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U OF DAVE Thank you for the continued coverage of the Westmoreland housing travesty (Slant, 1/26). As a Westmoreland resident and graduate student, I am appalled at UO's behavior in trying to railroad through this proposal that has such repercussions for the entire Eugene community. I am reminded of Sen. Clinton's recent comments about Republicans running Congress like a "plantation," not allowing any discussion or dissent. The university indeed seems to be taking many pages from the Bush-Rove playbook: (1) Declare a crisis ("We have to invade Iraq!"/ "Sell Westmoreland right now! No time to talk!"); (2) Change the rationale repeatedly ("WMDs/terrorist connections/spreading democracy" versus "critical land on Franklin/property in Portland/relieving university debt"); (3) Take from the needy to aggrandize the powerful ("Let's gut social programs/affordable housing, so we can cut taxes for the wealthy/buy nice prime real estate for President Frohnmayer's legacy"). The University of Dave certainly seems to have much in common with the U.S. of W. Thank you, EW, for helping to counter the spin and standing up for fairness in Eugene. Hopefully the State Board of Higher Education will see through the smokescreen when it meets in Eugene this month. Concerned Eugeneans can help by writing to the State Board, PO Box 3175, Eugene 97403-0175. Rob Adams, Eugene
DUNE GLOOM Just whom does County Commissioner Faye Stewart think he represents? Recent reports that Stewart is considering a crazy scheme to infuriate Florence-area residents by selling off and developing 20 acres of the county owned 80-acre Glenada Dunes parcel should alarm us all. Stewart has been thumbing his nose at us for too long! First he tried to sell-off the beloved Lane County Fairgrounds to Eugene developers, with a weird plan to relocate the fair next to Mount Pisgah Park. This, despite 6,000 county residents signing petitions opposing his scheme. Then Stewart was the leading voice for a county sales tax, even convincing the Cottage Grove City Council to support enacting the sales tax without the vote of citizens! What will Stewart think of next? It's time we think of changing directions, and commissioners. Stewart, sadly, appears unprepared for primetime and he is embarrassing our district with his extreme proposals. His selling-out of county residents' views on the upcoming Florence 80-acre Dunes vote would be the last straw. Where are former Sen. Tony Corcoran or former Congressman Jim Weaver now that we could use them to replace Stewart? Marla Snell, Cottage Grove
LAST BEST CHANCE As a member of the downtown community, I do have a say on its development. I like living downtown, but perhaps more of our friends would join us if it were more livable. I am a retiree, not "ritzy," with my residence on West Broadway. The downtown development plan may be our last best chance to really make downtown a great place. I appreciate the concerns of the few business operations that are left. But I wish they would petition the City Council and Connor Woolley to include them in the overall plan, instead of setting up roadblocks such as the EW story and the inflated prices for their properties. Kess Hottle, Eugene
BUSH BASH To my eternal chagrin, I find myself having to agree with a statement by President Bush in his State of the Union speech. He said, and I quote: "In a complex and challenging time, the road of isolationism and protectionism may seem broad and inviting, yet it ends in danger and decline." Yes! Absolutely true words. When he used deceit and dissembling to invade a sovereign land, he managed to isolate the U.S. from its allies in half of the civilized world. The end result is increased opposition to our sincere goals of democracy, and a dangerous decline in our own civil liberties that threatens the very foundations of our constitution. Heck of a job, Gee Dubya. Wayne Miller , Springfield
GAG TIME I nearly gagged when I read the Register- Guard's suggestion that Woolley-Conner's imaginary "development" might be too high class to co-exist with a martial arts supply store. Let's not forget two or three martial arts studios. Maybe 150 unarmed honest citizens are some kind of a threat to Woolley-Conner. Maybe we should ask the martial artists what they think about being forced out of downtown by a gang of power mad, filthy rich, backwoods forest-killers. One 10-year-old martial artist has more intelligence and more class than all of those "developers" put together. We have a downtown. We don't need a bunch of swaggering backwoods punks coming in and tearing it down. Fill the Woolley-Conner wasteland with civic buildings we can be proud of — a new City Hall, police station, new county and state office buildings — and our downtown will thrive. Condemning thriving businesses in order to create a big hole in the ground, to be filled by imaginary future "developments," is not only stupid, it is beyond fascist in the way the government proposes to destroy middle class people's livelihoods and give everything to a few super-rich guys. I don't think Mussolini or Franco or Pinochet treated the middle class so badly. If the city gets away with this, expect them to run around condemning whole neighborhoods on behalf of every obscene scam in town. Expect the Whiteaker neighborhood to be bulldozed for warehouses, and Bethel to be turned into creosoting plants. West University will be bulldozed for fancy homes for the super-rich, and the university will be emptied of students because a few "faculty" with patents for new germ warfare agents will bring in a lot more money than tuition ever would. Ann Tattersall, Eugene
