|
News
Briefs: Trophy Season | Reining
in Rants | Wendover Hearing | Crime
Drops | Morton's Mellow | Labor Notes
| Something's Rotten
News:
Ductal Lavage -- A pap smear for the breast?
News:
Guide to undercovered war news online.
Happening
People: Mary-Minn Sirag.
TROPHY SEASON
Quick: name the UO sports team that's won a national championship
trophy this year.
The Ducks' two revenue-producing teams, football and men's basketball,
had great seasons. Both finished first in the Pac-10 Conference and excelled in the
postseason; UO football won the Fiesta Bowl and finished second in the nation, and
the basketball team advanced to the regional finals of the NCAA Tournament.
|
Slant
--A work session and public hearing are coming up the afternoon
and evening of April 8 on some 30 pages of changes to our new Land Use Code Update
(LUCU). Local developers are challenging the new rules as being unfair and too restrictive
(surprise!) and they might have found a few legitimate complaints that could stand
up in court. The problem for Eugene is not so much how we tweak the rules, but rather
what happens to local land-use planning in the process. Do we toss out LUCU and go
back to the outdated and inadequate Chapter 9 of the Eugene Code? Do we water down
LUCU to appease developers? Let's not rush to a permanent fix of LUCU that will lead
to the destruction of even more resource land and natural habitat. That's not what
the people of Eugene want.
--The debate continues over the role of violence in environmental
politics following a lively panel discussion March 9 at the Public Interest Environmental
Law Conference, and a follow-up Viewpoint by Spruce Houser. It's an old discussion,
not likely to be resolved. The debate here in Eugene is not so different from the
debate in Ireland, Israel, Pakistan, Indonesia and other places near and far. At
what point, if ever, is it morally justified to raise up a fist, a stone, a gun or
launch a nuclear weapon? How abstract can a threat be and still justify acts of self-defense?
Can political problems be solved by military means? Are anarchists any more inclined
to violence or non-violence than the average Joe or Jane on the street? We can raise
the level of this discussion in Eugene by dumping the personal attacks, stopping
being offended so easily, and recognizing that we all share common intentions: peace,
justice, freedom and equality.
|
But there's only been one championship trophy this year, and it belongs
to a very deserving UO women's basketball team.
The Ducks won it in front of 6,835 fans at McArthur Court on March
27, and they won it in style, on a last-second shot from tournament MVP Cathrine
Kraayeveld.
That one trophy, however, comes with one caveat: It's for winning
the Women's National Invitational Tournament. In the college basketball universe,
the NCAA Tournament -- which the UO women didn't get into -- is the Big Dance. Which
relegates the WNIT to haybarn hoedown status.
Try telling that to the Oregon team that mobbed midcourt after
defeating Houston 54-52, though. The Ducks knocked off rivals Washington and Oregon
State en route to the WNIT title. They also gained valuable postseason experience
for next year's squad, as well as a satisfying conclusion to Bev Smith's first year
as Oregon coach.
Winning 10 of their last 12 games, the Ducks earned a 22-13 record,
five wins better than last season. They also gave the UO faithful an extended show,
playing seven of their last games at Mac Court -- adding some extra ticket revenue
to a program that seems to have a bright future.
And, of course, one big, shiny trophy. --Nate Puckett
REINING IN RANTS
Talk radio rants got your down? Fed up with the "proliferation
of extreme right-wing mono-dimensional political discourse monopolizing national
airwaves with simplistic mantras and relentless character assassination?" asks
Eugene Democrat Gerry Rempel, capable of a good rant himself now and then.
Rempel reports that a resolution passed unanimously at the Democratic
State Convention March 10 in Portland that calls for holding broadcasting stations
and corporations accountable to fairness on political issues.
The Democrats are saying it's a myth that right-wing radio's 90
percent domination of talk-show time on commercial stations is market-driven. Instead,
they say conservative station owners and advertisers are purposefully not giving
the listening public balanced programming.
"Research with ratings services such as Arbitron contradict
this (myth) in numerous instances," says Rempel. "Progressive talk-show
hosts Sheila Hamilton of KPAM (fastest growing talk-show in the Portland area) and
Jim Hightower (who was syndicated with ABC in Texas) were wildly popular before being
pulled from the air."
The Democrats are calling for a reinstatement of the "Fairness
Doctrine;" a federal requirement (abandoned in the Reagan administration) that
broadcast stations leasing the public airwaves had to allow a certain amount of time
for opposing views on political issues.
"This is a call to action for people sick of and alarmed by
nationally syndicated propagandists such as Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Sean Henedy,
Oliver North, Gordon Liddy, Michael Medved, etc., monopolizing our public airwaves,"
says Rempel.
The Democrats are urging "radio station owners and advertisers
to restore a balanced discourse to the public air waves." They are also asking
citizens to call radio station owners and demand a "fuller spectrum of political
views on talk-radio shows as well as hosts that aren't all extreme right-wing propagandists."
-- Ted Taylor
WENDOVER HEARING
A controversial proposed housing development at the end
of Wendover Street faces another hurdle at a Boundary Commission annexation hearing
at 7 pm Thursday, April 4 in the City Council chambers. Written and oral testimony
will be accepted.
Clearcutting and bulldozing on the property Feb. 11, reportedly
without permits, led to a protest at the site and complaints about destruction of
rare flora and fauna in the area. The lowlands on the site off River Road include
riparian habitat.
"The forest is leveled and there is interest in annexing 9
1/2 acres and building 35 houses on land that was underwater in 1964," says
Kevin Jones of the Seacon Park Neighborhood Association. "In the wake of the
'64 flood, county officials told the flooded residents that houses wouldn't be allowed
on lot 02247 because of it's bowl-like characteristics. Another dam was built and
people have become over-confident again."
