 |
  |
 |
||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||
|
Slant: Short opinion pieces and rumor-chasing notes. News: Happening Person: Kimby Maxson. CITIZENS CALL FOR A NEW VISION FOR CITY This year's Citizens' State of the City Address at Harris Hall Jan. 12 had an unspoken theme of "we can do better," and included an unusual diversity of speakers. The presenters called for building neighborhoods and local culture, peace activism, racial and transgender justice, protection of urban natural areas, more pro-labor candidates for public office, hospital planning that benefits citizens over corporations, and improvements in air quality. The presenters this year, introduced by Ruth Duemler, were Kara Steffenson of Friendly Neighbors for Peace, Hannah Persson of Community Organization of Lane County (CALC), Gary Gillespie of Eugene Springfield Solidarity Network, Lauri Segel of 1000 Friends of Oregon, and Becky Riley of the River Road Community Organization and Friends of Rasor Park. New this year was a presentation on social justice from a gender perspective. "Marginalized groups, such as immigrants and transgendered people, bear the brunt of oppressive systems and it is hardly noticed," said Hannah Persson who also noted the "lack of commitment to social justice that we have here in Eugene." Persson talked about the failed attempt this past year to add gender identity to the city code on non-discrimination. "A small but vocal group of people opposing transgender protections were able to persuade the mayor and City Council to exclude transgender protections," she said. "The opposers accomplished this by creating a serious public discomfort and phobia about transgendered people using public restrooms — an issue that has very little relevance to what the code provisions would actually do, such as making discrimination of transgendered individuals illegal in employment, housing and other important public sectors." Speaking on the city's environmental health, Becky Riley lauded the city for improvements in water quality and bike paths, but said we can do much more. She called for the city to not only educate the public about toxic runoff from yards, but also "set a high standard and lead by example by adopting a policy to minimize its own use of weed killers and fertilizers in city parks and … minimize new paving projects in the city." Riley said the ongoing discussions about getting "back to the river" have led to "destructive proposals" for more development along the river — such as the Riverfront Research Park and the recurring proposal for a new Valley River Bridge over the Willamette. "Let's challenge our 'pro-business' city leaders to also be 'pro-environment,' 'pro-public health' and 'anti-pollution,'" she said. "these goals should not be mutually exclusive." Lauri Segel talked at length about citizen participation in land use planning and cited the West Eugene Parkway issue as an example: "We need to work together to craft alternative plans focused on fixing existing problems in west Eugene without causing more problems. We can and must protect our valuable wetlands and remaining fragments of native prairie. We must solve existing access and mobility problems. These challenges can be accomplished by starting with community dialogue and foregoing high stakes ballot box campaigns." Segel also talked about the current shuffling of medical facilities in the valley and the problems that have arisen. "Now, more than ever, it is imperative that citizens get involved in pending hospital siting and related land use and transportation planning decisions." — TJT
COLLINS RAPS UO IN WU COVER STORY Former UO law professor Robin Morris Collins talks about the UO and its lack of committment to racial and cultural diversity in a cover story in the fall Willamette Lawyer, published by the Willamette University College of Law in Salem. Morris Collins, a civil rights activist and environmentalist,
was a visiting law professor at Willamette last year, on leave from
her tenured position at the UO. She and her husband, adjunct professor
Robert Collins, decided recently to According to the article "Morris Collins believes that both Willamette University President M. Lee Pelton and Dean Symeonides have demonstrated a strong commitment to diversity and to excellence. She feels UO has lost sight of that kind of commitment. She notes that out of a faculty of more than 1,200 people at the Eugene campus, she was the only African American woman." She is quoted as saying she feels "at home in the culture, with the whole atmosphere, from the students to the faculty to the administration and staff. Willamette has a strong commitment to achievement that really resonates with me." Her husband has accepted a position as senior research scholar with Willamette's Public Policy Research Center. Her father was a law professor and founder of the first integrated law firm in Chicago. Her grandfather was a minister and civil rights activist. — TJT
