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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (June 23, 2016)
LET TERS NEVER FORGET DTURD NOT AN INSULT In response to Keith Southworth’s letter “Rape Confusion” [June 9], I was shocked when I read it. I’m not disputing that police should investigate rape, but the rest of his letter doesn’t support that point. If you want to discuss rape, you need to understand what the word means. Saying things like, “a woman is raped against her will” and “forget it” make it sound like you might not be clear on what rape is. Rape is sex without consent — a psychologically complex crime, and not one to be dismissed in 48 hours. Creating the law you describe for reporting is absurd. After 48 hours, is a rape no longer a rape? That’s like saying a murder isn’t a murder, and that the victims of the Orlando shooting should go on with their lives. But they are dead, and many women after being raped feel like they have lost everything. Suggesting that a rape simply disappears after 48 hours is nonsense. This aspect of “male entitlement” must end. Stop supporting the rape culture in our country. You seem to be the one who is confused. Anzo DeGiulio Freshman at South Eugene High School Eugene Anya Dobrowolski’s personal attacks [Letters, June 16] are hypocritical. At the April 7 Friendly Area Neighbors South Willamette Special Area Zone committee meeting, Dobrowolski, as co-chair, expressed hurt feelings and a lost night’s sleep after receiving personal attacks in response to an article. She said personal attacks shouldn’t be made and from meeting notes: “It deepens the us-versus- them sentiments.” I agree. Also, DTURD’s not crass. It stands for Downtown Urban Renewal District. I didn’t make it up. It’s an abbreviation used for years, not an insult. In my June 2 letter, I disagreed with the funding method, which diverts my property tax dollars to benefit private properties and businesses, not the proposed downtown projects. I pay taxes for schools, libraries, parks, infrastructure, public safety, jails and community services. After 49 years and $100 million, DTURD hasn’t been successful. The city manager reported the entire plan area is still blighted. City staff suggested finding grants and other funding sources. The June 16 Viewpoint “Ongoing Boondoggle” brings up many important issues that need HOT AIR SOCIETY thoughtful examination so city funding can be done correctly. Anya, we can discuss the downtown projects, or better yet, South Willamette rezoning, which needs a community-based refinement plan for successful growth and development. Janet Bevirt Eugene COST OF PSEUDOSCIENCE I grew up in Texas. I am well acquainted with the wish to ignore science when it gives me answers I don’t like. I grew up surrounded by people who think exactly that way, and who are primed to gobble down junk science that tells them the ridiculous things they’re emotionally invested in are true. I don’t hate those people; they’re my friends and my family and I love them. But they’re wrong, and it matters, and their wrongheaded beliefs do real harm. Pseudoscience inflicts genuine pain and costs lives. Almost 10 years ago, when I moved to Eugene, I thought I’d left all that behind. Here, people read. They think. They respect the scientific method. That was my favorite thing about Oregon in general, and Eugene in particular, and I told lots of folks that when I moved here from Texas, I traded up. So what is it with all these anti-vaxxers here? I will not darken the doorstep of the David Minor Theater to see Vaxxed, and shame on them for booking it. I imagine the same rationalizations they used to justify their decision would fit just as neatly with Holocaust denial, or with Stormfront’s educational materials on white supremacy. Pseudoscience is never hard to find. But it does make me sad. I thought I’d left that behind when I left Texas. Andrew Wakefield is a disgraced huckster. Do a little reading on his “research,” and why it was retracted, and why he lost his license to practice medicine. And don’t be gullible. Refusing immunizations is a deadly mistake. Don’t swallow the pseudoscience, and don’t give the David Minor Theater your business if their idea of how to make money is to hurt the community in pursuit of a buck. Come on, Eugene. Get it together. Don’t make Texas look good. Doyle Srader Eugene EDITOR'S NOTE: David Minor Theater writes on its website that the "views expressed in this film are not represented by this theater." BY TON Y CORCOR A N If Trump Wins: Move to Georgia! F inally the insane national primary season is over; we have “presumptive” candidates Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. We also have upcoming conventions in Cleveland and Philadelphia that might not be presumptively conventional. Some Republicans continue to bid for a “no trump” hand in Cleveland, and geezers like me remember the police riots during the divided 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago. Presumably, Bernie’s army will stage its battle for development of a progressive party platform in a reasonable manner, and the Philadelphia police won’t riot. Ultimately, neither Sanders nor Trump has any right to call the DNC and RNC convention rules “rigged.” That implies rules were changed recently to put them at a disadvantage. Nothing could be further from the truth: Both parties have created and manipulated rules that benefit insiders for years. Duh! The only thing that’s changed the equation since the 1970s is money, the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling, for example. What else do the Republican presidential nominee and the Koch brothers have in common besides being billionaires? But don’t leave for Canada, dear reader, if you fear Trump. If escapism is your strategy, remember: Canada is cold, it has no economy and its national health insurance is vastly overrated. You die waiting in lines for health care up there, from what I hear. I suggest moving to Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia. The weather is much better there and they’re having much more fun in their political theater! Georgian suspects described as “far-right extremists” — picture Ammon and Cliven Bundy with andouille and chorizo sausages in their holsters — recently entered a vegan café in Tbilisi wearing sausages around their necks and carrying slabs of meat on skewers, before attacking customers and staff. Now Eugene is a pretty hip city, and I don’t think we would have a big problem with a few people having issues about vegetarianism here … but in Tbilisi it led to a public brawl. (Damn militant Georgian vegans.) Talk about political reality shows! OK, fine, stay in Oregon then. Rumor has it that Trump’s triumph and his falling out with the Kochs has the brothers looking for other places to use their pledged $835 million war chest to influence politics in America in 2016. Oregon represents 1 percent of the nation’s population, so let’s assume the Kochs want to spend $8 million in Oregon. How would they spend it, and more importantly, on whom? Or on what ballot measures? At first glance, there are no easy targets. Sen. Ron Wyden won his last race in 2010 4 June 23, 2016 • eugeneweekly.com by 14 points, and our four Democratic members of Congress all have safe seats this cycle. And I’d be surprised if Republican Bud Pierce draws much attention in his run against Kate Brown. Pierce doesn’t excite the religious right wing of his party. Insiders speculate that Republicans will concede 2016 to Gov. Kate Brown, and they’re already prepping Knute Buehler to run against her in 2018. Oregon Republicans have a recent history of promoting physicians to run for statewide office without any previous political experience — Monica Wehby against Jeff Merkley last cycle, Knute in 2012 against Kate for secretary of state, and now Bud Pierce. It looks like Buehler has already started his 2018 bid for governor. The legislator from Bend recently called for Portland’s school board to fire its superintendent “pending an investigation into her incompetence” regarding lead discovered in the district’s buildings. This kind of rookie grandstanding is baffling coming from a guy whose do-nothing obstructionist Republican House caucus set a record for ineffectiveness in the 2015 session. His voting record begs the question of how much he cares for the children in his own district, much less the kids in Portland. So where do the Kochs go? Maybe the Oregon secretary of state race? It’s an open seat with no incumbent running. Republican Dennis Richardson fits the role model for the Kochs: ultra-conservative, self-righteous, anti-government, anti-choice, anti- public employee and a big fan of corporate wealth. You think Brad Avakian’s not aware of this threat? Initiative Petition 28 is another likely target of the Koch money. This tax measure could bring in as much as $2.5 billion a year, and it is aimed primarily at large corporations. Both sides in this battle claim they have polling favorable to their position. But it’s early, with a large undecided constituency. Standard logic says it’s easier to get a “no” vote from an undecided on a tax measure. So both sides will throw a lot of money at it. Stay tuned. Tony Corcoran is a retired state employee and former state senator.
