LET TERS
WHEN DISASTER STRIKES
Kudos to Camilla Mortensen and
Micah Griffi n for their scoop [cover story,
8/15] on what’s rumbling through town.
After the Lac Mégantic disaster I looked
around, too. On tracks off Cross Street,
the Carson Oil Co. was fi lling a truck
with ethanol shipped by the Renewable
Products Marketing Group, a Midwest
distributor. It’s highly fl ammable. Lots of
oil cars were nearby.
Driving up Bethel Road parallel to a
petroleum pipeline laid in 1962, Union Pa-
cifi c reminds workers that “safety is my re-
sponsibility.” A warning sign says “remote
control locomotives” ply the area. How
remote are the operators? In Québec, the
Montréal, Maine and Atlantic Railway run
by Edward Burkhardt, CEO of Rail World,
has fi led for bankruptcy.
Rail World, based in Chicago, buys
distressed lines around the world,
reorganizing them for profi t. Separate
lines in Canada, Vermont and Maine
were combined to form MM&A in 2002.
This vulture capitalism fl ourishes under
neoliberalism. Regulations are constraints
on profi ts. When disaster strikes they fi le for
bankruptcy. Creditors and municipalities
line up and foot the bills.
Union Pacifi c is larger and older than
VIEWPOINT
Rail World. I once visited their Eugene
yard and met with Adam Sharp, the
headman. I was trying to get an abandoned
campsite cleaned up near UP tracks along
the Willamette River. They probably aided
in the eviction. I was given a 1-800 number
to call in Nebraska as the river swelled. If
disaster were to strike here, what then?
Chris Piché
Eugene
CHEMOPHOBIA B.S.
I’ve struggled to contain my rage at
anti-GMO protesters for months, but this
is too far. On Aug. 8 in the Philippines,
a test crop of Golden Rice was destroyed
by anti-GMO activists. This crop is the
culmination of over 20 years of work to
address the massive problem of death due
to malnutrition, specifi cally from people
not getting enough vitamin A in their diets.
It is estimated that two million people die
every year and over half a million children
go blind due to this problem.
The crop was destroyed because of
fear. Chemophobia has gripped the world
and when we hear the words “genetic
modifi cation,” we see Monsanto and Bond
villains. This is not the case. GM foods
have saved literally more than a billion
lives (look up Norman Borlaug).
SCANT MENTION
Although the recent Eugene Weekly
article [8/8] on Lane County Commissioner
candidate Jose Ortal was informative,
complete clarity on candidate Kevin
Matthews’ East Lane County length of
residency was missing.
John Bauguess
Dexter
performance talent. That’s why I was very
disappointed by the Old Queens’ selection
of Dr. Mildred Slugwak Dresselhaus as
our new SLUG queen. It’s nice that she
has wonderful credentials in other fi elds,
but alas, her performance talents weren’t
on display Friday night. This year she
basically did a repeat of her last year’s
performance, and it was boring then.
Meanwhile, the fi rst runner up,
Professor Bulbous Slimbuldore, gave a
bang-up, hilarious performance, which
shows that he has been working hard on
his act, and the second runner up, Gloria
Slimen, gave another funny, crowd-
pleasing performance.
So I have to wonder just what “bribes”
have to be given to get that crown? If
this keeps up, the SLUG queen contest
will become as boring as the Eugene
Celebration has become without the
Harlequins and the Rickies.
Joyce M. Gallagher
Eugene
MISSED OPPORTUNITY
SOUR SLUGS
Why do we show up to watch the SLUG
Queen Contest? I, for one, want to see
outrageous costumes and hopefully some
funny skits showcasing at least a little
Sept. 20 is the 50th anniversary of
President Kennedy’s second and fi nal
speech to the U.N. He called off the Cold
War and offered to convert the Moon Race
to a cooperative effort with the Soviet
BY JONAS EMERY
It’s a Crude World
A LITTLE TRIP TO THE GROCERY STORE
T
he other day, I walked out and got into my car, which takes just plain
old regular unleaded gasoline. I drove into town on the asphalt roads,
which are a remarkable feature. They’re basically just crushed gravel
and tar or pitch (bitumen, technically), which is one of the leftovers
from refi ning oil, and they cover an impressive amount of the surface of
the Earth at this point. Less than .1 percent to be sure, but that is still a lot of asphalt.
