In Case You’re in Bend
Groceries in Bend:
Locavore! Tumalo Produce Market. (Farmers markets, Wednesday downtown upper Drake Park, Saturdays NW Crossing). Market of Choice. Natural Grocers.
Recent Springfield transplant after 22-plus years in Bend.
Carolyn Carry
Springfield
Voices Matter
The May 22 issue seemed to point to a growing trend that citizens’ voices don’t matter. Letters expressing frustration that city officials “are not listening to us,” letters expressing exasperation that offensive protest groups with “loud blaring megaphones” are being ignored by police and security. The opinion article from the University of Oregon that journalism is under attack and “silence is not neutrality.” The “All A-Board” piece highlights the 80 percent dormant no-show in the Lane County May elections. Why vote, no one listens? A healthy list of upcoming activist alerts around Lane County so people feel their voices are heard on issues of importance, such as cutting Oregon’s national forests, with no prior input from the people about that mandate.
If Eugene Weekly isn’t making it clear to you that decisions are being made by the officials in positions of power to silence you, censor your opposition, dismiss your efforts to stand up and stop government from destroying your constitutional rights, and just down right not care about what you have to say, then you are not listening. Speaking out to uphold citizens rights isn’t the job of someone else, it’s a job for each and every one of us. As the government slogan encourages — if you see something, say something.
Bea James
Springfield
A Closer Look at CAHOOTS
Regarding the financial cuts being made to the CAHOOTS program in Eugene, our city leaders would be wise to take a second look at what that means. Yes, Eugene joins the country in a national financial pinch, but if you take a closer look, it’s clear these funding cuts are short-sighted and will likely result in higher costs for all.
I realized that on a recent trip to the Eugene Airport. Approaching a stoplight, I watched as two police cars and a fire engine, all with lights flashing, interacted with three young men who appeared modestly impaired. Despite one of the men sitting on a stretcher, they showed no sense of urgency.
My first thought upon seeing this was that this should absolutely be a CAHOOTS call. With a price tag for fire and ambulance calls averaging around $2,000 per call nationwide, the situation was both unnecessary and expensive as there was no need for such a high level of response.
Sure, CAHOOTS may be an expense for Eugene, but the cost of their response to a similar situation surely pales in comparison. And the community loves them! When it comes to what they offer in return compared to other services, including those the city is talking about implementing, there is no questioning the value of keeping them around.
Sara Montigney
Eugene
Wake Up to No Lights
“Turn Out the Lights” (EW, 5/29) reminded me of a story.
Author Richard Louv, in his book Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder, told a touching story about a Girl Scout field trip. Girls with AIDS from Los Angeles were taken to a camp in the mountains. One night, a nine-year-old girl woke up and had to go to the bathroom. Stepping outside, she looked up and gasped. Growing up in a sprawling megalopolis, she had never seen stars before. “That night, I saw the power of nature on a child. She was a changed person. From that moment on, she saw everything. She used her senses. She was awake.”
Richard Reese
Eugene
Eugene’s Streets and Castles
If you voyaged in a time machine back to the mid 1950s through the ’60s and landed your craft in the center of Los Angeles or the San Fernando Valley, you would experience not only a crowded metropolis, but the stench of pollution-filled air and dirty streets (It is much better now).
That was the arena for my first 30 years of life. I knew I had to escape to embrace a better existence, so after some research I landed in Eugene with a great job at a CPA firm and eventually progressed to a growing and state-of-the-art steel company.
As I was new to the area, I explored the Whiteaker bohemian neighborhoods, populated with unique abodes engulfed within the shadows of towering oak and pine trees. The culture was vintage “hippie” at the time, and I loved every minute of it. Then I discovered the abode of the Gods, the families who lived in the majestic mountain homes built in harmony with nature in an area that spanned from the Hendricks Park district all the way to City View Street in west Eugene.
