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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 21, 2008)
NOTICE TO PARENTS FV[bb_ÇfbcXa Visit your neighborhood school – and more! Learn about Eugene School District 4J schools. Start by visiting your neighborhood school. With the district’s school choice policy, parents may send their children to any school within the district, provided there is space available. All 4J schools focus on nurturing the success of each child. You can enroll in your neighborhood school at any time. To enroll in another district school, the school choice period is from NOW until March 21 for the 2008–09 school year. The 4J Schools Guide — available at any school, at the 4J Education Center, or at www.4j.lane.edu — offers an overview of each school. Schools throughout the district will be open for visits: Monday, Jan. 28 - Thursday, Jan. 31 Monday, Feb. 25 - Friday, Feb. 29 Please phone ahead or visit www.4j.lane.edu as each school offers different activities and times when parents can visit. The Application Process District-wide Information Meetings Meetings at the 4J Education Center, 200 N. Monroe, will provide general information about the school application and enrollment process. Spanish translation will be provided. Sat. Feb. 23: 9 – 10 am To enroll your child in a school other than your neighborhood school, parents should: school, at the 4J Education Center, 200 N. Monroe, or at www.4j.lane.edu. later than March 21 to the 4J Education Center. letters 200 N. Monroe Street, Eugene, OR 97402 687-3481 www.4j.lane.edu School’s open – and you’re welcome to visit. As natural as sleep... Natural & Organic Latex Mattresses. www.rileysrealwood.com search “organic” 2305 West 11th Ave 4 FEBRUARY 21, 2008 EUGENE WEEKLY BLOWING IT ROAST SLUGS More information is available at: Eugene School District 4J TO THE EDITOR 485-6308 Although I have the highest regard for your outdoor columnist James Johnston’s work, I have fi nally found myself at odds with his advice and thus feel compelled to respond to his “Wilderness 101” piece in the Jan. 31 EW. Johnston states that in a survival situation it is inadvisable to eat bugs. “Do you know how much energy you’ll burn rustling up enough bugs to make a meal?” he asks. He suggests that it is much more practical to gobble down the headless versions of Ariolimax columbianus, i.e. the Pacifi c banana slug. Whereas I have no particular aversion to the consumption of one or several “slug nuggets,” it would certainly be advisable to throw them into your fi re and cook them into a burnt marshmallow consistency (black on the outside, mushy in the middle). This will purge them of the glue-like slime that is their natural defense against predators, which takes a long and unpleasant time to rinse from your tongue and the inside of your mouth — don’t ask how I know this. A better source of survival protein is this: Scavenge the decaying snags nearby you as well as logs on the forest fl oor and tear of the bark and decaying humous until you fi nd a nice colony of termites or carpenter ants. Once you fi nd the brood chamber of the colony where the juicy white grubs are, then help yourself. They both have a rich, nutty fl avor, and even a large man with a hearty appetite could get a suffi cient meal. The adult termites are also quite palatable and a little bit crunchy. The ants have a bit of an acrid taste though. C’est la vie. Once you are done, cover up the colony you have exposed and return when you are hungry again — it’ll take them awhile to catch on. P.S. I sure liked the pretty girls on the cover. Matt Watkins Eugene The massive landslide east of Oakridge that cut Union Pacifi c Railroad’s main north-south line has turned out to be a blessing for many of us. What a pleasure it has been these past weeks to be able to sleep at night, conduct business or just have a simple conversation outside without the disruption caused by more than 1,000 (!) horn blasts per day — that’s a daily average of 26 trains blowing their horns four times at each of 10 downtown crossings. The Federal Railroad Administration requires trains to blow their horns as they approach street/rail crossings. But the FRA also understands the effect that trains horns can have on community livability and allows the establishment of quiet zones where supplemental safety measures are implemented and train horns are silenced except for emergencies. Over 200 quiet zones already exist across the U.S. Now it’s Eugene’s turn. At a work session Feb. 25, Eugene city councilors will be considering the establishment of a quiet zone. If you have appreciated the relative peace and quiet of these past weeks, you might wish to contact your councilor to express your support for a quiet zone. Ultimately, of course, the solution for the noise and other problems associated with a railroad corridor that slices right through our downtown is to place the tracks underground as other cities have done. But that project is still a decade or more away. In the meantime, a designated quiet zone could improve livability signifi cantly, at little or no cost. Whitey Lueck Eugene WACKY PRIORITIES Let us defi ne insanity. The biosphere and civilization are facing collapse because of toxics and greenhouse gases released as result of our current lifestyles and industrial processes. WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM • BLOGS.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM
