fill the biggest gap on the team.

It’s hard to think the school and Griz Nation knows the severity of what’s going to happen from these investigations.

After six months investigating the Athletic Department, the NCAA wrote a letter to Engstrom saying it would need more time. Simple investigations into small matters don’t take six months to begin with and they don’t start in January and get announced in May.

So it’s really disheartening to attend a press conference for the Athletic Department and have so many smiling Grizzly donors, so many officials praising Griz football and all the men full of character and academia they have on the team. It’s just a crock, and it makes it seem like no one knows what’s going to happen from all the investigations.

The school will either lose money, wins or scholarships from the NCAA investigation. It’s hard to say what will happen from the federal investigations because they are civil investigations.

Whether football fans want to act like all is not well in Griz Nation is up to them, but I’d suggest they start bracing for the reality of some serious punishment. We’ll wait and see if that comes before the end of summer, and whether it’s under Jean Gee’s interim rule (likely) or a new AD (unlikely, why would the school hire someone before the end of an investigation?).

 

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July 26, 2012 · 8:49 AM

UM Athletic Department to hold press conference

By Taylor Anderson, Big Sky Country News

Speculation on Thursday’s press conference is only that, so guessing what will happen is tricky. There is a lot going on at the University of Montana, but the school this summer has been close to mum.

UM is currently in the eye of a storm as the Departments of Justice and Education continue a combined investigation of the town and school handling of sexual assaults in the last three years. The NCAA is conducting a separate investigation of the UM football team since January.

The NCAA has remained silent on its investigation but said it would take about six months to complete, lining it up with the end of July.

“Thank you for your inquiry … however, the NCAA does not comment on current, pending or potential investigations,” said Cameron Shuh, associate director for public and media relations for the NCAA.

There are two interims in place within the Athletic Department: Jean Gee as athletic director and Mick Delaney as head football coach. Both received the positions after UM President Royce Engstrom fired Jim O’Day and Robin Pflugrad without specifying his reasons.

Grizzly quarterback Gerald Kemp was also “indefinitely suspended,” as Delaney told the Missoulian in July.  Gee announced that Kemp had been released from the team before Delaney told the paper Kemp could possibly return to the team at some point.

The Missoulian does a good job summarizing what’s happened with the athletic department to date with regard to the sexual assault scandal and investigations, although its press conference preview doesn’t mention Kemp, which could be clarified during Thursday’s 10 a.m. meeting.

News has been slow flowing from the paper after it reported on a trove of emails by university official after the sexual assault investigations rocked the school and town this summer.

The start of the fall semester, and subsequently Griz football, is quickly nearing. But still the hardest anvil has likely not yet fallen. In a week when the NCAA already hit Penn State with a $60 million fine—what some consider worse than a cancelled season—it’s worrisome to speculate what penalties UM could receive.

At 10 a.m. tomorrow morning, something is going to happen to UM athletics. It will either be big, or something bigger will come soon after in August.

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July 11, 2012 · 10:29 PM

The Libertarian problem? Everyone outside the party thinks you’re crazy

Originally published on politicalmontana.com, the Missoulian’s politics blog for the 2012 election year.

By Taylor Anderson

Libertarianism is a novel concept. Almost anarchistic in ways that leave more power at the hands of people, they believe Americans are innately good, and should rule themselves.

Besides, that’s what the document the country was founded on said.

Libertarians identify almost centric, but generally feel the less intervention of any kind the better. It’s not to say that God doesn’t want gays to marry, it’s who gives a damn?

Any federal legislation will end badly for America. That’s it. There’s no higher power dictating what should be legalized and what is immoral. There’s no need to federally fund emergency responders, but that’s not to say they shouldn’t exist. Why should the federal government have a say in putting out Montana’s wildfires? That should be up to the Montanans.

Their viewpoints don’t seem farfetched when picked apart with a scalpel and a moderate viewpoint. So you don’t care that Iowa’s corn crop isn’t doing as well as expected? Neither do I. I don’t care if groups of people collectively figure out how to solve that issue, just don’t get me involved.

This isn’t to say I’m a Libertarian. I’m undecided (more on this later). I would like to know, however, why more people haven’t gotten on board with the idea of a three party system when a potential mainstream party is standing at the edge trying to get in.

You can’t even Google an answer why Libertarians aren’t covered in the media (go ahead, try it). It may be that Republicans and Democrats come off smarter with answers to burning questions.

“How would you act to keep student loan interest rates down?”