TERROR TERMINOLOGY The problem, of course, is to define terrorism so that people we don't like are defined as terrorists, yet we ourselves are not, even if both behaviors are essentially the same. We can say that terrorism is killing innocent civilians, but then we've done plenty of that too. Oops, gotta watch that. So maybe we need to say that terrorism is killing innocent civilians on purpose. But what about Hiroshima? Wasn't that chosen as a target for the A-bomb specifically because it wasn't a military target and that it hadn't been bombed before? Isn't that purposely killing lots and lots of civilians? So maybe we need to get away from the killing people idea completely, because we want to include those horrible eco-arsonists (as if arson isn't bad enough already). But if we call property destruction terrorism, then we'd have to include those glorious tea dumpers and maybe even our local teenage taggers. Oops again. And how about those who cheered when the towers went down? We're pretty darn mad at them and we'd sure like to include them too, right? That would be good because we can rationalize bombing them or ignore the sovereignty of any country that dared to speak against us. OK, but then there's the problem of our own congressmen saying the recent bombing in Pakistan regrettably killed civilians but they'd support doing it again. Maybe we need to just ignore the truth that terrorism has been a useful tactic of empires for a long, long time: from the Romans who crucified their troublemakers, to the medieval Inquisition, to Sherman's march to the sea, to our own Oregon pioneer's unprovoked burning of Indian villages near Bandon, to the thousands of black lynchings and church burnings, and beatings and murders of gays that go on even today. If we can do this, we can call anyone a terrorist, including those pesky teachers that might remind us of our own history. All we have to do is make our definitions right. Chuck Roehrich, Eugene
TRASH-Y NEIGHBORS Whatever happened to the practice of taking your garbage cans to the curb on trash day and then returning them to your house once the trash has been collected? Why has it now become perfectly acceptable to litter the landscape with all these garbage cans and recycle bin monstrosities day after day, week after week? Wouldn't it be pleasant to go for a walk sometime without being assaulted by these eyesores everywhere you look? I can only surmise that since Sanipac has changed to a bi-weekly pick-up schedule nobody can remember which day of the week they're going to be dropping by. So the bins are left out on the curb indefinitely. Perhaps Sanipac could send out schedules so that we could all keep track of what's going on. Or perhaps we could just politely ask our neighbors to put the damn things away once they've been emptied. Michael Comstock, Eugene
EUPHONIOUS EUGENE What a weekend feast of music in Eugene! G. Love & Special Sauce at the McDonald Theatre last Friday night — and that was just an appetizer. Anyone who loves the blues knows how good the blues make you feel. We were all feeling good on Saturday night when KRVM presented a live edition of their Saturday Night Blues Party at the WOW Hall. The show featured Mary Flower, The Strange Tones, Jerry & the Stagehogs, The Infamous 145's and was broadcast live over 91.9 to those who were stuck at home. Over at Taboo, Jorma Kaukonen was rockin' out. And as if we weren't already sated from the feast on Friday and Saturday nights, along comes the legendary Honeyboy Edwards Sunday evening at the Hilton — the first in a series conceived by Kate and Jerry Zybach to highlight Roots Music. The evening was also a benefit for FOOD for Lane County. On the menu Sunday afternoon was Eagle Park Slim. The Inkwell Rhythm Makers got the folks up and dancing and were followed by Jerry & the Scoundrels, joined by Blue Owens, Rob Tobias, and Barbara Healy (what rich, warm tones she displays). Then comes Mary Flower, fresh as a daisy even though she'd given quite a show only the night before. Closing out the evening was Honeyboy Edwards who, at 90 years old, sounds amazingly fresh and vital. He was joined by Michael Frank on the blues harp and sounded so fine. We are blessed with great live music almost every night somewhere around town and the sheer variety is mind boggling. From John Henry's to The Shedd, there's just no excuse for music lovers to stay home. I made a trip to Boston last summer and there were three Eugene performers playing around Boston. Curtis Salgado was at a club; Tracy Bonham was opening for Tori Amos at the Fleet Center; David Jacob Strain was at a folk festival. And I walked into an IMAX theater and what were they playing as we were taking our seats? Eugene's own Cherry Poppin' Daddies. Way to rock, BluEugene! Bobbie Cirel , Eugene
