EW LOTW (Bits)

Bits of several letters to the Eugene Weekly caught my attention, but no one letter was worthy of LOTW status. Here you are:

A lesbian is a woman who loves women romantically. Why do they do this? Contemporary science and psychology are undecided, but it doesn’t really matter.

The wealthier citizens among us tend to use a lot more electricity, heating oversized homes to 80 degrees, washing clothes after a single wearing, etc.

While riding my bicycle northbound on Olive Street about a half block from 5th Avenue I was dangerously passed on the left by a PT Cruiser which then proceeded to turn right into the Post Office loading dock area. I thought this to be strange because postal workers don't drive so dangerously.

“All they that live by the sword shall perish with the sword.” (Matthew 26:52) Too bad our Christian dominated society doesn’t live by its own scriptures. Every weapon ever made eventually gets used. Often with disastrous results.

I would like to quote directly from Congressman Peter DeFazio's newsletter dated April 2009. "I opposed the repeal of the Roosevelt era Glass-Steagall Act, which kept Wall Street investment companies from intermingling with banking institutions."
As a retired economics instructor, I have been waiting for someone to address this issue ever since the Wall Street house of cards fell.

That's it. Good day.

EW Letter of the Week

NOTHING WORTH READING

My friends and I were hanging out the other night and one of them brought up your newspaper. It seems that no one in my group is a regular reader. You always report on some boring city growth problem, the Eugene Police Department or run some rant from some regular letter writer that uses your newspaper like it’s their personal platform to pontificate. Nothing of interest for us 20-somethings.

Well, last week Obama became president. Everyone I know was excited and everybody was talking about Obama. I saw your Jan. 15 issue and thought, “Right on, something interesting to read.” I picked it up.

I shouldn’t have been surprised when I opened to the story and there it was: Rants from regular letter writers pontificating freely. Nothing about the election from a news perspective. Nothing about our first African-American president. Nothing about the inauguration. Nothing newsworthy.

You figured out the formula. You can wrap dog poop in Obama, and somebody will pick it up. Consider these six Lane students duped.

Jennifer Crowley, Eugene

Jennifer is right. What with the dearth of media in this country, one had look far and wide to find any coverage of Obama at all, whereas I can't take a shower without tripping over yet another boring story about land-use planning in Eugene. In fact, until I read Jennifer's letter, I was not even aware that Obama was African-American or that he was set to be "inaugurated" (I'm still sure what that means!). Along with Jennifer and her friends, I will not be fooled next time!

EW Letter of the Week

I'm sure that many of us of the Generation X have burned an evening or two discussing just why the fuck it is that we decided to would a good idea to get ourselves all pierced and tattooed up. We may have even commented on the hilariousness of our own hypocrisy as we watched the younger kids take an innocent little rebellion to such extremes that we find ourselves saying "Now why the hell would anyone want to go and do that to themselves for?"

I've always been partial to the "societal rejection" theory that argues that we were attempting to not just reject societal norms, but we were basically attempting to reject society before it could reject us and, therefore, provide a ready made excuse for what would surely be our failure to achieve anything in this fucked up world. Lord knows, it is better to think that no one loves you because you have 18 metal studs in your head than it is to think no one loves because you are unloveable as a person.

If class was destiny, then I was born to be a timber worker. I can probably count on one hand the number of older male relatives of mine that didn't earn their living working with lumber. Those that know me probably find the picture of me working in a lumber mill ridiculously incongruous, but then I imagine that all kinds of blue collar jobs are held by men that would/could/should have been something else. Hell, I doubt that my dad at sixteen was looking forward to a life of manual labor. Which, of course, was exactly where I was at that age. Fortunately for me, the northwest timber industry was collapsing about that time and timber wasn't really much of an option, but that only meant that I had no future, rather than an unlimited one. (On a side note, if the spotted owl had to be wiped out as a species so that I didn't spend my life in a mill, so be it).

