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News
Briefs: Kesey Read-Along | WEP
Gets Hearing | Council Work | Library
Preview
News:
Prof Tackles Ducks -- UO Senate prez warns of arms race in sports spending.
News:
Night Moves -- Barbara Walters told me to fear the Scene. Part I in a series.
News:
War Wounds -- Undercovered #16: More civilians killed in Afghanistan.
Happening
People: Alison Luthmers.
KEYSEY READ-ALONG
A reading initiative kicked off this week
in Eugene designed to encourage the community to read the same book
during the same time span of time.
The project, entitled Readin' in the Rain, will ask Eugene and
Springfield residents to read Ken Kesey's Sometimes a Great Notion from Feb.
12 to April 1. The movie based on the book will be shown at the McDonald Theatre
April 1-2, with guest speakers, live music and The Merry Band of Pranksters part
of the program.
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Slant
Backroom maneuvering appears to have derailed Oregon's pesticide
right-to-know program. This much-needed program was instituted in an 88-2 vote by
the 1999 Legislature, but initial funding runs out this week and last weekend's special
session of the Legislature ignored it. Was it a lack of money in the state budget
that kept funding away from this program? More likely it was business and industry
lobbying, and the budget crisis is just an excuse. In 2001, the Legislature allocated
$2.7 million to develop and implement the program over the current biennium, but
directed that $1.4 million be held by the Emergency Board for the program. The E-Board
has met twice, but is still sitting on the rest of the money, in effect killing the
program without any direction from the governor or lawmakers. This is no way to do
the public's business in Oregon, particularly when our safety is at stake. Controlling
pesticides is vital to salmon recovery, clean drinking water, and other public health
issues. Cleaning up pesticides in the future will be much more expensive than tracking
pesticides today.
Eugene pundit Mark Robinowitz has suggested in a letter
to the mayor and council that if the Gang of 9's idea for citywide council elections
is a good idea, then the city should recommend that it be carried further. "I'm
sure that (County Commissioner) Anna Morrison would enjoy having all of Lane County
consider her re-election," he writes. "State senators for Eugene could
be picked by the entire state. Our congressional representative would be selected
by the entire country. And the U.S. president would be picked by the entire planet
(he is the ruler of the world, after all)."
One of our readers reports that she was called recently
by a polling company asking blatantly biased questions, such as "Given the following
choices, what would you choose? Preserving farm land or saving 200 jobs?" Is
there a connection with all the finely crafted letters to the editor in the R-G in
recent months supporting Eugene Sand & Gravel? One question the pollsters will
never ask is, "If one gravel company goes out of business, won't other gravel
companies hire more people to take up the slack?"
SLANT includes short opinion pieces and rumor-chasing notes compiled
by the EW staff. Heard any good rumors lately? Contact Ted Taylor at 484-0519, editor@eugeneweekly.com
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"Our city is known for its diversity, its richness of spirit,
and individuality," says Mayor Jim Torrey. "But sometimes it is important
to do things together."
A portion of the proceeds from the film showing and many other
associated events will be donated to Eugene Neighbors, Inc. and the Eugene Public
Library, according to Joyce Berman, communications director for eugene.com
Local booksellers have stocked additional copies of the book in
their stores, and extra copies have been donated to the library.
Participants that borrow the book from the library or purchase
the book at area bookstores will receive a button that says "Readin' in the
Rain, Readin' Kesey." The button will be a tool to promote discussion between
readers and to encourage citywide support for the project, says Berman. Information
about the entire event, plus contact forms, message boards and daily updates, can
be found at www.eugene.com
WEP GETS HEARING
The West Eugene Parkway (WEP) concept squeaked by voters
in the November election, but will it ever be built? Pro-WEP and anti-WEP interests
are preparing for the next chapter of the WEP saga: a combined Eugene, Springfield
and Lane County Planning Commission and Lane County Roads Advisory Committee joint
public hearing at 6 pm Wednesday, Feb. 20 at Eugene City Hall, 777 Pearl St. The
hearing will discuss changes to the regional TransPlan (the highway wish-list), the
Metro Plan, the Lane County Rural Comprehensive Plan (the WEP would puncture the
Urban Growth Boundary), and the West Eugene Wetlands Plan.
