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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 7, 2015)
4A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL October 7, 2015 O PINION LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Of the people? As I listen to the news and the way the legal systems rule in controversies, I wonder why a few people can complain about something and the whole world caters to their whims. Stores will change a whole department to please someone who complains that they should not have “pink for girls and blue for boys”. But if 20 people want it to stay “pink for girls and blue for boys”, the store will not leave it that way. WHY? It does not matter the subject: from department stores, baker- ies or personal choices like mar- riage, the Congress, judges and even the president will cater to these few, while the majority suffer because their rights are violated. What has become of the com- mon-sense that those in lead- ership used to have? What has happened to the right to be mor- ally decent, to speak the truth, to make a choice? The lawmakers and those in authority seem to cave in to the homosexual, the atheist, the rad- ical environmentalist and those who want to legalize drugs, etc. The judges seem to rule in favor of these few who seem to be- lieve everything that God says is wrong. Those in authority make decisions in favor of the few and seem to think that the rest of us (the majority) have no rights. When did we become so blind and lose our freedoms? Who gave judges the right to make laws? It is not in the Constitu- tion. It really scares me to hear wash on Main Street, the Nise- wanders are offering up an idea of how to make our community a better place to live and play. I also applaud Amanda Ferguson and other City of Cottage Grove planners for supporting the idea. Thank you all so much for pro- posing a creative, great idea to make our town just a little bit better. I’ve never met Stephen or Mary Nisewander, but I hope the Cottage Grove Chamber of Commerce considers them for its Citizen of the Year award. I care about Cottage Grove’s economic vitality and about the broad view of having a healthy community. I frequently partici- pate in several local leadership groups. Consistently, I’m left with the impression that Cot- tage Grove has a lot of leaders – folks who want to help our town be safe, vital and fun. By proposing a dog park on their own land behind the car to a party, and Homer crashed it. He managed to catch her eye while avoiding her brothers and coaxed her into coming outside with him. When her brothers realized she was missing, they raced for home, fearing there had been another elopement. In response, Charles Powell grabbed an old Winchester .44- 40 cowboy carbine, mounted up and galloped toward the house. When he got there, he dis- mounted from his horse, and at that moment, he heard Homer Roper’s voice coming from a nearby shed. It shouted, “I’ve got the drop on you!” Powell whipped around in the direction of the voice and fi red into the shed. Homer, apparent- ly panicking, ran out of the shed where Powell could see him. Powell fi red two more shots. Both of them passed through Homer Roper’s head. The young man’s last words, they soon learned, had been a bluff. He’d been unarmed. The resulting murder trial was the fi rst in 13 years at Linn County. In the end, after a short deliberation, the jury acquitted him, and once again the news- papers got the chance to shout of another victory for The Un- written Law. But the obvious element of self-defense was not an insignifi cant part of Powell’s story; after all, when a man yells from cover that he’s “got the drop on you,” he can’t re- ally complain if the fellow he’s shouting at assumes he’s about to get shot at and reacts accord- ingly. Moreover, this killing oc- curred in defense of a daughter’s safety rather than the “sanctity of a home.” The same was true, even more egregiously, in the 1908 case of a farmer from the Malheur County town of Ironsides named John Brown. Brown was having a rough year. His wife had left him fi ve months before, leaving their fi ve young daughters in his care; the oldest of these was Bessie, who was just 13 or 14 years old. About fi ve months after Mrs. Brown left the family, Bessie came to see her father. She told him a family friend, Bill Wis- dom, had been sexually molest- ing her since she was 11 years old. “At fi rst, she did not know what it meant,” Brown told a newspaper reporter later. “When she got older, he made her do worse, and she began to