• Bikes, bikes, bikes! Check out reporter Bentley Freeman’s story on his adventure riding with Critical Mass this issue, and tell us what you think about this idea. We had a reader request for Eugene Weekly to start tracking how many bikes are stolen in Eugene each week, gathering information from the police but also from bike theft victims. What do you think? Have you had a bike stolen? Let us know at Editor@EugeneWeekly.com.
• Thank you to the readers who have sent in their short (250 words or fewer), funny, light and weird stories about the times they did some stoner shit. You’ve been cracking us up! If you want to submit your anecdote of the devil’s lettuce, put it in the body of an email to Editor@EugeneWeekly.com by Sept. 5. You might win something and find your name and story in the funny pages (aka we’ll print it in this fine publication).
• Do you miss back when we ran Dan Pegoda’s “Something Eug,” that cartoon that skewered Eugene, its politics and more? We’d love to get a local political cartoon back in these pages. Got talent and a sense of humor? Hit us up (in case you haven’t figured it out three slants in, it’s Editor@EugeneWeekly.com).
• Saturday, August 31 is Overdose Awareness Day. HIV Alliance is participating in an Overdose Awareness Unity Walk from Kesey Square, starting at 10 am and ending at 1 pm at 4th and Blair with a resource fair with Narcan distribution.
• The Oregon Ducks women’s soccer team roared off to a 2-0 start, with home wins over Seattle and Portland State. Then they went on the road and stumbled, losing to New Mexico State and New Mexico. They kick it off back at home at noon Sunday, August 31, and they need some fired up Duck fans!
• Eugene has lost one of the members of this city’s founding Black families, Lyllye Reynolds-Parker, who died August 22. She was an advocate for racial justice and is the namesake of the University of Oregon’s Lyllye Reynolds-Parker Black Cultural Center.• The gladiators return to Autzen Stadium before their adoring throng of fans August 31 when the University of Oregon Ducks take on the University of Idaho Vandals to kick off the 2024 college football season. As conservative political columnist George Will once noted of America’s sports pastime: “Football combines two of the worst things in American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings.” One other sour note is money, as in billions of dollars in college football that has, among other things, gutted the Pac-12 Conference. Oregon is now part of the 18-team Big Ten Conference (math is hard). And while we’re glad players also get to profit off their name, likeness and image, Oklahoma State University players now have QR codes stamped to the back of their helmets so fans can freeze-frame the action and contribute to the school’s NIL fund. This is not your father’s college football.