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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (July 25, 2013)
LET TERS HELP FOR HOMELESS There’s good news to report for the homeless. St. Vinnie’s is adding capacity to its Service Station on Highway 99. This was one of the recommendations from Mayor’s Committee on Homelessness and it’s great to see it happening. As always we thank St. Vinnie’s and we’re pleased to partner. The $189,000 remodel is funded by a Eugene block grant. There will be more places to sit, shower and do laundry. The kitchen improvements mean more fresh food can be served in the 115,000 annual meals provided at the station. A commercial dishwasher will keep over fi ve tons of waste from the landfi ll by making it possible to have reusable cups, dishes and utensils. Executive Director Terry McDonald has always been a leader in our local reuse/recycle efforts. And St. Vinnie’s will build overnight storage spaces for 125 clients. This has been identifi ed as a big need for those who are homeless and have to carry everything with them. This storage option along with the showers and laundry options help people better prepare for job opportunities or other appointments. You can help out by making donations of dishes, utensils, cups, glasses and paper VIEWPOINT towels and napkins — and by thanking St. Vinnie’s and Terry McDonald. Mayor Kitty Piercy Eugene improve after being publicly exposed. Max Smith Junction City AN INCOMPLETE PICTURE EEEWW EW does a good job promoting the local dining industry, notably with the periodic publication of the CHOW insert. However, the important issue of relative facility sanitation gets overlooked. The July 10 edition of the Fern Ridge Review, a local weekly, devoted an entire half-page of very fi ne print to divulging the health inspection sanitation ratings of dozens of local restaurants surveyed in June. These results are fascinating; many restaurants that appear to be greasy spoons get the full 100 score, but some glitzy and expensive businesses are shown to have defi ciencies in the food prep areas. Some food carts and vending machine distributors got a fl at zero. It takes a minimum of 70 sanitation points to pass inspection, which seems a pretty low bar. Publishing these sanitation ratings would be a service to your dining readership and perhaps stimulate some restaurants with sanitation problems to Regarding “Electric Eugene” [cover story, 7/18]. What? An article about local electronic dance music, and no mention of Every Element Productions, other than a brief listing of the Human Nature Festival? Every Element has been a driving force in the Eugene electronic scene for almost seven years now, throwing both underground events in warehouses and outdoor locations and events in established venues like WOW Hall and The Granary, many with unique themes that involve the greater Eugene artistic and performance arts communities, not to mention booking hundreds of local, regional and national EDM artists in the process. The Human Nature Festival, while being the largest and most notable thing Every Element does, is far from the only thing they’re responsible for. EE has hosted a weekly radio show on KWVA 88.1 FM for the last three and a half years, featuring a different local DJ every week. EE has been a strong supporter of local up-and-coming talent, as well as bringing in huge acts like Emancipator to Eugene. EE is also doing a stage at the Kaleidoscope Music Festival in August, has done stages at the Whiteaker Block Party going back several years and produced LCC’s end-of-the-year concert, Lanestock, from 2010-2012. You do a good job of mentioning all the old-school crews and hyping Kaleidoscope, but you do your readers a disservice by leaving out Every Element, and not accurately describing the current climate of EDM in Eugene. Kyle Marx Every Element Productions SEEKING RESOURCES To whom it may concern: I’m wondering if you know of any other people in the same boat I’m in. I’m homeless but I’m getting back on my feet. Now I have an address to get mail but it’s not my residence. I needed an address to be able to get a job. I don’t make enough money to rent a place of my own. I live in an RV, all I can afford now. My concern is that a Eugene attorney is taking me to court for a debt that I claimed on a bankruptcy several years ago. I’m barely getting by and this attorney is going after me for money written off in bankruptcy. I BY MARY DEMOCKER Come On In, the Water’s Fine! CLIMATE ACTION TIME ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER I know you’re slammed with work, debt and episodes of Downton Abbey to catch up on. And I know you feel like an eco-hypocrite jetting to see Grandma