4A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL August 24, 2016
O PINION
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Easy fi x — No!
Over a week ago, starting above
Riverstone Trailer Park and going to-
ward town, the County took a grinding
machine, removing damaged asphalt
and putting down a new surface almost
to the City Limits (so nice). But from
there, it was not so easy. Major digging
starts because it was not maintained.
Sixth Street is so bad that I take other
streets to avoid it. Also, regarding the
railroad crossing: I was told by a city
offi cial it would be done months ago!
Ike Shepherd
Cottage Grove
Review is common
sense
Thank you to the Lane County Com-
missioners for considering a change to
the initiative petition review process. It
is common sense to have a review of a
proposed measure prior to the election
to ensure the County can implement it.
It is unfair to petitions, voters and the
County to expend efforts and resources
on a ballot measure that the County
cannot enact.
In 1852, my family homesteaded in
Lane County. My roots run deep in our
community, and I am concerned about
the ramifi cations of passing unenforce-
able ordinances. Other counties have
been pulled into litigation over the pas-
sage of ballot measures they could not
enact.
We all should be encouraging our
commissioners to move forward.
Bill Hoyt
Cottage Grove
So long, wieners!
The 2016 Weiner Dog Races have
come to an end. The Weiner Dog Rac-
es fl ame has been extinguished, and the
dogs have left the track.
We can now only look forward to
the 2017 Weiner Dog Races when the
fl ame will be lit again. Then that fl ame
will be carried from the giant Weiner
Dog statue in Coiner Park out to the
new location for the races, the Western
Oregon Exposition Fair. Congratula-
tions to the winning wieners, and for
the others, there’s always next year!
Randy Stenersen
Eugene
Offbeat Oregon History
The day a dead whale rained out of the sky
on an Oregon town
BY FINN J.D. JOHN
For the Sentinel
I
t was a sunny November day on the
beach near Florence, and Oregon
Highway Department project manager
George Thornton was standing near a
very large, very dead whale, talking to
a TV news crew. He was explaining the
department’s plan for getting rid of the
big, stinky thing.
“Well, I’m confi dent that it’ll work,”
he said, in the mild, competent drawl of
a West Coast engineer. “The only thing
is, we’re not sure just exactly how much
explosives it’ll take to disintegrate this
thing so the scavengers, seagulls and
crabs and what-not, can clean it up.”
Years later, the reporter, Paul Lin-
nman, remembered this response well.
“As the young producers on our staff
today like to say, OH-MY-GOD!” he
wrote in his 1996 book. “The engineer
in charge of blowing up something that
weighs eight tons doesn’t know how
much dynamite to use? That should
have been my reaction.”
But, perhaps baffl ed by the very in-
congruity of the response, Linnman
simply rolled with it. “Any chance it
could be more than a one-day job?” he
asked.
“Uh, if there’s any large chunks left,”
said Thornton.
Spoiler alert: There would be many
large chunks left.
The morning of Nov. 12, 1970,
dawned bright and clear on the Flor-
ence beach — clear and stinky. Up on
the beach near the town, the rotting car-
cass of a 45-foot, 16,000-pound whale
slumped on the sand. It had lain there
for three days, its black surface soaking
up the unseasonable winter sunshine,
pouring forth putrid gases that oozed
out over the beach and the town.
At that time, the beaches in Oregon
were under the purview of the Oregon
Highway Department, so the chore
of disposing of the carcass fell to the
highway engineers. They’d spent a
little time trying to fi gure out how to
handle the problem. The carcass could
be simply buried in the sand, true; but it
was winter, and storms often removed
large amounts of sand. The fear was
that the carcass would resurface in a
month or two, even more putrid than
ever. Or, worse, it could work its way
up to just a few inches below the sur-
face of the sand, and a strolling beach-
comber could fall into it and drown in
liquefi ed whale guts.
An alternative might have been to
drag it up high on the sand dunes and
bury it. But by its third day cooking
in the sun, that option was no longer
viable. Any attempt to pull the thing
would simply pull it apart.
