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