We've got issues.
When I was in the Oregon Legislature 20 years ago, I wrote an “insider baseball” perspective for EW on how ideas become bills, and how bills become laws. Out of office now for 12 years and retired for a year, some bills still piss me off. Continue reading
BUTT SEX Lon, [Letters 6/30] when I was reading your response to the editor in the Weekly I opened up the Bible and opened it to Ezekiel Chapter 16. “Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.” Continue reading
• The Republican National Convention is underway and we are already speechless. Let’s just start with asking how in the world an orange charlatan like Donald Trump has gotten within inches of one of the most powerful positions in the world? Plagiarized speeches, men walking around open carrying rifles. Watching coverage of the RNC, it’s hard to differentiate between the comedians and the journalists because the comedy writes itself. Trouble is, it’s not funny if anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, pro-hate Trump takes office. Continue reading
With the British electorate’s dramatic and unexpected decision to pull out of the European Union, The New York Times reports that “the same yawning gap between the elite and mass opinion is fueling a populist backlash” all across Europe and the United States. Here at home, election season is upon us and widespread frustration with conventional party politics has been the motivating force behind both the Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders campaigns. The Trump appeal, as with the “Brexit” revolt, has much to do with resentment toward migrants and refugees. Continue reading
SELECTIVE OUTRAGE Police all over the country are planning a big show of support at upcoming funerals for their Dallas comrades. Where’s the show of support for those they murdered and their families? Where’s the outrage by the police community that their own murdered innocent people? Continue reading
Here we go again — up to 30 more years of urban renewal, because “the city concludes that the entire urban renewal area is blighted.” After 48 years and approximately $130 million (surely over a quarter of a billion dollars adjusted for inflation), the total taxable valuation of all of the property in the district is not even equal to the inflation-adjusted tax money we have poured into it. Continue reading
In a recent review article about forest thinning and its effectiveness to reduce wildfire severity and spread in Forest Ecology and Management, the researchers came to a conclusion with regards to reducing fire risk and effects that “thinning alone had either less of an effect or none at all, compared to untreated sites.” Continue reading
I want my country back. I want the country where “All My Relations” meant an expanded humanity that lives in kinship with other life forms as relatives, not resources. That recognizes that humans in particular are relatives to be nurtured and cared for, not resources to be enslaved or exploited. When enslavement, exploitation or terror happens, that the solution to oppression is to become more humane than your oppressors. Continue reading
CAPSTONE 2.0? Regarding the removal of trees and the new apartment building on Orchard and East 15th Avenue, 12 mature trees were removed. Will this be another Capstone project, which is widely regarded to have been a debacle with minimal plantings and inadequate setbacks from the street? Is anyone from the city monitoring this? George Evans, Eugene LOVE NOT WRATH Continue reading