4A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL May 25, 2016
O PINION
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Thank you all
re: Park meeting
On Friday, May 13, my mom
and I enjoyed “Singin' in the
Rain” at Cottage Grove High
School.
As we were leaving, my 89
year-old mother had a bad fall
in the bus lane and was taken
by ambulance to McKenzie
Willamette Hospital, where she
had CT scans, X-rays and nine
stitches. Her face and hands
were badly damaged but, luck-
ily, there were no broken bones.
Everyone at the scene was
so concerned, kind and helpful
— calling 911, offering sweat-
ers and blankets, rides, etc., but
especially Laurie, helping with
rides, and a young man named
Mac who had served two tours
in Afghanistan.
He took control of the situ-
ation, rendering aid, using his
leather coat on which to rest
my mom’s head and keeping us
calm. He did not leave until af-
ter the ambulance had departed.
Sometimes it is easy to get
discouraged with today’s soci-
ety, but watching the wonderful
kids at the school and seeing the
kindness of so many strangers
makes one realize how lucky we
are.
It is a joy to call Cottage
Grove home and to see fi rsthand
how wonderful people are.
Thank you all so very much,
Well, the “Main Street Vam-
pire Plan” has risen from its
coffi n yet again. A public meet-
ing was held at the Armory on
Tuesday, May 17. A second and
fi nal meeting was scheduled to
be a “charrette” one week later
with the City Planner, the new
architect and “stakeholders,”
whoever they are. The intended
victim is Opal Park, again.
A modest crowd of Cottage
Grove citizens attended to lis-
ten to a presentation by the
City Planner and a landscape
architect hired by the planner.
Amanda Ferguson explained to
the audience that this will be a
‘listening’ meeting where we
can discuss what we would like
to see done or not done to Opal
Park.
This was met with audible and
well deserved skepticism, anger
and distrust. This is because last
year the city planner and city
council ignored protests, testi-
mony, a huge petition drive and
the objection of the majority of
business owners and passed the
“Main Street Refi nement Plan”
anyway.
Marston Morgan AIA, a lo-
cal architect who designed
Opal Park free of charge, gave
a detailed presentation about the
park illustrated with photos and
drawings. The original planning
and thoughts about the design
were fully explained.
Morgan exposed an obscene
faux pas by the city in point-
ing out that when the work of
an architect is being considered
Becky Walter
Betty Berny
Cottage Grove
for change, improvement, re-
fi nement, or destruction, then
the original architect should be
involved so that he can illustrate
the original thoughts and aim
of his work. The hired architect
admitted after the meeting that
he did not know that Morgan,
a colleague, designed the park,
nor did he know the history of
the park and admitted ignorance
of who Opal Whitely was. He
was given seven days to come
up with a design.
Two walls were covered with
Offbeat Oregon History
The Jackson County Rebellion:
Llewellyn Banks comes to power
BY FINN J.D. JOHN
For the Sentinel
T
he year of 1932 hit the Rogue
River Valley as hard as it hit any-
place. That year was the psychological
nadir of the Great Depression – a year
of bank closures, suicides, hunger and
civil unrest. Across most of the nation,
as historian Jeff LaLande points out,
the national mood was mostly one of
bewilderment rather than anger … but
most of the nation didn’t have two lo-
cal newspapers doing their level best to
crystallize that bewilderment into bitter
hatred against local political leaders.
Jackson County did. And Jackson
County entered 1932 on the brink of
open hostilities. Some residents had
even taken to carrying pistols on their
hips, and armed guards and state police
offi cers with submachine guns were
not an uncommon sight on Medford
streets.
Moreover, the owners of the two
newspapers that were doing all the rab-
ble-rousing – Llewellyn Banks, owner
of the Medford Daily News, and Earl
Fehl, owner of the weekly Pacifi c Re-
cord Herald – faced increasingly des-
perate fi nancial straits as the effects of
the Depression worsened. Banks was in
particularly bad shape. He was behind
on payments to the former owners of
his newspaper and faced foreclosure on
his orchards. He also was being sued
by half a dozen different parties at the
same time – creditors, union represen-
tatives and people he’d libeled in his
newspaper column.
