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.