• Your November election ballots (and EW’s endorsements issue) hit mailboxes and red boxes the week of Oct. 15. The Trump administration’s attacks on vote-by-mail and voting in general (and on immigrants and LGBTQIA+ people and the environment… the list goes on) are painful reminders of just why we need to vote. Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read is recommending folks use ballot drop boxes and has requested funding for 20 more boxes ahead of the election. Find the Drop Box Locator at SOS.oregon.gov.
• This week marks 25 years since 9/11. So many of us remember exactly where we were that morning when 3,000 people died in the terrorist attack. For others, the aftereffects still linger. And then after a quarter century, there are so many adults for whom it’s history on page or screen. After 25 years, we still hope there’s a way forward without endless wars and a world in which we try to help one another, not destroy.
• Online extras! Why do we have online extras? Well, we all know your week starts with the Weekly on Thursday, but news happens in between and we get to give you the joys of print and digital news! But you want it all in print? We do, too, but this free paper costs money to produce! Take out an ad, make a donation and read us all over town. We also have a story about the national effort to have nurses 24/7 in nursing homes and EW’s own Savannah Brown interviewed Matthew Morrison — aka Will Schuester of Glee fame who performs his one-man show in Salem Sept. 15. Morrison’s show has become viral among Gen-Z for appearing so strange on TikTok. She asked him to explain what the show is actually about, as well as what he really thought about some of Schuester’s famously questionable decisions in Glee. His answers turned out surprisingly wholesome. Read it all on EugeneWeekly.com.
• On Sept. 8, Allison Wieck testified before the Oregon State Senate Committee on Judiciary asking that the Oregon Legislature address a gap in the law that allows people who have been convicted of stalking children from expunging their records. Wieck’s daughter was stalked starting when Lili was only 4 years old. Despite a permanent stalking protective order and his conviction, her stalker was allowed to expunge his record. Read the story in the Sept. 3 Eugene Weekly, and let your legislators know what you think. Sen. Floyd Prozanski of Springfield and Eugene; Sen. James Manning Jr. of Eugene, Elmira and Veneta; and Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin of Corvallis and Albany are all members of the committee.
• Losing Dolly Parton, Gloria Steinem, Tim Curry, Optimus Prime (aka Peter Cullen) and more in the last couple weeks led us here at Eugene Weekly world headquarters to ponder what other precious cultural icons we are in danger of losing? What about locally or in Oregon? Just how old is Cesar the No Drama Llama? Is someone keeping an eye on Julie Andrews, Tom Hanks, Morgan Freeman, Liza Minnelli, Cher, Barbra Streisand, Dustin Hoffman, Danny Devito, Diana Ross and Paul McCartney? Here in Eugene we need to hold on to former Mayor Kitty Piercy, former City Councilor Betty Taylor and architect Otto Poticha. Who else? Answer our EW Asks at EugeneWeekly.com.
• The Republican-led House Committee on Natural Resources sent letters to 19 environmental advocacy organizations Sept. 4 in what it calls an investigation into “radical environmental groups’ unscrupulous tactics to profit from tax payers dollars.” The Sierra Club is radical? A letter sent to longstanding environmental advocacy group Oregon Wild accuses the organization of using litigation as a business model to obtain taxpayer funded attorney fees by exploiting laws that allow the nonprofit to recover attorney fees from the government. Quinn Read, Oregon Wild’s executive director, writes, “While Oregon Wild is flattered to be considered among this list of the most effective public lands advocacy organizations in the country, this entire exercise is a waste of time.”