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Slant: Short opinion pieces and rumor-chasing notes News: News: Happening Person: David Howell AMAZON DAY DRAWS CROWD Amazon Appreciation Day in October turned out nearly 100 community members ages 3 to 73. Volunteers donned boots, raincoats and shovels to learn how to plant native flora, clean up Amazon Creek, and get muddy with fellow nature lovers. Some were veteran volunteers who needed little direction, others were complete novices. One Rotary high school exchange student from India was handed a shovel and asked to plant a tree. She had never dug a hole in her life, and was stunned when she uncovered a large earthworm. The volunteers arrived at several sites along Amazon Creek Saturday, Oct. 23 for the 13th annual event sponsored by the Eugene Stream Team. Co-sponsor Eugene Weekly was also on hand along the bikepath at Oakpatch, offering coffee, tea, bagels and shelter from the threatening clouds. Stream Team Coordinator Lorna Baldwin says the event mobilized volunteers of all ages to plant native plants, remove invasive species, pick up trash, build trails and "learn more about Eugene's amazing Amazon Creek from its headwaters at the base of Spencer's Butte all the way out to the West Eugene Wetlands." Sites getting attention included the butterfly meadow at 39th and East Amazon, the wetland mitigation site behind Amazon Pool, the Camas Trail, the riverbanks behind Chavez School, the Fairgrounds, the Gudu-Kut wetlands at 14th and City View and the widened stretch of Amazon Creek between Oakpatch and Acorn Park. Invasive plants, such as blackberries and ivy, were removed at several sites and volunteers planted more than 750 native trees, shrubs and forbs that were cultivated at the Stream Team's volunteer-run Native Plant Nursery. Volunteers donned waders to cut and plug willow whips along the creek to provide shade to the stream in years to come. "We improved the health of our urban watershed and strengthened the community at the same time," says Baldwin. Audubon expert Steve Gordon led a bird walk along the creek at 7:30 am for early risers, and after the morning's labors, many of the volunteers gathered for lunch and door prizes at the Hilyard Center. Upcoming public restoration events include a work party planting native trees and shrubs along the creek behind the Fairgrounds starting at 1 pm Sunday, Nov. 7. Call Baldwin at 682-4850 or e-mail lorna.j.baldwin@ci.eugene.or.us — TJT
DEPARTMENT OF PEACE? An upcoming conference on establishing a U.S. Department of Peace will be held in Berkeley, Calif., Nov. 5-7 with Congressman Dennis Kucinich giving a keynote speech, along with author Marianne Williamson and Marshall Rosenberg of the Center for Nonviolent Communication. In April of this year, Kucinich introduced a bill in the House of Representatives outlining a cabinet-level Department of Peace. Detailed information is available online at www.dopcampaign.org
DRIVING SUBURBIA What happens when the worldwide demand for oil exceeds the current, relatively cheap supply? The concept of "peak oil" is being examined by a local study group that is offering a public showing of the film The End of Suburbia at 7 pm Tuesday, Nov. 9 At Cozmic Pizza, 199 W 8th Ave. The Global Trends-Local Choices Study Group is headed by local neighborhood activist Jan Spencer, and the film profiles suburbia and what will likely happen to it with the advent of steepening and permanent increases in energy costs. "The film and its cast of experts, journalists and insiders makes a convincing case that we are on the verge of peak oil and that does not bode well for the autocentric culture that is the core of suburbia and our contemporary life," says Spencer. "Something like half of the world's endowment has been burned up in the past century," he says. "The 'low hanging fruit' is gone and maintaining supplies even at current levels becomes ever more expensive and complicated. Imagine a bell shaped curve, representing oil production. We are currently somewhere near the top." Spencer says the timing of this high point is a matter of debate, with optimists projecting another 30 years, and many others saying it will happen much sooner. "Peak oil is not the end of oil, it is the point where oil shifts from a buyer's market to a seller's market," says Spencer. "The U.S. has seen its daily consumption go up by 2.5 million barrels per day in just the past 10 years. Developing countries like China, India and many others all are using more oil at an accelerating rate. Countries that were exporting oil are now looking to import. Discovery of new deposits is not keeping up with demand." Spencer says the cheap petroleum that subsidizes suburbia, industrial agriculture, much of global trade, countless everyday products and our entire way of life will be replaced by a "need to re-orient our lives and economy much closer to home. That means local food security, conservation of all manner of resources, redesigned urban spaces to make them more walkable, bikable; a redesign of where we work, live, shop, recreate closer together." "We would be smart to convert our local economy, redirecting existing means of manufacture and agriculture to produce goods for the local and regional market that will be relevant in a world of much higher energy costs." For more info on the study group, call 686 6761.
