NEWS BRIEFS
SINGLE-PAYER
GROUP: RULING
IS ‘INADEQUATE’
Health Care for All Oregon has responded to the Supreme
Court decision on Obama’s Affordable Care Act, welcoming
the survival of the legislation’s consumer protections, but
saying the ACA “remains inadequate” and helps entrench
insurance industry profits.
A statement from HCAO says “the act categorically
excludes millions of undocumented persons and will leave
over 25 million persons in the U.S. uninsured. The system of
private insurance continues to collapse, imposing on families
a rising requirement to pay more for less. The rapid spread of
high deductibles and high co-pays will lead to continued
self-rationing, expensive delayed care and continued
widespread medical bankruptcy.”
Eugene single-payer activist Ruth Duemler has a more
optimistic view of the Supreme Court ruling and its impact
on Oregon, saying, “My understanding is that over 400,000
more Oregonians will have health care and we are looking at
the possible new opening for single-payer plan in our state.”
Portland anesthesiologist Samuel Metz, M.D., tells EW in
an email that the ACA “was largely irrelevant to health care
even before the Supreme Court decision. It was specifically
designed to sell more health insurance policies, which most
people mistake for health care. The ACA will indeed succeed
in selling more policies even with Supreme Court
modifications. However, it will not make policies less
expensive, nor will it make care more affordable, nor will it
make care more accessible.” Metz is a member of HCAO,
Physicians for a National Health Program and Mad As Hell
Doctors, but he is speaking as an individual.
Metz says Obama’s plan is closely modeled after Mitt
Romney’s Massachusetts plan. “The Romney plan succeeded
brilliantly in selling more insurance. Over 95 percent of
Massachusetts residents now proudly own a policy. However,
public health has not improved. Medically related
bankruptcies have not gone down. Lives lost to treatable
diseases has not decreased.”
“What has gone up, and spectacularly so,” says Metz, “is
the cost of health care: Massachusetts residents now pay
twice what they did in 2006 when the law was enacted.”
In its statement HCAO says it “continues to advocate for
a truly universal publicly funded system that guarantees the
fundamental right to health care to everyone living in the
U.S. Everybody in, nobody out!”
— Ted Taylor
BUCK THE MOVIE
IN PERSON
ACTIVIST ALERT
If you want to see modern-day “horse whisperer”
Buck Brannaman help horses with people problems,
then head up to Corvallis July 6-9 for a three-day
horsemanship clinic. Brannaman, long known in the
equine community for his way with horses, came to
greater fame last year when the documentary movie
Buck about his life and work was released to critical
acclaim.
Brannaman doesn’t break horses, he “starts” them,
using an understanding of the animal’s perspective that
comes from the violence that was in his own life. He
learned his craft from Oregon’s own Tom Dorrance and
from Dorrance’s student Ray Hunt, who first popularized
this “natural horsemanship” type of training. Brannaman
learned to understand the horses, and their fears, not only
from these earlier trainers but also thanks to an abusive
father who beat him and his brother until they were taken
away by the local sheriff and put into foster care.
The documentary Buck, which played at Bijou Art
Cinemas last August, is now available on DVD.
The horsemanship clinic, with Buck Brannaman and
horses from Eugene and around Oregon, will be at the
Benton County Fairgrounds. The clinic isn’t taking any
more participants, but spectators are welcome. For
more
information
email
douganddeanna@
doublephorsemanship.com or call 466-5989 or go to
brannaman.com
— Camilla Mortensen
FREE LUNCH
FOR KIDS
Free lunches for children and youth ages 2 to 18 have
begun at 67 sites throughout Lane County, thanks to the
Federal Summer Food Service Program and FOOD for
Lane County (FLC). No documents are required to
participate.
Most sites serve meals each weekday between noon and
1 pm during the nine weeks when schools are not in session.
A list of sites can be found at www.foodforlanecounty.org
or call 343-2822.
FLC says nearly 54 percent of Lane County children are
eligible for free or reduced price lunch programs during the
school year, but only 30 percent of those children take
advantage of the summer lunch program.
IT’S ABOUT TIME
• Coal trains through Eugene and coal exports from
Coos Bay will be the program at City Club of Eugene at 11:50
am Friday, July 6, at the Hilton 12th Floor Ballroom. A
resolution banning coal trains will be on the agenda of the
Eugene City Council Monday evening, July 9.
• A city of Eugene survey on plastic bags can be found
at http://wkly.ws/1bc and a draft ordinance can be read at
www.Eugene-or.gov The public survey will close July 11 and
the council will hold a work session on plastic bags July 23.
