letters
TO THE EDITOR
ENERGY SUCKERS
Hundreds of new apartment units have
recently been constructed all over the UO
campus neighborhood but neither solar
water heating nor thermal heat pumps are
being incorporated. This is not to mention
the huge energy sucking coliseum and
new athlete worshiping palaces of Nike
University. St. Vincent de Paul seems to
be the only entity in Eugene or Springfi eld
that is actually incorporating real green
solutions like solar water heating and
heat pump technology in their new retail/
housing complexes.
It is ironic that an entity that helps more
poor people than any other and has the
least resources to spend on infrastructure
is setting the standard for building green
in “green Eugene.” Does the university,
EWEB, city, county and state need to be
shamed into actually living up to their
green rhetoric? It regretfully appears so.
Perhaps a little shaming will convince
them to implement real green building
practices before it is too late.
Shannon Wilson
Eugene
LEFTIST BLAME GAME
Kudos to Joseph Lieberman (News
Briefs, 1/13) for the best analysis of the
tragic Arizona shootings I’ve seen.
The far left got its butt kicked in
November, and its agenda is being rejected
in America. Like spoiled children, the
leftists are using this tragedy to lash out
and vent their frustrations in a blame game
targeting just about anyone who doesn’t
agree with them. Lieberman instead
viewpoint
provides a credible and well-reasoned
evaluation of the shooter’s motives.
Had it been a conservative legislator
taking the bullet we’d probably have never
heard boo from these folks.
Jerry Ritter
Springfi eld
STIGMATIZED GROUP
I just wanted to thank you for the
wonderful and positive coverage (1/6) of
pit bulls and their owners and rescuers.
Pit bull owners are a highly stigmatized
group. Even though informal surveys
show that middle-class white females or
married couples are the most common
owners and rescuers of pit bulls, many
people still associate pit bulls with crime,
poverty and drugs, and often speak in
xenophobic or racist terms about pit bull
owners.
I can identify with all of the women
profi led in your article. Some of the
portions of their interviews could have
come straight out of my own mouth.
It almost felt like I was the one being
interviewed! I started out hating pit bulls
like everyone else. Then I had an abused
pit bull dumped on me. I soon fell in love
with pit bulls. Now I am deeply involved
in education, training and rescue.
I greatly appreciate this article because
it encourages people to rescue and adopt
pit bulls, and it “normalizes” the pit bull by
showing the dogs with normal, respectable
owners. Normalization and humanization
of the pit bull is essential if we are to put a
stop to the rampant abuse and neglect that
this type of dog experiences. When the
IRRATIONAL FEARS
I loved Camilla Mortensen’s piece (1/6)
that profi led pit bull owners. Through
personal accounts, she defended and
acquitted a much-maligned breed of
wonderful dogs.
For me, Mortensen was preaching
to the choir. My grandchildren have
raised, loved and been companioned by
pit bulls for nearly 20 years. They are
intelligent, affectionate pets that do not
deserve the irrational fear and bad press
that has been created around them. These
wonderful animals were raised and bred
BY KATIE MEEHAN
Raising
Arizona
Believing in a better world
A
s news of the recent tragic shooting in Arizona
ricocheted across the nation, I recalled the fi rst
time I met Rep. Gabrielle Giffords — in a different
Tucson parking lot, during her run for offi ce in 2006.
Carne asada crackled on the grill; people laughed and
traded gossip; my friend’s band howled country tunes
from a makeshift stage. Gabby shook hands, thanked
volunteers, listened intently to people who tugged at
her sleeve. When a cover of “El Guero Canelo” — a local
anthem — was played, she dragged her staffers onto
the dance fl oor. Her feet had no rhythm, but she was
fearless.
Since then — and particularly since that Saturday
— “Arizona” has become synonymous with political
division and violence. After seven years and a
doctorate from the University of Arizona, I left Tucson
last summer for greener pastures in Oregon — my
home state. At the new faculty orientation, people
raised their eyebrows when I listed my schooling.