So how does the son of a mill worker rebel? (Ed: By doing really well in school and getting into Harvard and having the old man tell you he loves you when you graduate at the top of your class? No.) Perhaps by rejecting macho working-class culture by getting his ears and nose pierced. Nothing like a little feminization to tweak the old man. (On another side note, I fully recognize that these tweaks and body modifications are also a desperate attempt to gain the attention of the distant father figure. I also recognize that this ground has been covered better elsewhere. I'm going to get to my actual point soon). We also took the badass tattoo and repurposed it by decorating ourselves with fish, nonsensical symbols, and, in some cases, Warner Bros. cartoon characters.

Anyway, my point being that multiple piercings and tattoos were about rejection. Defying cultural norms. Saying "Fuck you!" to The Man in many, varied ways, especially before the man could say "Fuck you" to us. And being piercings and tattoos, they were very public expressions of alienation. Which is to say, in no way was getting oneself pierced or tattooed a call for understanding and acceptance.

Which leads me (finally) to my point and this week's Eugene Weekly Letter of the Week. Now, I recognize that is has been some years since I drunkenly got myself tattooed and that I am coming dangerously close to yelling at someone to get off of my lawn, but either the kids today are very different than we were or Taylor Snow has missed the point entirely.

ANTI-TEEN BIAS

One of the problems in this town is discrimination against teens. Not just any teens, teens with piercings and tattoos. At the LTD bus stop one morning a man talking to me said, “Kids with facial piercings and tattoos are bigger troublemakers than kids who do not have them.” I think that it’s stupid that people say things like that.

Please look beyond the piercings and tattoos. I’m just a kid. I don’t have a criminal record, and I’m not looking to rob you. I know plenty of kids my age who have piercings, kids who don’t get into any trouble whatsoever. People should get to know someone before they judge them. Labeling kids just isn’t fair. Eugene would be much better off if people didn’t judge other people by their appearance. It’s unkind and disrespectful to judge someone by what they have or don’t have on their face.

Taylor Snow, Eugene

All I am saying is that you cannot get yourself all tatted and pierced up and then complain that people don't take you seriously.

EW Letter(s) of the Week

Two hot letters this week. One goes up for the impassioned misunderstanding of the Democratic political system and an impassioned endorsement of John Grisham(!). The other letter makes the cut because I am still in love with the notion that a newspaper should reject ads because they advertize products made by corporations(!). Yes, the Weekly should only accept ads from local brewers. Come on, EW, stop turning down ad revenue from the locals!

EUGENE NOT EXEMPT

"Where are the Eugene feminists?" a woman asked at the Hillary Clinton booth at the Saturday Market. "What do they mean that only older women and uneducated people are for Hillary?" another female Ph.D. asked. People have found the Hillary booth a welcome place to state the obvious: The male/female double standards have never been more evident, even in green Eugene. Why?

For one thing, MoveOn.org got it wrong several months ago but ran with it anyway. They decided to make a preemptive strike to promote only one candidate instead of letting the democratic process unfold in this primary election. Then, the Democratic National Committee also decided that the old-fashioned process (to let all citizens vote and count all the votes) should be replaced by emulating the Rovian way of disenfranchising voters and votes by repetitive bully talk.

MoveOn.org, the DNC and the Obama camp have tried everything short of hog-tying Clinton to stop her from running for president. But she won all the big states with big electoral numbers anyway. Besides that, she has Wesley Clark and Joe Wilson at her side! Those two men are exactly whom you would trust in a national emergency. Also, two very wise writers, Maya Angelou and John Grisham, are campaigning for Hillary Clinton.

Not everyone has accepted the double standards, the voting debacle, the cool corporate-like logo or commercial hitchhiking on the coattails of JFK. Bobby Kennedy's activist kids stand with Clinton. Half of all of us are with Hillary for President.

Deb Huntley, Eugene

and

CORPORATE BREW

During my life in Eugene, I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the Weekly. I am excited about your passion to support our local community and your attempt to rise above most modern media censorship and partial truths. That is, until this week's edition.

Your full page color Budweiser ad has me appalled and confused, as does your additional color Bud Light ad following just a few pages afterward. "Buy corporate beer!" you say, and "Support China's rice exports!" I am disappointed in your ability to remain an independent newspaper going against the demand for sell-out media.