The hearing notice claims that the TransPlan revisions would include
all segments of the WEP in the 20-year "fiscally constrained" list (see
EW's Jan. 3 story, "WEP Between the Ears"). However, the pending
rewrite of TransPlan would effectively cancel the already funded and approved widening
of Beltline from Roosevelt to West 11th, which is a WEP tributary project.
The 1997 Supplemental Draft Environ-mental Impact Statement stated
that this Beltline widening would be required for proper traffic flow if the WEP
is built, and a September 2001 ODOT memo of the Parkway's "system cost"
included this as part of the WEP. Last June, a meeting of local, county, state and
federal government officials concluded that ODOT would select "no build"
for the WEP and finish widening Beltline (and widen West 11th west of Beltline) instead
of the Parkway -- the exact opposite of the proposal now advocated by local government
officials.
One reason the WEP has not been built is that the money is not
there. ODOT has a huge backlog of unfunded road maintenance projects, particularly
bridge repairs. Oregon schools and health care programs are threatened with budget
cuts due to our fiscal crisis -- which makes the WEP even less likely. Part of the
WEP's hidden costs would be the pricetag to subsidize sprawl between Eugene and Veneta
if the highway is built -- new schools, sewers, police, fire, etc. In addition, Bush's
new federal budget proposes a $9 billion cut in federal highway spending because
less gas tax revenues are available due to the recession.
The West Eugene Wetlands Plan, a policy to "mitigate"
the permitting of more shopping malls and factories in wetlands, does not yet include
the WEP. Over the past decade, the Bureau of Land Management, the Army Corps of Engineers
and the city of Eugene have spent about $20 million to preserve and restore extremely
rare native wet prairie habitat that is home to endangered animals and plants. It
is one of the few places where one can appreciate what the Willamette Valley looked
like two centuries ago.
The WEP route through the heart of West Eugene Wetlands Park would
require 1.17 million cubic yards of sand and gravel, much of it for a massive elevated
crossing of the train tracks near Amazon Creek. A double trailer gravel truck can
hold about 22 yards of fill and is about 40 feet long. Therefore, it would take about
53,000 truckloads of sand and gravel to build the highway, and if those trucks were
placed end-to-end, they would stretch for more than 400 miles, nearly the distance
from Eugene to Seattle and back.
A meeting to prepare for the hearing is planned from 3 to 6 pm
Sunday, Feb. 17, at the 1000 Friends of Oregon office, 120 W. Broadway. For more
information, call 686-6761. -- Mark Robinowitz
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WebSitings
True
Grist
Online enviro mag. Its credo:
"Pull no punches, take no prisoners, accept no advertising.
Eschew the wealth and fame that so often seduce online environmental
journalists. And try to have a better sense of humor than a
pack of fur protesters."
I'm
Changing the Climate
Part of mission statement: "We are trying to use
ridicule and social embarrassment to change the habits of the American consumer."
The White
House
Biting and funny satire in a fake White House website
including news, interviews with George, Babs and Dick, and a virtual tour to boot.
Tide--Pool
Environmental and political news of the Pacific Northwest,
including Canada. Lots of links, book reviews. Ecotrust site.
Ruppert's Rant
Former LAPD narc Mike Ruppert's one-man crusade to expose drug-dealing by the cops,
conspiracies behind the Sept. 11 attacks, bribery in government.
Hydrogen
Now
News, facts, research links. Mission is "to educate
and motive the public to seek and use hydrogen and other alternative fuel technologies
..."
More Links:
WebSitings
Archive
WebSitings is a list of useful and sometimes quirky web sites.
