• We love Cottage Grove, but this week we hear some of the right-wing folks there didn’t like our coverage of the city moving its homeless folks from camps to a dawn-to-dusk site in a dog park. We got an expletive-laden phone call from South Lane School Board member Duane Taddei (feel free to give it a listen below). He calls the article a “a fake fucking news story,” calls EW “dumb fucks” and concludes, “What a shitty fucking story. And I hope you go out of business and all lose your jobs. You guys are all pieces of shit.” Politics aside, we’d like to note that Taddei’s communication style is probably not a great example for South Lane students.
• We noted with some dismay John Fischer’s Living Less Unsustainably piece on KLCC this week first of all doesn’t seem to notice that Eugene Weekly exists in print (Hi, John, nice to meet you!), and secondly, shits on the notion of print media in general. Our devoted readers beg to differ, and the folks who come clean out our recycle dumpster each week to reuse our papers do, as well. We noted that bastion of satirical news, The Onion, is returning to print. The Onion’s executive editor tells The New York Times, “I think for the same reason that 18-year-old kids are buying Taylor Swift on vinyl, we can introduce those same kids to the notion that a print publication is a much richer way to consume media.” Thank you, Weekly readers, for making sure we, too, stay in your hot little hands!
• The Bureau of Land Management’s round up of wild horses in the South Steens area of Oregon has resulted in eight dead horses so far, the BLM reports, one of a broken neck and the others euthanized. Lawyer and animal advocate Scott Beckstead has been observing the gather. He says, “Many very young foals were forced to run over extremely rocky and hazardous terrain for miles before reaching the traps. I witnessed foals being slammed into the trap panels by adult horses in the chaos.” He says several foals were limping badly and “there appears to be no effort to have them examined or cared for by a veterinarian.” He says BLM has gathered more horses than it said it would — currently 824 — and plans to return only 70 to the wild, with all the mares given PZP fertility control to prevent foaling for at least two years. This, he says, is “insufficient to ensure genetic viability” of the herd. Beckstead urges people to contact Sen. Jeff Merkley at 202-224-3753 and Rep. Val Hoyle by calling 202-225-6416. You can find Beckstead’s video updates at Facebook.com/scott.beckstead1.
• Election season is in full swing, and ballots are now online at Vote.eugeneweekly.com for the nomination round of Eugene Weekly’s annual Best Of issue (which covers all of Lane County!) It’s you, the readers, who will decide the winners of categories that range from civics (Best Hellraiser is back!) to arts and performances to restaurants and more. First round ends midnight Sept. 1 and the runoff round starts Sept. 7. VOTE!
• This week in online-only EW extras for you digital folks, we sat down (virtually) with two Oregon delegates, State Sen. James Manning Jr. and Eugene City Councilor Matt Keating to discuss their experiences at this year’s 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. In other news, Lane County just voted 3-2 to push forward a recycling facility in Goshen, which the county says will divert 80,000 tons of trash annually from the Short Mountain landfill. The plan is causing controversy with some local utilities and trash haulers. Read more about it at EugeneWeekly.com.