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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (March 9, 2017)
LET TERS tored teachers on a Navajo reservation, conducted policy research in Washington, D.C., and served as a principal in public, private and charter schools at the elemen- tary, middle and high school levels. Mary knows how to bring people to- gether. Seeing a divide between business and education, she started a course for teachers to learn about local business- es. Those businesses have learned more about our schools and the challenges teachers face. These collaborative experiences will help her bolster better career and techni- cal education (CTE) programs. CTE builds a critical bridge between school and the workplace. Just last night, I found her at a party talking with 4J teachers and the carpenters union about apprenticeship opportunities for students. Those partner- ships can extend into other sectors of the economy, from tech to healthcare. Mary is a champion for equity. Many 4J kids living in poverty go to schools mostly with other kids from poor families, severe- ly limiting their opportunities. 4J does not provide transportation for these children to access choice programs and does too little to enrich their public school experience. Mary’s experience gives her the tools to help us get to where we need to be. Please join me in supporting Mary for 4J. Marty Wilde Eugene VIEWPOINT OPIOID EPIDEMIC In a world stoked by amplified fears of ideology-based terrorism, the far greater threats to our public health and safety are not receiving their due discussion. Ac- cording to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention, 2015 alone saw more than 52,000 deaths from drug over- dose. The majority of these deaths involved prescription opioids like Oxycontin or Vicodin, or illegal drugs like heroin. The CDC has noted a 33 percent rise in over- doses over just the past five years. Now there is a new wave of synthetic opioids flooding into our country from China and elsewhere. Some of these, like carfentanil, are 10,000 times more potent than morphine, making for a perfect storm of overdosing. It is not surprising that people are seeking to escape from pain. Even aside from the misery associated with acute and chronic injuries or syndromes, our world presents us with demanding challenges in terms of emotional betrayals, financial pressures and political upheavals. We bad- ly need to find coping strategies that do not present a high risk for addiction and/or in- jury and death by overdose. The answer is not increased warfare, as evidenced by the completely failed War on Drugs. Throughout history, indigenous cultures have promoted ways of tapping into our own inner resources — ways that include initiation, meditation and prayer, community ritual, vision quests, use of medicinal plants and altruistic endeavors. These have all proven effective and safe over millennia for addressing the challeng- es that simply being alive can bring. We at the locally based Eugene Center for Ethnobotanical Studies (ECfES.org) are looking forward to making time-hon- ored remedies available to our community, as our organization’s mission continues to develop. Vip Short, Carolyn Adams Garcia, James Joseph, Michael Connelly, Barclay Powers, Prism Marlow and Nicki Scully Eugene Center for Ethnobotanical Studies PROFITS VS. HEALTH CARE “Repeal and replace” has been as catchy a phrase as “make America great again,” and neither has substance. The Republi- cans have had eight years to come up with a replacement for Obamacare, but nothing! We need to get real and face the fact that affordable, universal health care tied to the market is not possible. Even Obam- acare has suffered for lack of price con- trols and the soaring profits of what has become a cash cow industry, rather than a compassionate calling — that is, caring for the sick. Too much profit flows to private insurance and health care providers, even under Obamacare. I recently saw the billing for a friend’s elderly mother who had been in a local hospital for six days, including a hip re- placement. Her insurance company was billed $185,000 by the hospital. Does this need comment? Anything the Republicans come up with in a last ditch effort will be more of the same uncontrolled market-based health care and insurance that will take us back to bankruptcies, people going untreated and some even dying because of lack of care. Let’s seriously start talking about Medicare for all in which everyone is reg- istered via Social Security and everyone pays a fair premium included in taxes. Let’s finally lift the economic burden and inhumane consequence of treating health care as a commodity and start providing care for every American with a humane and cost-effective system. Russ DesAulnier Eugene DUMP CITY MANAGER RUIZ It has been almost 9 years since the hiring of Eugene City Manager Jon Ruiz. Since then, Eugeneans have voiced opin- ions on many key issues — and have been ignored. The replacement of the police station was twice voted down, but Ruiz went ahead. Despite a study showing its unpop- ularity, EmX continued on. The bike lane added to arguably our busiest street at its busiest stretch: Citizens BY VICKI EL MER What Can We Do About Trump? WE HAVE THE VOICE AND THE PEOPLE “T hey call them huddles, Vicki, not meetings,” my sister An- nabelle said over the phone. She was telling me about her weekend event with the L.A. Indivisible group that is organizing against Trump, and she was revved. This is my sister who was by my side in the ’60’s. She was a hippie artist with a long skirt, long hair, her baby girl cocked on her hip. We marched in New York, Washington and Chicago, and ran from the cops when we needed to — our substitute on weekends for football games. When Nixon invaded Cambodia I moved to San Francisco to join an urban commune. We didn’t know anyone then who voted for Nixon. Now, I don’t know anyone who voted for Donald Trump. So even though there are more of us, a terrible conservative darkness is settling over the country. It’s only been within the last month that it really sank in that Trump is really in the White House. During and after the election, I was in Nepal hiking in the high mountains on a 50-year reunion with Peace Corps friends with no cell phone and no internet. Then Christmas, the ice storms here in Eugene and a writing project kept my soul occupied until February, when it hit me hard. As more about Trump emerges — the $60 million in free money he made from a property sale in Florida to a Russian oligarch, the reality of his cabinet ap- pointees — crony capitalism, incompetents, maybe crooks, along with the swamp dwellers themselves, and his endorsement of deportation, gutting EPA and the State Department. I am pretty blue. I love our legislators from Eugene and Oregon. They are strong, outspoken and brave leaders of the opposition. But they are, in fact, the opposition, not the major- ity. 6 March 9, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com How can our state legislators hold back the tide of corruption, racism, mi- sogyny and the bully pulpit that our “bully in chief” holds? My first thought was that I should do whatever I can to see that Trump is im- peached. Or that Article 4 of the 25th Amendment is used where half the Cabinet members to say he is incapable of doing the job, and if he objects, throw it to the House and Senate for a 2/3rds vote. We know half the R’s think he’s impossible. But the voice in my mind says, then Pence would be president and he would sign every awful bill the R’s could send him. As the R’s in Congress continue to vote for Trump appointees no matter how dreadful and approve Trump’s agenda no matter how despicable, the grim reality hits me. We Dems are out of national political power. Completely and absolutely. Trump is our problem, but the Republicans are the only ones with the legal power to oust him. We Dems have to take care of our own house. We may be out of power legally, but we have the majority in the country. We have the voice and the people. I need to lend my energy to those who support that agenda. So who is that? What can I do? What should I do? After I talk to my sister, I go to the Indivisible website. I love it. I search for Indivisible Eugene. I find it. I log on to my Facebook account. I ask to join the Indivisible Eugene Facebook group. They accept me four hours later. “Vicki,” my L.A. sister had said, “you don’t have to solve the whole problem yourself. Join a group. We will win.” Vicki Elmer retired from the University of Oregon's Planning, Public Policy and Management department where she was the director of a graduate program in sustainability. She was city manager in Eugene many years ago, and now bikes, hikes and writes.