FORUM ON SCHOOL SITES A School Siting Forum is planned for Friday, Nov. 5 at the UO. Co-sponsored by the university's Community Planning Workshop and Oregon's Transportation and Growth Management program, the one-day forum will provide educators, planners, architects, community activitists, transportation officials and others an opportunity to discuss the challenges and opportunities of integrating land use, school facilities, and transportation planning. For details, contact Page Phillips, Page70@aol.com or call 346-3651 or visit http://csc.uoregon.edu/tgm_schoolsiting/
WAR GETS MORE SPENDY Recent reports that the Bush administration plans to submit a request for an additional $70 billion to finance the war in Iraq means Oregon families face paying an addition $650 million, according to Scott Ballo of America Coming Together-Oregon. "Bush's admission that Iraq will cost another $70 billion, half again as much as previously requested, is more proof of Bush's poor leadership in Iraq and at home," says Ballo in a press release. According to the National Priorities Project, Oregon taxpayers have already contributed $1.3 billion to the war in Iraq.
CORRECTIONS / CLARIFICATIONS Les Castle of the Eugene Wellness Center won Best Massage Therapist in our Best of Eugene listings (10/21), but the center is not on 18th. The address is 1405 Mill St., phone 484-9809. Two names were misspelled in our Best of Eugene listings. Winner for Best Chef is Pornwadee Garner from Ring of Fire. Second place winner for Best Tattooist is Matt Diehl.
Does Eugene need a housing code with more teeth and more local control than the existing state regulations regarding landlords and tenants? Renters say yes, rental owners say no, and local government is divided on the issue. A proposal similar to Corvallis's housing code comes before the City Council for a public hearing Monday evening, Nov. 8. Eugene Citizens for Housing Standards (ECHS), a coalition of local residents, neighborhood associations, community groups and student groups, says the current system for addressing renter grievances relies too heavily on small claims court. Many renters don't understand their rights, many don't speak English, and some have never even heard of the Oregon Revised Statutes. "Civil action against landlords is time consuming and cost-prohibitive to many low-income residents," reads an ECHS statement. "As a result, many Eugene residents often continue to reside in housing that does not meet state law but cannot afford to resolve their complaints." The group says renters with complaints have to wait for their day in court, face eviction if they complain, and may end up living in housing that is "structurally unsafe, unsanitary, lacking plumbing, dangerously cold or leaky." And they may face health threats and "monetary loss due to substandard housing and the negligence of unscrupulous landlords." ECHS is calling for establishing a city Rental Housing Program (RHP) for Eugene, to be financed by fees paid by landlords for each rental unit. Corvallis has such a program and charges $8 per unit. Salem's program is also fee-based, but Portland's and Medford's programs are supported with general fund dollars, according to an analysis by Marsha Miller of the city Planning and Development Department. Proposed fines in Eugene for unsatisfied complaints would be $250 per day per violation. Miller says the Corvallis code took city staff three years to adopt and implement, and it cost a total of about $120,000 to set up. The program has been running about two years. Lining up behind the RHP are Mayor-elect Kitty Piercy, the Eugene Human Rights Commission, Associated Students at both UO and LCC, OSPIRG, Central Latino Americano, SEIU, other groups and a long list of individuals. Housing standards have been a hot topic since before 1966, when the Eugene Housing Code was created. The program was abolished due to budget cuts and after the Legislature established the state Landlord Tenant Act. The topic has periodically resurfaced as studies documented the problems of dilapidated housing and absentee landlords. But consensus on how to deal with the problems has been difficult to build. "This is an area of law that is already extensively regulated," wrote Eugene attorney Allen E. Gardner in a letter to the City Council following a council work session on housing standards May 