The only hope for both of them
seemed to be a total takeover of the
Jackson County political and judicial
machinery. That would enable them to
stall their creditors and frustrate their
litigants, while possibly also giving
them suitably prestigious positions to
transition into after the foreclosures
and judgments fi nally did run their in-
evitable course.
Fortunately, Banks and Fehl had
been gearing up for just such a takeover
various photos of the park and
other parks’ features. Fergu-
son invited the public to use
the supplied little Post-It notes
and broad tipped felt markers to
write down our thoughts of the
park and paste then to the ap-
propriate photos.
What surprised me were two
things. First, it was near impos-
sible to write anything with a
large marker onto a small piece
of paper. Second: A lot of the
photos and proposals already
had blue Post-It notes written
for years.
hey’d really focused their editorial
and organizational fi re on local politics
after a moderately disastrous attempt
by Banks to unseat U.S. Sen. Charles
McNary in 1930. The most memorable
incident in that race had been when
Banks tried to start a fi stfi ght with a
constituent who twitted him about the
California license tags on his Cadillac.
He’d lost in a landslide and decided
that his time would be better spent try-
ing to build a local power base rather
than bothering with state offi ce.
So after that, his column in the Daily
News talked much less of statewide is-
sues and far more about “The Gang”
– the elected offi cials in charge of Jack-
son County. And Earl Fehl – whose lat-
est run for mayor had come tantaliz-
ingly close to succeeding – backed him
up with gusto in the Record Herald.
Now, after two years of steadily beat-
ing the drum for electoral war upon
“The Gang,” Banks and Fehl were
ready to make their play.
It started with an attempt to recall a
Circuit Court judge who was scheduled
to preside over one of the lawsuits in
which Banks was a defendant. Banks
crystallized the recall movement into
a political organization, dubbed it the
“Good Government Congress,” and
in the same feminine script that
suggested using concrete pavers
instead of fl agstones and open
seating.
Finally, “All America City
Square” just doesn’t roll off the
tongue does it? Eight syllables.
“Opal Park” [three syllables]
has a wonderful sound to it. It is
used by everyone except the city
employees.
It is time to drive a stake
through the heart of this monster
of a plan and kill it once and for
all. We had no silver bullets, no
started charging its members monthly
dues. In spite of this expense, or per-
haps partly because of it, it grew into
an ominously large force of often heav-
ily armed Jackson County residents,
mostly rural residents, working stiffs
and the newly unemployed. Members
would gather by the hundreds (and,
occasionally, thousands) on the court-
house lawn to hear their leader speak,
fl anked by members of his own militia
– the “Green Springs Mountain Boys.”
Then came the election, and the
Good Government Congress’s candi-
dates won some of the key positions
in the county. In particular, Earl Fehl
himself was elected county judge, and
Good Government Congress candidate
Gordon Schermerhorn squeaked by on
a razor-thin majority to become county
sheriff.
It would have been a complete take-
over had it not been for M.O. Wilkins’
loss in the race for district attorney.
That loss hurt, since the D.A. had a lot
of infl uence over the issues Banks and
Fehl cared most about: their legal trou-
bles. Already Fehl had lost his printing
plant in a libel judgment, and Banks’
creditors were trying to foreclose on
his newspaper.
The two self-styled political bosses
quickly set about consolidating their
crucifi xes before. Prayers and
pleas went unanswered.
Do everything in your power
to save Tree City USA, and the
entire old town district. Opal
Park is known worldwide and is
a tourist draw. Local businesses
love tourists. SO do we.
And it is time for the unelect-
ed city planner to be dismissed
from her job.
