• What we’re reading: Kwame Alexander’s This Is the Honey: An anthology of contemporary Black poets. It’s a read that takes you to another world, as all good poetry will do.
• This week is our annual gardening issue — and we noticed that downtown grocery Kiva says Double Up Food Bucks can be used to purchase produce starts! Any other places making it easier for folks to grow healthy food? Let us know at Editor@EugeneWeekly.com.
• Just when we were pondering if it was time to do a dog story, The New York Times, Sunday March 17, beat us to it with “How exactly did dogs take over the world?” We have two big office dogs at the Weekly. Go to the beauty shop and a little dog greets you. Go to the barber shop and a little dog greets you. It would be better to have dogs running the world than some candidates we can think of. With the May primary election on the horizon, it’s time for us to start interviewing candidates for endorsements. We will see what the dogs think.
• After many weeks of hoping that the Duck men basketballers would be invited to the NCAA tournament, the Ducks did not wait for an invitation. They knocked down the front door by winning the Pac-12 tournament. They had to come from behind three nights in a row in the most impressive and entertaining stretch of Duck basketball in years. As the No. 11 seed in the South Region, Oregon’s first tournament game is March 21 against No. 6 seed South Carolina, and from here on out it is win or go home.
• News we are following: Anonymous Student News and the Daily Emerald recently covered the protest over the University of Oregon student government’s decision to schedule its spring concert on the same day as the Native American Student Union’s annual Mother’s Day Powwow for the second year in a row. ASUO said on its Instagram it is working to cancel the concert. The UO’s annual powwow is May 10 and 11, and Lane Community College’s is April 6.
• The largest pickleball facility in the Pacific Northwest is aiming to break ground in May 2025 and finish construction by that fall. This future location is at Lane Community College. Seems like the biggest complaint we hear about the sport is the sound of the balls and the loss of tennis courts — is the new facility the solution?
• A panel of the three Eugene mayoral candidates spoke at the City Club of Eugene meeting March 15: Kaarin Knudson, Shanaé Joyce Stringer and perennial candidate Stefan Strek. We were impressed by Knudson’s report that she has knocked on 500 doors as of last Thursday. City Club will meet at noon on Friday in the Maple Room at Inn at the Fifth to discuss STAR Voting, which will also appear on the May ballot.