24. Gardner, who specializes in landlord-tenant law, says the 1970s-era Landlord Tenant Act "has undergone numerous changes at the urging of the strong tenant lobby in this state,and is a powerful tool for tenant enforcement of rights that has worked effectively to protect tenants from overreaching and abuse by landlords." Gardner says it is not necessary to "establish another administrative system for enforcement and regulation of the statutes and rules." He says ORS 90 allows tenants under certain conditions to perform needed repairs and deduct the cost from their rent, hire others to do the work and deduct the cost, even move out and bill the landlord for substitute housing. "There will always be some bad landlords and some bad tenants," Gardner says, "but an effective system is already in place to deal with those problems." The Rental Owners Association of Lane County (ROA), with its 800 members, is also on record opposing the proposed housing program. The group says the program fails to address neighborhood blight, which was "the original impetus for readopting a rental housing code for the city," is an "unnecessary duplication of state law," and increases the cost of housing "counter to the city's goal of increased access to affordable housing." Back in February, the council voted 5-4 (with the mayor breaking the tie) to delay hearings and action on housing standards in favor of using limited staff resources for projects supporting developers (see EW story, 2/19). Councilor Bonny Bettman objected to the delay, saying, "Let me get this right. It's not a high priority that people in this community have decent housing with plumbing and heat and roofs that don't leak, but it's a priority to process a change for one developer." Referring to leaky roofs and inadequate heating, Councilor
David Kelly said, "You shouldn't need to go to court to fix this On record opposing the housing code (on a 4-2 vote) is the Housing Policy Board. In a letter to city staff July 13, Chairman John VanLandingham said the new code would not promote affordable housing, enforcement would "cost more than the benefits warrant," and it would be "unfair to tax all landlords for the failures of a few bad landlords." But recognizing that the new code might pass, the rental owners group has come up with a list of amendments, including providing more time for repairs, exempting landlords from penalties when the tenants cause the damage and expanding the code to address blight by covering "all residential property similar to what Springfield has."
Great
Green Gobs of Bio Grease Fuelled by hemp oil, spirulina and yoga, actor and environmental activist Woody Harrelson recently visited Eugene to promote a new documentary that chronicles his eco-tour down the Pacific Coast in a biodiesel bus. Titled in tribute to Ken Kesey's bus of 1960s renown, Go Further explores the idea that an individual's choices about what to eat, drive and buy can help to transform the planet.
In the summer of 2001, Harrelson and a small group of friends biked from Seattle to Los Angeles alongside their bus, eating raw foods, practicing yoga and making stops to promote what they call "simple organic living." Director Ron Mann turned the trip into a documentary, which aired as a sneak preview at the Bijou during Harrelson's visit. The film opens to the general public on Nov. 12. Three years after its original Pacific Coast tour, the Mothership — a solar-paneled, hemp-fabric-lined, biodiesel bus whose exterior is painted with images of nature and society — rolled onto the UO campus Oct. 28. Harrelson, 43, emerged from the bus looking rumpled and earthy in a baggy sweater and a hemp beanie. Speaking to a modest crowd gathered at the EMU amphitheater for an OSPIRG rally, Harrelson criticized the Bush administration and encouraged students to vote. After the rally, Harrelson's assistant, Sonia Farrell, stood in the bus mixing up a goopy green puddle of spirulina, tahini and maple syrup. She told me about the time that Harrelson, a raw-foods vegan, tried to go on a 40-day fast. "He went 30, 33 days. He looked like an AIDS patient," she said. "I told him to stop, and he said, 'Things are still coming out.' And I said, 'Yeah, it's your liver and kidneys!'" Harrelson made it back to the bus and sat cross-legged on the floor, eating the green goop from a mug. Our conversation follows.
