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Slant: Short opinion pieces and rumor-chasing notes News: News: News: Happening Person: Jim Guthrie SNEWS TO GO WEEKLY The Springfield News has announced that it will no longer do web press printing for itself or commercial printing for numerous organizations in the valley. In the past, the SN has printed Eugene Weekly, the Oregon Daily Emerald, WOW Hall Notes, high school newspapers and newsletters for many groups, including Eugene neighborhood organizations. The twice-weekly SN also plans to become a free mailed tabloid and publish only on Fridays beginning in February. SN Publisher Teresa Willmann said in an SN news story last week that "changing technologies and a market already well-served with quality web press operations spurred the change," and to remain competitive the paper would need "tens of millions in new equipment." The SN, along with the Cottage Grove Sentinel, will be printed at their sister paper, the Albany Democrat-Herald. After many years of printing in Springfield, EW opted in early 2003 for higher-quality printing with all-digital technology at Signature Graphics in Portland. The number of people losing jobs at SN has not been disclosed, however, layoffs are expected to include the press crew, composing room and mailroom. "We're helping them transition after the closure," said Willmann. SN is owned by the publishing chain Lee Enterprises, and some staffers will be offered jobs elsewhere in the chain. As part of the restructuring, advertising design and layout will be done at the chain's Lynnwood, Wash., Little Nickel offices, according to Editor Finn John. Editorial layout will continue in the SN newsroom. The paper will be mailed free to local subscribers, at a price to out-of-town subscribes, and will also available in news racks. The shutting down of the only local, cheap newsprint press is leaving several local organizations scrambling. "It's going to have a huge impact on us," says norma sax at the Oregon Country Fair, "because it's going to be a major thing to find a new printer. Going to Salem is not our best option because we'll have to travel back and forth." The OCF prints a monthly newsletter averaging 12 pages that goes out free to 3,500 subscribers. Bob Fennessy at the WOW Hall says he hasn't figured out what to do yet with the monthly WOW Hall Notes starting in February. "We certainly plan to continue printing a newsletter as long as we are able to." Several Eugene neighborhood newsletters have been printed at SN, while others are done more expensively per copy on photocopy machines. "We need to find another printer for our neighborhood newsletters," says Steve Norris of the city's Neighborhood Services. "Some of them are still doing paste-up, which is a big problem if we have to go out of town." Improvements in technology and the use of the Internet to e-mail entire page files to printers makes distant printing relatively easy, but some organizations still do low-tech, cut-and-paste layout. — Ted Taylor
DEFAZIO BILL BANS POISON On Dec. 16, U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) introduced a bill to ban the production, possession and import of sodium fluoroacetate, a poison commonly known as Compound 1080. According to Predator Defense Director Brooks Fahy, the highly concentrated, acute poison has been used in the West for decades to kill coyotes, wolves, eagles, grizzlies and other threatened and endangered animals. Predator Defense, a Eugene-based nonprofit, has been pushing the federal government to ban the compound for years. But DeFazio's recently introduced bill was presented less as a wildlife protection measure than a counter-terrorism measure. A report to the CIA showed a can of Compound 1080 that coalition troops recovered in Iraq, and the FBI and the U.S. Air Force Service identified the chemical as a substance that terrorists could use to contaminate public water supplies. Even small doses of the chemical can be lethal to humans. "It started off as a wildlife and community safety issue, and then in the post-9/11 world, [DeFazio] began to realize implications [of Compound 1080] on national security," said DeFazio spokeswoman Kristie Greco. DeFazio is a senior member of the House Homeland Security Committee. In March 2004, DeFazio requested that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ban the production of Compound 1080. The EPA replied that the chemical was "tightly regulated" and suggested that DeFazio look to the Department of Homeland Security. That department gave DeFazio a classified risk assessment and said it could not prohibit or recommend the prohibition of chemicals. "It's alarming that the administration doesn't recognize the danger and isn't responding," Greco said. "Everyone should be concerned about the proliferation and use of such a dangerous poison. The congressman felt he needed to take matters to Congress and introduce legislation." First developed in Germany (possibly for use as a rodenticide or, during World War II, chemical warfare), Compound 1080 is now primarily produced by Tull Chemical Co. in Oxford, Ala. The Nixon administration banned the odorless, tasteless toxin in 1972, but the Reagan administration re-authorized its use for livestock protection collars. When a predator bites the neck of an animal outfitted with such a collar, it ingests Compound 1080 and dies. There is no antidote. Fahy said that although law requires ranchers who use the collars to incinerate the bodies of the dead predators, misuse is widespread and proper disposal of the poisoned carcasses is rare. Former Gov. John Kitzhaber banned the use of Compound 1080 collars in Oregon in 1998. Fahy said that Compound 1080 is still being used illegally in the Willamette Valley to kill eagles and other sensitive and endangered species. "There's much more 1080 out there than anybody knows about," he said. "I believe it is domestic terrorism when someone goes out and deliberately kills an endangered animal." For more information, visit predatordefense.org — Kera Abraham
