• Typos matter. Last week The Register-Guard ran an announcement that included such variant spellings as “contrubutors,” “communicty” and “colunmists.” Hey, we get it: No one is immune to error. Last week EW printed our own address as “1251 Licoln Street.” But sloppiness has conquered the RG since GateHouse took over last spring. And it’s not the only big-ticket institution in town to have slid. For a couple days last week the Oregon Bach Festival listed events on its home page at oregonbachfestival.org with text that read “blah blah blah blah blah…” On reflection, we blame Trump for the winter blahs.
• The death last week of former President George H.W. Bush has a surprising resonance in our deeply discouraged nation. Apparently if a politician wants to look good in death, the time to go is while Trump is in office. We didn’t like Bush when he was in the White House. His policies favored the rich. He ignored AIDS/HIV. He invaded Panama and Somalia. He used the racist Willie Horton ad to get elected. At the same time, his passing reminds us what our nation has lost since 2016: at least the pretense of civility and mutual respect in politics.
• UO Political Science Professor Priscilla Southwell talked to the City Club of Eugene on Nov. 30 about what the midterm elections tell us: First, 2018 was the year of the woman, with 100 plus women elected to the House. Also, if Democrats want to take the Senate, they must reach rural voters. In Oregon, our vote by mail should have prepaid postage. Oregon turnout was down slightly. Finally, a question: When Oregon gets its sixth congressional district, where will it be? Southwell looked ahead to the 2020 elections and picked Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota as an interesting Democratic candidate for president. Tell us who you want to run — presumably against Donald Trump.
• We got a message the other day telling us about how Gervais Salon and Day Spa is putting together 150 packages of toiletry items to donate to Womenspace. At EW’s offices we collect warm clothes for the unhoused via White Bird Clinic. We are reminded there are so many things, little and big, individuals and businesses do to help others in the community. What are you doing? What nonprofit groups do you support? Let us know who you think people should donate to in our upcoming Give Guide issue at editor@eugeneweekly.com.
• What we’re reading: Josh Reckord, one of the most voracious readers we know, recommends These Truths by Jill Lepore, a big history of pre-colonial U. S. up to the 2016 election and beyond. He also recommends her The Secret History of Wonder Women.
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