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PREVENTING TRAGEDIES About eight hours before Ryan Salisbury was shot and killed by Eugene Police in a violent confrontation at his home early on Nov. 14, I was present when three Lane County sheriff's deputies — Levi Yandell, Bill Hollis and Sgt. Rene Stone — took into custody a 30-ish woman who was psychotic, dangerous to herself and needed to be hospitalized against her will. Though she was not armed with a weapon, she was angry, abusive, screaming and confrontational, delusional, fearful and paranoid and put much energy into trying to kick, strike and otherwise hurt the officers. These deputies showed great concern, skill, compassion and professionalism in how they restrained a woman who was bent on hurting them. She was taken into custody and transported to a hospital for treatment without being injured. But you don't read about incidents like this, which happen all the time, in newspapers. I have worked in publicly funded community mental health programs for more than 25 years in all parts of Oregon. I have on numerous occasions personally witnessed police officers and sheriff's deputies in rural and suburban locales as diverse as Eugene and Klamath Falls go out of their way to take violent, out-of-control people into custody without injury. This experience for me has been the rule, the norm, not the exception. Recent EW writers and opinion expressed in Slant suggest the police officers should behave like cowboys and shoot violent attackers with weapons in the legs. Ryan was between officers and family members trapped inside the house who were frightened and whose lives had been threatened by the armed Ryan. Suppose officers confronting Ryan Salisbury had shot him in the leg, but, despite being injured, he was able to retreat back to the house and harm hostages? The police would then be criticized for not being more aggressive. Or suppose, once shot in the leg and retreating back to the house where he would have been a dangerous threat, it became instantly clear that the only way to stop him, because the leg shot failed, would be to shoot him in the back? That would have gone over real well, don't you think?! It's always appropriate to review deadly force policies and further train officers in dealing with mentally ill persons. But the bigger problem here is crumbling public mental health systems that, on their best days, verge on collapse for lack of resources. Ryan won't be the last mentally ill person killed by police, and the next one won't be the last. Incidents like this will continue to happen as long as people tolerate leaders whose priorities are tax cuts for the wealthy and more and bigger guns and bombs rather than support for vulnerable people. Gary Cornelius, Eugene
REASON FOR THE SEASON For all the great efforts made by all the great many people driving store to store before dawn and after dinner for four frenzied weeks every year in search of more ways to spend money to save money, something much more valuable has been lost. For all the bluster and all the bellyaching over boycotting stores wishing their customers a happy holidays in place of a merry Christmas, as if stores and their corporate boards who pray only to the almighty dollar were the faltering standard bearers of the meaning of Christmas, something much more important has been overlooked. For all the tax cuts for the rich and all the budget cuts for the poor delivered by Santa Congress just in time for Christmas recess and just in time for our born-again representatives to fly home aboard corporate sleighs to make it to the church just in time to be seen and photographed singing praises to the Lord on the occasion of his humble birth for the Sunday papers, something deeply unjust is being ignored. And for all the children orphaned by drugs into foster care and all the growing millions of working poor without health care; for all the hungry, the homeless, the helpless; for all the least, the last, and the lost, somebody has got to start speaking out. Is there no one this season with a message more valuable than gifts, more important than greetings and more compassionate than we are? Todd Huffman , Eugene
CABAL NOIR I saw my first EmX articulated bus today at twilight pulling out of the Eugene LTD Station on a trial run. It made Eugene look like some kinda noir Gotham City, a fitting tribute (literally) to Carolyn Chambers and her cabal. At enormous cost, these behemoths eke out a one-third time saving on their route. Half of this can be accounted for by the elimination of several stops. The construction boondoggle has been disrupting (slowing) traffic on Franklin Boulevard and in downtown Eugene for almost two years. The construction companies, sand and gravel companies and the banks all have made out like bandits. Ms. Chambers is currently offering us tap-dancing Santas in a holiday show at the Hult for a hefty ticket price. The price we'll pay for her pet projects is also a steep one. This capital project sucked up funds that could otherwise have gone to expanding services. Both routes and frequency of service have been cut back several times since the EmX project started. The vision of the future is embodied in the EmX project, the still undead West Eugene Parkway and other outscale conceptions of a Californicated south Willamette Valley, which a distinct majority of us do not want, but is little by little displacing our beautiful environment. Paul Prensky, Eugene
