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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 21, 2023)
letters WILL THE VOTERS GET TO DECIDE? NO PUBLIC BAILOUT FOR MLB MILLIONAIRES I’d like to thank Michelle Holman and Kai Huschke for their insightful and powerful Viewpoint on Nov. 30, “Making Democracy Illegal: The increasing attacks on citizen initiative power.” It provokes some questions. What will happen with the Protect Lane County Watersheds initiative, currently being circulated for signature gathering? Will it be successful in getting to the ballot? Will it get the votes needed to make it into law? Will that law be contested in court? Our water and community would be well served by the proposed protections in this initiative. Let's give it our best, Lane County! See ProtectLaneCountyWatersheds.org. Katie Geiser Eugene Let me get this straight: Our local minor league baseball team would like hefty contributions from local, county, state and even federal taxpayers to build a $100 million stadium right next to an established residential neighborhood. The story we’re told is that Major League Baseball (MLB) will not pay for the stadium; if we want a team here we need to foot the bill. Well, here’s what MLB recently announced they will pay for: a $700 million, 10-year contract for a player named Shohei Ohtani. This means that, averaged over the 10 years, this person gets $70 million a year, $5.8 million a month, $1.3 million a week, $192,000 a day. And that’s just one player! Yet they ask us to pay for a stadium. I fi nd that insulting. I look forward to voting no on any ballot measure asking for stadium funds. Steve Hering Eugene YET ANOTHER LAWLESS TIMBER GRAB The Warner Creek road blockade — declared the “Cascadia Free State” — in 1995-96 was a coalescing of a deep ecological resistance movement brought about by then-President Bill Clinton’s enactment of the lawless Logging Rider in 1995 to log and clearcut million acres of our national forests. Road blockades and tree sits against Clinton’s lawless timber grab proceeded for 10 more years. Twenty-eight years forward, President Joe Biden and the U.S. Forest Service have enacted a new “Lawless Logging Timber Grab” upon 45 million acres of national forests across the country using the Orwellian guise of “wildfi re risk reduction” and “restoration” to again log and clearcut our last ancient forests. The provisions were snuck into the Infrastructure Act of 2021. If allowed to proceed, this new timber grab upon our national forests will release an estimated 4 gigatons of carbon equivalent by 2030, which would completely wipe out any gains the Biden administration has enacted against climate upheaval. Will the people of Cascadia and beyond defend their homeland and biosphere by beating back Biden’s lawless timber grab like citizens did from 1995 to 2000? Defending and preserving our last ancient forests will create real gains in curtailing the looming ecological and climate collapse. Shannon Wilson Glenwood E U G E N E W E E K LY . C O M THE U.S. STANDS ALONE IN OPPOSING A CEASE-FIRE What keeps me up at night is all the children buried alive under the rubble in Gaza. They live right now, trapped in utter terror and desperation, waiting for rescue. Right now they cry, hoping someone will hear them. This is the fate of dozens, maybe hundreds, of Palestinians. Our country stands alone in its vote to continue the violence. The hypocrisy of our veto against a global consensus for cease fi re is plain for all to see. Whatever tenuous lie we feed ourselves in the isolation of the American perspective will bear only poison fruit. Until one day we may fi nd our own children screaming in the darkness under the rubble, and wonder how the world can sleep at night knowing of such injustice. I can no longer sleep soundly as an American. Not because of some privileged self interest for my own kin and country, but because nothing could ever persuade me to set aside empathy for any child suff ering alone in darkness. All the world, save our narrow Anglo- Israeli alliance, acknowledges that same human empathy. This is the line in the sand which all of conscience should rush to fi nd themselves on the right side of. It’s the right side of history, which opposes selfi sh and short-sighted political interests that any free people should turn their backs on. I turn my back on this America, and I pray we can look our own children in the eye if we allow the totality of this genocide to unfold. Eric Howanietz Eugene THANKS FOR GIVING US AN OPINION FORUM As the year comes to a close, I want to thank Eugene Weekly for the incredible opinion forum they provide for our letters. Current opinions include the confl ict in Gaza, the mayoral campaign, health care, the need for the astrology column. Many of us learn from the points of view of others, on national issues like renewing the expanded Child Tax Credit, local issues like elections, global issues like the End TB Now Act and confl icts like Gaza. And this is just one aspect of a very informative and entertaining local paper. Let’s continue to share our ideas and speak up in response to others, this supports the paper and our democracy! Willie Dickerson Snohomish, Washington FOCUS ON KINDNESS FOR THE HOLIDAYS With so much fear, chaos, wars and hateful voices, my sense of sadness turned to hope as I once again watched It’s a Wonderful Life, seeing George Bailey, in his darkest hour, rescued by his neighbors and singing “We’ll take a cup of kindness yet for Auld Lang Syne.” I can choose kindness instead of complaining or shutting others out of my life. I have my wonderful neighborhood, where we come from diff erent countries and backgrounds but care for each other through thick and thin. My UMC faith community has “Open Hearts, Open Doors.” Health Care for All Oregon is leading the way to a simplifi ed health care system with everybody in and nobody out. I can work with these folks and groups that are seeking peace, justice, hope and health for all, thus not contributing to the anger, hate and sadness in our country and world. As a 94-year-old retired nurse, I am hopeful that we'll all share cups of kindness as our gift to family, friends and even with those we may not agree with this holiday season. Shirley Kingsbury Eugene D E C E M B E R 2 1 , 2 0 2 3 3
