Angels and Alligator Alcatraz in letters

A Fairy Angel

Loved the squib about Opal Whiteley in your recent issue of the Weekly. What a unique American, a true original, and oh, so home grown. A fairy angel on earth. Sadly, after she was found by British authorities in 1948 living in squalor, the social workers moved Opal into a benign mental hospital, where she could indulge her Francoise fantasy, receive visitors, socialize, and have a roof over her head. When she died there in 1992, at age 95, a special ethereal spirit left the world. It seems few of them fare well in this vale of tears.

Mike Bonner

Eugene

Downtown Isn’t Scary

Downtown merchants have been complaining for years about the homeless they think are scaring their customers away. The weird thing is, they’re just increasing the public “perception” that downtown is dangerous. Which is not my experience when I go there. I’ve lived in cities, like Oakland, California, that are quite tense. Downtown Eugene feels to me like a sleepy small town. I think the business people are cutting their own throats.

Maybe there is just not that much downtown that we really need?

Lynn Porter

Homeless Action, Eugene

EW Brings You the News

This past issue reminds me of why I take the Eugene Weekly. No other news media brought up that the Bi-Mart on Willakenzie could be gone.

The Register-Guard, Lookout Eugene-Springfield, nothing about this. Bi-Mart is a very strong member of this community and for a store who has been there for 30 years, could be leaving, one would think this would be headline news. There have been other reports by the Weekly that other news media don’t report. I don’t know why, must have different standards in reporting the news.

I have lived here 60-plus years, retired, have always tried to be informed of what is happening, hence why I take three newspapers, figure I have the bases covered.

I would ask what qualifies to be newsworthy, is there a guideline? I would think the Bi-Mart story would be a must, must not be.

So taking the Eugene Weekly I get news others feel not newsworthy, but it is, never would have known about Bi-Mart.

Steven E Hunnicutt

Eugene

GOP Shows its True Colors at the Fair

While attending the Lane County Fair on Friday, I saw the display at the Lane County Republican Party booth selling “Alligator Alcatraz” shirts. The design alludes to a dark fantasy where immigrants are fed to alligators, a grotesque and dehumanizing image. It was really gross. The shirt’s imagery makes light of the suffering and deaths of immigrants, turning real human pain into a political joke and a fundraising gimmick.

Many in our community have responded on social media with anger and disbelief. That reaction is justified. Mocking the suffering of vulnerable people to raise money or provoke outrage is not strong or bold. It is cowardly. It reflects a hollow kind of politics built not on principle but on cruelty. It signals a lack of empathy and a willingness to abandon basic decency in pursuit of attention and profit.

It’s also important to be fair to the people who work at the fair, which is held on public property and bound by First Amendment protections. They cannot reject a vendor based on the content of political speech. If you are disturbed, as I was, please share your concerns with the Lane County commission, the Fair Board and the Oregon Department of Justice’s Bias Response Program.

We can disagree on immigration policy. But if a political party cannot draw the line at this kind of behavior, it is no wonder they continue to fail at the ballot box in Lane County. This is not what leadership looks like, and voters know it.

Chris Wig

Springfield

Color Me Unconvinced

Doyle Srader raises the issue: Do mass protests work (EW, 6/26)? Srader claims they worked in the past, but times have changed. “Inventing solutions that foster hope” is needed, he says. This reader is left unconvinced and uncomfortable for the lack of concrete proposals.

MAGA solutions to foster hopes: lies or deceptions focused on scapegoating minorities and inventing enemies. Bringing back manufacturing jobs to the U.S. in this globalized world? Tooth fairy stuff? If Trump voters are not “stupid or damaged or racists,” exactly for what good reasons do they trust him as a savior? What promises do they hope would change their lives for the better? The price of “groceries,” or a spectacular crackdown on immigrant “criminals” swarming the border? Or retribution on “weaponized justice” and bourgeois wokeness?

To foster hope on the other side, the DNC might show it learned something on how stupid it was to bet on a failing-aged politician, once the blue collar guy, who reassuringly proclaimed “I am a capitalist and a Zionist” and under pressure stepped aside too late for a younger candidate.