Thanks, EW, for selling out what your supporters stand for most: Eugene and its people. Down with Bud!

Suggestions for improvement: Support local breweries who support local economies — there are many to choose from. Highlight the organic brewing movement — help from the media is just what it needs. Tell the public about home brewing — many people in Eugene participate.

Tobias Schock, Eugene

EW Letter of the Week

I'd like to believe Les is writing tongue-in-cheek. I don't actually believe it, but I'd like to.

LOOMING BIKE SHORTAGE

Regardless of the price, everybody is happy to be able to buy unlimited supplies of gasoline. In a few years, three or four, there will not be enough of the black goo for everybody in the red, white and blue.

Then rationing and black markets will determine who may acquire gasoline. When that day comes a person will not be able to buy a new or used bicycle for love or gold. All the bicycles will already be bought up by gangs, law enforcement, militias, the super rich and the super wise.

I presently own two bicycles and plan on buying more. I store them in my bomb shelter as a hedge on the weirdest future rolling since Cortez rode his horse into Mexico City. I will be able to barter them for luxury items, passages to the safe zone maybe.

Bicycle stores are reaching critically low inventories due to spot panics starting up around the world. Don't wait, buy now.

Lester Peel, Springfield

And did we know that Zach Vishanoff was an anti-global warming guy (last letter)? Seems strange given that he seems to believe that Nikes contain nanomachines that will eventually breed in your brain.

EW Letter of the Week

Back/Caught you looking for the same thing/It's a...well it's the same thing.

Here we have local realtor and concerned citizen Eric Sprado practicing what I call "Eugenonomics. " You see, Eric is going to do his business substantial harm by withdrawing his ad from the Weekly. He's taking this drastic step because he is offended by another ad the Weekly runs. In Eric's world, in Eugene, it makes perfect sense to say what he essentially says here, "Either you stop running that full-page ad in a prominent location, or you'll lose my quarter-page ad nobody ever sees!"

In a very unsporting move, the Weekly seems to have made their decision, and Eric will be forced to rely more heavily on his Nickel Ads customers to sell his houses.

EW SUPPORTS ABUSE

It is with both sadness and anger that, after 16 years, I have discontinued my ad in EW. I will not continue to support a paper which supports abuse of underage girls by accepting ad money from American Apparel and which supports insults and degradation of many cultures by running the "ÁAsk A Mexican!" column.

"ÁAsk a Mexican!" insults ALL people who have immigrated to the U.S. He has insinuated that everybody "else" had an easy time coming here. Maybe he should look into the fate of some of our ancestors who had pink eye and were denied access through Ellis Island and were sent back to Russia to be shot. Or the boatload of Jewish orphans that we turned back to Germany to be sent to the gas chambers.

American Apparel ads often promote pedophilia with their ads portraying skimpily clad underage girls in sexy poses. It is wrong. I'm told that the ads are justified because American Apparel is a progressive firm which treats its employees well. That is like saying being a pimp is OK if you donate some of your proceeds to a charitable cause. Wrong.

Discontinuing my ad may well cost me a huge cut in income, but if we aging activists don't put our money where our mouths are, who will? Obviously not EW. I would welcome a change in your editorial policy that would allow me to reverse my decision.

Eric Sprado, Eric Sprado Realty

EW Letter of the Week

One of the things I love about Eugene is that there are many times when you cannot tell if a letter writer is being sarcastic or not. They say things so crazy, you have to believe that they are joking, but then the rest of the letter is straight out of the GOP playbook. Of course the same is true of the left.

Today's letter is responding to a letter from noted green anarchist John Zerzan that I published a month or so ago. I have to believe that this letter is mocking Zerzan, but I can't shake the feeling that it's not. In that case then, yes, John should write a treatise that explains to New Yorkers how they can live pre-industrial and be as happy in clams in mud. You know, because that's what they'll eventually live in themselves.

Sarcasm or homage? You decide.

NO INDUSTRIAL SOLUTIONS

I'd like to thank John Zerzan (1/31) for his input regarding a light rail system and how any industrial solution is not good for Eugene. In the coming months I encourage John to host a symposium demonstrating how he has converted his home to harness wind and solar power, his gray water and rain collection system as well as his ability to grow all his food and harvest all of life's essentials from the natural environment.

