We've got issues.
A large mural on the former Goodwill building in River Road illustrates what an eco-friendly cluster of neighborhood scale local businesses might look like. There is a cafe, a bakery and small grocery with boxes of veggies out front. The scene I painted 10 years ago is complete with images of real people from the neighborhood meeting and greeting each other and even favorite Eugene guitar player Eagle Park Slim. Continue reading
What better time to celebrate the connections being made between kids and local food than October with the harvest season at its height and the school year in full swing. The Willamette Farm and Food Coalition’s Farm to School Program is actively working with the Bethel, Eugene, Springfield and Oakridge school districts to educate students about where their food comes from, provide their families with resources to access healthy, locally grown foods and assist district Nutrition Services in incorporating more locally grown foods into school meals. Continue reading
I’m deeply involved in the Oakleigh Meadow Cohousing (OMC) project situated in the River Road area along the Willamette River and bike path. Planning is under way with the city of Eugene and we’re aiming to break ground June 2014. I’m also a River Road resident and OMC household member along with my wife and two boys – we currently live just a block away from the beautiful cohousing site where we’ve gathered many times with friends and family. We welcome cohousing into our neighborhood and plan on living at OMC as soon as it’s built. Continue reading
I love the Ruth Bascom Riverbank Trail System. I use it almost every day to take walks with my son and dog. We love that where we live -— next to the West Bank section of the trail system — much of the trail is surrounded by the Willamette River Greenway, a mix of city parkland and open spaces. Continue reading
As the Obama administration continues to market its planned war on Syria as a “limited” strike and “shot across the bow,” the language of the resolution the Congress is being asked to consider and the plans of the president’s national security team belie any such limited intention. Continue reading
The other day, I walked out and got into my car, which takes just plain old regular unleaded gasoline. I drove into town on the asphalt roads, which are a remarkable feature. They’re basically just crushed gravel and tar or pitch (bitumen, technically), which is one of the leftovers from refining oil, and they cover an impressive amount of the surface of the Earth at this point. Less than .1 percent to be sure, but that is still a lot of asphalt. Continue reading
Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. — Karl Marx Continue reading
The Occupy Wall Street meme went viral in September 2011. People all over America assembled to oppose the astonishing Wall Street bailouts, which continued after emergency assistance to Main Street dried up. Street drama was electrifying. Looking back, history will show that Occupy was the beginning of a paradigm — shifting people’s reaction to the third structural crisis of American capitalism (after the depressions of 1893 and the 1930s). Both of these previous crises resulted in fundamental rewrites of the operating code of the American political operating system. Continue reading
Forty-eight years ago this month, Lyndon Johnson overcame years of resistance by the medical establishment and signed Medicare into law. It’s as close as this country has ever come to establishing the kind of universal, publicly funded, “single-payer” health care system that prevails in most other industrialized countries. Continue reading
In a Viewpoint on Aug. 1, 2012, Roy Keene described how Timber Town Eugene buzzes along nearly oblivious to the forest destruction and herbicide poisoning around it. Much like a frog in a pot of water brought to a slow boil, the timber industry relies on what geographer and author Jared Diamond has referred to as “landscape amnesia” — slow environmental degradation that would be offensive if only at a faster pace. The scenario with the Seneca biomass power facility is disturbingly similar. Continue reading