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Last Monday was the deadline to submit bills to be drafted by legislative counsel. I turned in about 15, including one from my friend, Ban: It would ban the sale of diesel vehicles to non-commercial auto buyers. Can you say: "Good idea, doesn't have a snowball's chance"? Homecare workers invaded the Capitol on Monday, the lowest paid workers in the state; they came in search of the commission promised by the passage of Ballot Measure 99 last fall. Unfortunately, the Republicans don't seem to be in any hurry to enact the voters' will. We also saw advocates for the developmentally disabled and mental health clients, here to ensure inclusion in the budget negotiations. At the end of the week another group with major issues 4 seniors who live in mobile home parks 4 showed up in numbers. A major labor issue 4 workers' compensation 4 reared its ugly head in my Senate Commerce, Labor and Economic Development Committee. For six hours of testimony, the room was full of "Guccis," the well-heeled corporate lobbyists from insurance companies and business. Lots of tension in a packed hearing room when you're talking about injured workers' rights. The energy was palpable during testimony by a paraplegic electrician who was thrown 30 feet from a scissors lift, and by a retired neurosurgeon who questioned the legitimacy of opinions from insurance doctors who had "never held a knife in their hands." SB485 is the classic compromise bill; it has the blessings of the legislative leadership, the governor, and a workers' comp labor-management team who worked on this measure over the interim. There are some increased benefits for workers in terms of benefit levels and standards for "pre-existing conditions." But there are also threats to workers that make some of us pretty nervous: adding "arthritis and arthritic condition" as a pre-existing condition; and changing the burden of proof under the Employer Liability Act. As the neurosurgeon pointed out, "If you've got a joint, you've got arthritis!" It's part of the aging process, just like gray hair. To deny an injured 40-year-old worker who received a spinal injury on the job, a bona-fide injury witnessed by others, because the x-ray shows some arthritis developing in that same back, is an injustice. Another high-profile bill, SB49, which changes the way the director of the state Fish & Wildlife Department (ODFW) is chosen, drew a lot of debate on the Senate floor before passing in a non-partisan 18-11 vote. The governor and Republican leaders wanted the change: to have the governor select the director and not the ODFW Commission. I voted against the bill. I'd rather have a non-politicized scientist heading this difficult agency than a political appointee. I was on the losing end. Then, on Thursday, the two co-chairs of Ways and Means, Sen. Ben Westlund (R-Bend) and Sen. Lenn Hannon (R-Ashland), came before all four caucuses and showed us their budget. They insisted it was only a beginning, and that it was a "co-chair" budget, not a "Republican" budget as described in The Oregonian and Statesman-Journal. That's code for: "We don't have all the Republicans on board yet, but here's a preview of where we might be after the May forecast." Our caucus praised the co-chairs for producing a budget to give us a common point of reference. The K-12 education number remained unchanged from the governor's budget at $5.2 billion, a sum that seems acceptable to many school supporters. But there were some unacceptable cuts also in the budget. Oregon Project Independence and other social programs were not fully funded and some of the school budget items aimed at closing the "achievement gap" for at-risk kids were not included. A starting point nonetheless. Then on Friday, like a burst of ocean air, I was visited on the Senate floor by an Irish poet, Louis De Paor, who hails from my hometown of Cork City in Ireland. Mr. De Paor has been in the U.S. teaching at Willamette University. My good friend and former House member, Bryan Johnston, dean of the Atkinson Management School, brought him over. Hectic, eclectic, frenetic 4 sometimes this $1,250 a month job ain't half-bad after all.
