• In addition to buying local at the Saturday Market’s Holiday Market this weekend, you can support local authors at the neighboring 2019 Authors & Artists Fair, 10 am to 5 pm Saturday, Dec. 7, also at the Lane County Fairgrounds. The Lane Library League event will be filled with local literary luminaries from hiking guide writers Chandra LeGue and William Sullivan to nonfiction by Deb Gwartney, Leigh Anne Jasheway, Lauren Kessler, Suzi Prozanski and Bob Welch to name only a few. And Eugene Weekly’s own “It’s About Time” columnist David Wagner will be selling his nature calendars. Give the gift of a local book — and get it autographed! Also, local writers, don’t forget EW does book reviews, so please feel free to drop off your published works — and info on any upcoming local events — at our office at 1251 Lincoln Street. Check out a mass of book reviews, including books by many of the authors at the fair, in next week’s Winter Reading issue!
• Local folks of all sizes and shapes gave with their feet over the Thanksgiving holiday. FOOD for Lane County and St. Vinnie’s were the winners when more than 1,000 walkers took to the streets in the fundraising Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning, paying entry fees for the opportunity. A few days earlier, EWEB’s Run to Stay Warm drew at least one Olympic runner and 778 others, again of all types and ages for a 10K, a 5K and half-marathon. This run helped EWEB customers having trouble paying their bills. And that’s not all. More than 1,200 runners and walkers joined the 5K Turkey Stuffer on Thanksgiving Day at Lively Park in Springfield. What a great way to do more than eat on this holiday!
• Is football really “family”? Or is football all that matters? Those are lines from the football advertising campaign that included a full-page ad on Nov. 1 in The Register-Guard. In this one, University of Oregon Athletic Director Rob Mullens profusely thanked “Duck Nation” for supporting the football team in 2019 “and we look forward to seeing you back next season.” Pro football is also advertising — probably to counter the science and lawsuits related to the long-term injuries football players incur playing the game. We read that young kids are not playing football as they once did, leading to the end of some high school teams. When this kind of expensive advertising is necessary, we hope that means that the science is winning and more changes to the game will be made.
• Are the timber wars back? It’s been a crazy couple weeks in timber lawsuits and the forests don’t always come out ahead. A Linn County jury recently decided that the state owes 13 rural counties — including Lane — $1,065,919,400 for failing to maximize logging revenues on state land. The jury decided that the “greatest permanent value” for the forest was in maximizing timber production. That’s a wrongheaded decision in the era of climate change. The other kicker is that folks in Lane and Benton counties don’t really benefit and are among the counties where taxpayers will pay more than the counties will get in damages. File another lawsuit under good news: Local nonprofit Cascadia Wildlands won a suit before the Oregon Supreme Court, which ruled that the sale of 788 acres to Seneca Jones Timber Company of the Elliott State Forest was illegal. The win for the forest is no doubt even sweeter, as the Jones family told The Oregonian back in 2014 that the company “didn’t bid on the land because her mill needs lumber but because she and her two sisters refused to be bullied by ‘eco-radical’ environmental groups.” According to news reports Seneca intended to clearcut the forest. Revenge is sweet, until the Oregon Supreme Court rules against you.
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