LET TERS
LOST EUGENE TRADITION
Well, I waved goodbye to one more
Eugene tradition today. How I’ve loved the
annual Eugene Celebration in the past, the
crowds, the hoop-la. So Eugene we were!
So unique! We were so us.
Today (Aug. 22) I was one of the 20
or so people who attended the “sidewalk”
Eugene parade. Maybe there were 35
people walking on the sidewalk led by the
SLUG Queen, few in costume. Oh, it was
sad to see a long-held tradition gone by
the wayside. A last gasp at trying to save
something uniquely Eugene. Thanks to
those who made the effort.
I loved our parades of the past — the
annual three-day Eugene Celebration, the
Memorial Day parade, the great crowds
of enthusiastic folks enjoying our time
together, waving flags, laughing and
sharing the moments. Everyone turned out.
I loved the big fountain on Willamette
where we all met on weekends and sang
and laughed and listened to the Bible guy
preaching to us all. I loved being in Kesey
Square, which had no name back then but
drew us all every weekend to watch the
juggler or the hacky-sack guys, the street
musicians and the many shoppers all over
the place, from Woolworth’s to The Bon
Marché. We were so alive with Eugene-ness.
Remember those days? I waved goodbye
today.
Patrice Dotson
Eugene
FESTIVAL IS FOR PROFIT
I read with interest your Festival
of Eugene article Aug. 20. Last year I
helped organize the festival. As planning
began in the fall for this year’s festival, I
encouraged the festival organizer to convert
the festival’s legal status to a nonprofit
corporation and offered to assist in doing so.
Subsequently in an email to me the festival
organizer stated that she was not going to
form a nonprofit. That decision, along with
a decision to continue to not pay bands,
resulted in me ending my involvement with
the festival last November.
Although your article quotes her as
stating that the festival is “not for profit,”
in reality the “Festival of Eugene” is her
assumed business name registered with
the Oregon Corporation Division. While it
may be true the organizer does not expect
to make a profit this year, the festival is
organized as a for-profit entity. If and when
the festival organizer is willing to convert
to a nonprofit corporation, I will again offer
my assistance. Converting to a nonprofit
will bring financial transparency and result
in a truly community-based festival with
an accountable board of directors.
Jon Silvermoon
Vipertoons Productions
Eugene
4
CALL TO ACTION
How can it be business as usual after
witnessing the destruction caused by this
year’s fires? This year’s fire season saw
the blazes grow in leaps and bounds at an
alarming rate, burn damp areas along with
land adjacent to water, and take the lives
of brave individuals enlisted to fight them.
Such has been the nature of this year’s
fires, unparalleled in size and number.
There is an unspoken sense of grief in the
air from the recent death of untold scores
of wildlife, firefighters, loss of homes and
of course the charred landscapes in our
mountains where there were once thriving
ecosystems.
And yet, I do not count on the major
news sources’ attention span to truly
engage what is at stake here and the
necessary and swift transformations that
need to take place. Frankly, I sense the
potential for these catastrophic fires to
be spun in a way that gives a green light
to extractive industries and speculative
practices.
This is a call for every single person
to reach deep inside themselves and
summon the energy of a mama bear. Every
person who loves to hike in the outdoors
knows about what happens when you
get in between a mama bear and her cub.
Well, we have to do something similar.
There are numerous indications that our
current system is bereft of structure,
responsiveness to the current calamities
and responsibility to life itself.
The system is not going to change
without our collective energies, as it does
A ugust 27, 2015 • eugeneweekly.com
not know how. Even with these raging
fires that feel eerily prophetic of some of
the most dire global warming predictions,
applications for new systems of pipelines,
new mining claims, etc., continue to
proliferate. This is in addition to practices
such as clear-cutting, aerial spraying of
forestland adjacent to local farms, cancer-
causing pesticides that threaten public
health, and the list goes on and on.
Please get to know the activism that
is out there and get involved. We are
seeing the current problems escalate to
catastrophic levels. The response from our
country’s mainstream media and politics
will not do these events and lost life
justice. It is easy to feel like a deer caught
in headlights with the onslaught of so many
things bombarding us; however, these are
the challenges of our time of having to
adapt to current matters while working so
very hard to change them. May we all rise
to the challenges in front of us right now.
Kerstin Britz
Cottage Grove
SLOPPY ASSESSMENT
The online third grade Smarter Balanced
practice test is riddled with errors. That’s
fact, not ideology. It was thrown together
in only 10 months and not corrected in the
intervening five years. For example:
Questions 2, 11, 13, 27: This particular
Part A/Part B format is confusing even for
adults, let alone third graders. Should it
assess test-taking ability or knowledge?
Question 10: Correct punctuation
requires quotation marks around “placed
one on top of another.”
Question 16 has a typographical error:
“Move the groups of sentences so that the
group that makes the bestbeginning (sic)
comes first.” Oh, my. Meanwhile, even
English majors don’t agree on the best
sequence for the story.
Question 12: “What inference can be
made about why the author includes the
backpack in the passage?” Most 8 year olds
do not know how to “infer,” because they
don’t yet understand abstract concepts.
It shows that no early childhood expert
helped write this test.
Question 21 is too wordy for third
graders: “Which of the following sentences
has an error in grammar usage?” Why not,
“Which sentence uses incorrect grammar?”
Question 23: You can’t even get adults
to agree why the author spoke about the
International Space Station.
This standardized test is sloppily written
and not age-appropriate. Taxpayers have a
right to expect more for their billions and
students have a right to expect more from
us, the adults. So let’s work together on
a better assessment system for Oregon’s
students.
Rachel Rich
Eugene
SMASH 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 econom-
ic 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 ef-
fective 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 Kelley
Eugene