I hope the symposium will include information on how to be a profitable writer without using a computer and how these ideas can be implemented in cities such as Oakland, Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia and New York City. Keep up the good work, and thank you for your input.

Peter Griffin, Eugene

EW Letter of the Week

This week's letter is not especially riveting or quintessential, but it comes from GTFF Steward Sean Bemis and that's good enough. Plus, it gives me a chance to use my Butthead voice and say "Shut up, Bemis."

HAPHAZARD REVIEW

In regards to the "review" of The Gourds in the Feb. 14 issue of EW: Wow, I'm impressed that the author of this review can get away with spending much of the article discussing how little effort she put into researching the subject of the article. She discusses the lack of an up-to-date MySpace page, which I find intriguing, since I happen to be a MySpace "friend" of the band. Maybe you should have tried clicking on one or two of the other dozen or so MySpace profiles with the display name of "The Gourds." To save you some time, here's their profile address: www.myspace.com/thegourdstx Strangely enough, this one has listed the show they played in Eugene on Feb. 16! And songs from their new album!

I'm making this point because I am routinely disappointed in the lack of interest EW appears to display towards roots and Americana music. Another example that comes to mind is from a year or so ago in a disrespectful review of an amazing Portland old-timey band — Foghorn String Band. I can understand if the reviewer doesn't like the music, but in this case, they began the article by saying something along the lines of "I don't usually listen to country music." Such a comment is totally irrelevant and displays general ignorance of the various genres of roots music. And one really doesn't need to know much or research much to learn the difference between modern country music and old-timey string band music. The author then made it worse by justifying his ability to write the review with something like "but I have friends that listen to country."

Another reason I highlight these two examples is that the shows that these two reviews directed their readers to were two of the best shows I've seen in my four years living in Eugene.

Sean Bemis, Eugene

EW Letter of the Week

Eugene liberals have a fine tradition of making principled nose cuttings in order to give the face a little what for. This week's l.o.w. exemplifies this tradition, as our writer argues against restoring Iraqi marsh lands because the reversal of the ecological devastation visited on the southern Iraqis could only have come about through our imperialistic war. Sorry, southern Iraqis, I guess you'll have to suffer for all time, any improvements in your lives would be fascist.

TOO BLOODY TO BE GREEN

The 1/31 article by Suzi Steffen in praise of the Americanized Iraqi Azzam Alwash and his dream, so-called, of re-greening the marshlands of Iraq invites a countering reality check. Apparently the UO Department of Architecture, sponsor of the Alwash lecture, and the enthusiastic audience in attendance had no difficulty with the fact that the marshland venture is predicated upon the illegitimate U.S. invasion of Iraq.

"Eden Again," the Alwash return as he now works with the "Canadian, Italian and U.S. backing ... making plans for new villages" is possible only in the larger context of U.S. empire building, nation destruction and interminable warfare.

As it is now Iraq is too blood-soaked to be green and the American war machine bears direct responsibility and has since the early 1990s. The Alwash/U.S. plan amounts to little more than eco-fascism.

John Hickam, Eugene

EW Letter of the Week

More from the haters. This week we have someone of indeterminate political affiliation railing against the city of Eugene for not making the city's trees look better, therefore not incentivising the neighbors to keep their property clean. Blaming the city government for all ills is a non-partisan sport in Eugene.

BLAME CITY, TOO

I would like to thank B.D. May of Eugene for his letter (1/10) concerning urban blight. This problem is not only prevalent in the areas of Adams Street, 24th and 25th avenues, but it has taken hold of a broad area of the Friendly Street neighborhood, and no one seems to care. There is so little pride among some homeowners when it comes to keeping their yards clean and trimmed.

Much of the problem lies with the city of Eugene. The city plants trees in the parking strips, but does not care for them. Young trees are allowed to grow not as trees but as shrubs. Consequently, these bushes, as well as an assortment of other shrubs planted by the homeowners in the parking strips, block the view of drivers at intersections. A city ordinance meant to control these plantings is not enforced.