"I will do everything in my power to restrict abortions," George W. Bush told The Dallas Morning News on Oct. 22, 1994. A politician who sticks to his word, President Bush has since done everything in his considerable power to restrict a woman's right to reproductive freedom. Here are only a few of his actions: Dec. 22, 2000: He gave the nod to John Ashcroft for U.S. attorney general. Ashcroft had defended anti-choice legislation all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court (Planned Parenthood of Kansas City, Missouri v. Ashcroft, 1983); signed a bill declaring that life begins at conception, and declared the anniversary of Roe v. Wade a "day in memoriam" for aborted fetuses. Dec. 29, 2000: Bush selected anti-choice Gov. Tommy Thompson as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the Office of Population Affairs. Jan. 22, 2001: On his first day in office, also the 28th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Bush restores the Reagan-era global gag rule on international family planning assistance. There's more, including stripping contraceptive coverage from federal employees, closing the White House Office for Women's Initiatives and Outreach and supporting House members who pass the "Unborn Victims of Violence Act." And more. (See EW 6/12/03 "Gag Ed" for what's happening in Oregon, as well.) Despite the efforts to undermine the law, a celebration to mark the 31st anniversary of what's left of Roe v. Wade and to educate the community on what's happening to women's health throughout the world will be held at 6 pm, Jan. 22 at the Wild Duck (re-opened for this event). "Take Back the Right" will include UO Multicultural Director Carla Gary as emcee and speakers Dr. Gary LeClair, the Rev. Ann Bowersox, Sen. Floyd Prozanski and student leaders Alexandra Bullock and Amanda Mabry. Music will be performed by The Ovulators. — AS
Melissa Fay Greene, author of Last Man Out: The Story of the Springhill Mine Disaster, will deliver the 2004 Johnston Lecture at 4 pm, Thursday, Jan. 15 in the UO Knight Library Browsing Room. An award-winning journalist and author of The Temple Bombing and Praying for Sheetrock, Green has also written for The New Yorker, Life, The New York Times and The Washington Post. Her work has addressed a wide range of topics including civil rights and Southern history, the HIV/AIDS global pandemic and African orphans, international adoption and family life. Green will present her lecture on "A Writer Bearing Witness: AIDS Orphans in Africa." The event, funded through an endowment from the Richard W. Johnston Memorial Project, is free and open to the public.
In our Dec. 24 feature story on Pro-Bone-O, the free veterinary clinic for pet owners who are homeless, contact information was inadvertently edited out of the story. The group can be contacted at 607-8089 or visit www.proboneo.org A Calendar listing last week for The Flying Karamazov Brothers benefit performance at UO Jan. 11 incorrectly stated that entry was by donation. The ticket price was actually $15 for adults, which was stated in the advertising, but not in the Calendar. We regret any resulting confusion at the door.
Endgame Neil Smith is a new breed of geographer. The current holder of the 2004 UO Wayne Morse Chair of Law and Politics has a scholar's eye view of the planet. He sees not a patchwork of nations and cultures, but rather the border-transcending, carefully woven threads of financial capital, environmental concerns and immigration patterns. In Eugene to teach and lecture, Smith will speak on globalization and the history and context of the American empire. He will lecture publicly at 7:30 pm Thursday, Jan. 15 at the Hilton and lead a roundtable discussion for activists at 7 pm on Thursday, Jan. 22.at the United Methodist Church. A distinguished professor of anthropology and geography at the City University of New York Graduate Center, Smith also serves as director of the Center for Place, Culture and Politics. The author of numerous articles and books, including American Empire: Roosevelt's Geographer and the Prelude to Globalization and Uneven Development: Nature, Capital and the Production of Space, Smith has also been a Guggenheim Fellow and has received distinguished honors from the Association of American Geographers. Smith's lecture is part of a two-year series of events on "The Changing Geopolitical Order" sponsored by the UO Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics. In his roundtable discussion, he'll focus on labor and class issues and opportunities to organize transnationally, even as he links this to broader questions of peace and justice in the current economic and geopolitical context. Smith asserts that in the 20th century, geography as a discipline became submerged and a sense of geographic sensibility was lost as it was no longer taught in schools. "FDR told people to look at their atlases to understand what was going on," he says. After WWII, Americans became immersed in family life and the consumer culture. Despite the Vietnam War, when maps of Southeast Asia were presented on the evening news, it wasn't until the 1980s, he says, that people generally became interested in geography again. That interest was aroused by "the whole language of globalization in response to the crisis of the post Second World War," he says. As more citizens became concerned with U.S. economic