real- ize more as she grew older what he was doing. Finally he got so brutal and unnatural that she made up her mind that she could not stand the life any longer, and she came and told me.” John Brown was momentarily at a loss. He came to town to talk to another friend, Ike Whitely. Whitely’s advice was very sen- sible: The damage was done, he pointed out, and any public- ity would further traumatize the innocent girl. He urged Brown to leave the matter to him. He, Whitely, would confront Wis- dom and tell him to leave the area and never return. Brown accepted this offer with thanks. The next day Brown was in town again and saw that a fl ock of ducks had settled in a pond near town. Quickly he made his way to the general store and asked the owner, Ike Nichols, if he might borrow a shotgun. Nichols got one out, loaded it up and handed it over. Just then the door opened and Bill Wisdom walked into that my freedom of choice has been taken away and I did not even get to have a say or vote on it. Is America truly no longer a free nation? Is our government no longer a government of the people by the people? Fayrene Barkemeyer Cottage Grove Dog park kudos Tom Wheeler Cottage Grove CONTACT YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS Cottage Grove City Hall: 942-5501. www.cottagegrove.org/ Garland Burback, Ward 3: 942-4800 Amy Slay, Ward 4: 541-942-5501. Cottage Grove Mayor Tom Munroe: 942-5501. Lane County Commissioners: Cottage Grove City Councilors: 900 Court Street NE Suite H-379 Salem, OR 97301 Phone: (503) 986-1407 Fax: (503) 986-1130 Email: rep.cedrichayden@ state.or.us Oregon State Senate: Faye Stewart, East Lane Commissioner. Lane County Public Service Building Mike Fleck, At Large: 942-7302 Heather Murphy, At Large: 942-3444 125 East 8th Street Eugene, OR 97401 Phone: (541) 682-4203 Fax: (541) 682-4616 Jake Boone, Ward 1: 653-7413 Oregon State House of Representatives: Jeff Gowing, Ward 2: 942-1900 Sen. Floyd Prozanski (DEM) District: 004 900 Court Street NE Suite S-319 Salem, OR 97301-0001 Phone: (503) 986-1704 Fax: (503) 986-1080 Email: sen.fl oydprozanski@ state.or.us Rep. Cedric Hayden (REP) District: 7 Offbeat Oregon History The Unwritten Law wasn’t always a disastrous moral failure BY FINN J.D. JOHN The Unwritten or the Sentinel Law Files F This column is one of a series of case studies of the early-20th-century mania for honor killings in Oregon. It was popularly known as “The Unwritten Law,” and it was a social convention that permitted a man to mur- der anyone whom he knew to be working to seduce his wife or sister. Unwrit- ten Law cases arose around the country in the 1890s and were alarmingly common until around the time of the First World War. Today’s column discusses two cases that were widely reported as Unwritten Law verdicts, both of which are as close to being success stories for the doctrine as it was possible to fi nd. By 1908, most Oregonians’ views on the Unwritten Law were hardening into suspicious disapproval. Just one year earlier, citizens had burst into spontaneous ap- plause in the courtroom when Orlando Murray was acquitted of murdering his sister’s ex-boy- friend. Since that time, though, suspicions had been growing that things were getting out of hand. The newspapers found the trend rather frightening and didn’t hesitate to say so. Defen- dants were still getting acquitted because of the Unwritten Law — but it was getting noticeably harder for cases to qualify for its protection. Take, for example, the case of Charles J. Powell’s trial in Linn County that year. Powell was a prosperous and well-respected farmer near Brownsville and a grandson of legendary pioneer preacher “Uncle Joab” Powell. He had a 15-year-old daughter, Leah, who had attracted the at- tentions of a 22-year-old Lo- thario named Homer Roper. Powell didn’t favor the match, so he barred young Homer from the house. In good Romeo and Juliet style, therefore, Homer secretly met up with Leah and the two of them eloped to Pilot Rock, out in Eastern Oregon. Things must not have gone well, because after they had been living together there for a week, Powell learned where the young couple were — prob- ably because she contacted him, although the newspapers don’t specify — and traveled to see them. When he arrived, the two were still not married, so Powell was able to collect his daughter and bring her back home. But then Homer came back to Brownsville and renewed his attentions to Leah. He was per- sistent and furtive. Powell com- plained to the police, who tried in vain to help. This went on for