Eugene weekly., October 21, 2021, Page 3, Image 3

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NO ONE IS SPILLING
BLOOD AT 4J
The Eugene Weekly Slant take on
the District 4J administrator boycott
of board meetings (10/14) was a bit over
the top. “Spilling blood”? Come now.
I invite readers to listen to the audio
recordings of past 4J board meetings
to see if you hear a lack of “courtesy
and respect.” What you will hear are
board members doing the work of criti-
cal thinking and simply asking serious
questions, including follow-up ques-
tions, in order to make quality decisions.
This has not been the norm in 4J or
many other school boards. The usual
pattern is a presentation by district ad-
ministrators followed by a few perfunc-
tory questions. Boards tend to trust,
sometimes far too much, whatever the
district “professionals” say.
But this tendency to rubber stamp
district practices and policies has come
at a cost. This is, in large measure, how
we have become a solid but conventional
district; how teaching and learning have
become dominated by standardized
testing and data-hoovering; how curric-
ulum and instruction have become in-
creasingly standardized and dictated to
teachers — minimizing teacher creativ-
ity and innovation; how the humanities
have become sidelined because they are
not “tested”; and how many dynamic
teachers have become dispirited and
have left the job they loved.
It’s way past time to question the top-
down, standardize and test path we’ve
been on for 20 years. It is the ethical im-
perative of conscientious school board
members to ask questions that deserve
to be asked. I applaud the board mem-
bers who are bravely doing their job.
Roscoe Caron
Eugene
DON’T USE
METHANE AT THE NEW Y
The community eagerly awaits the
construction of the new YMCA facility
at 24th and Hilyard. However, many in
the city are concerned with the plan to
install a methane gas domestic water
heating boiler system when clean elec-
tricity systems are available.
Eighty-seven percent of fossil gas is
made up of methane which is 84 per-
cent more potent than carbon dioxide
in a 20-year period and it has caused
30 percent of global heating. Methane
gas contributes to asthma in children
when burned indoors on cooktops and
other appliances, which is a concern of
parents whose children use the day care
facilities.
The City of Eugene Climate Action
Plan and the Governor’s Executive
Order 20-04 require greenhouse gas
reduction goals by 2030, and yet $25
million of public state funds will be pro-
viding a 25 to 40-year methane gas sys-
tem in the new YMCA.
I urge you to voice your concerns to
the CEO of the YMCA opposing the use
E U G E N E W E E K LY . C O M
of methane gas in the new facility. Be
a good ancestor and don’t let the new
YMCA contribute to climate change.
Jim Neu
350.Eug Volunteer
Eugene
DON’T TRUST BIG PHARMA?
GET THE SHOT ANYWAY
I want to address the ongoing vaccine
skepticism in our area. Although most
hospitals needing portable morgue trucks
to handle the overflow are deep in Trump
country, the situation here is different.
I believe that people here don't trust the
vaccine because, like me, they know that
the leaders of Big Pharma, like the leaders
of most huge corporations, are corrupt,
greedy idiots who the entire planet would
be better off without. Think of the oil com-
pany execs who knew, and hid, the dangers
of climate change, for decades, in order to
enrich themselves and their cronies.
However, I want to point out that
those at the top of Big Pharma are not
scientists! In fact they have nothing
to do with the science; they are simply
masters of exploiting the work and dis-
coveries of others, to enrich themselves
and their shareholders.
The highly intelligent, highly educated,
highly skilled scientists, researchers, lab
techs, etc., who dedicated themselves to
creating vaccines that would get us out of
this pandemic have nothing in common
with the fools at the top, and it is a damn
shame that their heroic, and amazingly suc-
cessful efforts on our behalf are being sabo-
taged by people’s distrust of their bosses.
Meanwhile, those of us with extreme-
ly vulnerable people in our lives are
forced to remain hyper-vigilant, as we
have been for 19 months already.
Please join the many millions of us,
including most of the people you know,
and get vaccinated, if only for the sake
of those that can't.
Rick Moser
Eugene
CARBON SLEIGHT OF HAND
Can someone with even a whit of sci-
entific knowledge explain how buying a
piece of well-managed ground a state
away somehow ameliorates the carbon
output from within Eugene's boundar-
ies?
It is financial flimflam at its finest. In
medieval times such things were called
indulgences. Sorry, Eugene, but to
paraphrase a famous saying, “Your in-
dulgences smell the same as everybody
else's.”
Please don't emulate big businesses.
Take care of your pollution the right way
by working to truly reduce it at home.
Eric Sprado
Deadwood
MIDDLE HOUSING IS THE KEY
I’m an architect based in Eugene,
and if you’re curious about the implica-
tions of “middle housing,” I’d encourage
you to walk through any of the century-
H
ON SALE NOW H
OCT 31: SUPERTASK
NOV 4: HOT BUTTERED RUM
THE MUDDY SOULS
NOV 5: CUCHULAIN
THE HOLY SMOKES H EWEB
NOV 6: TERRAPIN FLYER
NOV 7: OHGESSY
TICKET HOLDERS MUST PROVIDE PROOF OF FULL
VACCINATION (+14 DAYS) OR A NEGATIVE PCR TEST
NO LATER THAN 48 HOURS PRIOR TO SHOW IN
ORDER TO ATTEND. MASKS ARE REQUIRED. FOR
COMPLETE INFORMATION AND UPDATES PLEASE
GO TO WWW.WOWHALL.ORG. TICKET HOLDING
PATRONS WILL BE INFORMED OF ANY CHANGES
VIA THE EMAIL USED AT TICKETWEB.
O C T O B E R
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