Care to contribute to the list? Send suggested sites and a short description to editor@eugeneweekly.com
|
COUNCIL WORK
City councilors are all getting paid now. But some seem
to work harder for the money than others. Councilor Scott Meisner serves on 10 different
city committees while Councilors Pat Farr and Gary Pape work on only four committees.
Here's a rundown on the number of committees each councilor and
the mayor serves on:
Scott Meisner: 10; Mayor Jim Torrey: 8; Nancy Nathanson: 8; Bonny
Bettman: 7; Betty Taylor: 6; David Kelly: 6; Gary Rayor: 5; Gary Pape: 4; Pat Farr:
4. -- AP
LIBRARY PREVIEW
Eugene's $34 million new library is on budget and on schedule
for completion by sometime next winter, says project manager Brad Black.
Workers are installing brick veneer and insulation on the cement
and metal structure. Late next month the city expects the building's huge windows
to go in and work to focus on completing the interior.
"It's just been a joy" says Black of the work of John
Hyland Construction and its 86 subcontractors. "This has been such a well-run
project."
Last week city councilors and the mayor went on a hard hat tour
inside the building. Inside, past a few puddles of water and rising metal framing,
the lobby opens into a vast children's area.
The children's area of the new library alone is three-quarters
the size of the old library's main floor, says Black.
The main children's' room is walled by windows on one side and
has a fenced-in porch out the back.
To one side of the children's room, a children's craft and story-telling
area will have heated floors for kids to sit on. To the other side, a public meeting
area has seating for 175.
Upstairs, a reading room will surprise visitors with a soaring
28 ft. ceiling decorated with undulating poplar wood. Tall stained glass windows
adorn one wall.
The best view from the new library, across town to the Three Sisters,
is from an area the public won't be allowed in. The building's fourth floor will
be used for city finance and information services offices. When the library eventually
needs the space, it will expand into the area.
The barrel roof on the building's exterior will be largely tiled
over and lost on the interior. When the library expands again, the city could spend
the money to open a vaulted ceiling on the fourth floor.
To save money, the city also decided not to include an outside
balcony for library users to enjoy the view. An underground garage, however, is included.
-- AP
Back to Top
Prof
Tackles Ducks
UO Senate prez warns
of arms race in sports spending.
By Alan
Pittman
When it comes to warning about the dangers of runaway athletic
spending, UO Faculty Senate President James Earl says he feels like Don Quixote tilting
at windmills.
"Athletic spending is way out of control at universities and
we can't keep up with it," the English professor said at a City Club speech
Feb. 8. But when he issued that warning in the UO alumni magazine, Duck fans wrote
back calling him a "pointy headed elitist." One person wrote a letter to
The Register-Guard calling for him to be fired for insubordination.
Earl says he watches Duck games and is a fan himself. But he asks,
"What does a university have to do with games?" He adds, "A lot of
my friends in the academic community feel like I do."
College sports are a "big business" with most of the
huge profits going to advertisers, TV networks and the sports industry, according
to Earl. The student athletes play for free and "none of the income from athletics
goes into academics," he says. "Our athletic programs are growing like
gangbusters these days while the universities that own them and run them are limping
along on three legs."
The NCAA just negotiated a $6 billion TV contract for airing the
college basketball finals, but "in the college sports industry, academics is
at the bottom of the food chain."
The state Legislature is looking at deep cuts in higher education.
"I'm just quaking in my shoes," says Earl. "But don't you worry, athletics
won't suffer, believe me."
The Ducks made it to the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl this year. Advertisers
and the media "made a fortune from it and the university barely breaks even,"
Earl says.
Earl says UO administrators have told him that "football is
now the university's primary way of marketing its academic programs to students and
donors." But he says football seems a "funny way" to market Shakespeare
and other academic pursuits. Earl points to national research showing that "the
more universities invest in sports, the more academics suffer."
Earl says athletic money is like a roller coaster. Universities
may do well when their teams are at the top, but when the winning cycle inevitably
ends, the money goes away. At the UO, "I don't even think it's a roller coaster
we have hitched our wagon to, I think it's a rocket ship and we have no hope in controlling
it at all."