Tony Corcoran of Cottage Grove is minority whip in the Senate and represents portions of Lane and Douglas counties in Senate District 22. He can be reached in Salem at (503) 986-1722 or e-mail corcoran.sen@state.or.us
After laughing, it dawned on me that this was Feb. 14. "THIS is a Valentine's card?" I asked, eyes wide. "Yes," he said. "You got to LAUGH!" Good point. Good gift. This reminded me of the time my six year-old son brought me a Mother's Day card he had made in school. He had written, "I LOVE YOU, O'B" five or six times on the card, and that was the entire design. "THIS is a Mother's Day card?" I asked. "Yes," John said, working hard at getting his tennies off. "So why does it only say "I LOVE YOU, O'B"? (I'm brave.) "I don't know how to spell YOUR name," he answered. Good point. "O'B" is easy to spell. But a lifetime valentine offering from O'B had come years before, when we had one toddler, and I was pregnant with our second. I had left elementary school teaching a year and a half earlier, to live in Serbia with O'B and have a baby while he was working on his dissertation. Now it was October, and I was taking a University of Wisconsin botany class, because I had decided I might want to get a graduate degree in that field. If I decided to do so, it would take years, because my undergraduate degree had been in sociology, and I would thus have to "start over" with undergraduate science classes before entering graduate school. While I was taking this one class, O'B was teaching a class at the university, working 20 hours a week as a statistician at the Credit Union National Association, and writing his dissertation, at the pace of three pages a day, no matter how late that put him up at night. AND he was taking half-care of Joshua, our 14-month-old. "Ok," I announced one night. "You're teaching, working half-time, and writing your dissertation; and I'm only taking one class. I'm embarrassed that you're taking as much care of Josh as me." "Well, you're finding out if you want to go into botany," O'B reasoned. "I want to make sure you have plenty of time to do well in that class." I figured that amounts to saying "I love you," in just about the best way there is. I did do well in that class. I fell in love with studying plants, and eight years later completed my doctorate. Two of those summers I was absent from home almost entirely, up on my dissertation site, while he worked and took care of our two little guys. As I write this, 27 years later, I'm on a train to northern California to meet with the California Indian Basketweavers Association. We're jointly planning a gathering on a long-term view of invasive plant species. While I'm down there, I'll stay with my older son, who is working on his doctorate in restoration ecology. He's every bit as respectful of his partner, also in graduate school, as O'B has been of me. So this piece is a Valentine's month thank-you to O'B, but really not just to him. It's a thank-you to every person who has helped, in practical, time-consuming ways, to clear the way for their partner's pursuit of good work on an equal basis with their own. And if these people decided to care for children in their home, it's a "thank you" to every person who has made sure that care was equally shared, to the benefit of the children, their partner, and ultimately, themselves. After all, it's no small thing for O'B to have a 55-year old partner who thinks he's perfect, just like she thought when she was 16 years old.
Mary O'Brien has worked as a public interest scientist for the past 18 years. Her new book, Making Better Environmental Decisions: An Alternative to Risk Assessment, has been published by The MIT Press. She can be reached at mob@efn.org  Be Skeptical Giant corporations wield unprecedented power over the public mind. From talk radio to syndicated columns to conservative religious broadcasters, we hear incessantly that the U.S. media have a liberal bent. Is this myth or reality? Who holds the ultimate power over mainstream news coverage 4 ideologically driven leftist journalists or profit-minded corporations? These questions will be addressed by national media commentator Jeff Cohen, the featured speaker at the annual Eugene Media Action (EMA) event Feb. 12. In his first Eugene visit, Cohen, director of the media watch organization, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, and a regular panelist on FOX TV News, will speak at 7:30 pm in Central Presbyterian Church, 1475 Ferry St. (see Monday Calendar for details). His lecture, "The Myth of the Liberal Media," will be taped for "Alternative Radio," David Barsamian's national radio show. The Cohen program is the third in the popular series sponsored by EMA and the Institute for Public Accuracy Northwest Project. Previous speakers included former San Jose Mercury reporter Gary Webb and syndicated columnist Norman Solomon. Both spoke before capacity crowds. Today, the mainstream news outlets are increasingly the subjects of controversy and debate 4 which is a good thing 4 says Cohen: "People need to be skeptical of the news they get from the press, TV, radio and the Internet." The number of firms controlling the news and entertainment industry dropped from 50 only two decades ago to five today. "A shrinking number of giant corporations wield unprecedented power over the public mind," says Cohen. To increase local public awareness of media bias, EMA began three years ago as a committee of Eugene PeaceWorks. We work to empower people to become media skeptics who can get the real news, and to become media