No Justice in Young’s Sentencing?
Citing no examples in its reporting, Mark Weintraub says that the EW showed “glee” and “celebrated” Elisha Young’s prison sentence for nearly putting the paper out of business by embezzling more than $138,000 of its funds (EW letters, June 4). His letter makes clear that he believes that a sentence of imprisonment for this crime is unjust.
If someone stole my life’s savings and impoverished me, I would experience great satisfaction at their sentencing to a term behind bars. I have to assume that if Weintraub were similarly victimized, he would feel only a sense of injustice at such an outcome. So I guess that he’s a much better man than I am.
Tim Baxter
Eugene
Intrusive Thoughts
Election season grumpy thought: a Republican officeholder with courage is as common as a snake with toenails: no such thing.
Election season sober thought: Given our besieged critical thinking and disintegrating institutional trust, a charismatic, populist progressive could just as easily have become an American Pol Pot. There but for the grace of God goes my tribe.
Doyle Srader
Eugene
Bike Lanes Not Enough
It’s not the bike lanes, dividers or the regulations passed to control the traffic problems at which your complaints should be aimed.
It’s the people, in a mad dash to get to the next traffic light, the next coffee shop, the next school sports events, …whatever. It’s not a race folks…
Slow the fuck down!
Recently, I’ve adopted a standard operating procedure when driving. I wait an extra 3 to 4 seconds at traffic lights. Probably 15 percent of the cars run red lights because they’re driving over the speed limit and can’t slow down.
Then there are the bicyclists who prefer to ride on sidewalks, often at high speed. Last week, I was almost run over by a mom and her daughter coming behind me and not even giving me a heads up, just scooting around me. It’s a sidewalk! If you don’t want to use the bike lane during rush hour, don’t take your children out on a main street.
And while I’m ranting: bicyclists, electric bikers, skateboarders, while you’re racing through traffic on streets, alleys and sidewalks, (not following any kind of traffic laws), could you please put a light on your bike or your person at night and wear something besides black.
Whatever happened to common sense regarding what works for traffic on our streets and sidewalks? And how about some courtesy by everyone out there?
That could solve a lot of problems.
Ted Ledgard
Eugene
A Little Music for the Soul
All we need is music, sweet music. Congratulations to KRVM for bringing Dead Air into the fold! KLCC’s loss is surely KRVM’s gain. Special thanks to Downtown Deb for keeping the Dead alive over all these years for listeners old and young. The band represents a hopeful and transformative era in America that is fast vanishing under the looming shadow of Shakedown Street. I am grateful the Grateful Dead remain to remind us of days gone by and how to live in the days ahead.
Benton Elliott
Eugene
Plastic Bottles — Really?
I recently had the pleasure of watching the video recording of Ada Limón’s April 8 presentation to students and others at the Oregon Humanities Center. Aside from reveling in her lyrical voice, her words and her readings, as well as the clever, insightful questions asked by (mostly) students, one thing I noticed is that she had her own water bottle near her and thus completely ignored the plastic water bottle provided for her by the organizers of the event.
Will we ever put an end to this practice of purchasing and providing throw-away plastic bottles for every event, speaker or panel? This practice runs utterly counter to so many of the values regarding sustainability many of us hold in this community. These are (generally) adults; could we not simply issue a reminder that they remember their own reusable water bottle?
Sarah Barlow
Eugene
Concerns About Census
We have received our U.S. Census and the instructions that it must be filled out by law.
We understand the reasons for the census and the valuable information it gives our political representatives and leaders in order to determine funding at all levels and in making decisions regarding us, their constituents.
In the past, there was never a question (at least at our level) of the importance of this information and how it was being used, there was trust in our democracy.
But, now there is great fear as to what the current administration will do with all of this very personal ethnicity, ancestral, financial and personal information and how it might affect us and our neighbors.
We will be sending letters to our political representatives in the hope that they will do their best to protect us and this information and make sure it is used for its intended purposes and not for punishment or retribution.
Marion Sproul
Eugene
Balkanization
Regarding “Separation Anxiety” (May 28 edition)”: The #MafiaStat’s goal is to break us; we got plenty of woes to put energy into, start with local efforts.
Don Heady
Eugene
Why do People Steal Bicycles?
Poor parenting?
Public education?
The status quo? As a people with no clear understanding of who we were, who we are and who we want to be, liberty is anything you can get away with, and freedom is not for the poor; they just pay for it. Taxation without representation rings true for those who feel disenfranchised. What taxation there is for representation is found in police reports. Taxes pay for police, and police reports represent victims.
Jon Meadow
Eugene
A Hive Mind Analogy
If you put 100 black ants and 100 red ants into a jar, nothing will happen. But, if you shake the jar hard enough, the black ants will consider the red ants enemies and vice versa. The ants will start killing each other.
The same thing happens in human society. Instead of attacking each other, we should focus on who is shaking the jar.