What will you do if George Bush wins the election? I think I'll have to become an ex-pat. Based on what you've seen, is there hope for real revolutionary change in America? I think that one of the positive things about this administration is that it's helping to galvanize the left. It was no joke when all those people took to the streets [in protest of the invasion of Iraq in February 2003] saying, 'We don't want this war.' That was unprecedented. From the accounts I've heard, they had 11 million people around the world. That's huge. I was in London, and I could not believe the number of people. There were a million people, easy. Was there a defining moment when you realized that you needed to become an environmental activist? No; it came much more piece-meal. I was slow to see what's going on ecologically. It's not hard to see the whole picture, except in times of war. People understand that the government is basically there as a puppet for the puppet-masters. And the beast — all these destructive industries that are highly subsidized — the beast is in control. We gotta get out from under the beast. Around here the one that's most obvious is the timber industry. Of course there's also the petroleum industry and mining issues. Sometimes people don't think as much about what they're putting on their bodies. They might be using toxic cleansers that are petroleum-based, or they might be wearing things that are petrochemical-based. For example, cotton's like 50 percent of all pesticide use. Those pesticides get down to the drinking water. Why do we have so many children in hospitals? Everything makes sense when you look at it ecologically. Is your view affected by your experience in Hollywood? That really doesn't affect my perspective. Fortunately I'm traveling all the time, and I meet real people. I just read this thing in Jacksonville [regarding Bush's Oct. 14 campaign stop there]. There were some pro-Kerry people protesting Bush, as any sensible community should. The pro-Bush people were chanting 'Four more years,' and there was a percentage of people that were chanting 'Three more weeks!' It was within earshot of the president, so Bush's security guards came by in SUVs, and they were firing tear gas at the people. They pepper-sprayed kids! They were being really violent and assaulting the protesters. Do you ever have moral conflicts with the work you do in Hollywood? I think most of the people there feel the same way I do. Most of them are coming up to me saying, 'Good job, man.' You can't believe how many people come up to me. But Michael Moore got booed off stage at the Oscars last year. No, he didn't get booed offstage. There were as many people cheering as there were people booing. But that's the way the media works, except media like your publication. They will emphasize the negative. Do you do activist work for your kids? Yeah. It's probably the single most significant motivation. My kids, the work they're gonna do is gonna dwarf mine. Many times I'm just an armchair quarterback, throwing money here, a suggestion there, and not on the front lines. On the other hand, I want to be on the front lines in my life in terms of what I buy. If I'm buying a DuPont product, I want to know it, and I want to be aware of it and feel as bad as I have to feel about it. Which I do feel, every time I get, like, this stuff — bottled water. Immediately: plastic, DuPont. They make money. So all of these companies that are so destructive, how do I support them? I try to support them as little as I can. My one biggest problem is that I fly a lot. How can we try to not participate when our whole society's been set up to consume at every angle? I don't know. That's a tough one. The fact that biodiesel is transporting us at this very moment leads me to believe that the change already exists. A few years ago you wouldn't even have this opportunity. We had a place here [Sequential] that gave us, like, 175 gallons of biodiesel.
How do you balance being depressed and pessimistic with being proactive and having fun? That's the toughest one, right there. 'Cause I do get depressed. You look around and it just hits you in the gut at every angle. How do you get out from under the beast? Because it's everything. I was hanging out with this really cool dude that I know — he's kind of my yoga instructor, his name's Eddie. So Eddie's telling me about his guru, Pattabhi Jois, the guy that brought Ashtanga to the West. People would come and ask him, 'I smoke, or drink. What should I do?' And he would always say the same thing: 'Do the practice. All is coming.' Eddie's telling me this story, and I say, 'All? You mean 'The All,' like God?' And he smiles at me and he says, 'God is in everything. He's in this table here, he's in this, he's in that, he's in every one of us.' I said, 'Oh really,' — I think I'm being clever — 'Is God in George W. Bush?' And he looks at me and he smiles and he says, 'George W. Bush and everything he's doing right now is helping bring about man's evolution on this planet.' And I was like, 'Of course, man.' Massive destruction equals massive rebirth, massive creation. So we're going to have to evolve and create a new type of society that's not based on petroleum or wood-based paper, pesticides and nuclear power and all these things that are, like, stupid. You'd think we'd be beyond it at this point. Yeah. It's a no-brainer. Somebody should have said originally, 'Look. You can't have an industry that's hurting our water, our air. Those industries do not work. Figure out an alternative.' And there are alternatives, but they're not entrenched. So what's the greatest hope? The youth and the young at heart. The greatest tool
that the right has is this ability to make all of us think that it's
hopeless. They're the best at making you believe your vote
DAVID HOWELL
"Cats and dogs are just like people," says organic pet food entrepreneur David Howell. "If you feed them processed food, they have health risks and a shortened life span." Howell owns several cats and one dog and his pets prosper under a diet of his Wave-O's Organic Pet Foods. Howell got started in the food business at age 14, as a box boy at Rosauer's Grocery in Moscow, Ida. He arrived in Eugene in 1983 and began work at Newman's Fish Company in 1986. "I became a fish monger — did it for 15 years," he relates. Noting that large quantities of leftover salmon wound up in the dump, Howell began to pressure-cook some of the excess fish at home and to experiment with pet food recipes. Burned out on retail selling, he left Newman's in 2001 and launched Wave-O's a year later. Wave-O's cat and dog foods, made from raw beef or chicken, or cooked salmon, mixed with raw vegetables and slightly cooked grains, sell for $3/pound at The Foxy Dog, Suds'Em Yourself, and Bare Bones Dog Wash. The gourmet duck/venison variety goes for $4. Call Howell at 607-6188 to arrange for breed-specific or allergy-specific blends. Delivery is available. |
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