Eugene weekly., August 13, 2015, Page 5, Image 5

Buy your
back-to-school
Birks at Burch’s
and get a FREE pair of
SmartWoool socks
– a $22 value!
NOW OPEN!
Repair • Renew • Recycle
your favorite Birks
with us TODAY!
believe in fit
16 Oakway Center, Eugene, OR | 541.683.4115 | burchsshoes.com
Oregon Festival Of
American Music 2015
Library at 100 W. 13th Ave., until recently
home to Balzhiser & Hubbard Engineers,
has been leased (with an option to buy) by
the huge medical fi rm Kaiser Permanente.
As the ground fl oor and basement are being
revamped for its clinic (the second fl oor
remains on short lease to other tenants),
let us hope Kaiser maintains one of the
few gems of Eugene classic-modernist
architecture. Our aesthetic environment is,
after all, a factor in our personal and social
health.
The 1959 building combines elements
of Frank Lloyd Wright in its warm colors
and use of brick and wood, with the stark
lines of the “international style” (Wright
himself created the greatest such hybrid
with the Kaufmann house “Fallingwater”
in Pennsylvania). The lobby, stairwell,
streamlined reception desk, lighting details
and pillars of green metal in the main room
(in debt to Wright’s “lotus pad” columns
in the Johnson Wax complex in Racine,
Wisconsin) deserve preservation. So do
the cleaned-line, handsome facades facing
13th and Olive, without adding gaudy
signage.
Let us encourage Kaiser and the city
to safeguard this excellent thread in our
urban fabric. After all, some things should
be “permanente.” And the structure is even
more appealing since a massively dull
pile, basically a storage stack for student
housing, was built across the street.
D.C. Elliott
Eugene
ADDRESS CAPITALISM
It has been interesting to follow the
plurality of perspectives in response to the
July 16 cover story, “Radical Predictions.”
However, these responses lack a cogent
social analysis and, thus, fail to provide a
tenable way forward.
Population overshoot, industrialism,
spiritual
alienation,
uncontrollable
economic growth and a culture of
domination are all secondary or tertiary
problems. “Solutions” that address these
problems — population control, attacks
on infrastructure, individual spiritual
practices, living off the grid and wallowing
in alienation — will never be effective on
their own.
If we want to cut ecocide at the root, we
must address capitalism. It is capitalism
that is the dominant mode of production
on the planet and the undeniable cause of
ecological devastation.
The transformation of the natural world
into commodities through the work of
labor power is at the core of capitalism.
Even those of us not directly involved
in production are coerced to buy these
commodities and sell our labor power just
to survive.
It is only by ending this relationship
between labor and capital that we will
be able to end the abusive relationship
between humans and nature. If you want to
organize with this premise in mind, contact
me at kelleyvincent@gmail.com.
Vincent Kelly
Eugene
In The Age Of Jazz
1921-34
August 7-16
Eugene, OR
541.434.7000
theshedd.org
Honeysuckle Rose
Friday, Aug 14 - 1:30 pm
RIVER IDEAS
Your Aug. 6 Slant asked for more ideas
on how to help keep our riverbanks clean.
Here is mine:
The city should allow people to camp
on unused public land that is away from
the river. There are plenty of parcels of
unused city, county and state land (not to
mention EWEB) that could provide people
with spaces to camp without impinging on
our river.
For a fraction of what it spends on
driving out campers, cleaning up after them,
modifying our parks to be inhospitable
to homeless people, etc., the city could
provide port-a-pots and Dumpsters for
quite a few homeless camps.
My guess as to why this hasn’t already
happened is that the city pays its lawyers
to tell it not to allow camping for “liability
reasons.”
Steven C. Hiatt
Eugene
FINE AND
DANDY
Careless
Love Creole Love Call
Thursday, Aug 13
Friday, Aug 14 - 7:00 pm
Let’s Misbehave
Potato head Blues
Saturday, Aug 15 - 1:30 pm
Saturday, Aug 15 - 8 pm
EUGENEWEEKLY.COM • A UGUST 13, 2015
5