FINAL FOUR WORDS Kera Abraham took on an ambitious project with her serialized recounting of local eco-radical history. Reform and revolution are an all-encompassing and very human enterprise. Lives will be altered, hurt and lost. Social reaction and punishments will not be fair or just. Feelings will continue to run high for many years, as evidenced by the various letters to EW, weighing in on Abraham's pieces thus far. Chris Calef ends his letter (11/22) with a call to action, having given a list of "life and death issues that must be confronted and resolved, by whatever means possible." It's those final four words that leave me wondering if anybody's learned anything yet from all this. Try as I might, I just can't fathom what's so hard to get about Gandhi's observation that the means and the end are inextricable. Even the early computer geeks had it figured with GIGO: garbage in, garbage out. As numerous social visionaries before and after Gandhi have demonstrated (which is why, by the way, those mass gatherings came to be called "demonstrations"), it is entirely possible — no one ever said easy — to shift things big time while remaining personally consistent with the values one is espousing for the larger picture. In other words, don't burn stuff if cleaner air is one of your concerns. If you hate the devious and often-anonymous violence perpetrated by huge corporations, don't think you are making things better by resisting in a devious, anonymous and/or violent manner. The more vituperative voices in the green anarchy movement have often ridiculed what they regard as "fatal naïveté" when it comes to the chosen means, timelines and social humility demonstrated by truly nonviolent activists. I wish I could say it once and for all: Nobody's naïve here. We all have the ability to perceive the monster. We all know how to read Chomsky or Derrick Jensen et. al., to take in various analyses and see the immensity and scariness of what life on Earth is up against. But some of us seem to prioritize evolution rather than repetition and reaction when it comes to designing strategies for change. Why not stand on the willing shoulders of those great nonviolent revolutionaries who sacrificed so much instead of ignorantly and pridefully reinventing the revolution wheel? Vip Short , Eugene
THE NEXT STEP I believe the Wayne Morse Courthouse has inspired many to look for the next step to create a beautiful entrance to our city. With the river's natural beauty preserved, we can have (architects) Poticha, Diethelm and Gillem design the access to the river with buildings that can make us all thrilled to live in a beautiful Eugene. I do hope the river will be the centerpiece and not hidden or infringed upon with overwhelming structures and roads. When I look at the proposed changes for Franklin, I'm worried that the noise and traffic planned is not designed for the importance of the Willamette River. No one will be able to enjoy walking or sitting between the river and a busy highway. Please be careful. Ruth Duemler, Eugene
STILL NOT BURIED At its most recent monthly meeting, the Oregon Transportation Commission removed the West Eugene Parkway from its highway construction list. OTC Commissioner Randy Papé, one of the main WEP boosters, made the motion to kill the project, which was approved unanimously. The WEP is not quite dead yet, but it is in hospice. I've put my legal files into boxes but not (yet) into the woodstove. The money appropriated toward initial construction costs needs to be transferred to other projects, ideally fixing West 11th and Beltline (that intersection was approved in a 1995 environmental assessment). When Bertelsen Slough, an important but polluted tributary of Amazon Creek, is transferred to the Bureau of Land Management's West Eugene Wetlands project, then and only then will the WEP be 100 percent dead. It is a shame that the June 2001 promise for "no build" made by ODOT, Federal Highway Administration, BLM, Lane County and the City of Eugene was not implemented — better late than never, but we would have saved millions wasted on more "studies" and kept unnecessary divisiveness from splitting the community. Thanks to everyone who stayed resolute and refused to compromise away the wetlands over many, many years despite considerable pressure to capitulate. There are many dedicated citizens who worked hard to prevent the so-called Parkway, but if Barbara Kelley had not filed suit against the project (in 1996), it would have been built. Mark Robinowitz, Eugene
