We've got issues.
• Eugene’s City Council will vote Monday, July 8, on suspending the enforcement of a 5-cent charge for paper bags. To change the ordinance before people have a chance to adapt is ludicrous. Without the incentive, people who don’t care about the consequences of their own actions on the planet and our descendants won’t change their behavior. Continue reading
Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall” is often misquoted by opponents of immigration reform because a portion of the poem reads “Good fences make good neighbors.” As Frost tells it: There where it is we do not need the wall: He is all pine and I am apple orchard My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbors.’ Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder Continue reading
Tim Giraudier/Headwaters Photographic. Lupine on green island. Continue reading
Since I was going to drive all the way to Tucson from Eugene for a weekend retreat, I decided that afterward, on Monday, I’d continue a couple of hours down U.S.-19 to the Mexican border town of Nogales, and stay until Saturday. A mini-immersion experience in life at the border. Continue reading
The politics of gun control today clearly indicate that at the federal or state level in Oregon, legislation to either enact new limitations or expand current regulations regarding firearm ownership is highly unlikely. Accepting this, rather than continue this particular debate, may I offer a proposal which could enhance gun safety while presenting absolutely no threat, real or perceived, to anyone’s Second Amendment rights? Continue reading
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a reprint of a column we ran June 30, 2005, and we think it’s as relevant today as it was eight years ago. Dear Diary: People have been asking me of late if it isn’t time we thought again about building the Emerald Canal. I usually respond with a “Don’t hold your breath unless you can hold it for years or some such,” but they are persisting. Continue reading
A TALL TALE In his June 20 letter to the editor, “Join the Fight,” Jason Gonzales grossly exaggerated the impact of HB 2596. Rather than giving the timber industry “unfair” rules, the bill simply allows the prevailing plaintiff in a forest practices case to collect reasonable attorney fees and costs. The allowance is neither unprecedented nor special. Under ORS 20.080, a prevailing plaintiff is already able to collect attorney fees in certain small tort claims cases. Continue reading
• The Incredible Shrinking Oregonian in Portland is cutting home delivery to four days a week, moving from its iconic building, letting more than 90 people go from all floors and levels, already advertising for cheaper, less experienced staff, becoming a “truly digitally focused media company,” as Publisher N. Christian Anderson III puts it in an op-ed piece. The paper will continue to print seven days a week, but parent company Advance Publications Inc. of New Jersey has cut back print days in other cities, often with bad results. Continue reading
Homo headlines are popping. On the global scene, marriage equality now reigns in 14 countries. This spring New Zealand amended its Marriage Act, Brazil gave the green light to same-sex marriage, and France passed marriage equality, including equal adoption rights. The first to marry under France’s new law, Vincent and Bruno, exchanged vows and rings last week. Let’s hear it for liberté, égalité, fraternité! (Et sororité, for un peu more égalité.) Continue reading
As a high school freshman Katelyn VanBerkel would carefully pick her way through the broken glass and muddied potholes of the trailer park in Glenwood, warily skirting a drunk prostitute, avoiding the local junkies until she could make it onto the warm and dry bus that would take her to the one place she felt safe, school. Against all the statistical odds, Katelyn has worked through poverty, abandonment and homelessness to graduate with a 3.4 GPA. She will attend the UO on full scholarship. Continue reading