activists who lobby the media for more fair, accurate and diverse programming. The fact that you can engage in media activism as part of your normal routine makes this an attractive option for citizens with little or no time for meetings. It can be highly effective, fun and fast. You could start today by following up on such EMA projects below: Media Monitoring. You can monitor and lobby local media from anywhere. You may already have a favorite source of news where you observe bias or inaccuracies but rarely give the offenders any feedback. Your quick phone call or e-mail will make a difference especially when combined with others like yourself. EMA coordinates such work for an effective collective effort. For example, EMA activists worked with Rocky Mountain Media Watch to evaluate the quality of local TV news coverage and published the results in Eugene Weekly. Oregon Gazette/FOPB. Last fall EW ran an EMA column about Friends of Public Broadcasting, a campaign to make Oregon Public Broadcasting more democratic and diverse in its programming. Its coordinator, Loren Sears, is also a veteran TV producer who recently completed an innovative program called "Oregon Gazette" which will air on OPB-TV at 1 pm Sunday, Feb. 25. If you like it and would like to see more of this kind of local programming on public television, please write OPB Viewer Services, 7140 SW Macadam Ave, Portland, 97210 or call (888) 293-1982. Oregon Showcase. Another local lobbying effort needed is calling KLCC at 747-4501 ext. 2190 to encourage Don Hein to add the hour-long "Oregon Showcase" as a regular public affairs program on Sunday afternoons dedicated to presentations by non-profit organizations. Its producer, Matt Laubach, aired excellent shows on topics such as global warming and movement building for three weeks in December. Now there is an opening following "This American Life" that should be used as a permanent spot for "Oregon Showcase" instead of maintaining excessive jazz music programming. Public Right to Be Heard. EMA activists also work to gain recognition of the right to be heard, which is rooted in Articles 19 and 21 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. All public interest groups and all political candidates should have access to airtime in the mass media, in order to present their own messages in their own way.
David Zupan works with EMA and Eugene PeaceWorks and coordinates the Northwest Project of the Institute for Public Accuracy. The next regular meeting of EMA is scheduled for 7 pm Feb. 19, upstairs at Growers Market, 454 Willamette. Call 484-9167 or e-mail chouse@efn.net  Lesbian Tendencies Could the Mystic Oracle have made a mistake? Helen and I sat cross-legged on my bedroom rug, the Ouija board balanced on our knees. She wouldn't be called home for hours, and my parents were out at my brother's Little League game. Now that the two of us were alone, I could get serious. I had a question I couldn't trust with my eighth-grade crowd. At Teri's slumber party the night before, my new Ouija board had been a big hit. Since it was my board, I told them it would only work if I summoned the Ouija spirit. They took turns sitting across from me and followed the instructions I read from the accompanying booklet: Place your fingertips on the planchette and empty your mind of everything but your question. They obediently set their fingers on the flat, heart-shaped little table and stared at its quarter-sized window. The others leaned in. Candle shadows danced on their gullible faces. Each asked some version of the predictable "Who will I marry?" I pretended to slip into a trance, then spelled out names of the dorkiest boys in school. Helen wasn't in junior high yet and would probably never join the slumber party circuit anyway. She was different. She was still a tomboy and she didn't gossip. She was the star pitcher of our neighborhood, always first-picked for the games we played in the vacant lot between our houses. Little League was stupid not to allow girls on their teams. One time behind her house, we'd solemnly nicked our pinkies with a fishhook, pressed our fingers together and vowed to be blood sisters forever. I trusted Helen. She wasn't silly or boy crazy. Tonight I had a serious question and she agreed to help me get the answer. "Do you swear you won't move it on purpose?" Helen dragged her finger in the shape of an X over where her breast bud made a tiny swell in her T-shirt. She held up her palm and looked straight at me, "Cross my heart and hope to die stick a needle in my eye." "Me, too," I swore. Helen rested her slender fingers opposite my chubby ones and lowered her eyes. Sweet smoke ribboned from a sandalwood incense stick. Our breathing made the only sound in the room. I emptied my mind of everything except my question. My knees felt warm where they pressed against Helen's worn jeans, but I tried not to focus on that. "Ouija, are you with us?" The planchette quivered under our fingers, then slowly made a tiny circle. Another few circles and it glided across the board to YES. I knew I wasn't directing it and Helen was good for her word. It must really be working. "Ouija, who else is here?" The little table slid to the H and circled there, then zeroed in on the S. "Go ahead and ask your question," Helen coaxed. She probably didn't have as much faith in the Ouija board as I did, but she was willing and trustworthy. She didn't know yet what was bothering me. Had she heard the talk from older kids, too? I'd even overheard my mom's psychiatrist friend mention it. I was determined to find