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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 30, 2014)
NEWS Sponsors, Inc. is holding a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 3 pm Thursday, Jan. 30, at its new Bothy Cottage/RISE (Reunite in a Supportive Environment) home. The five-bedroom, 3,200-sq.-ft. house is the first of its kind in Oregon and unique nationally. Its mission is to help mothers who are returning home from prison. Services include parenting classes, cognitive behavioral therapy, drug treatment and more. RSVP to tdejohn@sponsorsinc.org or call 505-5687. Local businesses Hallspot and Opthub will be presenting at the SmartUps gathering at 5 pm Thursday, Jan. 30, at the Oregon Electric Station Jazz Room, 27 E. 5th Ave. Guest speakers will also include Doug Porter and David Schroeder, experts in prototyping and manufacturing. $12 advance, $18 at the door. See eugenechamber.com. The Oregon Small Woodlands Association will have its annual forestry tree seedling sale from 7:30 am to noon, or while supplies last, Saturday, Feb. 1, at Alton Baker Park. Supplies are limited so come early for best selection. Trees available will be Douglas fir, Ponderosa pine, grand fir, noble fir, incense cedar, Western red cedar and redwood. Prices range from 75 cents to $1.25 per tree. Contact Michael Atkinson from the OSWA at 344-4991. The Eugene Food & Ag Forum will provide an update on the Southern Willamette Bean & Grain Project at 4 pm Sunday, Feb. 2, at Cozmic, 199 W. 8th Ave. The project is a consortium of farms, businesses, community organizers and nonprofits working to stimulate the cultivation and local marketing of organically grown grains, dry beans and edible seeds to provide year-round food resources in the Willamette Valley. Dan Armstrong will speak, along with Jeff Broadie and Kasey White of Lonesome Whistle Farm. A new Toastmasters Club will meet for the first time at noon Wednesday, Feb. 5, at LCC’s Small Business Development Center. The club will meet in Room 122, Building 11, on the LCC main campus. The first meeting is free, open to the public and will include light refreshments. LCC faculty, management, staff and students are encouraged to attend. See lanesbdc.com or call 463-6200. The nonprofit Eugene Waldorf School is looking into developing a four-year high school in Eugene. The school once had a high school in a new building adjacent to the school’s main buildings at 1350 McLean Blvd. but the new high school may be off site. A free lecture and discussion on the topic has been planned for 7 pm Wednesday, Feb. 5, at the school. Find the Waldorf high school initiative on Facebook at wkly.ws/1oe. We hear firefighters in Eugene and Springfield have teamed up with South Lane Fire & Rescue, Lane Fire Authority and Western Lane Ambulance to support local social services. The firefighters and paramedics collected $1,000 out of their paychecks to build and paint two structures at Opportunity Village in Eugene, says Robert Grand, one of the organizers of the construction event that happened Jan. 27. The 30 off-duty firefighters and EMTs who worked at the project are members of Lane Professional Firefighters Association. Eugene freelance writer and editor Sharleen Nelson has come up with something unique, a full-color “Oregon Festivals” wall calendar that lists and features more than 90 festivals, fairs and celebrations throughout the state. The 2014 calendars sell for $7.95 through her GladEye Press or on Amazon. See wkly.ws/1of. WHITE RACIST MINIONS ATTACK ONLINE Horus the Avenger of White Rabbit Radio sends out his minions to spread “the Mantra,” proclaiming, “Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white” and other derivations of the racist message. While racist rabbits sending minions might sound like some sort of internet hoax, marchers in Springfield’s Jan. 20 Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebra- tion encountered one of the propagators of the Mantra, Jimmy Marr. Marr was standing in front of Springfield High School with a woman holding a sign that read, “Di- versity is a code word for anti-white.” Marr was wearing a kilt and playing the bagpipes. Dana Jo Cook of Springfield says MLK marchers were visibly upset by the sign, and she took a photo and sent it to EW for publication in order to bring “a face to the level of discrimination in our community.” Cook and others familiar with Marr — who is prob- ably best known in Lane County for giving a pro-National Socialist talk at the Pacific Forum discussion group and leading some members of the audience in a Nazi salute — said they had heard Marr was considering running for mayor. EW asked for confirmation of the rumor in the blog post. Marr posted in the comments section of the blog that “I had not considered the idea, but I can now see from the comments that I have a moral mandate to exploit every conceivable avenue capable of producing an increase in awareness of White geNOcide.” The