What better way to kick off a new year than a fresh prediction of our divine demise?

Mark your calendars: May 21, 2011. Harold Camping swears by it.

Never mind that Harold also swore by September 6, 1994. Sorry. Calculation error. Hell, anybody could have made that mistake. But hey, it was good practice for the people who gathered that day at the Veterans Memorial Building in Alameda, California. Holding their bibles open to Heaven. Waiting to die.

Anyway, where were we? Right. 2011. For sure. How sure? Harold figures it this way:

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I love seeing my former law-school classmate get smacked around. Ron is ignorant in ways I can’t even begin to describe.

Walt Disney (right, in copyright-violating jacket) and UO Athletic Director Leo Harris (holding non-animatronic duck) meet in 1947, reaching a handshake agreement that would piss off lawyers decades later.

With the Oregon Ducks playing in the Rose Bowl this afternoon, and the Official History forever confused, we thought we’d explain once and for all why the University of Oregon mascot is a Disney-licensed cartoon character, and why it’s all our fault.

UO yearbook, 1906. The phrase "Fuck a Duck" stems from misbehavior by early Eugene settlers, leading to genetic anomalies that are still visible in local natives.

The full story goes back long before our time. The real team nickname was “Webfoots”, which had nothing to do with delicious waterfowl. Instead, the original Webfoots were Massachusetts fishermen (even longer story), the name came West with the settlers, and eventually it landed on the UO’s doorstep in Eugene.

The Media (then quaintly known as The Press) couldn’t handle eight-letter names in headlines, so “Ducks” started showing up in sports sections. The UO students offically confirmed Ducks as the team mascot in 1932.

Ducks. Not Donald.

However, since Donald was introduced in 1934, a casual association was inevitable, and the Duck became that duck in the local imagination. Walt Disney himself informally approved the use in 1947 — that’s a photo of him posing with the UO athletic director and a real bird — and after Walt’s death, a legal agreement was drawn up.

And there things stood.

Until 1978. Our freshman year.

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Hey! Watch it! You can take out someone’s eye with that cork!