In the past, college sports were small and modest. But now "the
tail is wagging the dog," Earl says. "College sports & are an openly
commercial enterprise who's chief reason for being is the making of money."
Earl says when he first heard of UO plans to build sky boxes and
expand Autzen Stadium, he wrote an e-mail to UO Administrator Dan Williams. "I
think the idea of the university borrowing $50 million to expand athletics while
scrimping and stretching to meet basic needs like salaries is a gargantuan error
-- a reversal of priorities, a failure of mission on a scale so huge that people
seem not to be able to see it."
A hospital with peeling paint, overworked doctors and patients
lined up on gurneys wouldn't decide to spend $50 million on a country club on the
theory it would encourage more donations to the hospital, Earl says. "The logic
is preposterous."
"There's nothing rational or necessary in the relationship
of football to higher education," says Earl. "Why not casinos? They'd be
just as profitable."
Earl says it breaks his heart to see that "Oregonians will
dig so deep into their pockets to build a bigger and better coliseum and leave our
wonderful art museum boarded up right in the center of campus for lack of funds."
He called on university donors to "give where it's needed, give where it will
do the most good, give to academics first. I think the Ducks can take care of themselves."
Earl says he supports the idea used at other universities of requiring
athletic donors to also contribute a percentage (e.g., 20 percent) of their contribution
to academics.
"The faculty are not going to try to cut athletics at the
UO. Nobody has to worry about that. We're not that unrealistic. We just don't want
it to grow any bigger. And right now its out of control, because there is a siren
song of big money out there. We want to keep that siren song from poisoning the ideals
of the higher education in America, which is a genuine threat."
"I want to build a firewall between the entertainment
world north of the river, with its skyboxes and its tailgaters, and
the impoverished and idealistic real university south of the river,"
Earl says.
UO Journalism Prof. Arnold Ismach questioned whether Earl wasn't
"demonizing the athletic department" as a "scapegoat" for the
failure of the Legislature to adequately fund academics. "Aren't you just lashing
out wildly and picking on this poor little victim?"
Earl and the audience laughed at the suggestion the Duck athletic
department, which pays its football coach $1 million a year, was a "poor little
victim." Until the faculty complained last year about athletic subsidies, "We
took $2 million a year from our educational budget and we gave it over there to the
athletic department. The reason that is changing is because the faculty spoke up."
Back to Top
Night
Moves
Barbara Walters told
me to fear the Scene. Part I in a series.
By Nate
Puckett
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Eugene's unique techno
scene includes Vanessa Harerty (center). At left is Jasmine Crump, at right are Russell
and Trista.
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It's Friday night in downtown Eugene, and Walt Hunt is dancing with
a bunch of kids.
Techno music thumps throughout the building and out onto the sidewalk.
High schoolers cluster around the entrance to the Robert Canaga Art Gallery at 760
Willamette St. Tonight, the gallery has been transformed into a dance party. Tonight,
Walt Hunt is in his element.
The kids love Walt. Most people, it seems, love Walt -- Robert
Canaga, who owns the gallery, gladly agreed to let him throw a party there. If you
live or work downtown, chances are good that you know Walt Hunt. He promotes art
shows and dance parties with no profit motive, mentors at-risk teenagers, doles out
smoothies at the New Odyssey Juice Bar, and generally leads a more interesting life
than you or I.
The Eugene Police Department knows Walt. On Jan. 11, they arrested
him during one of the "Friday Night Techno" events the juice bar used to
sponsor. A search of his office above the juice bar yielded a small amount of psychedelic
mushrooms. The landlord (who called the police that night) banned him from the building,
which, not surprisingly, has stopped the dance parties.
The downtown community, however, has not stopped loving Walt. Dozens
of people have risen to his defense since he was arrested. The kids still dance with
him -- in fact, they passed the hat on Jan. 11 to raise money for his legal expenses,
which have been substantial.