out if it applied to me. The words of my question paraded like ticker tape behind my eyes. It was now or never. "Do I have lesbian tendencies?" I stared at the glossy surface of the Ouija board to avoid seeing any reaction Helen might have had. The plastic ledge where my fingers rested felt warm and smooth. Then Ouija jerked into action. It pulled our hands into rhythmic circles at the center of the board. The circles got bigger and faster. We rocked forward and back in time with our circling hands. The planchette spiraled round and round, its widening orbit brushing equally close to YES and NO. I glanced up to make sure Helen wasn't messing with me. Her head was bowed in deep concentration. What exactly were Lesbian Tendencies? My mom's friend had said a lot of people had them, but I didn't know anyone who went around saying so. I was pretty sure it had to do with the teasing remarks about tomboys, and girls' obsession with being feminine. It had something to do with boys too, and how we weren't supposed to hate them any more, now that we were teenagers. Having brothers made that tough, though. Suddenly the planchette stopped circling and shot directly over to YES. I waited for it to move again but it just stayed there. A jumble of feelings spilled over me. I was shocked, embarrassed, relieved. I realized that I had hoped to rule out the possibility, not prove it. Yet I felt elevated somehow, lifted above "boys play ball, girls like boys." Helen's calm face showed no signs of disapproval. Her knees pressed hotly into mine. My head swirled. Could the Mystic Oracle have made a mistake? "Are you sure?" Immediately, Ouija swept our hands to the bottom of the board. "Good-Bye." Sally Sheklow has been a part of the Eugene community since 1972 and is a member of the WYMPROV! comedy troupe. Her column, which began in EW, also runs in several other newspapers around the country.
Some of the things that can be done are: demonstrate against any or all of his anti-environmental, anti-democratic, and anti-women policies; work to abolish the electoral college (165 years overdue); work to establish a multi-party system to replace the Rep-Dem duopoly (100 years overdue); work to abolish patriarchal discouragement of free female voting (80 years overdue); work to establish real campaign finance reform federally: this will help decouple the link between corrupt corporations and corrupt politicians (33 years overdue); work to abolish punch-card voting and replace it with an accurate voting/counting system (20 years overdue); work to make our government more like the many national governments in the world that are more democratic than ours; work to establish proportional representation and instant runoff voting; work to insure presidential debates that include at least the three most popular party candidates; work to make all polling booths/mail votes in the U.S. close at the same time and stop the destruction of Pacifica Radio and its free speech by right-wing Democrats and their Republican allies. There is so much to do and less than four years to get it done! Robert Saxton
Get a Horse Ordinary patrol officers do not have the time to investigate crimes. If we want to catch the people who steal our cars, rob our stores, and invade our homes, we need trained detectives to work the cases. Money from increasing the number of patrol cars can be better spent hiring detectives and outfitting motorcycle officers. Motorcycle patrol officers issue more citations than officers in squad cars. Ten years ago in Oregon City, one motorcycle patrol officer issued more traffic citations than the rest of the entire police force. To outfit one officer with a brand new motorcycle cost one third of what it took to outfit one squad car. So the city got savings up front with the less expensive vehicle, and got more revenues from having greater citations issued. A way to increase citizen interaction with officers is to put the officers on horseback. Horses are wonderful at crowd control and interacting with people. A whole system overhaul is more likely needed. Which means that some officers would have to switch from their cars to either a horse or a motorcycle. I am not suggesting removal of all patrol cars. There are just some things an officer in a car can do that a motorcycle officer can't. Jay VanOrman
Dems Defaulted We have seen the problems of inconsistent messages and capitulators. I believe that those who claimed to support the progressive agenda, yet failed to support Green Party candidates, or who advocate forming alliances with the Democratic Party, have hurt the progressive cause. These people certainly do not have the wisdom or temperament needed to lead the Greens forward. For decades, progressives have lent Democrats support. Support in the form of votes, the currency of democracy. This support is like a loan on which Democrats have consistently defaulted. The Democratic Party is now politically bankrupt. It has consistently failed to persevere and deliver on its promises. Democrats could not produce even one senator to support the Black Congressional Caucus in objecting to the disenfranchisement of African-American voters in Florida during the last election. Democrats have shown that they don't deserve progressives' support. Local Greens who are continuing to talk about working with the Democrats are undermining the progressive agenda. "Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it." (Santayana) It will be unfortunate if the Lane Greens set themselves up to repeat the errors of the past. Boz Van Houten
