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Michael Hogan has stepped down after 39 years as a judge in federal courts, and the $100,000-plus privately funded retirement bash planned in his honor has been downsized at his request. The change in plans also follows a story in Willamette Week Nov. 21 that quotes Portland attorney Michael Esler saying “The ostentatiousness makes us lawyers look even worse than we already look.” Continue reading
Project Censored has been documenting inadequate media coverage of crucial stories since it began in 1967 at Sonoma State University. Each year, the group considers hundreds of news stories submitted by readers, evaluating their merits. Students search LexisNexis and other databases to see if the stories were underreported, and if so, the stories are fact-checked by professors and experts in relevant fields. Continue reading
Protesters in Texas have put up treesits and locked themselves to machinery to stop the Keystone XL pipeline; thousands of activists gathered around the White House Nov. 18 to call on President Obama to reject the controversial tar sands conduit; and here in Eugene, as part of a week of solidarity actions, local activists faced high winds and rain to voice their concerns about tar sands oil. Continue reading
The news that clearcutting would be suspended on 914 acres of the Elliott State Forest came to logging opponents through a September memo that was posted on the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) website, Josh Laughlin of Cascadia Wildlands says. He says this was welcome news for an endangered sea bird that nests in Oregon’s coastal old-growth forests. Cascadia Wildlands and other groups filed a suit in federal court in July to try protect the threatened marbled murrelet and its habitat, and that suit has led to the temporary cease in clearcutting. Continue reading
Heidy Hollister, a former Lane County Animal Services veterinary technician who then went on to work for Greenhill Humane Society after it took over the LCAS shelter, has filed a $700,000 suit against Greenhill that says she was subject to “unwarranted criticism and reprimands” and her contract terminated after she complained “that many of the animals were injured, sick and diseased and defendant [Greenhill] did not provide them with adequate or any medication or hygienic care to relieve their pain and suffering.” Continue reading
“My parents have an interior plant company,” says Shelley Bowerman, who planted a garden at her rental house when she moved from the Napa Valley to Eugene after high school. “I got involved with people who grow food for FOOD for Lane County in the Whiteaker Community Garden.” Bowerman started out in journalism at the UO, but switched to international studies. “I focused on food and farming,” she says. Continue reading
Every four years around presidential election time, the Electoral College gets attention for a few weeks, then fades into the fog of obscurity for four more years. But who are Oregon’s seven electors, how did they become electors and what do they do? President Obama’s victory this week does not automatically make him president for four years, but it kicks off a long and formal process that leads up to his inauguration at noon Jan. 20, 2013. Seven electors will (ideally) represent us and cast their votes for Obama and Biden in Salem Dec. 17. Continue reading
The Cascadia Bioregion, according to Bend-based independent filmmakers Mel Sweet and Devin Hess, “is defined by geomorphology, including all watersheds that flow west from the continental divide through the rainforests of the West Coast.” It extends from the southeast Alaska Panhandle south into northern California and as far east as Missoula, Mont. Continue reading
Four years ago, this country was gearing up to elect Team Obama-Biden or Team McCain-Palin. Four years ago there were flag pins, Bill Ayers and lipsticked pigs instead of Big Bird, Bain and bayonets. Four years ago, Mitt Romney was a blip on the election trail and the U.S. was toppling into one of the largest economic downturns in history. And four years ago, the David Minor Theater (DMT) opened at 5th and Pearl St., bringing film and libations to Eugene. Friday, Nov. 2, the theater will host a “Re-election Party” to mark the conclusion of that crucial first term. Continue reading
Like socialism, the words labor and union, have become dirty in today’s political climate. But this wasn’t always so. These words have undergone a slow, steady and deliberate connotation reassignment, now signifying fascism, communism, redistribution of wealth and anti-democratic and anti-competitive practices, and perhaps that’s why anyone born after 1980 is probably not familiar with the Reuther family like they are with the Kennedys. Continue reading