"Walt's been completely instrumental to the techno scene around
here," says Pete Hinson, a local 17 year-old DJ. "He's done so much good
stuff for minors, people who don't have very much to do around here. He's amazing."
Hunt's efforts to further Eugene's techno scene are illustrative
of the subculture's uphill battle for mainstream acceptance. A lot of people view
techno, and especially "raves" -- populous, late-night gatherings set to
dance music -- as undesirable, even dangerous. Entire cities have passed anti-rave
ordinances that make it almost impossible to throw one. Police departments nationwide
view Ecstasy, a drug especially popular in techno circles, as an emerging epidemic
-- and raves as the 21st-century equivalent to the crackhouse.
So the entire techno scene, like Hunt himself, is either a Threat
to Our Children or a Positive Alternative for Eugene's Youth, depending on who you
ask.
And if you ask me?
A Pause for Full Disclosure ...
Techno music and its disciples tend to piss me off. In my experience, raves are
filled with people who have more money and free time than is probably good for them.
A big-city rave can cost $20, easily, with each tab of Ecstasy costing another $20.
Some people take two or three.
Kids die at raves. Usually in big cities, and usually from drug
overdoses. Some raves are dangerously overcrowded; I've been to a few that charge
money for water, which is outrageous if you're packed in with a bunch of dancing,
sweating bodies -- and potentially deadly if you have enough MDMA, the active ingredient
in Ecstasy, running through your veins.
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DJ Pete Hinson.
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But!
A lot of people don't do any drugs at raves; they're just there
to dance. While I believe that any rave will bring a certain amount of drug use,
I could say the same about Grateful Dead shows -- and this town is full of people
who would remove my left testicle if I suggested Jerry and the gang brought anything
but positive vibrations.
So!
Don't make the mistake of thinking you're reading an objective
account from an objective journalist, if there is such a thing. I generally don't
like techno -- the music, the people, and the entire culture have always struck me
as synthetic and artificial.
As is usually the case, however, Eugene has proven to be a unique
setting, with its own rules and tendencies. The techno scene here is different than
what I've come across before. This article, and future ones, will focus on techno
in Eugene, which thus far has defied my preconceptions and largely avoided
Petty Journalistic Wrath.
Thus far.
Now Back to Business ...
"Youth culture is under attack in Eugene, and the goal is to shut it down,"
says Walt Hunt. He is 52 years old but looks younger, and -- in a coincidence that
gets funnier the more you talk with him -- slightly resembles Attorney General John
Ashcroft. "I want to break down the barriers between age groups, but there are
plenty of people who don't want that to happen."
Hunt is the anti-Ashcroft: a left-wing, nurturing sort who loves
Eugene and dance music. He can handle a pair of glowsticks like nobody's business,
and his high-school buddies cheer him on as he whirls the sticks to the beat.
At first, this sort of scene can be unsettling; Hunt looks out
of place among so many young people. But upon closer examination, there is nothing
creepy or pitiful about his actions -- he's just dancing, having a good time, and
even though most of the crowd is roughly one-third his age, they seem thrilled to
have him there.
To the Eugene Police, that's exactly the problem. While EPD declined
to comment on Hunt's case specifically, a report filed by Sgt. Kris Martes reads:
During the late nights hours, Walt has been observed allowing juvenile females
who loiter on the mall to spend the night with him at the location.
This is a hell of a thing to put in someone's file, especially
when you consider the third-hand source: EPD says Jeff Geiger, the landlord, told
them someone -- "one tenant" in the report -- had told him this. (Geiger
declined to comment on Hunt or his arrest.)
Tara Brooks, a 14-year-old who was with Walt the night of his arrest,
calls the allegations "disgusting."
"They totally assumed sick sexual stuff," she says. "Everything
the police said was rude ... they treated everyone badly, but they were especially
mean to Walt."
Audra Erickson, who helped Hunt clean up after every Friday night
techno event at the juice bar, says he is being persecuted for "trying to bring
everyone together."