CLUELESS AT THE TOP Eugene identical twins Harriet and Charlotte Childress are making waves with their book, Clueless at the Top, which follows the principles of George Lakoff's book, Don't Think of an Elephant. The twins will be talking about their book at the next meeting of the Oregon Women's Action for New Directions (WAND). The title of the talk is "The Next Step After Lakoff: Freedom from Hierarchies." The event is from 7 to 9 pm Thursday, Jan. 12 at the McNail-Riley House, 13th and Jefferson in Eugene. Social hour/ reception begins at 6:30 pm. The event is free and open to the public. "We're ready for the next step — shifting our country to fit the values we express," say the Childresses. Lakoff states that our politics are organized around two opposite views: conservatives preserve hierarchies and progressives value equality. "Because progressives want more equality and less hierarchy, it's tempting for progressives to demand that conservatives change. We point fingers at people who appear to be intent on building hierarchies, especially our current leaders. But another way for progressives to decrease hierarchy and therefore increase the relative amount of equality is to focus on what we can directly control. We can examine our own unintentional support of hierarchies and then create alternatives that build equality," say the Childresses. The sisters spent 13 years researching hierarchies throughout the U.S., and have found that "even though hierarchies are powerful and pervasive, they are elusive in that most of us support them without knowing it." For more information, call 343-6443.
TOXIC CAR INTERIORS You strap on your seatbelt, turn on the headlights and windshield wipers, obey all traffic signs and drive defensively. Yet, according to a new study conducted by the Ecology Center, a nonprofit environmental organization, you're in danger in your automobile before you even turn the key. The center's Jan. 11 report, Toxic at Any Speed: Chemicals in Cars & the Need for Safe Alternatives states that seat cushions, arm rests, floor coverings and other interior car parts contain high levels of toxic chemicals, PBDEs and phthalates, that have been linked to birth defects, impaired learning, liver toxicity, premature births and early puberty in laboratory animals. The study also ranks the 11 leading car manufacturers based on the level of toxic chemicals found inside their vehicles through the collection of windshield wipe samples from 2000 to 2005 models. Volvo and BMW were found to have the lowest level of phthalates in the tested cars while Hyundai and Volvo had the lowest levels of PBDEs. Chrysler and Mercedes automobiles had the highest concentrations of PBDEs and Hyundai and Ford the highest levels of phthalates. PBDEs were developed in the early 1970s and are used as fire-retardants, while phthalates are used to soften PVC plastics. The report found that concentrations of these chemicals in cars were five to 10 times higher than those found in homes or offices. According to the Ecology Center, this means that, "Given the high levels of PBDEs in cars compared to homes or offices, exposure during a 90-minute drive is similar to exposure from eight hours of work." — Tim O'Rourke
EARLY DEADLINES EW offices will be closed in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day Jan. 16, which brings early deadlines for reserving space in the Jan. 19 issue. The display ad deadline will be 5 pm Thursday, Jan. 12. The classified ad deadline will be 5 pm Friday, Jan. 13. Questions? Call 484-0519 or e-mail office@eugeneweekly.com
JIM GUTHRIE
"Anyone with a beating heart is a drummer," says Jim Guthrie, principal organizer of Drums Of Peace Eugene, a weekly drum circle on the Federal Building Plaza at 7th and Pearl. "We welcome all ages and all skill levels. We're there every Sunday from 2 'til 4, rain or shine, until the end of the Iraq war. We're into rhythm, not rhetoric." A California transplant, Guthrie hit Eugene in 1972, "right after the Grateful Dead show." Since then, he has worked mostly at lumber salvage and forest restoration. He started out at the Oregon Country Fair as recycle-booth coordinator in 1976, and later served on the OCF board when the fair property was purchased. A pond on the OCF wetlands-mitigation area, visible from highway 126, is named Lake Guthrie in his honor. Since 1987, Guthrie has lived at The Bulb Ranch, two-thirds of an acre in Glenwood, between Eugene and Springfield, where he hosts benefit concerts on a backyard stage during the dry months. "The very first party was 'Jesse Jackson for president,'" he recalls. "We've had half-a-dozen to a dozen shows a year since then. This year we raised money to buy an ambulance for a village in Guatemala." -By Paul Neevel
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