I have lived on Friendly Street for 21 years. I have watched this neighborhood deteriorate, especially since the city made this street a connector between 18th and 28th. Adding speed bumps was a sick joke and a waste of money. Friendly Street was never intended to become a "freeway." Speed and heavy trucks are tearing up the surface of the street which will not be repaired in the foreseeable future.

Eugene not only needs to update its codes, as May mentioned. It needs to enforce ordinances or remove them. Catering to the affluent communities and utter failure to declare a war on urban blight in the older sections of the city seems to be the future plan by the powers that be.

Betty Williams Johnson, Eugene

EW Letter of the Week

It was reactionary week at the EW, with 5 out of 13 letters from the non-thinking wing of the far right. Which is only to be expected, as they are often confronted with the non-thinking wing of the far left. So, the reactionaries are as much part of Eugene as the bike-riding hippies, so here's a letter from one of them. I picked this particular one because of the frequent use of the phrase "dirty hippies" and its complete incoherence.

DIRTY HIPPIE FLOCK

As a regular reader of this particular paper, I have come to expect a more left of center view expressed by most of its contributors. However, after reading the (1/24) issue I was highly agitated by the views expressed by Erin Gilday. She complains about May putting property values above community values or using the EW as a soapbox, instead of communicating with those involved. She fails to acknowledge that there are a lot of people who buy homes for investment purposes as well as habitation. When these people purchased their homes, they were moving into a nice, clean and respectable neighborhood. If they would have known about the pending third-world squalor resulting from the upcoming infestation, they probably would have moved elsewhere.

The fact is that dirty hippies like to live with other dirty hippies. No prospective middle class homebuyer is going to want to live in the squalor that has become of this neighborhood, and chances are that a dirty hippie couldn't afford one of these lovely homes. As for communication, how do you communicate with a person who would rather offend your sense of smell than kill a few bugs? Or a person who thinks squalor is a logical alternative to cleanliness? If they like living in third-world conditions, that's their prerogative; they can deal with the repercussions when they try to sell their homes. But don't drag your neighbors down with you.

Matt Brockway, Springfield

EW Letter of the Week

We had some strong entries this week that more than made up for the unbloggable week that was January 17-24. A stirring defense of Mayor Kitty Piercy's liberalness was submitted by former grad unionist Rose Wilde and the AGEL connection alone would normally been enough for her to grace this page, which I imagine was 90% of her motivation for writing in the first place, but the king of Eugene quack also made an EW appearance this week and Rose is going to be at the very top of her game if she expects to unseat the green-anarcho-nut-job™ that is John Zerzan.

Eugene, bustling metropolis that it is, is trying to figure out the best way to move its citizens from one point to the other. Obviously, more roads is option number one. Some are advocating rapid bus, public transportation being the go-to liberal progressive preference to freedom cars. Some in the community, of course, realizing they are being outflanked, have proposed trolleys, which would be even more liberal/green/adorable/restrictive than the buses. How do you out-progress trolleys? I mean were talking heading back to a pre-internal combustion engine transportation choice. Ah yes, pre-industrialization. It really is the only sensible option.

IT'S STILL MALIGNANT

Eugene sports a lot of "green and "sustainable" liberals who dream of slightly re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic we're riding. Mr. Eco-Village Rob Bolman (1/24), for example, whose vision is a light rail system.

Always an industrial solution; never mind that industrialism is steadily snuffing out the natural world and is the basis of the high-tech world with its mounting emptiness and desolation.

More mining, smelting, etc., more of the foundation for all that takes us further and further from reconnecting with the earth and each other. But rail is better than cars! And a slightly slower growing cancer is better than a faster moving one. How about a vision of no industrial cancer instead of promoting it?

John Zerzan, Eugene

EW Letter(s) of the Week

I almost came to the end of the ol' Weekly without finding a suitable candidate. The last two letters saved me. In tribute, I give you both. They both come from the over-the-top-conservative counter reaction to the typical over-the-top liberalism. In the first, we find out public schools are communist, and in the second we learn that illegal immigrants have it easy compared to native-born Americans.

