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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (June 15, 2017)
LET TERS NO HUNGRY KIDS What does it mean when 53 percent of children and youth in Lane County are eligible for free lunch programs (“Summer Safety Net,” June 8)? With one in five chil- dren in America living in homes in pov- erty, this is not just a local problem but a national one. And the current response from budget proposals by the President and the Speaker of the House is to drastically cut the SNAP (formerly food stamp) program. Instead, we need to fully fund this pro- gram while we deal with the underlying causes. Our calls and letters to our rep- resentatives about this dire situation can make a difference. Have you got five min- utes to make a call? Millions of American children are de- pending on us, along with the future of our country. Willie Dickerson Snohomish, Wash. of some Alien movie or another (June 1) compelled me. First off, I love the juxtaposed irony of the first letter writer calling him a triggered liberal and the next one calling him a mi- sogynist. Very telling of our times, no? I was just thinking a week earlier that Levin’s take on Venus in Furs (“Masoch- ism is as Masochism Does,” May 25) was one of the most exhilarating, engag- ing reviews I’ve read in a while. I’ve been following his writing in the Weekly for some time, and in both his features and his reviews, he’s one of the best writers you’ve got. There must be many readers who feel the same way, but I suspect we’re not the type to write accusatory letters to editors all that often. Keep Levin anyway, please. Bobbi Scully Leaburg NO FRIENDS OF PARKS? DON’T BLAME THE REPUBLICANS Mr. Corcoran’s legislative lament is hu- morous (“No Special Session,” June 8). He usually is. However, the failure of the legislative session has not been caused by Republican obsession with the 2018 governor’s race, as he claims, but rather the Democrats’ unwillingness to vote on any important is- sues. Last I looked, Democrats outnumbered Republicans 17-13 in the Senate and 35- 25 in the House. If the Dems really want to make necessary changes for the good of the state, they should introduce bills they think will accomplish those ends. They have the votes, what’s the problem? Ah, the 2018 governor’s race… Rick Roseta Eugene DON’T DUMP LEVIN YET I don’t often write letters to editors, but the two responses to Rick Levin’s review - ten glu fre e o ptio ns • vege tarian sg -friendly • no dairy • no m Upon discovering trees flagged along the East Summit trail on Mt. Pisgah last spring, I inquired with Friends of Buford Park to find out what was going on. They relayed that Friends and Lane County Parks would be logging out about 30 to 40 acres of Douglas fir, oaks and maples around a few oaks and pines. I relayed my personal observation of so-called “oak restoration” that Friends and Lane County Parks completed on the adjacent 20 acres in 2012: “It looks like an Armenian blackberry and Scotch broom covered clearcut.” They said, “Well, the timing didn’t work out for prescribed burning.” Then Friends stated they’ll likely have to spray poisons in attempts to knock down the sprawling exotic plant invasion created by logging. As a result of my inquiries and input, they apparently had some public meetings last summer to discuss this but neglected to in- vite me even though they had my contact information. The logging is now done. 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For the past several years, my friends and I have been the only ones maintaining the East Summit trail and removing Scotch broom from small meadows. Now that one of my favorite hiking places has been severely degraded, I’d ask Friends of Buford Park and Lane County Parks to manually remove the Scotch broom literally taking over the eastern flanks of Mount Pisgah and maintain the East Summit trail for now on. Shannon Wilson Eugene A TALE OF TWO CITIES Our civilization is in decline. We’ve used up the wealth of the land that the na- tive people tended for millennia. The elite continue to extract from workers and the land. People with money are pouring into the beautiful Northwest, the last land to be spoiled, displacing locals. People with medical costs and other vulnerable people are losing their houses and jobs. Some start using meth. Hopeless, desperate Orego- nians are camping in parks, wandering lost on the streets, trying to survive. It might seem counterintuitive, but we must make life better at the bottom of soci- ety or we will be living in a degraded, dan- gerous town. When people have nothing to lose, when they have guns, when they’re addicted to drugs, when the only comfort and family they can find is a gang, we can try to deal with the problem by locking them up. But they tend to come out worse. We spend more energy and money pun- ishing than it costs to make real change! We need rent control. We need many small co-operative camps with communi- ty centers, with educational options, with gardens, tools, tiny shops, treatment pro- grams, performance venues. We will make the bottom of society more stable, or we will all suffer. Turning away, punishing the poor, kicking our neighbors to the curb, making gated neighborhoods, will put us all in a prison-like town. Kari Johnson Eugene BUILDING A BETTER FUTURE As a Eugene architect, one of my key goals is designing sustainable buildings for current and future generations that will live and work in the structures I’ve created. A sustainable and resilient built environment is one of the best solutions we have to combat the effects of climate change. That’s why I’m so concerned about President Trump’s plan to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement. A total of 195 countries — including the U.S. — adopted this first-ever universal climate deal in 2015 that sets out a global action plan to put the world on track to avoid dan- gerous climate change. Architects have a unique role to play in achieving the Paris Agreement’s goals. Ac- cording to the U.S. Department of Energy, buildings are responsible for 73 percent of all electricity consumption in the U.S., with about half of that coming from com- mercial buildings. American architects are focused on de- signing buildings that are energy efficient and, in some cases, nearly carbon neu- tral. We have worked hand-in-hand with the federal government to help make our profession and country competitive global leaders in the quest for an energy efficient built environment. Withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement is a major step back for Ameri- ca’s global leadership in sustainable design. Jan F. Fillinger Eugene SUFFRAGE THE LITTLE CHILDREN The city of Eugene has the chance to lead the nation as the U.S. pulls out of the Paris Accords. Of course, we should re- double efforts to meet goals of the Climate
