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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 13, 2015)
NEWS • Before Fred Taylor became one of the owners of Eugene Weekly, he was the managing editor and later executive editor of the Wall Street Journal. Earlier as a reporter, he wrote many of the long, front-page features that made the WSJ famous, and his thoughts on writing news stories and the use of photography are quoted again and again in books and articles. Over the years EW staff has reaped the benefit of his influence on this scrappy paper and its mission to make the world a better place. This week we mourn his passing Aug. 10 at his home in North Bend. • Presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders made a splash in Portland Aug. 9, when he drew 28,000 people to see him speak, nearly double the 15,000-person crowd that came to see him in the larger metro area of Seattle the day before. He’s rocking the turnout with his platforms of income inequality and removing big money from politics. After Black Lives Matter activists took the stage during his Seattle rally, saying Sanders ignores issues of racial inequality, his campaign added a racial justice portion to its website, and he’s been addressing criminal justice reform in his speeches. Why do so many Oregonians want to “Feel the Bern” in the 2016 presidential election? In addition to income inequality, the self-described socialist touches a nerve when it comes to Wall Street greed, immigration reform, raising federal minimum wage and making public universities tuition-free. Pie-in-the-sky dreaming? We’ll take it. For local Sanders fans, a Bernie Sanders group is meeting 10:30 am Saturday, Aug. 15, at Monroe Park (10th & Monroe). On Aug. 22 and 29, the group will meet at the Democratic Party Office (224 E. 11th Ave.) at 10:30 am. • Can we feed ourselves? That’s the question pondered in the latest LandWatch Lane County newsletter. A survey by a Food Studies class at UO last year calculated that Lane County could meet residents’ total percent need for grains, but only 75 percent for vegetables, 50 percent for fruit, 20 percent for dairy and 8 percent for meat (looking at beef only). This scenario assumes all 219,625 acres of our agricultural land is converted to food production to feed our county’s 356,212 residents, and it assumes adequate irrigation water. Why bother with such a study? A major earthquake or other natural disaster could cut off the roughly 95 percent of food that’s currently trucked into Lane County, and if and when fossil fuel prices skyrocket, so will the price of food shipped in. “Every acre of productive land we lose to suburban sprawl, erosion and industrial development reduces our capacity to feed Lane County residents,” writes Lynne Fessenden in the newsletter. She is executive director of the Willamette Food and Farm Coalition. • We are reminded by the recent attention to the Brian Babb shooting that police in the U.S. keep killing suspects, both armed and unarmed, and nearly all killings by police are ruled “justified.” We don’t even have accurate numbers since police departments are not required to report the killing of civilians to the FBI or any national database. The latest estimate is 400 a year or about eight a week — out of 320 million Americans. British bobbies shot and killed two people in 2014 — out of 63.8 million Brits. SL ANT INCLUDES SHORT OPINION PIECES, OBSERVATIONS AND RUMOR-CHASING NOTES COMPILED BY THE EW STAFF. HE ARD ANY GOOD RUMORS L ATELY? CONTAC T TED TAYLOR AT 484-0519, EDITOR@EUGENEWEEKLY.COM 8 A ugust 13, 2015 • eugeneweekly.com GOVERNOR DECLARES AWARENESS DAY FOR OREGON NATIVE BEES Beyond Toxics environmental justice and community out- Oregon native bees now have a special day of their own. reach coordinator. He says that nonnative honey bees only Gov. Kate Brown, at the urging of local nonprofit Beyond represent 2 percent of the total bee population, putting in Toxics, has declared Aug. 15, 2015, as Oregon Native Bees perspective the critical nature of saving native bees. Conservation Awareness Day. The native bee day also coincides with the reveal of Be- People should care about the welfare of bees, says Be- yond Toxics’ 2015 Beauty of the yond Toxics Executive Director Bee Photo ‘n’ Video contest win- Lisa Arkin. Without bees, crops ner. would have to be pollinated by Catia Juliana, who took sec- hand, she says. ond place in the 2013 photo con- In 2014, Eugene gained na- test, says that it “was really fun to tional attention when it banned enter and see the beautiful images the use of neonicotinoids, which people have of bees.” Juliana, are pesticides proven to be partic- who set up her first beehive this ularly harmful to bees. Arkin says year, adds that seeing bees in an the awareness day should bring artistic medium makes you more awareness to stopping the use of “emotionally attached” and thus insecticides and herbicides. Also more likely to care about the wel- important, she says, is preserving fare of the bees. native bees’ habitat. — L I S A A R K I N , B E YO N D T O X I C S Bee-related events take place “If we don’t take steps now all over town this month, includ- to preserve habitat such as west ing pollinator-inspired drinks and Eugene’s wetlands, and stop us- food at Cornucopia, 295 W. 17th Avenue, on Aug. 15, as ing poisons that kill [bees], they will eventually go extinct,” well as a wine tasting and benefit for Beyond Toxics 5:30 she says. pm Thursday, Aug. 20, at Silvan Ridge Winery, 27102 Bees are responsible for about 75 percent of pollina- Briggs Hill Road. — Mike Bivins tion for food sources nationwide, according to Joel Iboa, ‘If we don’t take steps now to preserve habitat such as west Eugene’s wetlands, and stop using poisons that kill [bees], they will eventually go extinct.’ THE GOSPEL OF BREW: THE BEER BIBLE After working on The Beer Bible for nearly two years, author and beer writer Jeff Alworth says he gained a new- found appreciation for all kinds of beers, not just his old favorites. “I had definite preferences before I started the book, but by the time I finished, it felt like they were my children, and I loved them equally,” he says, laughing. Alworth is visiting Eugene on Aug. 15 to promote The Beer Bi- ble, a dizzyingly comprehensive guide to all things beer. If this book sounds like a be- nevolent gift to the Pacific North- west, that’s because Alworth is one of our own. “I live in Portland, Oregon, home to more breweries than any city on earth,” Alworth writes in the book’s opening section. “If you detect the whiff of a West Coast orientation in these pages, my apologies. I come by it honestly.” The Beer Bible contains vast quantities of history, and rightly so: Beer has spanned the millennia, delighting humanity in the Fertile Crescent and elsewhere. We owe our Ninkasi Total Domination and Oakshire Overcast Espresso Stout to thousands of years of brewing. The book is organized so that the reader can browse, pe- rusing beers of interest, or read from cover to cover. Each section introduces a category of beer, starting with ales of all sorts: bitters, pale ales, porters and stouts, barley wines and more. Take the brown ales section, for example: Alworth breaks down the beer’s history and its evolution over time, suggesting beers of a similar style that brown ale lovers might also like — in this case, amber ales and porters. Next comes a list of “beers to know,” specific brews from around the world deemed noteworthy as examples of satisfying brown ales. And take heart, Ninkasi fans: Under the India pale ale category, Total Dom ranks high as a model IPA. The book is chock-full of fascinat- ing beer facts, obscure beer styles and a useful glossary that can help you sound like a top-notch beer snob in 10 minutes. Though Alworth jour- neyed to Europe while re- searching this book, speak- ing to German brewers and sampling English beers, he says the Pacific Northwest still represents a unique hub of beer and brewing. And where does Eugene fit into the world of craft beer? “What’s fascinating about Eugene is that until the mid- 2000s, it was a terrible [beer] scene, terribly underrepresented in terms of lo- cal breweries,” Alworth says. “Until around 2008, Eugene wouldn’t have been considered a beer town compared to Bend or Hood River, but Eugene has finally caught up and it has some really nice stuff going.” Nice enough to get into The Beer Bible, at least. Hear Alworth speak about his book noon Saturday, Aug. 15, at Ninkasi Brewing, 272 Van Buren Street; free. — Amy Schneider