Republican: “I think that’s a great question. While I agree with the fact that students need to pay a lower interest rate on their student loans, I also want to note that one out of two graduates isn’t finding work. We need to fix the economy.”

Democrat: “My opposition in the House wants to fight to keep the rates down, and I applaud that. But what my opponent didn’t say is that he’d like to take money from women’s health to pay for those loans. We should be adjusting income rates to make sure the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share and we don’t keep decimating the middle class.”

Libertarians hear those answers differently than most Americans. Simply fixing the economy means doing something, which means government intervention. Bad. Acting in any way to keep federal student loan interest rates down will further misconduct of the federal government. Besides, those loans shouldn’t exist in the first place.

Then again, hearing a Democrat claim that Republicans want to take money from women’s health care to pay for student loan rates means that they are both arguing over money that a Libertarian doesn’t think should exist anyways.

Is your head spinning yet? Good. Then you’re just like most other Americans who won’t be voting Libertarian this fall.

Perhaps they’re too candid. When politicians better damn well know how to jockey for votes from a very clearly targeted group of people, they know what to say while in front of the cameras. But something seems to say to me that Libertarians just don’t get it.

The party isn’t big enough to claim any massive victories in major elections, yet they keep publicly calling for what most of us see as radical ideas, like legalizing prostitution and drugs at the federal level.

America has long since become a two-party system. Maybe it will stay that way a while more. But if the next Congress performs as badly as the current, perhaps the three-party mindset will sink in more deeply.

We’ll see if the Libertarian Party gets a bit more articulate by then.

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June 19, 2012 · 10:37 PM

Jim Foley out as Montana vice president

THIS WILL BE A ROUGH SUMMER FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA

Big Sky Country News

June 19, 2012 – 11:20 a.m.

Foley

MISSOULA – In a fire sale move that’s likely to continue trickling through the University of Montana administration, UM Vice President Jim Foley stepped aside from his position Tuesday morning, a campus-wide email from President Royce Engstrom confirmed this morning.

Foley’s performance communicating in high-profile affairs—including the recent sexual assault scandal that has left the campus and university town marred by two federal investigations and one by the NCAA—left little doubt that his job was at risk.

Engstrom, who last year launched an internal investigation into the campus’s own handling of sexual assaults, as of late has been clearing the administration that was standing during former president George Dennison’s reign in what Engstrom calls “ongoing cabinet-level adjustments.”

What that means is, Engstrom is clearing house. He’s separating his 2-year spot as head of the school from those that were standing during the lead up to the recent investigations.

Firing Engstrom after less than two years into his presidency would be too brash a move from the Board of Regents, and that won’t likely happen.

Though his fawn deer image was easily blackened over the last year as details of alleged gang rape involving members of the Grizzly football team were coming to light. But when Foley was seen escorting two members of the team to a prominent Missoula law office after a Tasing incident during a post-game football party, storm clouds began building.

Foley’s image continued was further tarnished after emails originally released in a joint FOIA request by the Missoulian and the Wall Street Journal (later acquired by the Montana Kaimin and other Missoula news outlets) showed Foley didn’t take the unraveling of the sexual assaults in the media and the public eye well.

Foley asked whether the university could punish a victim for going public with information on her rape and the process behind it.

After returning to the university in 2005 in his current role, Foley began funneling communications on high profile matters and inquiries by the media directly to him. He would then show an unwillingness to communicate and lack of transparency was an issue.

A  poll last week on this site asked visitors to rank how Foley had handled his job as of late. Though there was a moderately low turnout in terms of the size of Missoula, 92 percent of respondents thought Foley had handled his job very poorly, moderately poorly or “EXTREMELY BAD” – as one person wrote. Three people, or 9 percent, responded he was handling his job well.

The move this afternoon leaves Foley in a university licensing and dealing with federal research funding for one year, the email read.

So far this summer, Bob Duringer, UM’s vice president of administration and finance, and David Aronofsky, UM’s chief legal counsel, announced they will retire Dec. 31 this year. Dean of Students Charles Couture has already announced his retirement.

Engstrom unexpectedly fired head coach Robin Pflugrad and athletic director Jim O’Day earlier this year.

Though it was unknown to the public at the time, the NCAA began an investigation into the Athletic Department in January. That investigation was expected to last six months, the association said. That leaves an announcement date—barring any postponements—slated for this July.

The Departments of Justice and Education launched respective investigations into various officials’ handling of 80 sexual assaults in the last three years.

As we’ve stated before on this site, this summer will be a rough one for the University of Montana. Changes in the administration will sting, but this PR is considered positive.

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