Slant

• It’s trying times these days, to say the least. The cancellations and restrictions resulting from the novel coronavirus outbreak are hurting businesses and workers. Support them all you can — buy a gift card to your favorite local eatery and store. Get takeout for lunch. Worried about shopping? See if a local store can bring your purchases to the curb. In next week’s issue, Eugene Weekly will provide a resource guide for surviving the outbreak. Please send us information on where folks can go for help and places where folks can support others in the community — from the locations of hand washing stations to how to help your neighbors and businesses. Send info to editor@EugeneWeekly.com. 

• On that note, despite a loss in advertising due to all these cancellations, Eugene Weekly is still writing, reporting and printing. We aren’t going to leave you in the lurch without your stories, cartoons, Dan Savage, crossword and Sudoku. That said, the impacts on local businesses mean they can’t take out the ads that support this free weekly paper. Want to give us a helping hand? Check out Support.EugeneWeekly.com and ponder a contribution. The owners of this paper take no profit from it, so your money goes straight to supporting the publication of this longtime community staple. 

• Here’s some good news, maybe! Our source in Alabama tells us that Doug Jones, its Democratic senator, could be re-elected. The Republican primary puts Jeff Sessions, President Donald Trump’s much-maligned former attorney general, against Tommy Tuberville, former Auburn football coach. Of course, Trump is blasting Sessions and praising “Coach” Tuberville, who probably will win. The hope is that voters will see what an idiot Tuberville is and turn to Jones, the rational candidate on the ballot. If Jones is re-elected, that pulls the U.S. Senate one vote closer to a Democratic majority. Long shot scenario, but we’ll take it.

• While folks are stuck at home, social media hits must be off the charts. Personally, we like Jack Roberts’ recent wry Facebook post that the divorce rate in America must be climbing because watching sports on TV is not much of an option these days. Roberts, a Eugenean, former Lane County commissioner and former leader of the Bureau of Labor and Industries, is one of the country’s endangered species — a moderate Republican. He sends off great posts, though we kind of wonder about the birth rate in nine months. 

Correction/Clarification

 In our Feb. 27, story on the Pedal Power timber sale in the Thurston Hills, we referred to the sale as a land sale, when it is specifically the timber that is sold. We also cited a February 2019 press release posted on the Seneca Family of Companies’ website about their purchase of the timber but didn’t include the date of the press release. EW updated the story online upon learning of the issues. Seneca spokesperson Casey Roscoe objects to the timber sale being referred to as a clearcut by those who protest the planned regeneration harvest. She was not contacted for the story.