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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 24, 2004)
Poster for last year’s PIELC the homes of 8,000 indigenous Guatemalan families. The grant is sponsored by Southtowne Rotary, and each donation gets multiplied eight fold. A $100 donation gets doubled by the District 5110 Rotary Club, which gets doubled by Rotary International. That money, once in Guatemala, gets matched by Shell Oil. So, a $100 donation grows to $800 which would provide eight families with new stoves. To help Hughes with her quest, you can send your contributions to: The Duffy Hughes Memorial Stove Grant, c/o Eugene Southtowne Rotary Foundation, PO Box 5158, Eugene 97405 — E. Anderson Cael THE REAL HISTORY The Pilgrims certainly weren’t the first people to invent giving thanks in the fall. Harvest festivals have been celebrated ever since there have been harvests. However, the settlers in the New World had plenty to be thankful for. If the local Wampanoag Indians hadn’t shown the newcomers (or is that interlopers?) how to hunt game, dig for plants and tubers and catch fish, the settle- ment would have starved (in fact, over half the settlement did perish during their first winter). In any case, they cel- ebrated their good for- tune with a big feast of Thanksgiving, which would have occurred sometime between Sept. 21 and Nov. 9. It lasted three days and they actu- ally did invite the local Indians who had saved their skins. The big party was a one-off, though, and it wasn’t until 1789 that George Washington proclaimed Nov. 26 as the “official” holiday. Even then, the date was contentious, and many of the orig- inal colonies were opposed to the idea of celebrating the deliverance of a dinky little hamlet with a national holiday. It was through the efforts of a woman in the 1800s that we can thank for our present Thanksgiving. Sarah Josepha Hale, a writer (“Mary Had a Little Lamb”) and editor of Boston Ladies’ Magazine, devoted 40 years of her life to getting recognition for a day of thanks. the indomitable Ms Hale finally persuaded Abraham Lincoln to set the fourth Thursday of November as the real and true Thanksgiving day. So how come it isn’t always held on that day? Yet another president, Franklin Roosevelt, moved the day back one week in order to provide businesses with another seven days of Christmas shoppers. The day isn’t thankful for turkeys, of course. Almost 30 million turkeys are raised each year for their part in the ultimate Thanksgiving sacrifice, except for one lucky turkey that is ceremoniously sent to the White House, where it is given an offi- cial presidential pardon, and is sent off to live out its days in peace on a farm. It has yet to be seen if any inspection teams have ever been sent to a turkey retirement farm to check on the treatment of the fowl resi- dents. — Laird Goodman WHY KIDS PEE IN BUSHES The city of Eugene has a policy “to avoid placement of restrooms in neighbor- hood parks due to the illegal activities they seem to attract,” according to a memo to the City Council this past summer. “While everyone would agree that hav- ing a restroom close by when you need one is a desirable conve- nience, unfortunately several less positive circumstances often seem to accompany re- strooms in parks,” parks manager Johnny Medlin wrote the coun- cil. “Restrooms by ne- cessity require provid- ing users an environ- ment with a degree of privacy. Unfortunately, we find this provision of privacy or seclusion is also a major factor that facilitates illegal park uses such as drug use and sales, prostitution and camping.” To minimize problematic privacy in re- strooms, Medlin writes that the city is “min- imizing the use of internal doors” especially lockable ones, in restrooms. Besides the crime concerns, there’s also the problem of cost, according to the memo. The city spends more on a multiple stall re- stroom than most people would spend on a nice house— $150,000 to build, plus $30,000 a year to maintain. — Alan Pittman PIELC RETURNS TO UO IN MARCH Ohio — as well as other close states such as New Mexico, Iowa and Nevada. … I was surprised on the morning after the election. I was legal analyst with CBS News for the election and we did not go off the air until 6 am. At that time, due to the reports and my conversation with Kerry attorneys, I ex- pected a challenge. “Kerry’s statement the day after the election that there were not enough provi- sional ballots to have any chance to alter the result of the election may have been true, but it was a bit misleading since provi- sional ballots are only part of the story. There were also absentee ballots, there were reports of substantial pockets of elec- tion problems, and allegations of over-vot- ing and machine malfunction. In addition, over 70 percent of Ohio’s votes were done with punch cards. We know that when you do a challenge to those, they tend to turn over. So there is room to challenge Ohio and other states. This is not to say that a re- count is likely to change the result of the election, but it is not an impossibility.” Dates have been set for the 23rd annual Public Interest Environmental Law Conference (PIELC), an event that draws about 4,000 attorneys, activists, students and concerned citizens to Eugene from more than 50 countries. The conference will be held at the UO School of Law March 3-6. The event is organized by volunteers from Land Air Water, a student environ- mental law society. Every year LAW plans for about 125 panels, workshops and multi- media presentations addressing a broad spectrum of issues with environmental im- plications. Keynoters in recent years have included Ralph Nader, Vandana Shiva, Paul Hawken, Julia Butterfly Hill, David Brower and Terry Tempest Williams. No word yet on this year’s likely keynoters. Information about the conference is reg- ularly updated at www.pielc.org QUOTABLES Jonathan Turley, professor of constitu- tional law at George Washington University, is quoted by the Institute for Public Accuracy (www.accuracy.org) say- ing Nov. 15: “Electors are certified on Dec. 7. They actually vote on Dec. 13. But those votes are not opened by Congress until Jan. 6. So there is still time to challenge the results in W I L LA M E TTE CORRECTIONS/ CLARIFICATIONS The website that was listed at the bottom of our story last week on “Election Wrongs” has been replaced. A better website for citi- zen involvement is www.truthinvoting.org and the e-mail address is info@truthinvot- ing.org W UNIVERSITY Grace Goudy Distinguished Artists Series presents Yefim Bronfman, pianist Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2004 8:00 p.m. Jerry E. Hudson Hall Mary Stuart Rogers Music Center 900 State Street Willamette University, Salem, Ore. “… a marvel … warmly romantic sentiment and jaw-dropping bravura …” –Chicago Tribune Program Schumann: Arabeske in C Major, Op. 18, Humoreske in B-flat Major, Op. 20 and Prokofiev: Sonata No. 6 in A Major, Op. 82 Master Class Monday, Nov. 29, 7-9 p.m., Hudson Hall stage, free admission Ticket prices: Adults $20, Students/Seniors $12. Tickets available at all Safeway TicketsWest outlets, service charge added, 1-800-992-8499, or at the door. NOVEMBER 24, 2004 9
