• Wandering Goat Coffee Co. is reopening its indoor café Saturday, Oct. 5, and the Goats are coming back with a bang. Wandering Goat (268 Madison Street) has been limited to window service for the past four years for the same reason so many businesses closed down in 2020 — the global pandemic. To celebrate the regained ability to open the doors, the Goats will be handing out free (espresso) shots and hosting a live graffiti demonstration. There will also be 10 — count ’em, 10! — musical acts cycling through the parking lot starting at noon. The closing act, Rot//Woven, starts at 9 pm. For those who don’t know, Rot//Woven is made up of the founders of the most punk rock non-profit organization that Eugene has to offer: Radical Alternative Development. This grand reopening allows us to support a local business, local graffiti connoisseurs and local bands. Get there!
• Also this weekend — Oregon DesiFest is Saturday, Oct. 5, at Lane Community College’s Ragozzino Performance Hall, and it kicks off at noon with a South Indian buffet (veg and not veg), followed by bhangra dance, music and storytelling at 1 pm and an author “chai and chaat” at 3 pm. Events are free until the 7 pm performance by Navarasa Dance Theater. Want to know about more cool local events? Check out EW’s What’s Happening Calendar!
• In our Sept. 12 story about Rep. Val Hoyle, we quoted her as saying of Portland paper Willamette Week’s August story on her texts with Rosa Cazares of La Mota: “I fought really hard for the reputation that I’ve built, and so it’s frustrating to see them try and tear that down, but it’s been very slanderous. It has been exceptionally slanderous.”
Willamette Week’s Sophie Peel asked for a chance to respond. She says in an email: “Rep. Hoyle has not identified a factual error in my reporting — instead, she went to a media outlet that would print her baseless allegation of slander. I stand ten toes behind my reporting. As to her allegation that I’m parroting NRCC talking points: the NRCC has repeatedly created talking points based on information I’ve brought to light in my reporting, not the other way around. I can’t control what others do with my reporting, and frankly, that’s not my problem.”
• WOW Hall will be hosting a discussion of Measure 118 at noon Friday, Oct. 4. Antonio Gisbert, the chief petitioner, will debate Angela Wilhelms, the chair of the organization Defeating Costly Tax on Sales Coalition. They’ll discuss whether raising taxes on corporations in Oregon for an annual $1,600 for every single Oregonian is worth the largest potential increase to taxes in Oregon history. Visit WOW Hall at 291 West 8th Avenue or tune in online at CityClubofEugene.org.
• Sen. JD Vance spent most of the Oct. 1 debate running the Donald Trump playbook: dodging questions about Jan. 6 and blaming immigrants for America’s problems. Let’s add climate change denying to that list — calling the fact that carbon dioxide emissions are a leading cause of climate change “weird science” is distressing. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, traps heat and makes the planet warmer. Its website says, “Human activities are responsible for almost all of the increase in greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere over the last 150 years.” Sen. Jeff Merkley stopped by the Weekly Oct. 1 and told us, “The biggest issue facing humanity is climate.”