LET TERS
So, Ms. Arkin, for the past 11 years,
hundreds of tons of hazardous waste
have been produced by these two
“organizations” in Eugene, and you have
not accounted for a single pound of it. It is
not a joke, but a tragedy! I guess you know
which side your bread is buttered on.
Dick Walker
Eugene
FANTASY SOLUTIONS
Ellen Furstner’s letter Jan. 7 made most
eloquently my point of how we are doing
the homeless in our society as a whole and
our community here in Eugene-Springfi eld
a disservice by thinking that the warming
centers, camping villages and cots in a
church basement are going to solve this
situation. They will not. As I read every
week about some homeless person or
family, at least 80 percent of them couldn’t
take care of themselves, let alone a house
or apartment if given to them. Perpetuating
this fantasy is folly at the least and a waste
of money at most.
The money (donated, from grants,
taxes, lottery) would be better spent
investing in dorms or group homes all
staffed with counselors and caretakers, just
like assisted living centers for seniors. The
homeless, without families to help them,
would then be supervised and offered real-
life opportunities to attend support group
meetings, get off illicit drugs or get the
right kind of prescription drugs so that
their lives could get back in balance again.
I’m sure many homeless people just need
someone to show them how to cope and
they would graduate out of the dorms to be
good citizens again.
Doesn’t doing something concrete
sound better than the feel-good bandages
that we are trying? The homeless need
serious help, not a Thanksgiving dinner
once a year. If we offer warming places,
camping villages, etc., all that does is
mark our community as a soft touch; the
homeless or itinerant know Eugene is the
place to come to fl op.
I won’t give money to a bum on the
street and I won’t give a dime to any local
organization that is playing “feel good”
games with people who are physically and
mentally incapable of getting their lives
back in order. Homelessness is not going
away.
Annie Kayner
Eugene
EXPLOITING THE LAND
Armed militia occupying Malheur
National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters
should be seen for what they are: agri-
businessmen seeking to enhance their
taxpayer subsidies at the expense of
biological diversity including greater
sandhill cranes and western sage grouse.
Ranchers like the Hammonds torch
their grazing allotment to further overgraze
it and then expect to reap the fi nancial
rewards from dirt-cheap historic grazing
leases. The Hammonds were rightly
prosecuted as arsonists. They should serve
time and lose their grazing lease as an
example to others who would exploit the
public trust and fl out the law.
Cattlemens’ interests (hardly benefi ting
wildlife!) have actually been well served
over the years by Malheur Refuge
grazing policies and leases. Burning vast
BLM and Forest Service upland acreage
reduces important sage grouse habitat.
Agency policy further gives grazing
subsidies on arson-burned sagebrush areas
through planting crested wheat grass,
drastically reducing biodiversity. This
long-term habitat degradation signifi cantly
contributes to the decline of western sage
grouse populations. It must be ended.
Our federal agencies should team
up with the many responsible ranchers
who protect wildlife resources. Greedy
ranchers who poach deer and despoil
habitats on their leased lands must be held
accountable; their leases should be forfeit.
Federal grazing leases should be based
on going rates for similar private leases.
No more sweet deals favoring existing
leaseholders like the criminal Hammond
gang or gun-toting hooligans!
As the Tulsa World recently put it,
“When the knuckleheads get through
with their show, we think they should be
prosecuted vigorously.”
Ethen Perkins
Eugene
ON GRAZING FEES
That $1.35 per month grazing fee per
head on federal lands doesn’t include
required fences and water troughs, which,
when added in, come close to the $15 for
private lands that already have strong fences
and troughs that keep cattle from trampling
sensitive riparian zones. Not siding with the
Hammonds or Bundys, just saying.
Stephen Cole
Eugene
LEASES ARE FIXED
Before coming to Oregon in 2009, I
had a small, 50-acre, horse breeding and
training operation in Montana for a couple
of decades. As a small-scale ranch, I was
very interested in leasing extra grazing
land, and the AUM fee (Animal Unit
Month — for instance a cow/calf pair) on
the public lands was very low. The lease
ran for fi xed amounts of time, and at the
end of the lease period, there was an open
auction to buy the lease for the next span
of time. The hitch was, that at the close of
the auction, the current leaseholder had
the opportunity to match the high bid,
if it wasn’t his, and keep the lease. Thus
bidding against the current lease holders
was futile, unless one could bid the lease
up high enough that it was unfeasible to the
current holder to pay that much for it.
The only bidder that was able to do
that was a conservation group. Later,
their winning bid was overturned in
court because the “conservation” use was
counter to the “grazing” use that had been
set for the land. Thus, the land was never
available for local ranches, and it wasn’t
possible to keep its ecosystem from being
destroyed by overgrazing. The leases were
Oregon Humanities Center
Or
2015–16 Cressman Lecture in the Humanities
2015
ohc.uoregon.edu • (541) 346-3934
HOT and NON-HEATED classes
for people of all ages and body types.
Beginners welcome!
Intro offer $39 for 1 month unlimited yoga!
THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING:
CAPITALISM vs. THE CLIMATE
EVERGREEN
NUTRITION
15% OFF
C ANNA V EST
CBD OIL PRODUCTS
IN JANUARY
Studies show that CBD oil can
be helpful for anxiety & stress.
The most affordable CBD
on the market, CannaVest
non-psychoactive CBD oil
is made by chemical-free,
CO2 extraction.
• Non-GMO • Gluten free
1653 Willamette Street
M-F 9-6 • Sat 10-5 • Sun 11-5
FREE OFF-STREET PARKING
541-485-5100
www.evergreennutrition.com
6
JANUARY 21, 2016 • EUGENEWEEKLY.COM
DOCUMENTARY FILM SCREENING:
Sunday, February 7, 2016 • 3 p.m. • 156 Straub Hall
LECTURE:
Naomi Klein, journalist, columnist, and author
Tuesday, February 16, 2016 • 7:30 p.m. • EMU Ballroom
FREE TICKETS ARE REQUIRED
FOR NAOMI KLEIN’S LECTURE:
Available beginning 1/22/16 at
827LFNHW2ҬLFHDW0DF&RXUW
tickets.uoregon.edu, or (541)
346-4363
EO/AA/ADA institution committed to cultural diversity