"He's just a really caring person, and I guess some people
can't understand that," she says. "One of the cops actually assumed that
because we (Brooks and Erickson) help out for free, Walt 'pays us with sexual favors.'
It was really bad. After they talked to me I was crying."
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Walt Hunt
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Personally, I'm in favor of the police being as mean as possible to
sex offenders. But there is no evidence that Hunt resembles one in any way -- or
if there is, EPD isn't sharing. One of the dozens of letters I received in support
of Hunt put it best: "Please do not mistake Walter's bubbling personality with
the blind and perverse notions that are being imposed upon him," wrote Matthew
Muckerman, who signs off as "a concerned Eugene citizen."
Indeed. There is never any shortage of concerned citizens in this
town, no matter what the issue is. Just add techno music to the pile and let the
voices start trying to drown each other out: Let the kids dance! But what about
Dangerous Drugs?! Just come out and see for yourself! But Barbara Walters told me
to fear the Scene! It's spiritual! It's a drug-orgy! It's wonderful! It's awful!
The beat just goes on and on ...
So far, in Eugene, I have yet to observe any of the bigger-city
problems people tend to associate with techno culture. I haven't found anyone passed
out in a back room, or raves in dangerously overcrowded warehouses with padlocked
fire exits, or drug deals in dance circles. All I've found is a bunch of kids who
really, really like techno music and dancing to it. While it wouldn't surprise me
to learn that some of them take drugs, I don't think drug use is viewed as integral
to their scene -- and I think we as a city should feel grateful for that.
Techno music -- lappears to be a victim of its own national reputation
here in Eugene. While it's hard to be angry at police for being vigilant toward a
culture they've heard so many dark things about, it's also frustrating to see so
much smoke being blown when there's so little fire.
Case in point: at the art gallery, after Hunt was dancing with
the glowsticks but before the event shut down 45 minutes early, EPD bike officers
made a stop outside. Robert Canaga, the venue owner, went outside to have the following
discussion:
Canaga: Hello.
Cop: Hello.
Canaga: How are you doing?
Cop: Fine. How are you doing?
Canaga: Fine.
Cop: All right.
Canaga: All right. (Stares, nods, glaring.)
This was a genuinely silly little scene, but when I started taking
pictures, you would've thought EPD was beating up a nun for kicks. The officer Canaga
was talking to -- who refused to identify himself -- held out his palm and told me
not to take pictures.
When I kept going, he threatened to take my film. When I took another
picture, he advanced toward me, but didn't follow me inside, where a few dozen people
were ... dancing. And smiling. And looking at the art on the walls.
Back to Top
War
Wounds
Undercovered #16: More
civilians killed in Afghanistan.
By Kate
Rogers Gessert
-- According to military analysts, the Feb. 4 killing of
suspected Al-Qaeda members in Zhawar, Khost province, by a missile fired from an
unmanned spy plane was "tactical innovation of the highest order" (New
York Daily News). On Feb. 6, an unmanned spy plane fired more missiles nearby,
killing three civilians and damaging homes. Khost people are scared and angry and
want the Afghan government to make the bombing stop. They marched through the streets
chanting slogans against their recently appointed governor (Jang).
-- Demining experts are hard at work in Afghanistan. Denar Kheil,
a village of 300 homes near Kabul, was hit by 10 cluster bombs last fall, scattering
2,020 bomblets. The U.S. claims 10 percent of bomblets do not explode on impact,
but deminers observe 20 percent. Bomblets explode in response to touch, radios, and
changes in temperature. Refugee families who have returned to Denar Kheil are waiting
inside their houses while deminers work. It may take three weeks to clear one cluster
bomb (Boston Globe).
-- Digging a 2,000-pound bomb out of a Herat neighborhood recently
took two weeks. Cluster bombs and other unexploded U.S. bombs have delayed the removal
of mines, set in Afghanistan since 1979. Herat demining chief Haji Siddiqui used
to send his workers to outlying regions, but "now we are too busy here in Herat."
