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
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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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