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Camilla Mortensen is the longtime local editor of Eugene Weekly, the area’s alternative newspaper. The paper, which has been in print since 1982 (originally as What’s Happening) continues to print more than 27,000 copies a week in addition to its popular email newsletters and website. Camilla has a masters degree in folklore and mythology from UCLA and a doctorate in comparative literature from the University of Oregon. She has been a reporter and editor at EW since 2007 and teaches journalism at the UO in the mornings before heading to the Weekly’s office. She also teaches newswriting at Lane Community College and advises The Torch student newspaper.
Karen Litfin, a University of Washington professor of political science, spent a year traveling and researching her book, Ecovillages: Lessons for Sustainable Community. Litfin, along with Deni Ruggeri of the UO’s landscape architecture program and Anita Van Asperdt, a local landscape architect, will be discussing “Ecovillages and Ecodistricts: Solutions for Climate Change” at the UO Jan. 13. Continue reading
The Sierra Club, Columbia Riverkeeper and several other conservation groups sued BNSF Railway Company last summer after finding what they call “substantial amounts of coal in and along several Washington waterways near BNSF rail lines.” On Jan. 3 the groups celebrated the most recent development in the Clean Water Act case when the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington denied a motion to dismiss, allowing it to go forward. Continue reading
Casey Wright was an equestrian and a dancer. She grew up in Eugene, graduated Sheldon High School and worked downtown at the Pita Pit for several years before taking a job at a Springfield metal fabrication plant to support her goals of riding, training and showing the horses she loved. Early on the morning of Nov. 2, Wright’s ex-boyfriend, Robert Cromwell, confessed to beating 26-year-old Wright to death with an aluminum baseball bat as she lay sleeping in the house they once shared. Continue reading
Before there was Edward Snowden, there was a group of burglars who broke into the FBI's offices, exposed the agency's spying under J. Edgar Hoover and led the exposure of COINTELPRO. They were never caught. Continue reading
In May 2008 Ian Van Ornum was Tasered by a Eugene police officer while prostrate on the ground. On Dec. 27, 2013, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that he could continue to pursue his appeal of his conviction for resisting arrest. The appeals court can either not take action, which would leave Van Ornum’s conviction standing, or decide to send the case back to trial court. Continue reading
The Trans-Pacific Partnership sounds like a conspiracy theory. The TPP talks about a trade deal that will govern 40 percent of U.S. imports and exports as well as affect copyrights, pharmaceuticals and more. The talks are being conducted in secret, and only a few portions of the agreement and memos about it have been leaked. Congressman Peter DeFazio says he vehemently opposes the TPP. Continue reading
The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), Predator Defense and other wildlife advocates have long protested what they say are lax trapping laws in Oregon. A Dec. 15 incident in which a man’s leg was broken in a beaver trap, in conjunction with a press release from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife saying “dog owners share in the responsibility to keep their pets safe during trapping seasons,” has strengthened HSUS’s resolve to make ODFW tighten its trapping regulations. Continue reading
“Why do they treat people as if they are the problem?” asks Lisa Arkin of Beyond Toxics. She says residents of Gold Beach and Cedar Valley in Curry County who have been experiencing health problems from an Oct. 16 aerial spray of pesticides are being treated as it they, not the spraying of toxics, are the problem. Continue reading
From billboards in Oregon airports to Christmas carols, Oregon Wild is going all out with its campaign to save Oregon's public forests. Looks like the Oregon group is giving the Center for Biological Diversity a run for its money in terms of clever media play. Can Oregon Wild beat the Endangered Species condoms? How about something more gender-inclusive like anti-clearcut dental dams or old-growth vibrators? (Don't procreate! Continue reading
One of Oregon’s two nuclear reactors is a noncommercial one at Oregon State University that is training a new generation of nuclear specialists, some with commercial aspirations (the other is at Reed College). However, local utility EWEB gets power from the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), which in turns gets electricity from the Columbia Generating Station (CGS) nuclear reactor in Washington on the Hanford site. Continue reading