low-income housing near the site. Local fam-
ilies were unaware of the serious health risks
and children played in and around the waste
piles.
Residents complained about health prob-
lems and Chilean authorities moved the
waste, but the original dump site was never
reclaimed and residents continue to suffer.
Laboratory tests on local children have found
high levels of lead and arsenic in their bodies.
WAR AND PEACE
The Eugene Forum for Peace Education
(EFPE) will have its first meeting Sunday,
June 1 in the EWEB training room. The
forum, called “America, War and Peace,”
will discuss peace, terrorism and globaliza-
tion and the impact of the Iraqi war.
This meeting will be but one of many in
the months to come, which will cover poli-
tics, religion and spirituality, war, peace, the
environment, economic and legal studies and
social activism.
EFPE is the brainchild of UO Prof. Oleg
Kripkov, who developed it in response to a
communitywide call for a source of alterna-
tive information from the mainstream media.
He hopes the institution’s forums will serve
as a place for discussion and open dialogue,
raising both awareness and the level of grass-
roots democracy in the community.
“I strongly believe was can only have as
• If you watch “ER” on Thursday
nights you will see blood squirt-
ing and guts dangling as the trau-
ma team flies into action to save
lives. It’s only a little less gory in
county Budget Committee meet-
ings these days as line items for
mental health and other social
services, rural sheriff patrols,
even animal control, translate
into lives saved or lost. The
impacts of some of the proposed
cuts are not obvious. For exam-
ple, eliminating the animal abuse
much democracy as we are ready to defend
and one of the major requirements for defend-
ing our rights is to know what they are and
what threatens them,” Kripkov says, “(We
need) to understand the long and short term
hazards to our well-being and then based on
this information, to act accordingly.”
The meeting, from 2 to 5 pm, will feature
four speakers. Half of the event will be given
to participant discussion. EWEB is located at
500 E. 4th St. For reservations or more
information, contact Oleg Kripkov at
(541)913-3982. — Nika Carlson
EW WINNERS
GREAT DECEPTION
Several local peace groups and websites
are sponsoring a film series at UO this week
examining the Bush administration’s motiva-
tions and secret actions surrounding our “war
on terrorism.” The films will be shown begin-
ning at 7 pm Thursday, May 29, at the UO
Willamette Hall 100.
“Aftermath: Unanswered Questions from
9-11,” by Guerilla News Network, has nine
experts — attorneys, journalists and re-
searchers — addressing key areas of inquiry,
including the Bush administration’s prior
knowledge of the attacks, the failure of the
military to follow well-established response
procedures, connections and the impact of
the USA PATRIOT and Homeland Security
acts on our civil liberties. For more informa-
investigator position. Dangerous
cut. People who torch pussy cats
usually graduate to bigger vic-
tims. Meanwhile, county staff is
still pushing a $1.8 million bridge
at Mount Pisgah to replace a
quaint one-lane bridge that does-
n’t appear to be a safety hazard.
Let’s keep our county priorities
straight, with blood, guts and
smoldering fur in mind.
• Eugene’s Natural Resource
Study, mandated by state plan-
ning goals, has never been com-
pleted and adopted by the City
Council. The idea is to identify
and provide some measure of
tion, visit www.gnn.tv/after_math
“The Great Deception” by Vision TV of
Canada, a national non-profit televison sta-
tion, examines the apparent breakdown of
American air defenses on Sept. 11, the long-
standing ties between U.S. intelligence and
Osama bin Laden, the actions of Bush in the
midst of the crisis, and role U.S. oil interests
may have played in these events.
protection for areas that provide
valuable habitat for plants and
animals. Lack of funding and
what appears to be purposeful
stalling and obfuscation by city
staff have kept this project on the
back burner for 25 years —
despite massive volunteer efforts.
Meanwhile, every year that goes
by leaves fewer urban creeks,
marshes and tree stands left to
inventory. Let’s get this project
wrapped up and on the books.
• EFN.org, our local non-profit ISP,
seems to have figured out the
spam game. Those of us with EFN
home accounts get very few
Eugene Weekly staff writers and free-
lancers garnered several awards in the annual
Greater Oregon Society of Professional
Journalists newspaper awards for 2002. The
awards were announced May 17.
Staff writer Bobbie Willis took first place
in the General Feature category for her May
16 cover story “Outer Limits,” examining life
and business along Highway 99 North, an
area of Eugene usually ignored by main-
stream media.
A second place in Environmental
Reporting went to free-lancers Orna Izakson,
Judy Yablonski and Patricia Marshall for
their Earth Day 2002 (April 18) package of
stories. Izakson wrote on the damage to the
salmon gene pool by hatchery fish; Yablonski
investigated continuing toxic spraying of
county roadsides despite an auditor’s advice;
Marshall wrote about west Eugene’s shrink-
ing wetlands and the threat of further devel-
opment.
In the Business Feature category, an hon-
orable mention went to Alan Pittman for his
cover story “Oregon Omelete” (Jan. 31)
about how state and local economic develop-
ment policies favor the volatile high-tech in-
dustries over more stable small businesses.
All these stories are available by selecting
their issue date in the archives at
www.eugeneweekly.com
unwanted messages. At work it’s
a fiasco with 100-plus spams a
day. We use spam filters on
Outlook Express with some suc-
cess. We filter out any subject or
sender that includes the words
penis, cock, blow job, Viagra,
mortgage, teen girls, German
shepherds, horses, confidential,
free porn, assistance, debt, DVD,
approved, refinance, etc.
Spammers are getting tricky with
deceptive subject lines, such as
“Here is the attachment.” Some
hints to get by our digital and
mental filters? Put “letter to the
editor” in the subject line, or
“Eugene news.”
• Traffic accidents kill four times
as many people as wars, and far
more people commit suicide than
are murdered, the World Health
Organization reported recently.
So if we want to make our coun-
try safer, our logical priorities
would be to lower speed limits,
discourage people from driving,
encourage mass transit, and sup-
port mental health services. Our
Legislature and Congress tend to
do just the opposite, and down
we go.
SLANT includes short opinion pieces and
rumor-chasing notes compiled by the EW
staff. Heard any good rumors lately?
Contact Ted Taylor at 484-0519,
MAY 29, 2003 9