I wondered if the fortunate beings who inhabited these castles and fortresses of the South Hills realized their lifestyle would be the envy of any transplant from my childhood domain. In a poetic sense, they were “Gods of the Mountains,” living close to the heavens and embraced by the green goddess of ornate trees, flowers and plants.
Rich Locus
Eugene
Support for Eugene Mission
We all know about the housing crisis in Eugene. As of today, Eugene has one of the highest per-capita rates of homelessness in the country, and it’s an issue that touches all of us. To help combat this issue, one organization that stands out in this effort to help the unhoused is the Eugene Mission. They provide not only shelter and meals, but also long-term support and programs that help people get back on their feet.
I’ve recently started a project to raise awareness and encourage donations for the Eugene Mission. I’m not affiliated with them, but I admire their work, and want to help in whatever way I can.
If you’re looking for a way to make a meaningful impact, I encourage you to learn more about the Eugene Mission and consider supporting them. Even a small gesture can help provide someone with warmth, safety, and a fresh start.
Ellie Park
Eugene
Here’s Another Viewpoint
Regarding your mention of “Free Speech every Thursday” on the cover of your May 29 edition: where was free speech when, a few short years ago, you were running half and full-page ads advocating that everyone has to get jabbed with the SARS COVID-2 vaccine in order to “protect granny?” It did not exist. At the time you resisted any mention of counter prevailing viewpoints. It was my way or the highway, as far as your editorial stance was concerned.
By the way, who was funding those ads?
You were even running ads advocating that children get the jab! I probably don’t need to remind everyone that the “science” behind that particular campaign was non-existent and very harmful to a lot of those kids.
Where was free speech in 2022 when you applauded the departure from Eugene of Rick Dancer, one time anchor of KEZI television, who dared to question the prevailing narrative on COVID? You dismissed him as Republican, as if that was a sufficient reason to condemn him and his viewpoints.
If you truly stand for free speech, you are welcome to publish this letter. It will indicate that alternative viewpoints are welcome in your newspaper.
Peter Holden
Eugene
Editor’s note: We love alternative viewpoints and we also prize accuracy! For the record, the ads stated clearly who was taking them out. And yes, we were (and continue to be) happy to accept ads and write stories advocating for medical science. And yes, it is free speech to express opinions on anti-vax social media personalities, who in this case is a self-identified Republican!
ONLINE EXTRA LETTERS
On the Brink of Collapse
The science has been in for many years that we are on the verge of a planetary collapse, a calamity of immense proportions. We are ravaging our lands and oceans, our forests and kelps and corals, our fish and our birds and insects, the very diversity of all of our species.
All around us we experience a hothouse Earth that is expanding and getting hotter every week, every day. We see and smell the ever-increasing wildfires and rivers of rain, the lessening of the productivity of our food crops, the increase in frequency and intensity of destructive and deadly weather events, the crumbling of our physical infrastructure without money enough to repair it.
And the dismantling of our socio-cultural, political and economic institutions that are necessary to help us cope with all of these problems. We are truly on the brink of world-wide collapse. And we have only ourselves to blame for the huge amounts of carbon we are injecting into our atmosphere every second of every day faster than at any period in the previous 10 to 20 million years.
And this is what will be the final straw that will break the back of our wonderful home, Earth. To understand better what we are now headed for, read the new 2024 book by Ferris Jabr titled Becoming Earth.
Frank Keim
Springfield
A Victory in the Courts
On May 29, responding to the U.S. Court of International Trade’s decision (thank you, Dan Rayfield, for pressing this lawsuit on our behalf) that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act invoked by Donald Trump “does not authorize worldwide and retaliatory tariffs.” Trump aide Stephen Miller predictably ranted, “The judicial coup is out of control.” Here, in the words of our esteemed Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall, is a capsule summary of what was decided about judicial authority in Marbury v. Madison (1803): “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.”
Try taking off your MAGA hat, Miller. It’s obstructing the blood flow to your brain.