Opinion: Page 373

Letters to the Editor: 12-11-2014

Letters

PASSION FOR TEACHING You broke my heart. You took what I loved away from me. I’m talking to you, UO. You have taken my work, my motivation, my passion and my dreams and thrown them away without care, without regret. My work is teaching. My motivation is the improvement of my students’ lives. My passion is seeing students understand something they didn’t understand before, and feeling like a better person because of that. My dreams are to improve as a teacher for the rest of my life. Continue reading →

Slant 12-11-2014

Slant

• Congrats to all players for ending the GTFF strike on the UO campus. We’re even pleased that we can stop honking our horns in solidarity with the picketing graduate teaching fellows marching for hours on end. Hopefully, this conflict will not be a forerunner for broader labor disputes at the university, now that the faculty is unionized. It should not be. The UO has a long history of working peacefully with unions, the SEIU, for instance, and the GTFF until this fall. Continue reading →

A Broken System

Another manipulated grand jury outcome

Viewpoint

A background in and understanding of grand juries has led me to be very suspicious about the recent grand jury proceedings regarding Darren Wilson, the police officer who murdered 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Over the last 17 years I have represented dozens and dozens of clients who were subpoenaed to testify as witnesses at state and federal grand juries regarding government investigations.  Continue reading →

Letters to the Editor: 12-4-2014

Letters

ANGELS AND TURKEYS We thoroughly enjoyed our attendance at a few of the community gatherings on Thanksgiving, those being at the old Whiteaker School and Friendly Street Church.  While the food, service and, in the case of the former, great live musical entertainment was excellent, it is all of the wonderful volunteers across the entire spectrum of operations and who gave their time and energy helping those of us in need, who are the true angels of humanity in society today.        Continue reading →

Slant 12-4-2014

Slant

• The Graduate Teaching Fellows’ strike on the UO campus is still on as we go to press this week. Our sympathies have been with the GTF Federation since negotiations began, and we are baffled by the UO administration’s response, considering interim President Scott Coltrane’s background. Coltrane is described in a recent New York Times article as a sociologist who has done extensive research on issues central to these negotiations. He should have led the way in giving the GTFs two weeks of paid sick  and parental leave and a pay raise. Continue reading →

Out of Compliance

NewsViewpoint

Eugene will celebrate International Human Rights Day Dec. 10. Once again we will listen to city officials talk about how Eugene is (or aspires to be) a human rights city that follows the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But the reality is quite different on the streets where around 2,000 people survive without shelter, (un)aware that they have human rights, treated as criminals by the city.  Continue reading →

A Champion of Peace

Viewpoint

A memorial service was held for Lady Naljorma Jangchup Palmo, affectionately know as Amala, on Oct. 10 in the Ragozzino Theater on the LCC campus. Mayor Kitty Piercy, presidents of the UO and LCC, faculty members and Sen. Jeff Merkley’s office offered special tributes and condolences. Amala was a champion of peace and one of the key people who helped to bring His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Eugene in 2013. She was also a co-founder of the Palmo Center for Peace and Education. Continue reading →

Thanksgiving 2014

Viewpoint

Each year at this time in the month of November I like to take stock, settle back and remember The good things in life, all the stuff I hold dear So I stop to say “Thanks!” as Thanksgiving draws near   I know being grateful is good for my soul So today I say thanks for my cereal bowl Which I found at Goodwill for just 99 cents A very affordable household expense   I give thanks for this bowl of organic granola And try not to fret too much over Ebola Continue reading →

Letters to the Editor: 11-26-2014

Letters

BLAMING THE POOR While talking with friends I dissed white middle-class values, and they asked why? Well, the conversation about the homeless camp’s trash by the river is a good example. Good appearances and respecting the law are white middle-class values. So homeless people breaking the law by existing and littering is, by those mores, bad.  Continue reading →

Slant 11-26-2014

Slant

• As Tom Wolf once wrote, “a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich.” But apparently a grand jury won’t indict a cop. On Nov. 24, a grand jury in Missouri did not indict police officer Darren Wilson for shooting and killing Michael Brown, an 18-year-old unarmed black man. As riots erupt in Ferguson again and across the country, we support both the anger of the protesters and the calls for peace. Continue reading →