slant
• Our endorsements issue will be next week, May 3, for
the May 15 primary, and we’ll have stories on some of the
big races, including the most recent developments, and
we plan to have room for more of your election letters
next week. Hang on to those ballots that should be
arriving in the mail soon.
ignored and now it’s payback time. Is this what Pero
meant by “all alternatives”?
As for the power of the R-G endorsement? Let’s not
forget that the daily endorsed Jim Torrey, not Kitty Piercy
in the 2008 mayoral race, and favored Bobby Green, not
Rob Handy for commissioner. The voters disagreed.
consequences would be for a college student unlucky
enough to be around, but not participating, while rowdy
roommates break the rules. Written correctly, this
proposed ordinance would deserve serious
consideration, but as is, it would create a policy that
could have unintended negative consequences.
• The R-G’s endorsement of Andy Stahl April 22 was no
surprise. The daily has been relentless in its attacks on
Pete Sorenson in recent years, swallowing whole hog and
with undisguised glee the timber industry’s strategic
attack on environmentalists on the County Commission.
Sunday’s peculiar, even bitter Earth Day editorial was
more against Sorenson than for Stahl, who really doesn’t
deserve equal billing as an environmentalist.
Convoluted political shenanigans permeate local
government, and they also permeate local media. On the
government side, ambitious Democrats are positioning
themselves to eventually take Peter DeFazio’s place in
Congress and Sorenson is in the way. On the media side,
the R-G editorial board has dug itself into a hole with its
unfair treatment of Sorenson and of Handy over the
years, and it would be inconsistent to support them now.
The daily’s kind words this week for Republican
opponents of Rep. Phil Barnhart is another example of
pandering to the right.
To top it off, Sorenson and fellow Commissioners Rob
Handy and Bill Fleenor made enemies at the R-G with
their strong and successful support of EW becoming a
“newspaper of record” in 2010. The R-G even hired a Port-
land law firm to fight the decision. A threatening letter to
the county from attorney Jack Orchard dated April 22,
2010 read, “It is The Register-Guard’s earnest hope that
the county commissioners carefully reconsider the path
they apparently wish to follow. As [R-G Chief Operating
Officer] David Pero’s most recent letter indicates, all alter-
natives available to The Register-Guard are under active
consideration, including litigation.” The threat was
• If you happened to find the slick mailing from Matthew
Robinson in your mailbox, you might have picked up the
“big lie” strategy that’s such a nasty part of American
politics today. The son of Republican candidate Art
Robinson (who is again running against Peter DeFazio
for Congress in November), Matthew is running as a
Democrat against DeFazio in the May 15 primary. His
mailing blatantly attacks Peter for his strengths, most of
which are rare in government today. Remember the
“Swift Boat ads” against John Kerry in his presidential
campaign? Same ugly strategy.
• The UO faculty is moving forward with unionization,
now that the administration appears to have gone along
with the unionizers’ wish that all faculty belong in one
group. That’s a great development, and hopefully the
first step in a long path of working together to
strengthen UO’s academic core.
• On April 19 author, journalist and documentary
filmmaker Alex Kotlowitz came to the UO to talk about
journalism and storytelling. He reminded journalists
and journalism students of the danger of assuming
people have a single story — people are more complicated
than that. Storytelling creates empathy, according to
Kotlowitz, and the way to truth is through telling stories,
he says. Facebook is great for sharing news, but what is it
your FB friends link to? In-depth stories. Support your
local storytellers. Also, check out Kotlowitz’s documentary
The Interrupters, if you haven’t already.
• The proposed social host ordinance submitted to the
Eugene City Council leaves a lot of unanswered
questions. Instituting a hefty fine on first offenses might
be too severe for students, especially those who might
make different choices after a warning. Including public
spaces in the ordinance makes us wonder if that could
affect the freedom to assemble. It’s unclear what the
• Ganjanomics. With half the Duck football team smoking
weed, according to ESPN, perhaps Eugene should
reconsider what might keep the wheels of this city turning.
The athletic program says Duck football pays for itself, but
we think all that grass the Ducks are toking may be
Eugene’s real all-star moneymaker. We took an in-house
poll and came up with three reasons why pot makes
Eugene green: 1. Live reggae music: We got tons of it; it’s
better under the influence of weed, and that concert ticket
money keeps the venues open. 2. Video game companies:
Eugene has a few. As the Ducks know, gamers prefer ganja
and so do game designers. 3. Duck football: Sometimes
you gotta smoke bowls to win bowls. Go Ducks.
• One of Eugene’s greatest events grossed more than
$91,000 April 14-15 for the Eugene Public Library. It was
the annual used book sale at the Fairgrounds. About
50,000 books were for sale for $1 and $2, no more. Linda
Ague, chairman for her second year, was pleased to report
that this year’s gross was about $10,000 more than 2011.
She said at least 300 volunteers made it all happen.
SLANT includes short opinion pieces, observations and rumor-chasing
notes compiled by the EW staff. Heard any good rumors lately? Contact
Ted Taylor at 484-0519, editor@eugeneweekly.com
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UNITY OF THE VALLEY • 39TH & HILYARD
presenting a benefit for
THE UNITY ARTS COOPERATIVE
featuring:
SCOTT COSSU
HALIE LOREN • LAURA KEMP
MARTY CHILLA & FRIENDS • MY FATHERS GHOST
Friday May 4
Dinner 5:30pm • Show 7:00pm
Tickets at Star Gate and online at brownpapertickets.com
All proceeds to benefi t our new arts organization featuring
concerts, workshops, lessons, theater, visual arts
WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM
EUGENE WEEKLY APRIL 26, 2012 9