So, after some conversations with the
U.S. Navy, the highway department de-
cided to handle it as it would handle a
boulder: with dynamite.
There was a difference, though.
Boulders were big and crunchy; dead
whales were soft and blubbery. A cou-
ple sticks of dynamite would probably
have suffi ced to knock a boulder into
the ocean. Thornton would have known
exactly how much dynamite to use on a
boulder. But a dead whale?
And another thing. A boulder, blast-
ed into the sea, would sink. A whale
would fl oat along for a day or two and
then be delivered back on shore by
prevailing currents, stinkier and more
unmanageable than ever. No, the whale
would have to be disintegrated — torn
into ribbons of blubber and bone.
Now, had the whale not smelled
quite so bad, Thornton might have
spent a little more time in researching
his project. But everyone was eager to
get the whale off the beach. Thornton
no doubt fi gured if it wasn’t enough
to do the job, he could just set another
charge. This would not turn out to be
the case. But again, I’m getting ahead
of myself.
As Thornton and his crew were pack-
ing case after case of DuPont’s fi nest
into a big hole in the sand dug under
the shoreward side of the carcass, a
crew-cutted military-looking man ap-
proached, looking the operation over
with a practiced eye. He clearly did not
like what he was seeing.
This was Walter Uemenhoefer, a
Springfi eld business executive with the
Kingsford Charcoal company who had
received extensive training in explo-
sives handling in the military. He later
told reporter Ben Raymond Lode of
The Springfi eld News that he’d been in
town on an undercover mission to scout
a possible location for a Florence plant,
and he had no idea how dramatically
his cover was about to be blown.
Right now, though, Uemenhoefer
was not thinking about his mission. He
was trying to explain to Thornton why
using 20 cases of dynamite was the
wrong decision here. What was really
needed, he told Thornton, was a small
charge, like 20 sticks, to push the whale
off the beach and into the sea; or a
much, much bigger one that would to-
tally vaporize it. Twenty cases, he said,
was just enough to make a big mess,
and maybe hurt some people.
Thornton blew the know-it-all
stranger off.
“The guy says, ‘Anyway, I’m gonna
have everybody on top of those dunes
far away,’” Uemenhoefer told reporter
Wayne Freedman of San Francisco TV
station KGO in an interview 25 years
later. “I says, ‘Yeah, and I’m gonna be
the furtherest SOB down that way!’”
And so he would. But if Uemen-
hoefer thought his involvement in the
exploding whale project was over, he
was sadly mistaken.
Please see OFFBEAT, Page 10A
Nuts: An important component of diabetes prevention
BY JOEL FUHRMAN, MD
For the Sentinel
C
omplications from dia-
betes result from con-
stant elevations in blood glu-
cose, which
damage
the blood
vessels
and other
tissues.
Elevated
blood glu-
cose results
in the for-
mation of Advanced Glycation
End Products (AGEs)—prod-
ucts formed when sugars react
with and damage proteins or
fats in the body’s tissues, espe-
cially the blood vessels. AGEs
are produced at an accelerated
rate in diabetes and contribute
to its complications such as im-
paired wound healing, diabetic
nephropathy and atherosclero-
sis. In addition to the AGEs pro-
duced in the body due to excess
glucose, some AGEs come from
foods. Fried foods, meats and
dry cooked starchy foods (roast-
ed/fried potatoes, bread, crack-
ers, cookies, muffi ns and other
baked goods, cold cereals, etc.)
are high in AGEs. Dangerously
high levels of AGEs are found
in barbecued and overly cooked
chicken and meat.