ANOTHER GLUE-SNIFFER

Your article "Kicker Costs are Hidden" (1/3) pushes people in the wrong direction for understanding the finances of Oregon.

Fact: 33 percent of all taxes go to pay for PERS. That means every government budget for schools, etc, pays 33 percent of it's budget on average to PERS. Lane County owes approximately $100 million and the Springfield School District owes $62.5 million. The state is paying $270 million in interest to support PERS. The 2007 Report from Moody's verifies that net tax supported debt is up more than 300 percent in the last 5 years.

Getting some of our money back is evil? The PERS debt at the local levels could have been offset by forward contracting or hedging, which was verified by State Economist Michael Kennedy. They chose not to [do] that, and instead they shifted that cost off to the children and their families. The same with Lane County. They also failed to forward their gas costs; a loss of $5 million for each entity, once again financial incompetence shifted to the taxpayer and their families.

If you're going to make a statement about slashing money for schools, health care, and other vital services, you need to understand the real costs. The abolition of private property means tyranny. Government wage rates are an average of 40 percent than the private sector; their benefits; 60 percent higher than the private sector.

Schools: There are two-year waiting lines for children to attend private schools. Most people do not want their children to attend government schools. What happened to the rights of those have a different view of what is right for their own children? You sound like another "glue-sniffer," socialist/communist for government tyranny, which is the major form of greed and selfishness, not the "kicker-refund" people.

Fred Starkey, Springfield

NATIVE ALIEN

I just became aware that illegal aliens can get driver's licenses, live, work, anywhere in the U.S., and get over the borders easily, while I, a native born American, can no longer travel from one state to another with American driver's ID that is only a few months too old. Oh, even though I have Medicare cards, health insurance benefit cards, local bank accounts and Visa debit cards.

Amazingly, only a few years ago, in a major U.S. city, foreign students on expired visas, whom I lived with, had jobs, and immigration never looked for them. They disappeared into America. I need to learn from my foreign alien friends, I guess, because now I am the foreign outsider in my own land.

D.H. Bucher, Eugene

EW Letter of the Week

This letter relates to an ongoing discussion of the "Ask a Mexican" column the Weekly now runs. It is hilarious. It is racist against Mexicans. It is racist against everyone but Mexicans. It is not funny. It's funny, if you "get it," but Eugeneans are too white to "get it." It's not funny because stereotypes are not funny. Satire is humor. Satire is not effective humor.

You get the gist. This letter in particular gets at the heart of the around-the-bend nature of the discussion, where letters published months ago are referred to with no context and the "liberals," who have universally been panned as being tight-ass whities who can't handle a little barrio humor, are now accused of being racists for defending the column.

Plus, the letter is a delightful blend of Randian and Marxist thought. Not to say "only in Eugene," but God-bless it, it's what makes us Eugene!

GABACHO RACISM

Dear Ms Yamada and Mr. Sprague: I have some comments regarding your letters to the editor printed on Dec. 20. Gabacho racism is still racism, as is Latino racism is still racism. If either of you read last week's (12/20) "ÁAsk a Mexican!" with an open and not a "liberal," bleeding heart-filled mind, you would understand that Arellano is a Mexican nationalist and not the humanitarian, compassionate human rights advocate he so slyly portrays himself to be.

I feel the complaints that I expressed in my Nov. 22 letter are justified with Arellano's latest tantrum, and therefore, Mr. Sprague, how can you claim "ÁAsk a Mexican!" is "not mean-spirited"? The "liberal" rich fog that your mind is blanketed with is contrary to your asking of readers "be careful not to close your minds too quickly!" You go on to say "mainstream media is a very significant reason why there is not outright revolution in this country."

I ask you: What is the very significant reason why there is not outright revolution in Mexico? I'll answer: The flight of tens of millions of poor, uneducated, superstitious people from their homes in Mexico to go to the U.S. Whether entering with our OK or without is not relevant, it's the fleeing that matters, and also sending billions of dollars back to prop up the illegitimate Mexican government.

