letters
TO THE EDITOR
Shout It!
Don’t just whisper it
I
took a detour on a dirt road off Highway 6 in the Castle Country of Utah to
capture the sunrise just beginning to outline the spectacular rock formations
in the distance. I stopped on the side of the road, grabbed my camera and
stepped out of the car. Not more than 6 feet in front of me, the sage rustled
on what was a windless morning. Most likely it’s a pine chipmunk, I thought,
and quickly adjusted my camera settings for the sunrise. The bushes rustled
again and rather than a chipmunk, I was startled by a coyote jumping straight
at me. In midair, he took a defensive position, landing with his weight on his
haunches, front legs stiff, ready for my next move. We stared at each other just
long enough to make a decision. I chose to stand my ground and take aim. I
caught one blurry photo before he made his choice, bolted across the road and
disappeared.
Dorothy Engelman thinks some Utah Democrats are that skittish. She lives
in St. George, Utah, on the edge of the Mohave Desert, which is more than
350 miles to the southwest from where I am in 9-Mile Canyon. I met her when
she was a fi rst-time delegate on her way to the 2012 Democratic National
Convention.
Dorothy is the chair of the Washington County Democrats, who grew up near
Detroit, Mich., and taught school there for 20 years. After their retirement, she
and her husband, Gary, traveled and lived on a boat for seven years. They settled
in St. George three years ago.
St. George, population 72,897, was one of the fi rst Mormon settlements
after Salt Lake City. Church founder Brigham Young established the community
during the American Civil War to grow cotton and supplement the limited supply
coming from the east. Nicknamed “Utah’s Dixie,” it is now home to several high-
end health spas and destination golf resorts.
Nearly 60 percent of Utah’s residents are members of The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter Day Saints and 80 percent of Mormons are Republicans. Even
though he is a former member of the LDS church, living in Utah was a political
adjustment for Dorothy and Gary.
She remembers being at an art fair shortly after moving to St. George. She
said something of a liberal bent to one of the vendors, which prompted the
vendor to ask, “You’re a Democrat? I thought I was the only one.”
Dorothy now knows many more progressives in her town, but she still feels
that people are often afraid to express liberal views. They fear risking vandalism
if they display an Obama bumper sticker on a car, for example. She isn’t sure
how to help them transcend that feeling, but she proudly displays her affi liation,
hoping to start up a conversation.
“You get yourself a small donkey pin and wear it everywhere you go,”
Dorothy advises me. “It’s like a silent handshake. It’s amazing how many people
comment on it.”
Dorothy grew up in a union family and was herself a member of the teachers’
union.
“In Michigan, I had Democrat in my blood,” she says. “I was a contributor and
a volunteer, put a sign in my lawn, but living here is a real challenge.”
Nonetheless she is very hopeful about what’s happening at the local and
state level in Utah. In her new role as county chair, she has met many crossovers,
people who see viable options in the candidates she has helped to recruit.
People tell her that they want to restore balance in the Utah state Legislature
and many are willing to vote for Democrats. Another indication of the Democrats
growing strength in Washington County is that in the two most recent election
cycles, the party recruited candidates for every position. “We have well-qualifi ed,
competitive candidates,” says Dorothy, “and they offer a real choice.”
Dorothy has some new voter contact tools, too. For the fi rst time, volunteers
working for local candidates are able to use the interactive calling programs that
helped to make the Obama ’08 campaign so successful. Her challenge in the
retirement community of St. George is to fi nd volunteers who are comfortable
using the programs or willing to learn.
She doesn’t claim credit for the Democrats’ improved chances. “It should be
a no brainer,” Dorothy says. “If people voted in their own best interests, they
would vote for Obama, but I think what’s happened is that I’ve given people
permission.”
“That’s one of my goals,” she says. “To show people that they don’t have to
be afraid to say what they believe.”
When I speak with her again by phone after her trip to Charlotte, she is
still hoarse and tells me her hands are swollen from shouting and clapping for
the speakers, but after experiencing the energy at her fi rst convention, she
feels much more positive about her chances. She is encouraging people not to
whisper, but to shout out their hopes for the future and insists that she and her
volunteers can see blue veins in the red rocks of southern Utah.