Michael Foster
Eugene
Our Mother is Dying
I have lived in rural western Oregon for 60 years. In that time, I have watched the slow changing of the land around me.
The old Douglas-firs on my property are showing signs of stress. Brown patches are appearing in the needles. During one brutal drought and heat wave, the creek near my home stopped flowing for the first time I could remember. You could almost see the fir trees go into survival mode.
But it is not only the trees.
The big slugs and snails I once saw regularly are mostly gone. Tree frogs that filled the evenings with sound have nearly vanished. Even the bats that flickered through the dusk, catching insects, are rarely seen anymore.
People can argue about politics, climate models and statistics, but some of us have spent a lifetime observing one small piece of Earth closely. We know what used to be here. We know what healthy summers felt and sounded like.
The silence is what hurts the most.
I consider myself an empath, and perhaps that makes these changes harder to bear. Watching the slow unraveling of a living ecosystem feels like losing old friends. These forests are not just scenery. They are part of our memory and identity.
I do not write this out of anger. I write it out of grief and love for this place.
The land is speaking. I hope we are not too distracted to listen.
Michael T. Hinojosa
Drain
ONLINE EXTRA LETTERS
Just Wars
In his May 28 viewpoint, Dan Bryant talks about St. Paul claiming that Jesus is Lord to contradict the Roman assertion that Caesar was “Lord of the world and son of God.” He doesn’t mention that Paul wrote an epistle to the Romans that said, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” I think this is one of the epistles that convinced the Romans that they could use Christianity as the official religion of their empire, which then became “holy.” Paul also wrote that wives should be subjugated to their husbands, thus claiming that women are inferior to men. This is another idea that has survived the Holy Roman Empire and exists today in the Roman Catholic Church.
In the case of the “just war doctrine,” it seems any war could be declared just if the leader calling the war was “instituted by God,” which was pretty much the default. Thus, the Crusades were just. Taking over the European continent was just. Taking over North and South America were just.
It seems that the war with Iran is the first war that Christians are calling unjust. There hasn’t been a just war since the end of WWII, even though our presidents are instituted by God.
Steve Hiatt
Eugene
When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?
Thanks to a group of concerned student journalists at the University of South Carolina I know that I can’t trust where my donated organs might end up. Those students revealed that some Americans who had donated their bodies to USC were used for training Israeli military medics.
I have an anatomical donor designation on my driver’s license. I do not want any part of me, living or dead, to benefit “Israel.” I’ve contacted Cascade Life Alliance, a nonprofit organ procurement organization serving Oregon, to find out what assurances they can provide me. I must admit, I’m not inclined to believe whatever assurances they may give because I know how vast and insidious the U.S.-Israel relationship is. I also know that Israel conducts nonconsensual medical experimentation on Palestinians. I didn’t learn that from any investigative journalism, though. I learned that from a friend who has been subjected to such experimentation.
Years ago, I tried to do my own investigation into that horror. I could only go so far before I was causing my friend more harm than good. However, I do remember finding that Oregon Health & Science University had some joint research projects with Israeli medical institutions. I seem to remember one of them pertained to vision. And this pertains to me as an organ donor. Even if it’s the most remote possibility that my eyes would be procured by OHSU to be used in a joint research project with Israeli doctors, it’s not remote enough. I am rescinding my designation as an organ donor immediately … and until Palestine is free.
Molly Sirois
Eugene
Birthday Party For One
Well now, ‘our’ 47th President planned his own 80th birthday extravaganza, complete with an MMA-style cage fight arena — on the front lawn of the White House no less! A what?
What kind of party is this? Will a giant gold-frosted cake be served to the four thousand handpicked (read: solicited) fellow grifters and sycophants?
Will they sing “Happy Birthday” while watching modern-day gladiators flail away at each other, celebrating your illegal war with Iran? Do you hope your people will marvel at the wanton destruction of the East Wing of the White House — to be replaced by an out-of-proportion, invitation-only ballroom? Who will be honored to sit at the celebratory table?
Perhaps your party will treat your Jan. 6 foot-soldiers with $1776 billion worth of pardons and party favors? Or will you just serve the public with more empty promises, to lower the price of gas and groceries — a direct result of the chokepoint you created in the Straits of Hormuz?
Will you show slides of the wrecking ball you have taken to the world order, the murder of Venezuelan fishermen, and the unlawful arrest of innocent citizens by agents of ICE?
Will there be placemats featuring the smug images of Jeffrey Epstein and the horrific traumatization inflicted on underage girls and young women?
Sorry, Donald Trump, the party’s over. Time to crash your party, pop the balloons and blow out the candles.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
William C. Crutchfield
Eugene
Dumb vs Dumber
President Donald J Trump claims that most people do not know that there is the letter “B” in the word “dumb”; all the while, most people do know that there is a lot of “stupid” in “Trump.”
Michael Thessen
Eugene
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