LET TERS
ORPHANED ANIMALS
Excuse me, but I was just wondering …
Would it be at all possible to some way
check the empty University of Oregon stu-
dent housing apartments, dwellings, etc.,
for any “pets” abandoned this graduation
season?
Please let “us” not let it happen again.
S. Parnelle
Fall Creek
MERKLEY IN 2020
I want to give Kudos to Eugene Weekly
for endorsing, in your Slant column (July
6), Oregon’s own U.S. Senator Jeff Merk-
ley to run for president.
I’ve listened to Merkley speak a num-
ber of times, and he is by far one of the
most intelligent and pragmatic leaders that
we currently have in government. More
importantly, he is focused on the key issues
of today that affect everyone. He is truly a
man of the people, who would fight to do
what is right instead of bowing to special
interests, as so many politicians today do.
Merkley stood alone among senators in
supporting presidential candidate Bernie
Sanders. He recognized the many faults
Hillary Clinton had, and how she could not
inspire the nation the way Obama did. The
WikiLeaks revelations of how the Demo-
cratic Party’s National Committee did all
it could to secretly support Clinton and
also sabotage the Sanders campaign is a
disgrace that the party still needs to further
address.
This can only be done with new leader-
ship at the very top, and I am confident that
Jeff Merkley would be the best person for
that job.
Vote Merkley 2020!
Lance Jacobs
Springfield
THE BARK AND THE BITE
The Weekly article “Forest for the
Trees” (June 22) missed many important
facts I supplied during our interview.
The quote “It makes no ecological or
economic sense” attributed to me failed to
mention that attached to this statement is
the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)
data showing less than 2 percent of Or-
egon‘s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is
derived from the wood products industry.
In fact, if one looks deeper at timber
harvest statistics for Oregon in 2014, less
than 12.5 percent of all timber volume is
derived from federal public lands. That
means of that roughly 2 percent of GDP
less than 0.1 percent of Oregon’s GDP is
from logging on federal public lands.
Our statements that Oregon’s old
growth forests can store up to 1,000 tons
of carbon per acre, thus a great mitigation
strategy to address the climate crisis, did
not attain mention.
The article did not mention that the
McKenzie River is the sole source for Eu-
gene’s municipal water, according to the
McKenzie Watershed Council, and that
two large springs with a flow of about 30
This American Life
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July 13, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com
gallons per minute each will be impacted
by a planned logging road.
Finally, the article does not mention our
long-term goal is designating all public
forestlands as biological and carbon re-
serves for human survival.
Shannon Wilson
Eugene
WHERE TO PARK?
Some Eugene folks want to re-build
Civic Stadium, but no one has mentioned
parking. Where are all the patrons going to
park? Still hopping the curb to park on a
grassy lot that isn’t meant for parking? Or
filling the neighboring streets?
You backers of Civic, have you thought
about parking at all? It hasn’t been men-
tioned, that I’ve seen.
Jan Gardner
Eugene
ON WALDEN POND SCUM
Hats off to Eugene Weekly writer Ca-
milla Mortensen for one of the best pieces
of political reporting in recent memory,
about Republican U.S. Rep. Greg Walden
(“Not Mr. Nice Guy,” May 25).
Not many Oregonians know that
Walden was the author and chief advo-
cate of TrumpCare, perhaps better known
as WaldenCare, that will throw 23 million
Americans off health insurance rolls be-
fore 2020.
It is sad that one of Trump’s biggest
boosters and enablers is ensconced in Ore-
gon’s Second Congressional District. Like
Trump, he is truly an embarrassment to the
values most Oregonians hold dear.
I am hopeful that Second Congressional
District voters will rise up to Walden and
his shenanigans and insist on accountabil-
ity. His effort to hide from his constituents
— by playing cat-and-mouse games — is
pathetic. His duplicity of saying one thing
to his constituents while promoting an alt-
right agenda in Congress is appalling.
Opponents in the Second District smell
blood. I was pleased to see that several
possible worthy opponents are checking
out the possibility of sending Walden back
to Hood River for good, where he can’t do
any more harm.
Kim R. Smith
Eugene
STAINING OF THE SHREWD
Of the many inconsistent observations
made in “Taming of the Shrewd” (June 29)
— none of which were well-supported
or well-researched — I gleaned that the
author is a self-hating, white, affluent in-
tellectual arguing that the Oregon Shake-
speare Festival’s support of diversity is
deceitful because they alert theatergoers to
the nearby homeless population and don’t
provide $1 tickets to transient populations.
I’m surprised EW printed this.
Talk to any actor in America. OSF of-
fers the best regional theater contracts you
can find: 6 to 9 months of paid work in a
world where you are lucky to have a month