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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.
I’m pretty sure truck-stop rocker James McMurtry was laughing into his dinner as he sat at Poppi’s Anatolia last time he came to Eugene. He was chilling out alone before his WOW Hall show, sitting one table over from me, and couldn’t help but to hear my friend Becky bitching me out for not putting hay bales around the bottom of my Airstream trailer in a sort of redneck insulation to keep it warm in the winter. Continue reading
If the Oregon Department of Revenue (DOR) wins its appeal before the Oregon Supreme Court, Lane County could get $7.2 million from communications giant Comcast in taxes. If the state loses, then Lane County Tax Assessor Mike Cowles says at least the county won’t owe any money, thanks to a bill that was passed in the 2011 Legislature after the Comcast dispute began in 2009. Ten Oregon counties are affected by the dispute: Lane, Multnomah, Benton, Clackamas, Columbia, Linn, Marion, Polk, Washington and Yamhill. Continue reading
One bunny had a broken jaw and was missing its tail. Three more wound up at the home of a Cottage Grove employee after a co-worker said her kids couldn’t keep them. Heather Crippen of Red Barn Rabbit Rescue says that those were a few of the results of a previous “animal scramble” at the Cottage Grove Rodeo. Continue reading
Love your “I love My Ducks” T-shirt? John Henzie of Triangle Graphics is worried that with the UO’s new request for proposals (RFP) for apparel licenses asking for a half million dollars as a “minimum annual guarantee,” small, local businesses like his won’t be able to compete and make spur-of-the moment T-shirts anymore. The RFP does not affect Nike. Continue reading
If you haven't heard of Luv A Bull Pitbull Rescue or its other half, Luv A Little, then you haven't been looking at enough puppy and cute dog pictures on Petfinder. Rapper Macklemore apparently HAS been checking out cute pups on Instagram and has been Instagramming them as well. He gave shouts out to @luvabullpittys on Instagram on his website recently. Continue reading
Joseph Calbreath, now formerly of KMTR, speaks out on the recent sale of the TV station to Fisher Communications, calling the layoffs a "blood bath." Fisher, which will be owned by another company later this year, will own or be affiliated with three of the area's four TV stations — KVAL, FOX and now KMTR. Fox is locally owned but has a "news share" with KVAL. Any thoughts on how that might affect local news coverage? Continue reading
“I feel very strongly that if we don’t stop GMOs it will be the end of humanity,” says Lizzy Cwynar. She had never organized a protest before, but her concerns over genetically modified organisms (GMOs) led her to organize Eugene’s part of the worldwide March Against Monsanto. Eugene police estimate that about 2,500 people participated in the May 25 event. At least two million people are said to have participated in marches nationwide. Continue reading
It came to a grand total of $550,000 to bring the Dalai Lama to Portland in May, but what it cost to bring him to Eugene is not yet known. His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, spent most of his Oregon visit in Portland, with a stop in Eugene for his May 10 lecture, “The Path to Peace and Happiness in the Global Society.” UO spokesman Phil Weiler says the UO has not yet done a final accounting of the Eugene event, with some big-ticket expenditures still coming in, but that the UO’s “expectation from the beginning was that expenses would exceed revenues.” Continue reading
Oregonians would rather protect water, forests, fish and wildlife on their federal forestlands than cut them down for money for the timber economy and local governments. That’s the gist of a recent bipartisan statewide poll of likely voters in western Oregon by the Pew Charitable Trusts. Continue reading
A genetically engineered (GE) variety of glyphosate-resistant wheat linked to Monsanto was found growing in an Oregon wheat field. The U.S. Department of Agrigculture announced today that it launched a "formal investigation after being notified by an Oregon State University scientist that initial tests of wheat samples from an Oregon farm indicated the possible presence of GE glyphosate-resistant wheat plants." Continue reading