That old cliché, "You can't solve your problems by running away from them" definitely applies here. Though Mexican immigrants' rights advocates don't think it applies to them. The greater threat to immigrants from Mexico is NOT the white dominated government of the U.S., it's the Catholic church. Those with true open minds have already figured it out.

What about personal responsibility? The immigrant advocates also seem to think that it does not apply to the poor immigrants. Everyone needs to take responsibility for themselves; responsibility to improve one's life, to lift oneself out of poverty, to become educated and use common sense and not live life superstitiously, and not expect others to throw you a lifeline! As for the subdued masses in the U.S., we have subdued ourselves by allowing this shit to continue. We are too easily pleased, lazy and enjoy the good life.

Blame not the media, for the media are a creation by people and run by people. We allowed these people to get the best of us and they are only a few and we are too lazy to stop them.

I haven't forgotten about you, Ms. Yamada. The appropriate title of your letter should have been, "Don't Mexicans Get It"? I, as a human being of Dominican parents, know many Mexicans don't like other Latinos who aren't Mexican and want a "Mexicans only" access to the U.S., yet you and others want to bury that negative side regardless how true it is. Forty percent of Mexicans are in poverty, 45 percent of Dominicans, and 70 percent of Haitians. Are you a Mexican nationalist advocate? Are you a human rights advocate? You can't be both. Take another read of Arellano and drop your Mexican Catholic mentality, then you'll see your eyes were closed all along.

Juana Garcia, Eugene

EW Letter(s) of the Week

This week we having dueling -topias:

Utopia:

POINTLESS DEATH

Since the tragic, needless death of Lucy Lahr, I have read many reports about the mishap and tributes to Lucy. However, no one seems to be talking about how to prevent such deaths. I am reminded to question why we tolerate a transportation system which causes the death of nearly 50,000 people a year in the U.S. Our system is not only destructive to life and property, but it also excludes the poor, the young, the elderly and the physically or mentally limited.

Would a general strike against our current system (quit driving cars) increase ridership in public transit and increase service to benefit the excluded? What effect would giving the 50 cents a mile we expend on self-transport to collective transport systems have? Activists, get active with transport choices!

Ed Gunderson, Creswell

Dystopia:

SPORTSPORK FOR NIKE

EW often contains articles referring to itself as "watchdog" journalism, and proudly features news about recent awards. That's great. With that in mind, would you please drop your endless global whining junk science hysteria reporting and take a long, detailed, focused look at the largest, porkiest sports arms race project(s) currently spiraling out of control?

If your writers aren't ready or able, then hire some who are better or more motivated. These days it really seems EW stands for "Enablers Weekly" as you ignore annexation by Nike Corporation of land and properties in Eugene.

Meanwhile in Salem, Frohnmayer and Nike are spare-changing the governor and Legislature for a $200 million loan to prop up this Trojan Horse "smart growth" project.

EW, stop drinking Nike's green and yellow Kool-Aid and get to work.

Zachary Vishanoff, Eugene

If I know my readers, and I don't, many of you will want to cry foul over the inclusion of resident crank Zach Vishanoff, but to deny him a place on these pages would be to deny that he represents that part of Eugene that we all end up rubbing shoulders with before fleeing back to the safety of Democratic politics. Plus, I think Zach makes fun of global warming here and how many of you saw that coming?

EW Letter of the Week (Belated Holiday Edition)

I picked this letter because it typifies the Eugene "I'm not driving, so I am better than you" attitude so well. For those of you not from Eugene, Willamette is one of our busier streets. It is a pain in the ass to drive down because it is very narrow and there are no protected left turns across traffic. When you read the letter, also keep in mind that there are several very placid side streets this cocksucker could have biked down, but oh-fucking-no, Christelle (Eugene name) had to ride down the middle of Willamette Street, probably slowly, just to teach us all a righteous fucking lesson about who is holier-than-thou.

I've avoided saying this for the record, but I f---ing hate bicyclists.

GIVE US OUR LANE

On Saturday, Nov. 10, I was innocently biking on Willamette (going south between 24th and 29th) when I was accosted by a woman in a huge black SUV telling me to "get the fuck out of the road." I am so sick of this behavior. Before you verbally attack an innocent cyclist, why don't you educate yourself on the rules that you and your hideous gas-guzzling SUV are breaking.