In designing a diet to prevent
$ PUUBHF ( SPWF 4 FOUJOFM
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or reverse type 2 diabetes, we
should aim to limit after-meal
increases in blood glucose and
to avoid dangerous AGEs by
choosing major calorie sourc-
es with a low glycemic load
(GL)—foods that provoke rela-
tively small increases in blood
glucose. An important point
here is to choose high nutrient,
low GL foods, not just any low
GL food—this is where some
conventional diabetes diets fall
short. Meat is a low GL food,
but higher meat consumption is
associated with reduced lifespan
and increased risk of developing
type 2 diabetes; the diabetes risk
is likely due to weight gain and
AGE content. A diabetic diet
emphasizing meat sacrifi ces
long-term health for short-term
glycemic control. A low fat veg-
an diet emphasizing these foods
in place of refi ned carbohy-
drates has shown some success
with improving glycemic con-
trol. However, these diets tend
to increase triglyceride levels
(a risk factor for heart disease),
and cooked grains and starches
are not ideal calorie sources for
diabetics because they still have
a signifi cant GL, as you can see
below:
White potato: 29
White rice: 23
Whole grain (brown rice): 18
Beans (black or kidney): 7
Legumes (lentils): 5
Nuts (cashews): 3
Beans, and nuts (and seeds)
are high in nutrients and low in
GL, and are far more appropri-
ate than grains and meat as ma-
jor calorie sources for diabetics.
Beans and legumes are higher
in fi ber and resistant starch than
whole grains, with a lower GL.
Beans have been shown to be
superior to whole grains for im-
proving blood glucose and car-
diovascular risk factors in type 2
diabetics. Regular consumption
of nuts and seeds also has well
documented
cardiovascular
benefi ts, including cholesterol
lowering and reduced risk of
sudden cardiac death and coro-
nary heart disease.
In addition to reducing the risk
of cardiovascular disease, nuts
have a number of properties that
make them a favorable food for
diabetics. Nuts are a high-nutri-
ent source of plant protein, fi ber,
antioxidants, phytosterols and
minerals. Nuts provoke a mini-
mal glycemic response, which
helps to prevent post-meal hy-
perglycemia, hyperinsulinemia,
and AGE production. Adding
nuts reduces the GL of an en-
tire meal while adding benefi -
cial phytochemicals. Eating
nuts with meals also helps with
weight maintenance—important
since overweight/obesity is the
primary risk factor for diabetes.
Despite their calorie density,
greater nut consumption is asso-
ciated with lower body weight;
potentially due to appetite-sup-
pression from healthy fats. Nuts
also have anti-infl ammatory ef-
fects that may help to prevent
insulin resistance.
In a recent study HbA1C, an
indicator of long term glyce-
mic control, was measured in
diabetics consuming either 2.5
ounces/day of mostly raw mixed
nuts or an equivalent number of
calories in a muffi n—a cooked
starchy food (the muffi n had the
same amount of fi ber and calo-
ries as the nuts). HbA1C levels
were lower in the nut group,
suggesting long term protec-
tion from hyperglycemia when
replacing carbohydrate foods
with nuts.
This new data cements the re-
sults of previous observational
studies that have found inverse
relationships between nut con-
sumption and diabetes. For ex-
ample, the Nurses’ Health Study
found a 27 percent reduced risk
of diabetes in nurses who ate
fi ve or more servings of nuts
per week. Among nurses who
already had diabetes, this same
quantity reduced the risk of
heart disease by 47 percent.
Nuts are an important part
of any diet designed to reverse
heart disease or diabetes along
with green vegetables, beans
and low sugar fruits. In a study
on type 2 diabetics following the
diet-style I outline in my book
The End of Diabetes, we found
that 90 percent of participants
were able to come off all dia-
betic medications, and the mean
HbA1c after one year was 5.8
percent, which is in the non-dia-
betic (normal) range. All people
with type 2 (and also type 1) di-
abetes should read this book. In
the case of a type two diabetic,
they could resolve their diabetes
completely and in the case of a
type one, they can reduce their
insulin needs by more than 50
percent and prevent much suf-
fering and a premature death.
Nuts, seeds, beans, and vegeta-
bles not only keep glucose lev-
els in check, but protect against
heart disease and cancer.
Dr. Fuhrman is a #1 New York
Times best-selling author and a
board certifi ed family physician
specializing in lifestyle and nu-
tritional medicine. His books,
The End of Diabetes and The
End of Heart Disease, offers
detailed plans to prevent and re-
verse diabetes and heart disease
using a nutrient-dense, plant-
rich eating style. Visit his infor-
mative website at DrFuhrman.
com.
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