several weeks. Finally, on the evening of Jan. 28, Leah went with her brothers Please see OFFBEAT, Page 6A Is chocolate heart-healthy? Depends how you eat it BY JOEL FUHRMAN, MD For the Sentinel W here does chocolate come from? A darkly colored bean – so of course, unprocessed cacao beans are brimming with antioxidant nu- trients. Accordingly, chocolate consumption has been associ- ated with reduced risk of heart disease and stroke. Cocoa and dark chocolate have been investigated as a treat- $ PUUBHF ( SPWF 4 FOUJOFM 116 N. Sixth Street · P.O. Box 35 · Cottage Grove, OR 97424 ADMINISTRATION: JOHN BARTLETT, Regional Publisher.............................. GARY MANLY, General Manager................942-3325 Ext. 207 • publisher@cgsentinel.com ROBIN REISER, Sales Repersentative...............942-3325 Ext. 203 • robin@cgsentinel.com E. 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No subscription for less than Ten Weeks. Subscription rates are subject to change upon 30 days’ notice. All subscritptions must be paid prior to beginning the subscription and are non-refundable. Periodicals postage paid at Cottage Grove, Oregon. Postmaster: Send address changes to P.O. Box 35, Cottage Grove, OR 97424. Local Mail Service: If you don’t receive your Cottage Grove Sentinel on the Wednesday of publication, please let us know. Call 942-3325 between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. Advertising ownership: All advertising copy and illustrations prepared by the Cottage Grove Sentinel become the property of the Cottage Grove Sentinel and may not be reproduced for any other use without explicit written prior approval. Copyright Notice: Entire contents ©2015 Cottage Grove Sentinel. ment option for elevated blood pres- sure, but only small decreases in blood pres- sure were reported. Similarly, regular dark chocolate consump- tion results in small decreases in cholesterol levels. Flavonoids (antioxidants present in choco- late and many other plant foods) do indeed provide cardiovascu- lar protection — high fl avonoid intake is associated with consid- erable reductions (up to 45 per- cent) in the risk of heart disease. The main point to remember is that when you eat healthfully you are eating a large variety of fl avonoid-rich foods, berries for example. Certainly, you can enjoy some chocolate as a part of a healthful eating style – but how you enjoy your chocolate is important. A milk chocolate bar is roughly only one-third chocolate and two-thirds added fat and sugar. Dark chocolate bars have a higher cocoa content and less added sugar, but they also deliv- er a signifi cant load of calories and saturated fat. A great way to enjoy chocolate is by using unsweetened cocoa powder. Most of the fat has been re- moved, but the chocolate fl avor and the fl avonoids remain. Add cocoa powder to smoothies (like the chocolate cherry smoothie below), or to blended frozen ba- nanas or cherries for a healthy chocolate “ice cream”. Or try making black bean brownies or muffi ns sweetened with dates or a healthy choco- late cake with hidden shredded vegetables. You can fi nd recipes like these on the DrFuhrman. com Member Center or in my books. Keep in mind, when you fol- low a high nutrient eating style of vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, and seeds, the polyphenols in cocoa are only a trivial amount of the loads of phytochemicals provided by your overall health- promoting diet. Enjoy your chocolate by mak- ing delicious treats without add- ed fats and sugars! Chocolate Cherry Smoothie (serves 2) 2 ounces organic baby spinach 2 ounces Boston lettuce 1/2 cup unsweetened soy, hemp or almond milk 1/2 cup pomegranate juice, cherry juice or cherry pome- granate juice 1 tablespoon Dr. Fuhrman’s Cocoa Powder or other natural cocoa powder, not Dutch pro- cessed 1 cup frozen cherries 1 banana 1 cup frozen blueberries 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 tablespoons ground fl ax seeds Instructions: If using a regu- lar blender, liquefy the spinach with non-dairy milk and juice. Add remaining ingredients and blend about two minutes until very smooth. If using a high powered blender, blend all at once. Dr. Fuhrman is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eat to Live and Super Immu- nity, and a board certifi ed family physician specializing in life- style and nutritional medicine. Visit his informative website at DrFuhrman.com. Submit your questions and comments about this column directly to newsquestions@drfuhrman. com. 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