See an interactive map of religious affi liations at http://religions.pewforum.
org/maps
Nancy Webber of Eugene is a longtime Oregon political activist and author of Ground Game, a new
book that chronicles her time in the field offices of the 2008 Obama campaign. The book is available
at Amazon Kindle, iBook, Kobo and Inkwater Press.
4
SEPTEMBER 20, 2012
EUGENE WEEKLY
CIRCLE OF LIFE
In response to Lucas Spiegel’s letter
[9/13]: It is debatable whether humans
can be nutritionally sound without meat,
especially when you look at nutritional
defi cits across generations. Dr. Weston
Price traveled the world in the 1920s
seeking traditional cultures that thrived
without any animal protein at all, and he
found none. Not one.
I understand your arguments, Mr.
Spiegel, because I was a vegetarian/vegan
for 10 years. I am deeply committed to
animal welfare and opposed to the torture
of animals in factory farms. But when
I became pregnant, and then nursed my
daughter for almost four years, I found that
nutritionally my body (and hers) required
me to eat meat. One of my responses to
criticism of vegetarianism had been “If I
can kill it, I can eat it,” so I decided that,
ethically, I had to kill my own meat.
I have learned a lot in eight years of
farming. My main complaint is how diffi cult
it is to obtain GMO-free feed in an era of
corporate control over every aspect of our
food supply, including our farm animal’s
feed production. GMOs cause many health
problems, which are exacerbated when the
toxins are concentrated in the tissues of our
meat animals.
I am allergic to GMO foods, and
subsequently must avoid corn, soy, canola,
beet sugar, sunfl ower seeds, conventionally
grown produce, and animals fed on GMO
feeds. I raise my own meat in order to be
in control of my animal’s feeds. I can drink
milk from my cow, for example, but from
no other cow in town — and I have tried
the other pasture-based family dairies.
They supplement with cow feed, which
contains GMO corn and soy.
Back to the killing part: yes, I pray for
my animals. I hold vigil while they die. I
cry sometimes. And I fi nd nothing smug
about appreciating the ritual and respect
that goes into those acts. If we “have to” eat
meat, which some of us think we do, we’d
better acknowledge that we are killing life
to do it.
I like to see people cheering over
locally raised pasture-farmed animals and
the attempts to disconnect from the factory
and corporate methods of animal torture.
Those of us who must eat animals must
fi nd an ethical way to do it. I am so inspired
by my sense of well-being and spiritual
connection with my food that I now teach
others how to butcher humanely. I teach
ritual of food-animal death. I teach circle-
of-life. And I pray that when I die, I will
become food for something else to live.
Because I am part of that spiritual circle —
just like my chickens.
Kara Huntermoon
Primitive skills instructor
Eugene
NOTHING IS SACRED
In response to Jennifer Donovan
[Letters, 9/6] when she wrote to complain
about a white girl wearing a feather
headdress — to put it simply? Shut. Up.
For one, the girl in the picture has Native
heritage. For another, who cares? People
wear priest outfi ts on Halloween or nun
outfi ts to fetish parties, so if your gripe is
with how it offends spirituality, are you
saying Native Americans are somehow
immune? Moreover, perhaps this was
simply for fashion. Great. Again — so
what? Tell you what: White people can
stop wearing headdresses when Native
Americans stop wearing “white people”
clothes. Offended? Well, so am I.
Racism is not solely created by
angrily hating another group of people or
committing a hate crime. It’s created when
one person draws a line in the sand between
themselves and another person. The world
has moved on. Nothing is sacred. And to be
perfectly honest, we’re probably better off.
Jeff Holiday
Eugene
TAKE BACK EPUD
On Sept. 11 I experienced a personal
attack on our freedom of speech. I served
on the Emerald People’s Utility District
Board from 1981 to 1994. This was during
the start-up time for this people’s owned
electric utility. During the last two years
I have become aware of some problems,
one of which is limiting the “freedom of
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