When there is not a bike lane in Eugene, bikers are allowed a full lane. Not half of a lane. Not a third of a lane. Not a teeny portion all the way to the right of a lane filled with potholes, twigs and rocks. A full lane. So give us our lane.

It's your fault I am stubbornly biking, anyway. I am trying to counteract the detrimental effects your vehicle has on my environment.

So how about you "get the fuck" out of your car and start making a difference.

Christelle Munnelly, Eugene

EW Letter of the Week

In terms of sheer I'm-right-and-you're-wrong-ness, which is a staple of civic dialog in Eugene, it's hard to beat Ralph here, even if he is from Corvallis. There is also a nice agree-with-me-or-die element that I also enjoy.

DENIAL = NO EXIT

There is no exit strategy for Iraq and never will be as the real mission continues to be geopolitical presence and domination of gas and oil regions. Iran and the entire Middle East fall into this category as policy since the days of Henry Kissinger and before.

Our gilded age dynasty rulers and their minions are not true leaders and only speak for their narrow interests. Rhetorical manipulations of propaganda, superstition and bold-faced lies hold us and our ecosystems all hostage as one more expendable resource for a massively unstable lifestyle.

Rule by denial and false claims of god, patriotism and freedom (as roughshod exploitation) are cooking the golden goose for us all. As petro-based infrastructure collapses to massive environmental calamity and general socio-economic poverty, privatized neofeudalism and neofascism are steadily filling the tragic gaps.

Leave the competition and wars of short-term domination. Only honest insight and common resolution can create the will and vision of long-term partnership to truly work together for real change.

A rising tide of basic truth will either guide or kill us as a civilization and life form.

Ralph Penunuri, Corvallis

EW Letter of the Week

When you have a non-reality based non-solution for "fixing" a corrupt political system, where do you turn to get your ideas out there? The Eugene Weekly, of course:

ENDING CORRUPTION

Alisa McLaughlin almost got it right in her Oct. 4 letter to the editor. She wrote, "Our votes are too valuable to give away, so I suggest, like the people we elected, you sell your vote to the highest bidder."

McLaughlin should advocate democracy instead. Under a democracy, special interests would have no influence because their bribes would be spread too thin to make a difference.

We need a statewide initiative that allows voters to vote directly on a bill or lend their votes to a fulltime representative in Salem. This initiative will give power to voters who refuse to vote for corrupt politicians.

T. Poulsen, Eugene

EW Letter of the Week

This letter has the classic Eugen "I don't live in the world where business have to make money" attitude working in spades.

ROOFTOP PARK

Greetings! Here's a compromise idea re: what to build across from the Eugene Public Library. A park, on the roof of a one-story building, which has street-level stores, java haunts to granola shops, facing Olive Street, 10th Avenue and Charnelton Street. The first floor interior could have an inner green-spaces courtyard and access ramps to a below ground parking garage much like the library's. The excavation work for such a garage is already half-done. (Of course, having a downtown public pool is an alternative.)

On the rooftop's park, tables and chairs surrounded by plants and small trees in raised-beds, ivy growing on 8-foot high wind-blocking wooden lattice work — all accessed during library hours and for special events.

No doubt two or three small cart vendors would love to get a contract for such a rooftop park.

So, what do you think? Is it evident to you that any urban renewal work must be environmentally responsible and contribute to lessening, not increasing, the effects of global warming?

Charles F. Thielman, Eugene

EW Letter of the Week

With six pages of letters, it was a banner week at the EW, but only one stood out for perfect nonsensical nonsense.

RESISTANT TO WHAT?

MRAPs: The mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles. I can only hope they work as well as the IRSS, the insect repulsion sun screen defense. If it is as scary as the connotations I get from the acronym IRSS, it might just work. It seems a waste of $50 billion since Bush promises that we will have won by the time they are built and it won't be necessary, to quote Joe Biden, "to send to our front lines." What front lines? We don't even have a front circle. Maybe the whole thing is just a front.

Vince Loving, Eugene