letters
TO THE EDITOR
PUT BACK THE BENCHES
I walk West Broadway several times a
week. It should be a hub of commerce and
activity. Instead it is in a sad state.
Ideally city planners would recognize
this situation and make some attempt at
remediation. Instead, the city seems intent
on regressing. On my most recent stroll
through downtown last week, I noticed that
the nice benches formerly surrounding the
corner of Broadway and Olive had been
removed and replaced with bike racks.
Now I am all for biking. I bike everywhere
when the weather is agreeable. But that
stretch of Broadway already has plenty
of bikeracks. What’s more, the new bike
racks appear unusable, since they directly
abut nearby concrete planter boxes roughly
3 inches away, not enough room for any
bike. A row of similarly useless bike racks
has been installed along the curved berm
opposite Kesey Plaza.
The chief purpose of the new racks seems
to be to deprive “undesirables” of any resting
spot. This effort is completely misguided.
Removing benches makes downtown less
inviting, not just to “undesirables” but to
everyone. This runs counter to the best
interests of downtown, which needs more
people downtown, not fewer.
The key to a healthy downtown is a
populous diversity of all ages, backgrounds,
classes and interests. That is the trait of
every healthy downtown in America.
Public benches can facilitate that populous
diversity. Their removal retards it.
Please reinstall the benches.
Jane Jacobs
Eugene
TRUE LEADERSHIP
I am writing this letter to encourage
people who work for a living to vote for Rob
Handy for commissioner of Lane County.
Handy has been a friend of working men
and women in Lane County and is not afraid
of taking the tough stands that are needed in
today’s dire economic times.
Recently Handy proposed cutting the
salaries of county employees who make
$90,000 or more by 15 percent to create
some meaningful savings to help with the
budget defi cit. This would have generated
a savings of $1 million — a signifi cant and
substantial cut. When Handy made this
proposal he was accused by other board
members and the county administrator of
“class warfare.” How can people making
$90,000 per year suggest it is class warfare
when they are being asked to take some
cuts, but it is not class warfare when the
front line workers are having to make huge
concessions in their medical plans which
affects not only those workers but also the
quality of life for their families?
In some European and Asian countries
leadership in corporations and government
is defi ned by leaders taking the same
proportional cuts that the front line
workers are asked to take. The times do
not need symbolic acts as proposed by
some commissioners like Jay Bozievich
who proposed cutting $40,000 from the
commissioners’ expense accounts used for
travel, postage and the like. It is time for
true leadership as proposed by Handy.
Gary L. Lyle
Springfi eld
BUDGET-BUSTING IDEAS
The headline on professor Gordon
Lafer’s article on faculty unions
(3/1) couldn’t have been more true. I
wholeheartedly agree. There is class
warfare, the haves are stealing from the
have-nots.
We are witnessing a disgraceful time
in modern American history in which an
entire class of indentured servants is being
created. President Obama signed into law
notes from the riverside
Coffee with
The Preacher
Wrestling with ‘compassion
remorse’
W
hen you’re using drugs and it gets bad,
you blame everybody but yourself. — Tom
Sizemore, www.The Fix.com
I was having my favorite drug of choice, dark roast
Sumatra, with a man I’ll call The Preacher. We were in
warmer climes, where we were surrounded by black
people playing chess, typing on iPads and laptops,
conversing over topics of the day, at Magic’s Starbucks
in L.A. I was asking his spiritual tactical advice.
I opened with: “Should you show mercy whether
or not the recipient is grateful, or respects you as a
human being?”
“The short answer is yes,” he said. “On the
vengeance is mine saith the Lawd, goes around,
comes around tip.” Chuckling … “Them Klannish
white folks givin’ you grief in Eugene? Drop that
cross, brotha … But on the real, devil’s in the details,
4
MARCH 15, 2012
EUGENE WEEKLY
a requirement that young people who have
defaulted on their student loans be forced to
give 15 percent of their income to creditors
for the next 20 years of their lives.
More young people than ever before
are defaulting because higher education
salaries and tuition have outpaced infl ation
for the last 20 years. Professors are getting
richer while students are getting poorer.
Lafer bemoans the cost accounting of
the UO but mentions not one word about
how his budget-busting ideas are going
to be paid for. Presumably, he wants the
rest of society to “buck up” and be more
productive, yet abhors the idea of the best
and brightest doing exactly that.
Who among us has not had an
inspirational professor in a large lecture
hall setting? Conversely, having intimate
“one to one” with a poor professor (after
most of the students dropped the class) can
hardly be construed as “intellectual.”
Did any of the union organizers ask
that entire class of people who are going to
have those monumental student loans tied
to their necks which they would prefer?
Larger class sizes? Or living under a bridge
the rest of their lives?
Rick Wilmath
Veneta
EDITOR’S NOTE: Obama’s new student loan rules only
apply to federal loans, lower the cap and provide for
loan forgiveness over time. See The New York Times
explanation at http://wkly.ws/17u
PRINT HIS NAME
I agree that people in the community
should be encouraged to come forth and run
for public offi ce (Slant, 3/8). Let’s make
that path easier for them by at least printing
the names of Betty Taylor’s opponents. I
happen to know that Juan Carlos Valle is
eminently qualifi ed and has done much for
local government in the past. Let’s honor
him by at least printing his name instead
of just referring to him as an “opponent.”
Gary Apsel
Eugene
BY MARK HARRIS
like Michel Martin says, tell me more.”
“Well,” I said, “I deal with people on
both sides of the law: addicts, alcoholics,
hopeless dope fi ends, and dopeless
hopefi ends. Sometimes the seemingly
law abiding ones are the worst. Its not like
you can expect rational behavior from a
crackhead, but permaspun crackheads
with a steady jobs, be messin’ with me
and mine. You can’t really say that you’re
recovered until you take responsibility for
what you have done — on the pipe, and the dry
crackhead behavior you engage in off the pipe. You
understand I’m not just talking about cocaine, but
people who do whatever they can to not be fully,
consciously, human.”
“Isn’t it true there’s a developmental delay while
you are using?” The Preacher asked.
“One theory anyway,” I said.
“So you are expecting rational, responsible, self-
aware adult behavior from a criminal addict, who
sounds like he got rich parents, or other resources,
lawyers, co-dependent co-workers and bosses, to
shield him from the consequences of his behavior,
so now he can play ‘straight’ in a government job like
a school or juvenile justice, and ‘give back’ to kids
like he used to be, or maybe still is on the DL, and
you feel bad now, because you cut him
slack then, and he’s still behaving badly
in some way?”
I asked him, “What would you do if
an adult child on probation had shot
one of your kids with a BB gun, slapped
an ice cream cone out of a little girl’s
hand, and while appearing fawningly
faux contrite, later bragged about it.”
“Is showing compassion, giving him
the benefi t of the doubt that he might turn
his life around, the right thing?” he asked.
I nodded.
“Yes, you showed compassion for this racist
white dude, regardless of whether he’s showing
compassion, contrition or responsibility, then or
now,” he said. “Whether or not he’d have done that
for your black children, were the situations reversed.
You’re just experiencing compassion remorse; you
feel you’ve been taken advantage of.”
Sighing, he added, “Ieshua tells us the adversaries
show us how not to be. Give thanks that you know
not to be like him, and your example shows how
someday he might be better.”
Amen.
Mark Harris is an instructor and substance abuse prevention coordinator
at LCC.
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