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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 25, 2012)
WAR ON WOMEN Women will decide the next election, and if that scares you, we’re not tasking for permission. The empowerment of girls is a global fi ght that manifested itself in a 14-year-old girl named Malala Yousufzai in Pakistan who was shot in the head by the Taliban because she’s an activist for girls getting an education. In America there has been a 125 percent increase in crimes against women and children. Where’s the outrage? The war on women in America is a move to defund Planned Parenthood. Last night I drove by their new building in Glenwood and on the top fl oor was a room full of men and women taking a class. How can anyone who lives in this century be against men and women getting family planning and getting birth control? The world has over seven billion people. One party wants to reverse Roe v. Wade. One in three women have made the choice to end a pregnancy; we are your daughters, your nieces, your aunts, mothers and grandmothers. No matter how you feel about it, our government has no business taking a woman’s choice away. Women still make 76 cents on the dollar that men make. Where’s the outrage? Baby boomer women started feminism; it’s time to band together with younger women and evolved men. Think about the little girl in a hospital bed with a hole in her head, all because someone doesn’t want her to get an education. Women and girls must stand up against oppression. Diane DeVillers Eugene BEYER FAVORS LIVELY I read with great interest “GOP cash infusion heats House Race” by Saul Hubbard in the Sept. 29 issue of the R-G. I live in this area, which is presently well- served by Rep. Terry Beyer, who has been a strong supporter of education, including LCC, and of programs that benefi t seniors and the disabled. She has chosen not to run for another term and has endorsed John Lively to replace her as our representative in Salem. Lively has served on the Springfi eld City Council and as the mayor of Springfi eld and a number of other posts. (Visit JohnLively.com for a list of his work for the benefi t of Springfi eld.) Recently there have been a number of criticisms of the Pishioneri campaign, and the R-G has published a letter to the editor from Betsy Schultz, his campaign manager, denying that the campaign has done anything unethical or illegal. I beg to differ since this campaign has used push polls which are designed to sound as if an objective poll is being conducted. In reality, the call is actually from his campaign and is basically an anti-Lively call. I consider this to be unethical. Also, recently someone destroyed my Lively campaign sign and placed some anti- Lively campaign material in my mailbox. The material was not mailed and did not have a mailing address. Not only is this unethical, but this is illegal, according to the U.S. Postal Department. I would, as a former elected person who represented Springfi eld on the LCC Board, like to endorse John Lively in his bid to replace Rep. Beyer. G. Dennis Shine Springfi eld ILLEGAL TO RECORD? I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Lauren Regan’s comment in “Busted” [Back to Campus, 10/4] that “you are probably being audio-recorded” when being questioned by the police, but probably just misinformation from your writer. I was under the impression that Oregon law (ORS 165.540) makes it illegal for any person (including the police) to “obtain or attempt to obtain the whole or any part of a conversation by means of any device, contrivance, machine or apparatus, whether electrical, mechanical, manual or otherwise, if not all participants in the conversation are specifi cally informed that their conversation is being obtained.” Please ask Regan for clarifi cation. John Tietjen Corvallis EDITOR’S NOTE: We checked our (legal!) recording of the conversation, and that is an accurate quote. It gets complicated in this age of ubiquitous smart phones and pocket recorders. Court cases often examine whether the person being recorded has an “expectation of privacy” and whether clandestine recordings are permitted as evidence in court. Recent cases have favored citizens’ rights to record police activities in public places. TIME FOR TEACHERS I applaud EW for deciding to dedicate a column to education in Eugene [10/18]. I also appreciate Anne Bridgman for giving voice to educators whose voices have been drowned out by shrill voices of public education enemies and supporters of corporate education “deform” movement. It’s time for teachers to tell their stories to the community in their own voice and I hope that this column can be shared with any educator willing to speak up. As a public school teacher for over 33 years in 4J (classroom teacher and now a substitute) I have witnessed huge changes in our schools. It’s important to document those changes for all to see. I also hope that we can put 4J experience into a larger national context. Our experience is very similar to other communities in Oregon and beyond. Public education, the foundation of our democracy, is systematically being defunded and supporters of privatization are creating a two-tiered system of education, one for the haves and another for the have-nots. Educators here and all over the country are under attack, blamed for everything