Relief for India Our new administration under the direction of President Bush seriously lacks the heart that I found in my newfound friends in India. After the earthquake, I kept waiting to hear what our country was going to do to come to the rescue of the hundreds of thousands of homeless, grief-stricken people. Finally, when help was provided, it was small and slow in coming. Canada committed nearly half the funds that Washington did with one 10th the economy. Washington sent an emergency team of seven experts, smaller than rescue teams arriving from Britain, Switzerland, Turkey and elsewhere. I feel a personal sense of embarrassment in my country's meager and casual response to a disaster of untold proportion. But I choose to rise above the cavalier nature of the Bush Administration, and with a sense of humility and humanity, offer whatever assistance I can. If you feel moved to help, monetary assistance (checks, money orders, or bank drafts) can be sent to: Sewa Bharti, Dr. Hedgevar Bhavan, Baliyakaka Road, Old Dhor Bazar, Kankariya, Ahemdabad, India. Barbara Raisbeck
Women Ignored How can you ignore the performances by the women and imply that their energy was lacking? How can you not even name them (you do a good job of naming all the MEN in the play)? Allow me to finish the job. The first time we see the women, Mary Dolson plays beautifully the part of innocent and brainy Luciana, sitting on the rock, reading her book. Megan Smith (playing Adriana) bursts through the door and instantly commands the stage, offsetting the innocence of Luciana with frustration, anger and confusion for the rest of the play. My experience with Comedy of Errors has been one where Adriana and Luciana's characters are either boring, one-dimensional, or completely absurd, but Megan Smith and Mary Dolson made the characters completely three-dimensional and complex, and not boring. I actually felt the tragic quality of the play shine through in their performance, a quality overlooked in most productions of Comedy of Errors. The Courtesan, played by Sabrina Bernasconi, served up an outrageous, but tempting performance with a flash that pales the sparkles in her hair. And when she and Adriana are on the stage together, the tension surpasses a typerope above Manhattan. Even the Abbess, played by J. Sparky Roberts, charms the audience at the end of the play, as she sorts out the confusion. While the men aptly provided the play with comedic and physical energy, the women balanced it quite well with emotional energy, adding dimension to the farce. Josh Breese
Violated Rights The only reason why I went down to the park is because at the time I lived only blocks away and I was curious to see what was happening in my neighborhood. There has been a local stereotype placed on anarchists due to extremists who do act violently, but on this occasion there was no such behavior exhibited by the activists. The only people I saw acting violently were the police. Dressed in riot gear with their faces covered, they marched down the streets of Eugene like Nazis. I have videotapes and witnesses that can give a third party account of the indignity that I went through, including my violent arrest and my peaceful stance that I took through the whole ordeal. The charges brought against me are disorderly conduct and disturbing a "peace" officer. I was held for more than 24 hours and a $30,000 bail was placed on my head, and this all for expressing my right as a citizen to observe what was taking place in my community. I am outraged at the atrocities committed by the same authority figures that are sworn to protect their citizens. I have talked to more answering machines than people in trying to get the answers I need to resolve this situation quickly. Three times a week since my release I have been forced to check in with the custody referee's office, which is a huge inconvenience in my daily life, and a constant reminder of the injustice that was done to me. I intend to sue the Eugene Police Department as well as Lane County Sheriff's Department (the latter due to inhumane treatment while being held in the jail). It is my belief that if the community is informed of the happenings within its boundaries, everyone will prosper from it. Darrell W. Olson
They don't care who they hurt as long as they accomplish their goal. And they think we can't see them for what they really are. They caught a lot of us off guard. The new ex-president didn't have the decency or courage to just leave, and in a final show of his immature arrogance, he pardoned 140 of his good buds. These include Roger Clinton for distributing illegal drugs, John Deutch for mishandling national secrets, Mark Rich for trading arms with Iran, Henry Cisneros for lying to the FBI, and Patty Hearst. It occurs to me that if the leader of another country did this, we would call that a dictatorship or communism or third-world politics. When will we ever learn? Dan O'Gorman Genderspace Gender equality is not to be attained by marginalizing one gender. Sexism cannot be ended by practicing sexism. Ms. Shaefer suggests that her women-only social service organization lacks the resources to provide equal service to men, even after claiming that men would constitute only 4 percent of those in need of service. Does the lack of 4 percent more budget justify awarding services solely on the basis of gender? Or could Ms. Shaefer merely be trying to justify the unjustifiable 4 the new, entrenched, institutionalized sexism of the DV establishment? Michael Snyder
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