Eugene weekly., February 13, 2014, Image 4

LET TERS
SCABS WANTED
The teachers are on strike in Medford,
and to fi ght the strike and stonewall
negotiations the Medford School District
is reaching out to substitute teachers in
District 4J, and probably other districts,
looking for what, in my day, we called
scabs — hiring teachers to cross the picket
line and weaken the strike.
I have it on good authority that this is
what Medford is offering their “alternative
employees”: $340 per-day pay, $30 per-day
dinner allowance, free breakfast and lunch,
round-trip mileage for a trip home during
the week and a hotel room for the duration.
That’s $1,700 a week, exclusive of
meals, mileage and hotels. Has the Eugene
4J School Board budgeted for this?
Walker T Ryan
Eugene
GOD SMITES THE GIPPER
Those who say “crazy people” are
too lazy to work must think that people
in wheelchairs are too lazy to walk. Are
people who are paralyzed on the right (side)
from a stroke too lazy to shake your hand?
Are people who lose their sight or hearing
from a brain tumor too lazy to notice you?
Are people who survive a gunshot to the
head but can’t speak too lazy to say hello?
Or are people who think those demented
thoughts, suffering from frontotemporal
neurocognitive disorder, whose symptoms
are marked by the loss of sympathy or
empathy — are they psychopaths?
The trend to empty psychiatric hospitals
started in 1967, when newly elected Gov.
Ronald Reagan immediately laid off 4,000
state employees — 3,700 of them in the
fi eld of mental hygiene. Twenty years later,
President Reagan is stricken with a mental
health disorder, Alzheimer’s. Was he then too
lazy to campaign for fellow Republicans?
Was Bush the Elder pissed that “The Great
Communicator” couldn’t communicate so
great? Or was God saying, “Because you
have harmed the weak, the infi rm and the
feeble minded, whom I love, I will infl ict you
with Alzheimer’s. You will not remember
you were president of the U.S. And that goes
for your NRA buddy Charlton Heston, too.
He won’t remember he was Moses. Jesus, I
hate Hollywood!” A cautionary tale.
This is not Cuckoo’s Nest, circa 1962.
This is 2014, with MRI, PET, CAT, EEG,
the human genome mapped and stem cells.
What? Too lazy to stay informed?
Troy Kelly
Eugene
PART HOBBIT
Many great scientifi c discoveries
have been made in the fi elds of
paleoanthropology and genetics in the past
13 years. In 2000, we cracked the code
of the human genome. In 2003, the fi rst
discovered remains of Homo fl oresiensis,
the “Hobbit People,” were found. In
2010, Neanderthal DNA and the DNA of
a newly discovered human ancestor, the
Denisovan, were extracted from fossil
remains and decoded.
Analysis of genes from various human
populations around the world has revealed
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The path of inner Light and Sound
(Talk given by a local speaker)
Mon., Feb 24 th - 5: 30 pm
Eugene Library ~ Singer Rm.
100 W 10th Ave.
The goal of Sant Mat is to enable the soul
to return and merge into its source;
the purpose of human life described by
mystics of all traditions.
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www.santmat.net
February 13, 2014 • eugeneweekly.com
Kudos for not using our government’s
much-beloved phrase “terrorist” in your
own description of “eco-saboteur” Rebecca
Rubin [1/30]. You could have gone one
step further and dropped the “eco” as
well. How do actions taken on behalf of
domesticated dogs and feral horses benefi t
our planet’s ecology?
Steve Kyte
Corvallis
RETRACT THE LIES
I am writing on behalf of Deep Green
Resistance (DGR) Steering Committee
and Advisory Board about the article
which your paper found fi t to publish Feb.
6 about Lierre Keith’s appearance at this
year’s Public Interest Environmental Law
Conference.
Reporter Shannon Finnell makes a
number of assertions about Keith and “her
supporters” which are completely untrue.
The assertions that any of our members
have ever “outed” people on the internet
or made their information public is absurd,
false but, more signifi cantly, endangers
the safety of members planning to attend
PIELC.
Not only did Finnell not engage in due
diligence as a journalist before publishing
lies but she did not contact Lierre Keith
or anyone else from DGR to check on the
veracity of the information she decided to
print.
Keith and other DGR members have
already received threats of physical and
sexual assault for our stance on gender
politics and this article has now made that
potential of violence even greater.
We expect EW to publish a full and
complete retraction of the lies this article
contains and we hope that your paper
decides to interview Keith or other
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Sant Mat
that outside of West Africa, most of the
world’s population is 1 percent to 4 percent
Neanderthal. Known deviations are the
populations of Melanesia (Papua New
Guinea, Australia and the Philippines).
These populations have Denisovan genes
intermingled. Papua New Guinea has the
highest mingling examined thus far, with 4
to 6 percent Denisovan.
There is evidence suggesting that
Neanderthals in some regions, like Europe,
had light-colored hair and eyes. The remains
of a 7,000-year-old Homo sapiens that were
found in Europe had blue eyes, dark skin
and an inability to digest lactose. Where are
signs of evolution, the creationists ask.
Pondering this information and various
other questions about how the human species
became the kaleidoscope of ethnicities that
it is today, I can’t help but expect more
human ancestors to be discovered.
The above-mentioned contemplation
has revealed to me a great irony: White
supremacists’ claim to “racial purity.” All
people with native European ancestry have
Neanderthal genes.
Humans of purely West African descent
are the true human race — racially pure,
at least more so than Europeans and
Melanesians. The rest of us are a bunch of
crossbreeds.
David Alexander Rosenzweig
Eugene