that is wrong in the underfunded schools. They are accused of selfi shness for bargaining health care benefi ts, pensions, decent pay and working conditions. Unions are accused of sheltering poor teachers and standing in the way of reform. The fact is that teachers and their organizations are the strongest advocates for children and public education. It’s time to hear from teachers and all the people who work with our children every day. Pete Mandrapa Eugene HOBOS AMONG US In your Oct. 4 News Briefs, entomologist Melissa Scherr (“No Worries About Giant Brown Spiders”) is quoted as saying, “No hobo spiders have been documented in Oregon south of Corvallis.” I’m not sure if she limits that claim to this year, but during 2004 and ’05, I removed over 20 of them from my house, which is in Eugene. I took several to the Lane County Extension Service for positive ID and they were identifi ed as hobos. Upon request of a staff member, I later brought in a live one. Nobody there seemed surprised that they came from south of Corvallis or commented on their rarity. I don’t know what records they have at the Extension Service, but there were and probably still are hobo spiders in Eugene. Zig Engelmann Eugene THE LAST STRAW Coal trains through Lane County are emblematic of the nation’s decline. Sen. Bernie Sanders told us that 55,000 manufacturing plants have closed in the last decade, transferring jobs, machinery and skills offshore. Only to benefi t the 1 percent. Then, next level jobs went offshore: call centers, service facilities, fi nancial services, research centers and many other large volume employers. Some corporate headquarters even left us. Now we scrape the bottom of the barrel to export basic raw materials. We export our forests as logs, chips, pulp and even biomass. There is clamor to export very damaging fractured natural gas. The most destructive coal mining ever conceived now plans to export for short-term profi ts. It is ironic that the largest number of containers returning across the Pacifi c are fi lled with baled paper waste. Third-world nations are forced to export their raw material. Is this to be our destiny as well? And what does nature tell us? It is fi nite. Please don’t consume it, laying it to waste in a mad search for profi t. A much wiser course for our nation LETTERS POLICY We welcome letters on all topics and will print as many as space allows, with priority given to timely local issues. Please limit length to 200 words, keep submissions to once a month, and include your address and phone number for our files. Email to letters@eugeneweekly.com fax to 484-4044, or mail to 1251 Lincoln, Eugene 97401. would be to apportion our raw materials, over a very long time frame. Don’t future generations of U.S. citizens deserve their share? Why not 1,000 years? Many resource scientists believe that hydrocarbons should no longer be burned, but used for manufactured products that last a very long time. Hydrocarbon molecules should be reused and recycled, some almost indefi nitely. Energy currently derived from the sun, in all its many forms, must be our nation’s and the earth’s future. So let’s not just worry about coal train routing, but the very concept of exporting it at all. George R. Hermach Eugene SMOKER’S HERO The big bad government is at it again! First they banned smoking on airplanes, then our workplaces, and now they’re coming for our socialist parks! The liberal health police somehow think that we should keep toxic cigarette smoke out of the places where our families and children gather. Thankfully we have incredible conservative leaders like Commissioner Jay Bozievich, who possess that special kind of courage it takes to stand up for the right of smokers to contaminate Lane County’s parks with toxic smoke. And who doesn’t love those lovely cigarette butts strewn everywhere? Bravo Bozievich. Keep up the good work! And with registered Democrats outnumbering registered Republicans nearly 2-1 in Lane County, we (particularly smokers and plunderers) should feel very fortunate to actually have a wonderful right-wing dream team in control of the Board of Commissioners. To all you Democrats who haven’t been voting: Thank you very much! Joshua Welch Eugene A SCATTERING OF TOXINS I am writing in response to the article by Camilla Mortensen on July 12. “Coal Battle Heating Up In Eugene” points out numerous reasons to oppose these environmental degrading coal hauling machines to pass through our treasured city of Eugene. Many citizens of Eugene recognize the potential harm to Eugene’s air and water quality. We should all be concerned about the likely damage to our beautiful parks and open spaces. In addition to the harm the coal trains would levy on our community, people should also be concerned about the traffi c issues that would be aggravated by these toxin-scattering machines. On one end of town we will have to navigate our way through the probable EmX expanded bus route and at another part of town waiting for the coal train to pass by. As a current LCC student who plans on graduating soon, I understand the importance of producing jobs for Oregonians. I don’t believe that creating 150 jobs in the North Bend/Coos Bay area is validation for allowing damage to the environment and the beautiful city of Eugene. Matt Keller Euge ne eugeneweekly.com • October 25, 2012 7