Marco Elliott

Eugene

Keep Marching

Concerning Doyle Srader’s viewpoint “On Protests” in EW’s June 26 edition, I would remind our citizens of one significant reason to continue assembling, marching, raising our voices, and yes, hoisting cardboard signs: Continued silence constitutes complicity. Speak up, speak loud, effect change!

W. C. Crutchfield

Eugene

Music for Boomers

My thanks for the recent change to a separate music listing area and showing the names of the venues in BOLD FACE. This really helps us older folks. Eugene has so much great music to offer we don’t want to miss a bit. Well done!

Ted Ledgard

Eugene

Protests Create Hope

I would like to offer a counter voice to the recent viewpoint “On Protests” (EW, 6/26). Mass mobilizations like protests are an integral part of a successful social and cultural change roadmap. They alleviate feelings of helplessness and often serve as catalysts to inspire people to take action.

But more importantly, they help to normalize the message. For a movement to gain traction, it requires mainstream support. Journalists’ coverage, social media content and neighbors’ discussions help disseminate the message broadly in the public sphere. The writer’s suggestion was “inventing solutions that foster hope.” To me, nothing says hope like 10,000 people taking to the streets in a common cause. Don’t let naysayers discourage you. Get out, stand up and engage in nonviolent resistance.

Hope Bohanec

Eugene

ONLINE EXTRA LETTERS

Don’t Derail

I was distressed to read, in your article about Boris Wiedenfeld-Needham, that he plans to run against our Congresswoman Val Hoyle in the 2026 Democratic primary election (“Jazz and Wine with a Side of Politics,” July 21). He faults Hoyle for being insufficiently progressive. He offers nice wishes: tax the rich, Medicaid <sic> for all. These would fail in Congress. And we’d need Constitutional amendments for more of his wishes: term limits for US Senators, Representatives, and Supreme Court Justices.

He faults Democrats and Republicans alike for avoiding tax discussions “since many of their donors are rich people.” This isn’t Hoyle’s profile. Her largest PAC contributions, all for $5,000, come from numerous unions, Medicare For All, and United Parcel Service. They’re not buying tax breaks from our former Labor Commissioner.

I’ve seen this movie. In 2022, a progressive Democrat primary challenger handily defeated Congressman Kurt Schrader and promptly lost to a Republican that November. Further back, a Nebraska Democratic senator recruited a political novice businessman to take over retiring Senator Mark Hatfield’s seat. That pushed Peter DeFazio out of contention and lost the election to a Republican, Gordon Smith. DeFazio, an experienced campaigner, would have done better. Hoyle will also do better.

Please, Mr. Wiedenfeld-Needham: leave political work to the professionals. Don’t let your fine dreams derail a good progressive pro-labor pro-choice candidate who is keeping it together in a very hostile Republican Congress. An attack on Val Hoyle could easily spin the seat into our opponents’ hands.

Larry Koenigsberg

Eugene

Let Them Eat the Dead

I have a modest proposal to make in order to feed the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians starving in Gaza. But let’s first review the situation.

Netanyahu and his regime refuse to allow food that is literally a few miles from the border. The U.S. parrots the oft-repeated canard that it’s Hamas’s fault. More desperate people have been shot waiting to receive food from the for-profit-pseudo humanitarian aid organization than died on Oct. 7, 2023. Morally bankrupt Rep. Val Hoyle and Sen. Ron Wyden have voted repeatedly to give taxpayers’ money to support the destruction of all Palestinian infrastructure (schools, universities, hospitals, etc.), and at least 58,000 people, the majority being women and children, have died. Experts consider this to be a serious undercount, with many buried under the rubble.

So I propose, in satirical (Jonathon) Swift fashion, that Palestinians resort to cannibalism. It worked for the survival of the Andean rugby team and it could work here. Granted, there’s not much meat on the emaciated bodies of dead children, but it could help the Palestinians to see another day. The downside being mad human disease.

Big Bully enables little bully, and both are equally culpable. Please call or email Wyden and Hoyle and tell them that the genocide and ethnic cleansing, as described by the U.N. and majority of the world’s countries, must stop.