“Oh, Arizona,” one person sighed, “Why are they so
backward?”
While I can’t blame them — Arizona is ground zero for
border confl ict, anti-gay and anti-immigrant legislation,
foreclosures and dire fi scal circumstances — I fi nd this
conceptual distance even more troubling. Following
this tragedy, our Oregon congressional delegate chose
to draw lines between “us” and “them.” Rep. Kurt
Schrader described Arizona as “a little more whacked
out than other states.” Rep. Peter DeFazio offered a
4 JANUARY 20, 2011
pit bull is reframed as a normal, friendly,
family dog, it will no longer be desirable
to the thugs and druggies who seek out
and create vicious dogs — which also has
the effect of creating a safer community
where pit bulls are raised with the love
and care that any dog needs and deserves.
It really made my day to read such a
responsible, educational article. Thanks
again, from a Texan who happened to be
in Eugene this week.
Jennifer Thomas
www.happypitbull.com
www.stopbsl.com
EUGENE WEEKLY
similar explanation. “I would hope that nothing like
this would happen in Oregon,” he said. “This kind of
behavior isn’t part of Oregon’s culture.”
Really? I was an undergraduate at the
UO when the shootings at Thurston
High School rocked our community to
its core. I remember the hateful anti-
gay rhetoric that backed Measure
9. We all witnessed the racist and
anti-government testimonies of the
Woodburn bank bombers. Just last
month, someone started a fi re at
a mosque in Corvallis, in apparent
retaliation to the Pioneer Courthouse
Square bomb threat. The Beaver State
is not immune to divisive politics, planned
acts of violence, or refusal to accept social
difference.
The polarization of political discourse, in my
opinion, pivots on questions of social difference:
how we codify it, where we allow it, how we police
it. These issues reach beyond the saguaro-studded
deserts of the Southwest. “It is not only about the
difference of opinion,” remarked Rep. Raul Grijalva, a
congressman from Arizona’s 7th District, “but how we
handle difference. There needs to be an acceptance of
divergent views and how we act like a community. The
state of Arizona is the bellwether state as the creator
of much of the division across the nation.”
Arizona’s Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik
put it even more bluntly. “We have become the Mecca
for prejudice and bigotry,” he told a evening press
conference. “Because I think it’s the vitriolic rhetoric
that we hear, day in and day out, from people in the
radio business and some people in the TV business …
this has not become the nice United States of America
that most of us have grown up in. And I think it’s time
that we do a little soul-searching.” Some, like Sen.
John Kyl, think “the sheriff’s words have no place at a
press conference.” But I think it’s time to speak truth
to power.
What meaning could ever emerge from such
violence and loss? On one level, this was
a story of a deeply disturbed individual,
motivated by anti-government feelings,
punishing citizens who happened to be,
as Sheriff Dupnik said, “in the wrong
place at the wrong time.”
But on another level, this story
reveals the profound refusal to
peacefully accept difference. Consider
this political map: Arizona is not “out
there.” It’s right here. From health care
to immigration, from the ideal role of
government to the institution of marriage,
political fault-lines run deep within our
national bedrock. We suffer from the same lack
of jobs, the same deteriorating education system, the
same uncertain futures.
Now, more than ever, we need an American culture
that respects difference — and that starts here, in
Eugene. For 2011, try fi nding points of unexpected
convergence and agreement between divisive issues.
Attend a public lecture or event on a controversial
topic. Learn to think critically and argue peacefully.
Volunteer with a local organization that promotes
peaceful understandings of social difference. Do a
little soul-searching.
To the victims of this tragedy, their loved ones, and
the people of the Old Pueblo, our Oregon hearts are
with you. In these dark days, I reach back to another
Saturday, to a different parking lot in Tucson — where
under a starlit night Gabby Giffords danced in cowboy
boots, asking us to believe in a world where hate gives
way to hope. I’ll see you there.
Katie Meehan is a professor of geography at the University of Oregon. She
can be reached at meehan@uoregon.edu
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