So I drove on the asphalt roads to my favorite little locally owned organic grocery
store and pulled into its asphalt parking lot. It’s a very popular little market, my
favorite place to shop, and I was lucky to get the last spot. All the other spots were
already taken by cars, nearly all of which run on gasoline, even the hybrids. There
was a Nissan Leaf there (let’s hear it for the Japanese!), but it runs on electricity,
possibly made from coal, sourced over miles and miles of wires that were made and
erected using coal and diesel. They’re not exactly solar powered at this
point. And all of those cars are made of steel, which
ich requires a lot of
coal to smelt and mold into the car shapes needed to
o make the cars.
All of our cars were shimmering beautifully in the hot afternoon
sun in a variety of dazzling colors. Silvers, blacks, reds,
ds, blues, beiges
and whites, all made possible by paints derived from petroleum
products. And the interior fabrics, growing warm in the closed car
interiors, the nylons and polyesters and vinyls, were e all created from
oil in various processes. (Just think, when you wear
ar a fl eece jacket,
you’re wearing dinosaurs! Well ... more like really old algae actually.)
I dutifully brought my canvas grocery tote bags with me as I walked
up to the front of the store, which was lit up like a Christmas s tree, even
in the bright afternoon sun. As soon as I stepped
d inside, a ni
n nice
ce cold
breeze surrounded me, provided by the store’s industrial
dustrial strength air
conditioning equipment, which immediately set me
m at ease. Cool
and relaxed, I picked up a plastic handbasket and
nd languidly
perused the organic vegetable aisles, kept cool in open-
front refrigeration units.
4
I am thankful every day I live in
America where I can choose to eat
organic or not. I’d love to see legislation
for GMO transparency, but I will not add
to the irrational fear of chemophobia by
being uninformed. Before you spread any
more of this disinformation from bullshit
websites like Natural News, please educate
yourself. Otherwise, you’re supporting the
rabid ignorance that destroyed that crop. It
means you’d rather half a million brown
children go blind because of your goddamn
convictions.
Jeff Holiday
Eugene
A ugust 22, 2013 • eugeneweekly.com
I love produce aisles. All that teeming colorful bounty of life heaped on top of
itself always lifts my spirits. There’s just so much of it in such a small space. So
many colors and fl avors and textures. It makes me happy. It’s like standing on a
mountain top, or being in room full of puppies. I always leave the produce aisle
feeling refreshed.
Organic red tomatoes from Mexico, organic green apples from Washington, even
some organic yellow mangos from distant and exotic Costa Rica enticed me from
orderly piles and baskets. Tractors that burn diesel or gasoline were undoubtedly
used to grow all of that produce, which must have been shipped here on enormous
18-wheel trucks that burn tons of diesel and drive on mostly asphalt roads. I picked
up a few apples and slipped them into a thin little plastic produce bag to keep them
necessarily separated from my other groceries.
After passing placidly through the teeming kaleidoscope of international
produce, I turned into the dry goods isles and wandered past rows and rows of nut
butters, tahini and even Vegenaise in shiny plastic jars. I picked up a plastic bag of
deep-fried potato chips, healthy ones mind you, with the tiny, thin little shrivel of
brown skin left on them, presumably for the vitamins. I then made my way down
the beauty and health care aisle, full of shampoos, lotions, “natural” deodorants and
various supplements from calcium to colostrum, all of which were packed in nice
little plastic bottles. Plastics, of course, derive from oil as well. There are styrenes,
propylenes and nylons and countless derivations of those, all
and vinyls, and pr
ultimately come from a barrel of crude oil sucked out of the ground
of which ultimat
long before they could house something as precious and weird as colostrum
pills.
I couldn’t fi nd what I was specifi cally looking for, so I eventually
sought out a f friendly clerk.
I asked him,
hi “Excuse me, do you have any Vaseline? Petroleum jelly?
I just need a little 2-ounce jar or tube of it.”
His eyes widened,
the corners of his mouth turned down, his eyebrows
w
arched and his head recoiled away from me slightly, causing his hair to
wave a bit, which released into the air a faint waft of patchouli. Or
was it
i tea tree oil? I get them confused.
He sized me up and stared slightly down his nose at
me while declaring indignantly, “We don’t carry any ...
petroleum products here!”
Jonas Emery of Eugene is a biology and environmental science educator,
administrator and damn fi ne whistler.