DIRTY SECRET Regarding Victoria's Secret's recent pledge to start using a whopping 10 percent of PCW paper for their catalogs: While Forest Ethics might consider this a victory, the Cascadia Forest Defenders and UO's Forest Action don't consider 10 percent recycled content in hundreds of millions of wasteful catalogs to be anywhere near enough. These catalogs are not to enlighten the masses with words of wisdom but to sell a product so they can profit. Is that worth the death of our Earth's life support systems? Additionally, Victoria's Secret's "commitment to phase out of endangered forests" needs to be a reality now, not in another five years. The boreal forest is going fast, currently being logged at about two acres a minute. Half of that is for paper. Of course, Victoria's Secret isn't the only one to blame. There are Eddie Bauer, J. Crew, L.L. Bean, REI, Harry & David and Urban Outfitters, just to name a few. According to Conservatree and the U.S. Forest Service, "more than 100 million trees worth of bulk mail arrive in American mailboxes each year — the equivalent of deforesting all of Rocky Mountain National Park every four months." Cascadia Forest Defenders & Forest Action aren't giving up on this campaign. We are starting a drop box collection in Eugene where people can donate their Victoria's Secret catalogs, and we will deliver them back to Victoria's Secret all at once. People can contact forestdefenders@riseup.net to donate a catalog in exchange for a free gift. Julie Anderson, Eugene
FEAR THEM! The sky is falling! In 29 days recently, 29 criminal acts, including theft (11), assault and harassment (3), driving violations (10), resisting arrest (1) and criminal mischief (2), were reasons for prosecution, with 28 criminals fined $21,784 with 64 days, mostly in county jail. But our county jail is full. Up to 35 prisoners are released daily without trial and simply on their promise to return for their trial. Many of them don't. They're commonly picked up in Florence after committing more crimes. Fines? Are you kidding? Most these criminals are unemployed and have no money. Recently, one homeless individual answered my question about his fines with, "You can't get money out of a turnip." Yet Lane County's law-abiding citizens refuse to protect themselves by voting for more taxes. Little do they realize criminals are coming closer to their windows and doors, and soon many more will be in their pockets, their homes and their houses. Jerry Copeland, Florence
WHINERS, SHUT UP Almost every week in EW, I see at least two or three letters to the editor regarding how bad the police are in Eugene. The criticism that really bothers me is people questioning EPD's use of deadly force in the situation with the mentally ill kid with the knife. I read things like "The cops felt justified because the kid was mentally ill" and "The police shouldn't shoot to kill." That's all crap, and every one of these whining hippies knows it. I don't care if you are a cop or just a regular citizen, when you feel that your life is in immediate danger, the law, as well as the survival instinct that everyone has, says that you have the right to protect yourself using deadly force. Every time a cop is involved in any kind of shooting, he/she is immediately under suspicion and criticism, no matter the circumstance, from everyone in the city. But when a cop gets killed in the line of duty, everyone is all tears, flags and 21-gun salutes. It seems to me that today cops are treated like shit by most citizens every day of the year except the day some asshole kills a cop or there is some psycho on the loose. Why do we have to wait until something terrible happens to have any respect for the people who keep us safe? They are out there to help us, and I think they deserve our support or at least the benefit of the doubt. Chris Ingram, Eugene STEP OFF I appreciate the fact that the Wayne Lyman Morse U.S. Courthouse (cover story, 11/30) is named after Oregon's most illustrious hero, but the gross, moronic, silly-looking and dysfunctional steps are an abomination. It would have been more economic, more aesthetic and more accessible to all if the prime entrance were at street level with a totally accessible-to-wheelchair entrance beside the regular entrance. It seems that every federal project built during the Bushwhacked era has at least one major flaw attributable to the corrupted thinking of the brainwashed few. And Mark Roberts (letters, 11/30) is basically correct that sports, the military, entertainment and politics are geared to glorify competition/violence. The trick of reversing the violence of war, domestic abuse, etc. needs to incorporate nonviolence as a revolutionary means of creating peace and reducing crime/war. If successful, this revolution will cure the environment, biosphere, the overstuffed U.S. prison population and the war criminals. Bob Saxton, Eugene