practices abroad, and as the recession of the early '90s began to affect the economy, the public's attention turned toward the practices of corporations in the global market. "As long as the U.S. has the power to dominate through the world's financial market, it's true that a knowledge of geography is less important," he says, but "when the world becomes fragmented, it's important to understand geography again." Today, Smith sees the war against Afghanistan and Iraq as "entirely opportunistic and not defeating terrorism" but instead having to do with "completing a vision of some U.S. global geo-economic control." He points out "the left also gets it a bit wrong when they think it's a war to control the oil." Instead, he sees the U.S. moving to control the institutions that govern the world market, and the current aggressions an "attempt to put U.S. accounting practices in the center of global accounting practices." For this reason, Smith calls U.S. international policies not "geo-political" but "geo-economic." The U.S., however, does not wage this war alone. The Bush administration has its allies, such as British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar. Both, says Smith, are members of the ruling class. "It really is a class connection," he says. Left unchecked, the class wars would mean an even greater global stratification where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. That is where the role of the individual comes in — to roll up sleeves, make connections, and get to work fixing the problem. "I'm an intellectual and an academic, but I'm also an activist, and I think that's important," says Smith. "We have to be clear that … globalization is the endgame and that takes away the ideological power of a 'war on terror.' So the anti-war effort must be clear that it's also anti-globalization." Organizing is the key. "I'm optimistic. It's true anti-war movements don't stop wars before they start, but they do stop them after they start; they slow them down and change their movement. And eventually they do stop." Smith and his co-workers calculated that on March 22 of last year, at least 23 million people around the world participated in anti-war demonstrations. He says that put pressure on Tony Blair to say "no" to invading Syria. "He was under pressure from Britain's anti-war movement. He knew he was on thin ice and would have been booted out if they'd gone into Syria." Smith says the anti-war movement can take credit for stopping an attack on Syria and for stalling the war now. "Rumsfeld and his people are increasingly bogged down. We're seeing this now when they talk about Iran." Smith adds the administration has not had a clear opening to expand its aggression. The anti-war movement has "closed off a lot of the openings." Keeping peace efforts as broad-based as possible is important, says Smith. "I don't buy 'think globally and act locally.' You have to act both at the same time." He also points to the relatively new power in the combined efforts of groups including labor, environmentalists and feminists coming together with the peace movement to effect positive change. Those groups added numbers and strength to the anti-WTO protests, and such connections can influence both local and global decisionmaking, he says. Others will be joining Smith at the Jan. 22 activist workshop to lead a "where do we go from here" discussion. Bob Bussel of the Labor Education and Research Center (LERC) will discuss organizing in opposition to Wal-Mart and Jennifer Webster, a global justice activist who works locally with Eugene PeaceWorks, will talk about her recent experiences at the Free Trade of the Americas (FTAA) protest in Miami. Neil Smith will discuss "Lost Geographies and Failed Globalizations: From Versailles to Iraq," at 7:30 pm Thursday, Jan. 15 at the Hilton. He will lead a roundtable discussion on "Organizing against the end-game of globalization," at 7 pm on Thursday Jan. 22.at the United Methodist Church, 1376 Olive.
KIMBY MAXSON Eugenean Kimby Maxson began to study midwifery while she was pregnant with her daughter Maraya. "I've been a midwife for 13 years now," she notes. "Maraya has been invited to a dozen births — she can take care of the 3-year-old." In 1998, Maxson had surgery for ovarian cancer. "Last June was five years for me," she marvels. "That means I beat it!" Since the operation, she has given birth to a second daughter, Jade, and added massage therapy to her practice. After a good friend died of breast cancer last February, Maxson turned her attention to complementary care for cancer patients. "Gail got massage, acupuncture, and nutritional help," she explains. "I believe it gave her a better quality of life." Within months, Maxson launched the Hearts and Hands Comfort Center, a resource to connect cancer patients with volunteer caregivers. (Call 343-0886 for details.) She currently logs 20 hours a week scheduling care and applying for non-profit status. "We have around 25 volunteers and eight patients," she reports. "We think that people should have everything available to improve their lives, regardless of their financial means."
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