"We've found munitions on roofs, in gardens, all over," says Sean Moorhouse,
a former stock broker who works for the U.N. World Food Program. "I've taken
things off houses, and then sat with the family to have tea while they moved their
belongings back in. There's an immediate sense of satisfaction" (Washington
Post).
-- Air Force Master Sgt. Mike Smith, clearing cluster bomblets around
the Kandahar airfield, agrees. "It's hard not to get motivated when you see
the kids running around. It makes me think of my own kids." Villagers led Smith
and his demining team to a nearby field. "Here you go," said one man, politely
handing over five bomblets (AP).
-- The Pentagon says it now has no responsibility for Shebargan
jail, where 3,300 prisoners are crammed together in dirty cells with little food
and medicine and no heat or running water. Pneumonia and dysentery are epidemic,
and many prisoners have died. Until mid-January, the U.S. maintained the jail with
General Dostum (Independent).
-- Interim President Karzai is popular among Afghans because he
is not a warlord. But he does not have a private army, and this makes him dependent
on foreign peacekeepers (Independent). He even shares the presidential residence
with Burhanuddi Rabbani, Afghanistan's president under the Northern Alliance from
1992 to 1996. Rabbani will not leave, and meets with delegations who come to see
Karzai. Northern Alliance soldiers guard the presidential gates (Times, U.K.)
-- Outside of Kabul, power struggles continue. Warlords levy taxes
on the Kabul-Jalalabad road. The Kandahar-Herat road is unsecured because of trouble
between rival governors (IRINnews). Ismail Khan, self-appointed Tadjik governor of
Herat, is angry because he wants more power in the central government. People complain
that he has imprisoned many innocent Pashtuns, but Karzai must accept him as governor.
Near Mazar-i-Sharif, fighting between Dostum's soldiers and rival Atta's soldiers
has claimed several lives, and Dostum's forces hold a fortress inside the city. Padsha
Khan, appointed governor of Gardez by President Karzai, has been driven out of the
city by local people who say he is a killer and a smuggler. But Khan's brother, a
minister in the Afghan government, promises a bloody fight if the appointment is
withdrawn (Times, U.K.)
-- Karzai has asked the British, Americans, and the U.N. for a larger
peacekeeping force. Few countries want to commit more troops, although foreign commanders
working in Kabul have said a force of 30,000 is necessary to secure the country (AFP),
and some U.N. and British leaders seem interested in this idea. President Bush has
stressed that U.S. troops are in Afghanistan only to hunt Al-Qaeda. Sen. Joseph Biden,
chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, proposed Feb. 4 that the
U.S. should join the peacekeeping forces. "Security is the basic issue in Afghanistan.
Whatever it takes, we should do it. History will judge us harshly if we allow hope
of a liberated Afghanistan to evaporate because we failed to stay the course"
(Asia Times).
Back to Top
 
Alison Luthmers
When she was 5 years old and living in Chicago, Alison
Luthmers heard an aspiring violinist play "Happy Birthday" at a party.
"I'd like to do that," she thought, and soon she was taking lessons at
the Music Center of the North Shore. "I took Suzuki Method -- had the same teacher
the entire time in Chicago," says Luthmers, who moved to Eugene with her family
three years later. Now 12 and a seventh-grader at Roosevelt, she will be the youngest
member of the Portland Youth Philharmonic when they perform Bruckner's Eighth
Symphony in the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall on March 2. "It's an awesome
piece -- 80 minutes long," she notes. "I've really enjoyed learning it."
Luthmers spent seven weeks last summer in Paris for study with concert violinist
Devi Erlih. In addition to her two weekly trips to Portland for PYP rehersals, she
plays in her school's string ensemble and dances with The Edge performance group.
"Ali's such a sparkler -- she dances," observes her current violin teacher,
UO music Prof. Katherine Lucktenberg. "The music dances when she plays it. She
feels it in every fiber."
-- Photo by Paul Neevel
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