letters
EW STILL GOING TO POT
Like, wow, just loved the 4/14 Eugene
Weedly, six full ad pages selling pot. Is
that an EW high?
Terrifi c front page and two inside
page tribute to actor Jim Belushi, 93-
acre Oregon pot farmer, brother of John
Belushi, the longtime daily pot smoker
who blasted through that proverbial
gateway to the hard stuff , a death via
speedball doses of cocaine and heroin.
Count me stoked!
Don McLean
Eugene
Editor’s Note: Jim Belushi has reiterated in multiple
interviews that he believes if his brother had been
self medicating by smoking cannabis he would not
have died.
APPOINT DI LIBERTO
TO 4J BOARD
When I was teaching full time, I
worked alongside Tom Di Liberto at the
middle school level. Di Liberto was a
leader in all respects — meaning he took
on responsibility — for many things in-
side and outside his classroom. He is
not the kind of person who waits to be
assigned tasks. He just naturally acts
responsibly on behalf of others. A man
of service.
This quality, along with his 30-plus
years of full time teaching, make him a
valuable asset as a school board mem-
ber.
Having come from teaching in Cali-
fornia in a district that had a very hos-
tile relationship between the board and
the teachers union, I was immediately
impressed with Di Liberto’s role in the
teachers union, Eugene Education As-
sociation. Respectful, competent, reli-
able, trustworthy and collaborative. Ex-
cellent. All essential to get the job done.
The board would be crazy not to appoint
Di Liberto to one of the recently vacated
seats on the Eugene School Board.
Sue Kilber
Eugene
TIMBER INTERESTS GET
CARTE BLANCHE IN OREGON
Great respect to Saint John Hunt
for his April 7 letter (“The Rape of Or-
egon”). Your awareness of an ugly clear-
cut indicates your good heart for our
environment and the forest habitat of
thousands of other species. You have
lived here and faced that hurt for two
years. I’ve lived here for 50 and have
become almost numb to the clearcut. I
S
W
E
BR &
BLUES ER
CHOWD
remember the one-log loads that were
commonplace back then, along with the
words of my old Coast Range friend and
logger, Tom Alexander, who at age 92
said, “ We never thought we would get it
all, but we did.”
The once-vast forests of western Or-
egon and the Pacifi c Northwest were re-
ferred to by Oregon State University sci-
entifi c studies as being more important
to the health of the planet than all of the
tropical forests combined. Meanwhile
the reductionist timber families speak
of the mono-cropped Doug-fi r planta-
tions as “forests,” counting the three-
year-old seedlings as though they con-
stitute such a complex, multi-layered
bio-sphere as true forests do.
Unfortunately, the freaky tragedy
of clearcut logging is not only what you
see. The layers upon layers of poison
herbicide that are applied to kill com-
peting vegetation end up in our water,
our bodies and wildlife are hidden. The
Forest Practices Act gives the timber
industry and the chemical and fi nancial
industries carte blanche to do as they
will with our precious forest lands.
Richard Gross
Deadwood
WHY NO DISCUSSION ABOUT
ARMITAGE PARK?
On Tuesday, April 12, there was a
public meeting with Lane County Parks.
Only a handful of the public attended,
while there were at least eight staff
members present. The meeting was to
“discuss” the plans for expanding the
campground at Armitage Park. The
majority of the time was spent on the
presentation, and we were told what a
thoughtful plan this was. While they
claimed they wanted feedback, they
were not prepared to answer questions,
and one of the staff members actually
stifl ed feedback.
Armitage Park is a gem of a park, but
it is also a small park. Why are camp-
ground spaces being prioritized that
will primarily serve non-county resi-
dents over preserving the open space
in the park? The county staff acknowl-
edged that the additional 21 spaces will
not even begin to meet the demand for
campground spaces. There are many
magnifi cent old trees in the park, and
a huge area of the park will be under
asphalt and concrete if this plan goes
through. It is dependent on funding, but
why is there no discussion about why
april 25- may 1
20+ coastal breweries, tons of chowder & live music! 777 w. 6th ave. beergardenme.com
E U G E N E W E E K LY . C O M
A P R I L
2 1 ,
2 0 2 2
3