The Lane County Oregon League of Conservation voters is
urging those who support the ban to show up for the
council’s public input time at 7:15 pm Monday, July 9, at City
Hall. Last week Corvallis became the second city in Oregon
to ban single-use plastic bags at grocery check-out stands.
Contact the OLCV at 968-8269 or email Ashley@olcv.org
• Wolf expert Carter Niemeyer will be speaking at a
free Oregon Wild Tuesday event from 7 to 9 pm Tuesday,
July 10, at Cozmic, 199 W. 8th Ave. in Eugene. See www.
oregonwild.org for more info on this and other events.
• The Lane County Chapter of the ACLU of Oregon is
holding a series of “Civil Conversations” from 5:30 to 7
pm on the second Tuesday of the month at Café Yumm, 730
E. Broadway. The next is July 10 on “Exclusion Zone and
Public Spaces: Controlling Crime or Banishing Undesirable
People?” See www.aclu-or.org
• Activist and singer Anne Feeney and numerous other
political entertainers will take the stage at a block
party celebrating Woody Guthrie’s 100th birthday, from
noon to 9 pm Tuesday, July 10, at Reality Kitchen, 245 Van
Buren. Suggested donation at the door is $10 or canned
food for FOOD for Lane County. See www.realitykitchen.org
for more info.
• The Black Butte Mine south of Cottage Grove is the
topic of an open house beginning at 6:30 pm Wednesday,
July 11, at the Cottage Grove Community Center on East
Gibbs Street. Sponsored by the Oregon Health Authority’s
Public Health Division and the Coast Fork Willamette
Watershed Council. The EPA is beginning efforts to clean up
the mine site, which has been designated as a Superfund
site. See http://wkly.ws/1be for more info.
• The public comment period on the BLM’s proposed
hydraulic fracturing rule disclosures has been extended
to Sept. 10. See www.regulations.gov or send comments to
BLM Regulatory Affairs, 20 M St. SE, Room 2134 LM,
Washington, D.C., 20003.
LIGHTEN UP
When Donald Trump learned that Chief Justice Roberts wrote the
Supreme Court’s opinion upholding Obama’s health care law,
he demanded to see Roberts’ birth certificate.
BY R A FA E L A L DAV E
LANE COUNTY AREA
SPRAY SCHEDULE
BY DAVID WAGNER
T
he chickadees have fledged from the nest box hanging outside our breakfast window.
We miss the daily watching of their activity. It’s like letting go of children who head
out into the world on their own, leaving us parents. We feel special connection
to the chickadee mommy and daddy who brought tidbits of suet and bugs at a
frantic rate in the final week. The end game drama was watching them coax the
youngsters out of the nest by bringing a snack to the entrance hole, showing it
to them, and then refusing to give it to them but instead carrying it back to
the adjacent blueberry bush. That took only a day or two; they knew when
the time was right.
Resident birds that nested early will be starting a second brood. The
migratory birds completing their annual generation will hustle to fatten up
and head south soon. Likewise, flying squirrel and river otter young are
reaching maturity and getting prepared to explore the world for new
territory. Only when they have learned to forage and hunt for themselves
are they ready to embark. The older, wiser parents are best at the training.
We watch ducks and geese doing the same.
In the lowlands, native plants are past flowering peak. Fruits are maturing.
Wild cucumbers are ripening on rampant vines, its seeds often ripped
untimely from the fruits by scrub jays. It’s forbidden fruit to humans: the bitter
rind is just that, the most bitter plant of the region.
• ODOT is spraying highways in the Lane
County area. For more information call 1-888-
996-8080.
• West Lane ODF, 935-2283, has hired Nick’s
Timber Services (503) 910-1120 to ground spray
10 miles of roadsides on ODF land in western
Lane County with Element 3A, Element 4, Oust
XP, Forester’s Accord Concentrate, Agri-Dex
and/or Herbimax. See ODF notice 2012-781-
00363.
• Freres Lumber Company, (503) 859-2111,
plans to do hack and squirt with Imazapyr on
160 acres of land near Swartz Creek in Section
30 of Township 15S, Range 06W. See ODF notice
2012-781-00478.
Compiled by Jan Wroncy, Forestland Dwellers: 342-8332, www.for-
estlanddwellers.org
David Wagner is a botanist who has lived in Eugene for more than 30 years. He teaches moss classes and
leads nature walks. He may be reached at fernzenmosses@me.com
WILD CUCUMBER,
MARAH OREGANUS
8 JULY 5, 2012
EUGENE WEEKLY
WWW.EUGENEWEEKLY.COM