Ducks football coach on guns, ecosabotage podcast and that damn time change in Slant

Slant by Editorial BoardPosted on

• The Duck men and women basketballers launch their seasons on Monday, Nov. 6, with the men traveling to Las Vegas to take on Georgia at 1:30 pm and the women at home against Northern Arizona at 6 pm. Both programs have shown flashes of brilliance in recent years, though they stumbled last year. Matthew Knight Arena should be rocking this season, as our Ducks vie to win the final Pac 12 championships.

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• What we’re listening to: Burn Wild. The BBC podcast by Portland journalist Leah Sottile looks at the Earth Liberation Front’s environmentally motivated arsons of the late ’90s and early 2000s and talks to local folks like Weekly columnist and anarcho-primitivist John Zerzan, local videographer Tim Lewis and ELF activists Joseph Dibee and Chelsea Gerlach. The interviews are engaging, the comments from the feds and police make us skeptical, but it’s always interesting to hear an outside take on our community and a story we’ve followed for years. And the central question — How far is too far to go to save the planet? — is worth pondering. 

• After the Oct. 28 football game, Ducks coach Dan Lanning had the 18 people who were killed in the mass shooting in Maine, and the years of other shootings in the U.S., on his mind. He weighed in on gun control, saying that “as a dad of three kids, a 13-year-old, a 12-year-old, a 10-year-old, I see at times what’s going on in this country and I think I have a platform that is worth saying something about.” Lanning does indeed have a platform — and we’re glad he used that bully pulpit to say, “People can say, ‘Let’s make it about guns. Let’s make it about mental health.’ Why can’t we use a common-sense approach and make it about everything?” He said he wasn’t being political and that this was something that matters to his players. It matters to his players and everyone else affected by such murders. Speak up. 

• “Recall Elections: Should They Be Used in Our Community?” is the topic for the City Club of Eugene meeting noon Friday, Nov. 3, in the Maple Room at the Inn at the Fifth. These meetings are free for members and nonmembers and are broadcast on KLCC at 7 pm Mondays. While the attempted recall of state Rep. Paul Holvey and the successful recall of Ward 7 City Councilor Claire Syrett are garnering attention in Eugene, City Club reminds us that recalls are also being used in towns like Cottage Grove. Also, don’t forget to vote if you are in Ward 7 in the Nov. 7 election, Lyndsie Leech versus Barbie Walker for City Council. We hear the Lane County Republicans are coming out in force to support Walker this week.

• So what are you planning to do, exactly, with that extra hour we all get this weekend? That’s right, it’s that wonderful time of year when we set our clocks back an hour on Saturday night and get an extra hour on Sunday, thanks to the expiration on Nov. 5 of Daylight Saving Time for the dark season. You could get up and spend a peaceful hour crafting the Great American Novel; you might go out for an early morning walk in the predicted fall rain; or, like many of us, you might just sleep in a bit. Whatever your plans may be, enjoy, for once, not being rushed.