Opinion: Page 383

No Room at the Inn

Lack of options leads to chronic homelessness

Viewpoint

A woman with mild developmental disabilities finds herself in an abusive relationship with a man who is also the father of her 8-year-old daughter. Tired of the physical violence and verbal abuse, she files for a restraining order and has the man removed from their shared apartment in a Section-8 housing unit.  The woman still does not feel safe from her abuser and begins to develop an escape plan with her friend who lives in Eugene. The friend promises a new start, a place to stay while she works on getting housing and a job, and convinces her to buy a bus ticket.   Continue reading →

Twice Blessed

Viewpoint

For people like me who are Jewish and queer It’s especially hard at this time of the year When gentiles assume that we all are alike Like straight folks ignore that you’re really a dyke   When people around you are into a thing That makes them rejoice, get nostalgic and sing And all the whole time, it’s a thing that’s not yours And YOUR thing’s a thing everybody ignores   Or else they just act like both things are the same Continue reading →

Letters to the Editor: 12-24-2014

Letters

NOT THIS GREEN Glad to see your mention in Slant last week [12/18] of the R-G’s littering — aka the viral green Emerald Valley Shopper every Wednesday — and in a town that actually “likes” green! Sure, it is a micro issue given all the major topics, but we do notice. I walk daily and I espied this hard-copy message on a south Eugene lawn in October. Someone just said NO! But does the R-G read? Douglas Beauchamp, Eugene   MIRROR, MIRROR Continue reading →

Slant 12-24-2014

Slant

• Our Give Guide has expanded from less than a page in years past to the multiple pages you see this week. Eugene is home to hundreds of nonprofits doing exceptional work locally and around the world, so our list is far from complete. Why are we such a thriving center for nonprofits, much more so than other communities our size? Continue reading →

Slant 12-18-2014

Slant

• Parting is such sweet sorrow: Since Ducks quarterback Marcus Mariota won the Heisman last week — and won it decisively — he ceased to be just another great UO athlete. If he wasn’t already, Mariota is now a national celebrity, evidenced by his immediate appearance on network television  Dec. 15 when he read the Top Ten list on “Late Night with David Letterman.” Letterman introduced Mariota as “a good-looking kid” from “your University of Oregon Ducks,” and he wasn’t talking to us, Eugene. Continue reading →

Open Season

Capital punishment without a trial

Viewpoint

I’ve had this sense of it, open season, aka socially sanctioned targeting, since age 7, reinforced at 19, and lulled into a Eugene false sense of security pushing 60. I admit to a certain numbing grief over my lifetime composed of anger, rage, sadness, depression, loss and, finally, resolution. Being black bears the responsibility of acting as though you have some wisdom (at least sense, good freedom-fighter home training) and are working for the liberation of human beings everywhere. Continue reading →

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 →