BRAVE PROTESTERS Thank you; your recent pieces involving Warner Creek have allowed me to reminisce about the brave people who were fighting the good fight to preserve our ancient forests. I took them food and blankets and received in return a wonderfully informative tour of the regenerating forest they were suffering in the cold and rain to protect. I'm certain I never once, in all the time I was aware of the project or at any time I was around James Johnston, which was fairly frequently, EVER hear anyone refer to the encampment as "Monty Python" anything! That's the part a naïve reporter (she was maybe 15 in 1995?) couldn't possibly "get" about Warner Creek or the highly intelligent but sometimes inscrutable James. If he said it at all, it was most certainly tongue in cheek. Additionally, there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever the arson at the ranger station was perpetuated by forces OTHER than environmentalists; none I know are so stupid they would destroy Tim Ingallsbee's positive research. Sarah Alexander Nunn, Eugene
TERRORIZING THE PLANET Who are the real eco-terrorists? Someone who burns an SUV or someone responsible for deforesting millions of acres of beautiful trees, wiping out the habitat of deer, elk, owls and mushrooms, forcing cougars out of their homes down onto the human populations and then terrifying communities of people by helicopter and poisoning the land, water and air all around these communities? All one has to do is take a drive in any direction into the once beautiful forest lands and look at the massive devastation created by these greedy timber barons in their lust for the "almighty" buck. They care little for whom or what they hurt or terrify. This is obvious by their actions and responses to the cries of the people and animals who are affected by their devastation. It is not only the people around their operations whose water is being poisoned, but the whole watershed for you city dwellers is also toxic. You don't have to be extremely intelligent to figure out where all their toxic chemicals eventually end up. Research has shown the chemical effects of these poisons on human and animal life, and we immediately see the devastation of our ecosystem. So I ask you once again: Who are the real eco-terrorists? Fred Mentzer, Deadwood
JUST SAY NO, PETE In October the British medical journal The Lancet reported on a study of deaths in Iraqi households, based on standard polling techniques, by the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. The study estimated 655,000 Iraqi deaths caused by the war, with 31 percent of the dead killed by our troops. That means we've directly killed about 203,000 Iraqis and indirectly killed the rest because they wouldn't have died if we hadn't invaded and triggered the war. The presence of our troops is still a constant provocation helping to keep the war going. In a Nov. 16 interview on The Huffington Post website, Rep. Dennis Kucinich said that the only power Congress has to get us out of Iraq is to cut off the funding by voting against supplemental appropriations bills. Democrats such as Rep. Peter DeFazio have claimed they have to vote for the appropriations bills to "support the troops." Kucinich said, "If we truly care about our troops, we'll get them out. It's the phoniest argument to say that a cut-off of funds will leave troops stranded in the field. There's always money in the pipeline to pay for an orderly withdrawal." Another huge war supplemental appropriations bill will be along soon. It is time to tell DeFazio to just say no. Lynn Porter , Eugene
SEASON OF PEACE I am so concerned about the state of this country that I feel compelled to ask all peoples for peace. In this holy time when the light returns and when those sons and daughters of God can shine their brightest, I ask all peoples for peace. Is it truly difficult to find something in common with your neighbor? Is it easier to find what you do not share? What beliefs you do not share? What values you do not share? I ask for peace from all peoples. Look to your neighbor this season. How can you serve him or her during this holy time? This is all people's place: to serve others. Can you look to your neighbor for inspiration this season? What do they do right? What do you like about them? What beliefs and values do you share? I can share a few of my own that I'm sure most people would agree upon. I want my child to be happy and safe. I want to be comfortable. I want my family to be safe. I want to be happy. Do we not all share these core values? I want light to shine upon us all this winter. Give presents to those who truly deserve them. Give presents to yourself. For God's sake, please, give presents to your neighbors. Wish them all the happiness they can hold. Hold this also for yourself. I ask for peace from all peoples. Toni Gabriella Rilla, Violence Prevention Inc., Eugene
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