and coral reefs before they disappear. Me, too. But if your political inaction on climate change stems mostly from not knowing how to make a difference, Bill McKibben just issued his Tarzan call for your help. In Vancouver, Wash., last week in preparation for this Saturday’s Summer Heat Columbia River Climate Action, the author and co-founder of 350.org energized a sold-out crowd at Clark College, connecting the dots between climate chaos and plans to transform the Pacifi c Northwest into a massive fossil fuel export corridor. “This area has emerged as this great choke point,” McKibben said, “a place where either you’ll open the fl ood gates to coal and oil and natural gas streaming out of the interior of North America … or you’ll say no.” For those too busy combing Oregon’s beaches to follow the fuss, here are the nitty (and very) gritties on some of 15 projects looming: Big Coal wants four terminals along the Columbia to speed coal to Asia. Big Gas is eyeing a terminal in Warrenton and 200 miles of new, high-pressure liquifi ed natural gas pipelines through Oregon and Washington. And Big Oil drools over plans for an immense Vancouver terminal that would move 380,000 barrels of crude oil daily from trains onto ships bound mainly for West Coast refi neries. That’s a lot of toxic fi lth coursing along fragile waterways. I don’t know about you, but I don’t fi nd politicians’ vague promises of Northwest “disaster- readiness” reassuring. I may forget what I ate for breakfast this morning, but images of the oil train explosion that 4 July 25, 2013 • eugeneweekly.com killed 50 in Quebec two weeks ago are burned into my memory as is recent footage of Keystone oil spewing through an Arkansas neighborhood. And even if we were willing to surrender our rivers and coastline to enrich fossil fuel corporations — several of them foreign — there’s that pesky issue of global warming: Carbon output from the proposed new dirty energy projects triples that of the Keystone pipeline. But, wait — good news! PNW activists — those feisty mountain-biking, tech-savvy latte lovers — are rising, fast, with a resounding NO. This is where you come in. Eugene and Corvallis folks are loading up kayaks and baby joggers for Saturday’s protest. Boaters will span the Columbia, drawing the “line in the water” under the I-5 bridge, which will in turn be lined with people carrying banners and signs. Organizers at Portland Rising Tide say the blockade is symbolic and civil disobedience will not be part of this family-friendly event. Addressing those hesitant to jump into activism, McKibben said, “What’s radical are the oil companies … If you are taking the one atmosphere we have on the one planet we have, and changing its chemical composition in ways scientists have told you will be ruinous … then you’re engaged in a more radical act than any human being that’s come before you. Our job is to … check that radicalism. And one of those places we will check that is here in the Northwest. There’s just no way to affordably get that stuff out unless they can do it through your backyards, and if they can’t, then they won’t be drilling and mining and digging it up, at least in the same quantities. So you play a really important role.” Pointing to the rejection of three proposed coal terminals, victories he attributed to “unprecedented opposition,” McKibben said, “I think we’re going to win many of these fi ghts along the PNW. I can’t promise we’ll win the overall fi ght, but I can promise there will be a peaceful . . . determined fi ght. It’s a great privilege to fi ght shoulder to shoulder with you all.” My family’s going. Wanna join us? Mary DeMocker teaches harp in Eugene and uses story, music and interactive art to help power the climate recovery movement. Follow her journey from worrier to warrior at www.marydemocker.com GETTING IT TOGETHER • Political art in the park sign-making, carpool planning, from 7 to 8:30 pm Thursday, July 25, at University Park, 24th and University. • Eugene carpool convoy leaves at 7:45 am Saturday, July 25, at First United Methodist Church, 1376 Olive. Park all day. • Corvallis bike ride to the action Friday, July 26, to Wilsonville light rail station. Email leonard.higgins@leobel.net. • Corvallis Bio-bus leaves at 7:45 am Saturday, July 27. See brownpapertickets.com/event/422322 • The Columbia River Climate Action has 10 am workshops, 12:30 pm speakers, 1:30 pm action. Meet at Vancouver Land- ing west of 100 Columbia St., in Vancouver. RSVP to joinsum- merheat.org/pdx. • To meet up with 350Corvallis and 350Eugene bridge marchers, go to 350corvallis.org/actions/summer-heat-pdx. • Contact in Corvallis is tokrispaul@yahoo.com. In Eugene, email marydemocker@gmail.com.