Stephen Thoemmes
Cottage Grove
victory, whipping their Good Govern-
ment Congress members into ever more
dangerous frenzies with exhortations
on the courthouse steps and in the pag-
es of their newspapers. The rival daily
newspaper, the Medford Mail Tribune,
which was getting threatening letters
every day, hired armed guards to protect
itself from the angry crowds. Llewellyn
Banks deployed paramilitary detach-
ments of the Green Springs Mountain
Boys to guard his own newspaper’s of-
fi ce and printing plant – although that
was not for protection against political
enemies so much as to prevent it from
being seized by his creditors.
Meanwhile, ex-sheriff Jennings re-
mained suspicious that the election that
had kicked him out of offi ce had been
fraudulent. He’d lost by just over 100
votes – well within the range at which
a recount is appropriate – but his efforts
to arrange for one were being stymied
by the new county judge, Earl Fehl. So
he went over Fehl’s head and appealed
directly to the state of Oregon, which
ordered the recount done.
This was a problem, because the
election HAD been rigged – or, at least,
an attempt had been made to ensure a
Please see OFFBEAT, Page 11A
Vitamin D, high-nutrient diet: Natural treatments for depression
BY JOEL FUHRMAN, MD
For the Sentinel
W
inter is a common time
to experience symp-
toms of depression. When the
holidays are over and the weath-
er is cold and dark, it is more
common to feel sad, anxious or
hopeless. Whether one is ex-
$ PUUBHF ( SPWF 4 FOUJOFM
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periencing
a seasonal
decline in
mood
or
suffering
from major
depression,
natural
treatments
have very
high success rates, and are of
course much safer than pre-
scription drugs.
My prescription for natural
treatment of depression:
Morning light therapy. Light
deprivation, common in the
winter, can disrupt circadian
rhythms and neurotransmitter
production. Bright light thera-
py, not only in the winter, can
be an effective substitute for
natural sunlight – applied fi rst
thing in the morning it corrects
the body’s clock and stimulates
mood-elevating neurotransmit-
ters. Bright light therapy is
effective for not only seasonal
affective disorder (SAD) but it
also has been found to be just as
effective as antidepressants for
treating depression.
Vitamin D. Vitamin D is
thought to regulate mood by
affecting daily biorhythms and
serotonin production. Reduced
exposure to sunlight during the
winter also means less natural
vitamin D production by the
skin. Low circulating vitamin
D is associated with SAD and
major depression. Studies of
subjects with depression have
found that vitamin D supple-
mentation produces an improve-
ment in symptoms and feelings
of well-being.
High dose omega-3 fatty ac-
ids. DHA and EPA play impor-
tant roles in the brain, and low
omega-3 intake is associated
with depression. DHA is an im-
portant structural component of
brain tissue, and a recent meta-
analysis revealed that EPA is the
more important omega-3 fatty
acid for improving depression
symptoms. I recommend DHA
plus approximately 1,000 mg
EPA per day for depression.
High-nutrient diet. Nutrition
is extremely important for regu-
lating mood. High antioxidant
intake from colorful fruits and
vegetables helps prevent oxida-
tive stress, to which the brain is
highly susceptible. Markers of
oxidative stress are associated
with a higher incidence of de-
pression. Low intake of folate,
present in green vegetables, also
correlates with depression.
Regular exercise. Exercise
is known to be as effective as
antidepressant drugs or cog-
nitive behavioral therapy for
improving the symptoms of
depression. Exercise increases
production of serotonin, a neu-
rotransmitter associated with
feelings of well being, which
is often low in individuals suf-
fering from depression. In fact,
antidepressant drugs most often
work by increasing the amount
of serotonin in the brain. Aero-
bic exercise plus strength train-
ing works better than aerobic
exercise alone, and yoga is also
effective.
The combination of all of
these approaches increases the
likelihood of success, providing
people suffering from depres-
sion with a safe, natural, and ef-
fective alternative to antidepres-
sant drugs.
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