BY CAMILLA MORTENSEN
LANE COUNTY AREA
SPRAY SCHEDULE
Oregon Department of Transportation is
spraying roadsides. Call (503) 986-3010 to talk
with a vegetation management coordinator or
call 1-888-996-8080 for recent herbicide
application information. Highways I-5, 99, 101
and 126 East were recently sprayed. We
received faxed notification of upcoming spray on
Hwy. 36 beginning April 14.
Forestland Dwellers: 541-342-8332, www.forestlanddwell-
ers.org
8
A pril 7, 2016 • eugeneweekly.com
fraud. Like Oregon’s presidential primary, Arizona’s presidential
preference election is a closed vote.
Jim Williams, elections director for the Oregon Secretary of
State, tells EW via email “we have no reason to believe that the
problems experienced in Arizona are an issue here in Oregon.”
Williams says, “Our system
keeps an audit log of any and
all changes to a voter’s record.
We can see who changed the
record, when the record was
changed and why the record
was changed (including a
saved image of any accompa-
nying voter registration card
or other documentation).”
He adds, “Generally speaking, what we have seen is that vot-
ers who received the ‘nonaffiliated voter’ mailer are indeed regis-
tered as nonaffiliated, and they were mistaken about their actual
affiliation,” but, he says, they have to look at each case separately.
“In other cases,” he says, voters “may have registered in the
window of time between when we pulled the list of voters for our
mailing and when the letters landed in their mailboxes.”
Oregon’s deadline to register to vote and to change party af-
filiation is the same: April 26.
Williams says you can check your registration at oregonvotes.
gov/myvote or by calling the local county election offices. Wil-
liams says voters should know “online changes may take two to
three days to be processed and will not show up immediately on
an online record.”
Call Lane County elections at (541) 682-4234 to check your
registration.
n the aftermath of the Arizona primary election fiasco, with
voters waiting in long lines and ballots getting thrown out,
Lane County voters are wondering how they can make sure
their ballots get counted.
Concerned area residents have contacted EW saying their
voter affiliation is incorrect
and that they had registered
as Democrats but recently re-
ceived a notice from the Or-
egon Secretary of State Elec-
tions Division saying they
were unaffiliated.
Lane County resident
Jana Thrift says she was reg-
istered as a Democrat, but when she looked while filing a change
of address, she saw she was listed as Independent.
In order to vote in Oregon’s closed primaries, voters must
be registered as members of the party whose primary they will
be voting in. Some supporters of Democratic candidate Bernie
Sanders had previously left the Democratic Party, but to vote for
him in Oregon must again become registered Dems.
Thrift says she is concerned Lane County voters might run
into the sort of problems that hit Arizona in the March 22 presi-
dential preference election. A lawyer for the Sanders campaign
threatened to file suit last month over the large number of provi-
sional ballots that were tossed out in Maricopa County.
According to NBC News in Arizona, “About 80 percent of the
24,000 provisional ballots were ruled invalid because the voter
wasn’t registered with a political party.” Voters in Phoenix wait-
ed in line for hours to vote because Maricopa had cut polling lo-
cations by 70 percent since 2012, and some have alleged election
I
You can check your
voter registration at
oregonvotes.gov/myvote.
STEPHEN WOOTEN
“I started my study of anthropology at home,”
says Stephen Wooten, the youngest of nine
children in an Irish Catholic family in Weymouth,
Massachusetts. “My dad was on the police force. He
was a beat cop, on his feet, building relationships
with people.” Wooten continued his study at UMass
Amherst and got his masters and Ph.D. in
anthropology at the University of Illinois. He’s been
a professor at the UO since 2001.
“I couldn’t have picked a better place,” he says.
“I was a big Grateful Dead fan, saw hundreds of
shows. All that camping and hanging out with
people, the human interactions, were fuel for my
career.” Before he entered grad school, Wooten
served in the Peace Corps in the West African
country of Mali. “I felt a deep connection to those
rural farming people,” he says. “Their lives are
simple materially, but complex and rich socially
and culturally.” He has since been back to Mali
more than a dozen times, including an eight month
stay in 2011-12 along with his wife Tracy Lomax
and their kids August and Wren.
Wooten’s book, The Art of Livelihood (2009),
examines the dynamism between food production
and aesthetic expression in West Africa. “Food is so
much more than nutrition,” says Wooten, who has
developed an interdisciplinary food studies
curriculum at the UO, offering a graduate
specialization and an undergrad minor. “Food is
about family, culture and meaning; about
environment, soil and farming.” Check the UO Food
Studies Facebook page to learn about local food,
agriculture, gardening events and opportunities.
BY PAUL NEEVEL
• A discussion on “Why Aren’t There More
Black People in Oregon? A Hidden History
Conversation Project” will be from 6:30 to 8:30
pm Friday, April 8, at the Cottage Grove
Community Center, 700 E. Gibbs Ave. Speakers
include PSU adjunct professor and author
Walidah Imarisha. Sponsored by Cottage Grove
Blackberry Pie Society, the Cottage Grove
Library, the Rural Organizing Project and Oregon
Humanities. Email blackberrypie@gmail.com for
more information.
• Willamette Riverkeeper is planning its
annual River Guardian Spring Clean Up on the
Willamette River Saturday, April 9. Some space
on rafts is available or bring your own boat.
Shuttle
provided.
Email
Emmons@
willametteriverkeeper.org to sign up.
• Local transgender social justice activist Ariel
Howland will be teaching the workshop
“Confronting Transmisogyny & Rape Culture” 5:30
pm April 11 at the UO Global Scholars Hall Room
117. Transmisogyny is the intersection of
transphobia and misogyny specifically affecting
trans women and trans-female spectrum people.
Free and open to the public. Part of Sexual Assault
Awareness Month. Search “Confronting
Transmisogyny” for the event on Facebook.
PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY
ELECTION QUESTIONS
HAPPENING PEOPLE
• Café Soriah at 384 W. 13th Ave. has
expanded into the former dress shop next door,
adding another dining room with 40 more seats.
Owner Ib Hamide tells us Soriah plans to open for
lunch Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays
starting April 13, from 11:30 am to 2 pm. The
lunch menu will bring back much of what
Hamide served at Casablanca when it was in the
5th Street Public Market, he says, including
falafel, shawarma, tabbouleh, hummus “as well
as a few interesting and popular additions to
complement the Mediterranean menu.”
• “The Power of Email Marketing” is the topic
of a free workshop at 6 pm Thursday, April 7, at
the Eugene Public Library downtown. Workshop
leader is Carol Infranca, an award-winning print
and broadcast journalist and marketing
specialist. Sponsored by SCORE, Constant
Contact and the library. Call 682-5450.
• Midori, the world-renowned educator and
writer on sexuality, will be teaching her hands-
on workshop “Rope: Control and Dominance
Moves,” at 7 pm Wednesday, April 13, at 1645 W.
High Street. The workshop is sponsored by As
You Like It: The Pleasure Shop, which tells EW
that Midori “is motivated by helping people
create authentic and intimate relationships
while emphasizing self actualization, shame
reduction, acceptance and justice.” She is the
author of The Seductive Art of Japanese
Bondage, Wild Side Sex and Master Han’s
Daughter. Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at
the door.