LOOKING BACK In response to Tony Valeri's "Damned Liberals" letter (1/26): One of the things that I noticed when I first moved to Oregon was the "liberal" and progressive people that populate this magnificent state. Crossing party lines for what serves the highest good is what I saw when I first arrived, Bill Clinton was still in office, there were good jobs to be had, the economy was strong, and fuel prices were stable and reasonable. Oh yeah, we also had a $1.6 trillion surplus that accumulated over the eight years of that "damned liberal's" term. While temporarily disabled (and unemployed) I was eligible for OHP and handled my wife's medical and my own (Thank you, Gov. Kitzhaber). Now since the conservative administration has taken over, we have a deficit where once there was a surplus, we suffered through 9/11, the Iraq War, unemployment, higher fuel costs, reduced or removed social services, and a president whose philosophy is, "Stay the course." So what have the conservatives done to help America? Abused POWs, lied to the public about WMD in Iraq, failed the Katrina victims, supported legislation to erode our personal freedoms, spied on Americans (illegally) in the name of Homeland Security. They will continue to lead us down the path to economic and political doom. In hindsight, maybe Al Gore was not such a bad idea after all, since he would have had the strength of the liberals keeping us safe and secure. Fred Marsico, Corvallis
BI-MART, TOO I was pleased to see your coverage (2-2) of Plan B in Eugene. But as a pharmacist with strong opinions on this subject I was disappointed to see that you seem to have forgotten that there exists in our state an employee-owned chain of stores/pharmacies that are also happy to help out. Bi-Mart was mentioned in Frances Moore Lappe's book, Democracy's Edge (p. 141) as an excellent example of a good corporation that proves you can make worker ownership a success, and compared it favorably to the mega-corporation that you did mention. Please remember that we are here, that we are home-grown, and that we care. Kathy Hahn, PharmD, Pharmacy Manager, Bi-Mart Mohawk, Springfield
HOSTAGE WIVES Recently released U.S. military documents reveal that U.S. units raiding Iraqi homes have taken the wives of terrorist suspects as hostages. It is a sickening sign of the times when the news media and the public don't show the least bit of concern and just accept this tactic as how The U.S. Army of "We the People" wage war. Even Iraq's deputy justice minister, Busho Ibrahim Ali, has said hostage holding was a tactic used under Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, and "we are not Saddam." Holding wives as hostages may be acceptable to the fans of "24" star Jack Bauer and George W. Bush, but as a citizen of this once proud and noble country, I find this tactic reprehensible and unacceptable. Michael T. Hinojosa, Drain
BLAMING RELIGION I have read a number of letters to the editor lately regarding religion. A lot of them seem to blame religion for the wrongs committed by people throughout history, up to the current day. This absurdity cannot stand unchallenged. Consider a child. A child from birth knows the difference between a loving and kind act and a hateful and violent act. This child knows nothing of religion. It simply knows the difference. Perhaps those people who blame religion for the wrongs wrought by people actually believe that without the structure of religion people would automatically be loving and kind. Perhaps they think that with a different worldview, we would be enjoying a peaceful, just and loving society. The child knows. It knows that in this moment, the individual standing before it is either being loving or cruel. That is all it knows. Each one of us has that choice in every moment. If I am angry with you because you condemn religion, and we argue about that idea, we could argue until both of us are exhausted. What have we accomplished? If you want your societal structures to support peace, justice, and love, then be peaceful, just and loving. This is the only effective way to create such structures. Even a child understands this. Robert McGlauflin, Eugene
CARING COSMETICS As a healthcare practitioner, I am very concerned about what people put on their skin, our body's largest and most absorptive organ. Your recent article did an excellent job of describing the problem of harmful ingredients in common skin and hair care products. However, the article omitted information about the world's first and only personal care line with certified organic and entirely beneficial ingredients. Miessence Certified Organics is a complete line of personal care products, including toothpaste, shampoo, cosmetics, and deodorants. All the certified organic extracts from nuts, seeds, fruits, and herbs are unrefined, cold-processed, and never exposed to damaging heat. Critical vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients remain intact and literally feed your skin. It is not surprising that EW did not include this product line in the article, because it has only recently become available in the U.S. Miessence Certified Organics is based in Australia and sales occur via the Internet. For more information about this product line, visit www.onegrp.com/?tomwilliamsor call 686-9658. Tom Williams, Licensed Acupuncturist, Eugene
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