spelling of genocide is called for in the “White Rabbit rendition” of the Mantra and the capitalization of white is called for by Bob Whita- ker on his racist whitakeronline.org site, where he also tells followers to “use emotional language” and to ask questions like “Why do you hate little White children?” PATCHY SANDERS HAS EUGENE ROOTS Patchy Sanders, a band that made its first appear- ance in Eugene at Sam Bond’s Garage a year ago, is returning to the same venue on Feb. 2 to showcase its first record, & The Wild Peach Forest. One of the band’s founding members, Ian Van Or- num, is a former UO student known for his past ac- tivism, particularly for being Tased at a peaceful anti- pesticide rally he helped organize in 2008. Van Ornum was unable to discuss the status of his appeal for his conviction for resisting arrest, but in December 2013 the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that he could contin- ue to pursue his appeal. Van Ornum was lying on the ground when he was Tased. Nearly six years later, Van Ornum is returning to his former city to show off his musical talents. “It’s nice to The annual KLCC Microbrew Festival is coming up Friday and Saturday, Feb. 7-8, at the Fairgrounds on 13th Avenue. Friday hours will be from 5 to 11 pm and Saturday 1 to 11 pm. All proceeds will benefit the public radio station. Some 66 breweries from around the West Coast and as far away as Vermont will offer samples of their most popular brews. Those attending must be 21 and over. Admission is $12 advance through klcc.org and $15 at the door. Admission includes three beer tastings and a souvenir glass. Additional tastings will be $1 each. Thousands of used records and CDs will also be for sale and live music will be provided Friday by Sol Seed and Saturday by the Hank Shreve Band. Music begins both nights at 7:30. Home brewers can submit their brews to be judged. Entries are being collected at Falling Sky Brewing through Jan. 31. IA N VA N OR NUM, OF PATCH Y SA NDERS, IS SECOND F ROM L EF T 8 January 30, 2014 • eugeneweekly.com According to a Southern Poverty Law Center article on White Rabbit, Horus the Avenger of the radio show is Timothy Gallaher Murdock of Dearborn Heights, Mich., and also uses the name Tom Worth. “He is single and lives in the basement of his parents’ home,” SPLC writes. The link to the EW blog was then posted on several racist websites, such as whitegenocideproject.com and majorityrights.com. Marr posted it on the racist Storm- front site and on the whitakeronline.org site. This then triggered Whitaker’s “BUGS swarm” which is dedicated to pointing out “the ongoing program of genocide against White people, which is being committed by anti-Whites.” Essentially, a fairly small number of people begins bombarding a blog, YouTube video or other online com- ments section with the Mantra. The swarm proclaims itself as “winning” when it overwhelms other posters in sheer numbers. At press time the EW blog had more than 1,050 comments. Members of the swarm commented from all over the U.S. as well as the U.K., and those who argued against the racist and bigoted posts, such as Cook, were both lo- cal and out-of-state. One anti-racist commenter, sociol- ogy professor David Brain of Florida, who came into the discussion via Facebook links to the blog, points out that “the internet has enabled these people not only to vent their fear and anger, their sense of powerlessness, but to do so in the company of others like them from all over the world.” Brain and others’ attempts to respond to the swarm’s comments resulted in many repetitions of the Mantra and sometimes name-calling such as “fat white whore.” Marr is allegedly also linked to the banner that was dropped on the I-5 pedestrian bridge in September 2013 that read “Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white.” — Camilla Mortensen EDITOR’S NOTE: The comment section for the EW blog post that triggered the “swarm” will be shut down (though remain available for reading) after this issue goes to press. The online comments for this story will be limited to 100 because even our patience has limits. share something with Eugene that I’m extremely ex- cited about,” Van Ornum says. The band started as a 10-member ensemble after meeting at a singer-songwriter camp outside of Ash- land. A year and a half later, Patchy Sanders was cut down to four original members; it then added three new members. After raising $15,000 from a Kickstarter campaign, Sylvia Massey, who is best known for work- ing with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tom Petty and Johnny Cash, offered to produce the album. “Massey made our dream of a first initial record come true,” Van Ornum says. “I mean, we worked with one of the best producers in the country.” Last November, Patchy Sanders performed on NPR’s West Coast Live with singer-songwriter Mason Jennings. Patchy Sanders plays with My Father’s Ghost at 8 pm Sunday, Feb. 2, at Sam Bond’s; $5. — Kevin Sullivan
