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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (July 26, 2007)
TO THE EDITOR DOWNTOWN EUGENE 2007 EXCELLENCE AWARDS Mike Kuykendall Portland Business Alliance FRIDAY, JULY 27 TH • 11:50 AM DOWNTOWN ATHLETIC CLUB $3 admission • Free to City Club Members 485-7433 www.cityclubofeugene.org $7@? 0KDA7H7 year — pretty amazing for a large dog (65 pounds). How long I may live is of course is another story. After 26 years of being insured, I made the mistake of living! After 55, you are a bad risk. I might get sick, but it’s OK because if I do, Teddy and I share — our pharmacopoeia has accumulated over his 16 years. I guess we’ll do just fine. We’ll have to! Joe Mogus Philomath FAIR SNOBBINESS I think the letter that Ruby Colette wrote captured my thoughts exactly in terms of OCF. To quote Colette, many are left feeling Jewish at Christmas as the air is filled with fair-frenzy. While the fair claims to be “open brother and sisterhood,” it is very much an “old boys’ club” with an exclusive network that doesn’t allow for new faces and voices to emerge unless you are well connected. And even then, I’ve seen a lot of brown-nosing and big egos. I’ve spoken with many who have also said they didn’t feel welcome and encountered the same snobbiness that many of us were happy to leave behind in high school. Although the atmosphere might be countercultural, it still exhibits the “in and out group” dynamic of mainstream culture. Personal egos run rampant. I am so over it. There is life beyond the fair; Eugene en- compasses far more. Sian Nelson Eugene LEAVE BIJOU ALONE Call for a FREE Health & Wellness Exam ($175 value) It’s ironic that in a weekend when so many of us mourned the loss of a Eugene cul- tural icon, Flicks and Pics, another institu- tion, the Bijou Art Cinemas, was officially targeted with closure by a Portland developer — who would be spending our money to do it. In a speech to the City Club of Eugene on Friday, July 13, Tom Kemper announced that his KWG Development Partners proposal for redeveloping West Broadway would be an- chored by an art-movie multiplex. Quoting the July 14 Register-Guard: “Kemper said he hopes to persuade Regal or another movie chain to open an art film house similar to the Fox in Portland. ‘We have started to talk to Regal about it,’ he said.” If built, this chain theater will compete di- rectly with the Bijou for bookings and cus- tomers, most likely putting the local institu- tion out of business. Now, I’m in favor of growth, and change is inevitable. But the Bijou is a Eugene tradi- tion, one of a handful of local spots cele- brated by The New York Times when it visited here a couple of years ago. When my mother visited Eugene from Indiana, the Bijou was the first place I took her. Especially after the death of Flicks and Pics, I’m not willing to spend one cent of my taxpayer money, much less $25 million to $40 million in subsidies, on a project that only aims to bankrupt and replace a landmark. Let KWG fill its downtown pit with con- dominiums, but leave the Bijou alone. John Strieder Eugene www.villagehealthservices.com OREGON TRANSPLANT 1755 Coburg Rd, Bldg 4, Suite 2 In the 7/10 Register-Guard, native Oregonian R.D. Henderson attacked the irony that East Coast “transplant” Colleen Just back from Africa with trade beads, old and new, from around the world Friday, July 27 Saturday July 28th 10–6 IQVJGCNVJ! 9GFQ%QOGCPFIGVKV Coordinated health care designed just for you and the way you want to live. 541-684-3988 8 JULY 26, 2007 Kimball would settle in Oregon and then seek to close the doors on development in the name of the environment. Being an Oregon native myself, I am obli- gated to remind Mr. Henderson that we Oregonians are the ones who passed Measure 37 and opened up Oregon to such cata- strophic development. This being the case, I am happy to welcome a new civic-minded “Oregon transplant” who so quickly recog- nized the threats posed by Measure 37 and took the initiative to speak out about it. Ironically enough, R.D. Henderson’s hero Tom McCall just so happened to be a trans- plant from the East Coast — a healthy trans- plant which lead to the betterment of Oregon. Micah Olson Eugene SHOCKED BY RALSTON I was shocked to hear Dave Ralston’s re- cent public comments concerning global warming. If Ralston’s ease in dismissing the science behind global warming wasn’t enough to make me scratch my head, his as- sertions about the aims of those raising con- cern about the issue left this reader question- ing his fitness to serve in his current capacity as chairman of the Lane Regional Air Protection Agency (LRAPA). The science behind global warming is there. As reported in the article, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report reported with 90 percent certainty that global warming is happening and is caused by human activity. The IPCC’s report is a peer- reviewed publication consisting of contribu- tions from 2500+ scientific expert reviewers, 850+ contributing authors and people from over 130 countries. Mr. Ralston doesn’t just claim, “The sci- ence isn’t there.” He goes on to accuse cham- pions of the global warming cause of acting like Robin Hood: “It’s about making the rich feel guilty [...] taking from the rich and giving to the poor.” Citizens of Lane County should be appalled. Global warming, Mr. Ralston, is not a parti- san issue. It is not a class issue. It is a human issue. It is your job, sir, to protect our local air quality and regulate emissions. Unfortunately, your comments don’t inspire faith in your abil- ity to do so. Eric Taylor Eugene LET THEM EAT CAKE Recent news has me reflecting on some of the more callous quotations of history and lit- erature: “Are there no prisons? And the Union workhouses, are they still in operation?” said Dickens’ Ebeneezer Scrooge, who was “very glad” to hear that both were still very busy. “Let them eat cake,” said Marie Antoinette, though this attribution admittedly carries considerable historical doubt. “People have access to health care in America. After all, just go to an emergency room,” said George W. Bush on July 10. This attribution carries no doubt whatsoever. “People have access to shelter in America. After all, just go to an underpass. Are there no cardboard boxes? And the subway stations, are they still in operation?” also said George W. Bush. Well, no, not really. But he may as well have. Todd Huffman Eugene