Jones says the Boundary Commission will hear neighbors' concerns
about whether the parcel belongs in the city or with adjacent flooding farmland,
and whether it was correct to include this piece of land with its productive class
II soil in the Urban Growth Boundary.
"The neighbors would gladly sit down with the owners and pay
a fair price to see this resolved," says Jones. -- Ted Taylor
CRIME DROPS
The serious crime rate in Eugene dropped again last year,
continuing a five-year trend.
Serious, Part I crime, (including homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated
assault, burglary, theft and arson) dropped 4 percent last year. In the past 15 years,
the serious crime rate has dropped 27 percent. -- Alan Pittman
|
WebSitings
The Pound
Lost your dog? The Lane County Animal Regulation Authority
shelter lists impounded animals on this website complete with pictures. Many of the
cats and dogs are available for adoption.
Cascadia
News
Created by two former, award-winning environmental
reporters from The Oregonian, Cascadia Times delivers in-depth
and investigative articles on local and regional environmental issues every other
month.
Lane County Atlas
Created by UO cartography students, the online atlas
includes 20 maps displaying everything from land ownership to covered bridges to
salmon habitat.
Community
Pages
The Eugene Free Community Network posts one of the
most comprehensive and well organized lists of local community internet links.
Multicultural Resource Guide
www.libweb.uoregon.edu/
diversity/guide.html
This guide from the UO library includes lists of local resources for members of a
variety of different groups. A gay and lesbian section lists local bookstores, bars
and support groups.
Trip
Check
The state posts information on road conditions and
delay incidents on this website. The site includes links to more than 100 webcams
displaying potential trouble spots.
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
|
MORTON'S MELLOW
Some confusion has surfaced along with a lively debate
surrounding a panel on non-violence at the Public Interest Environmental Law Conference
at UO Sept. 9. A list of panelists on the program included local activist and Quaker
scholar Peg Morton, even though Morton got bumped off the panel early in the planning.
Adding to the confusion was an editor's note on the bottom of Spruce Houser's Viewpoint
last week listing Morton as a panel member.
"I was invited, but then uninvited," says Morton this
week, "but I think we're making just a little too big a deal out of this."
She says she was invited by Marshall Kirkpatrick to be a part of the panel, but then
"as things emerged, he was able to get Michael Nagler and John Zerzan."
Nagler, a well-known UC/Berkeley author and academic, is considered an expert on
peace and politics and was promised a seat on the panel in lieu of a keynote address.
Zerzan is a Eugene author known internationally for his anarchist philosophy. Morton
says she's OK with the decision, but figures it would have been simpler to have just
the two panelists in the short hour and 15 minutes available.
Houser's participation in the panel made it three men and zero
women, causing a ruckus among feminists at the PIELC and complaints from anarchists
that the panel was slanted two-to-one toward non-violence. "What a start we
had," says Houser. "We tried to accommodate both concerns by shortening
the time for Zerzan and myself and inviting a Eugene woman to speak for the anarchists.
She declined."
In the end, Morton showed up at the session and spoke from the
audience, Nagler got to speak at both the conference and at a Quaker meeting in town,
and the debate over the role of violence in politics continues in earnest (see Viewpoint
and Slant this week). --Ted Taylor
LABOR NOTES
Union shop steward Dick Sitowski of local United Food and
Commercial Workers (UFCW) 555 in Lane County has logged 625 hits so far on his new
labor relations webpage and bulletin board. The address is www.angelfire.com/blues/ufcw
Sitowski says the bulletin board "gives workers a voice to
vent some of the problems they are having with their employers, such as not allowing
them out of their work stations in a timely manner to use the restroom, intimidation
tactics by employers, working employees when they are sick with such things as influenza,
etc."
The site also provides for sharing of information about the union's
contract negotiations, which involve wages, seniority and health benefits. The union
represents workers in several local grocery chains.
"Employers knowing that these issues are being shared in a
public format will shine a light on corporate abuse," says Sitowski. "This
alone could and has changed some former practices."
SOMETHING'S
ROTTEN
The city of Eugene is experimenting with composting on
a massive scale. Last month, 24 tons of food scraps discarded from a UO dining hall,
local restaurants, supermarkets and Foster Farms in Creswell were delivered to Rexius
Forest By-Products. As part of a state grant, the city will monitor how well the
waste composts and pathogen levels in the piles. In a similar earlier test, pathogen
levels were reduced below federal thresholds. -- Alan Pittman
Back to Top
Ductal
Lavage
A pap smear for
the breast?
By Susan
Glassow
In July of 1993, I found a breast lump that was diagnosed as malignant.
Beginning in 1985, the year I turned 40, I'd had four mammograms as "prescribed"
by my doctors. None had revealed my walnut-sized tumor.
Like most breast cancers, mine began in a milk duct and had been
growing for six to ten years before it was palpable. Along with the surgery, radiation,
and chemotherapy, I had to channel the anger and betrayal I felt: I'd done what I
was told, and no one had told me that it wouldn't work. I wasn't alone.
Of the 40 women in my Sacred Heart Breast Cancer Support Group
(half of whom have died), the majority of pre-menopausal women had not had their
cancers detected by mammograms. So, we felt a sense of vindication and hope that
new research for a "real test" would be funded when the National Cancer
Institute's questioning of mammogram worth, particularly for women in the 40-49 age
group, made front-page news.
But, the backlash was enormous and clever. Pink ribbon campaigns
used the media, paid advertising and the fears of women themselves to keep the mammogram
machines humming. They preyed on our need for any kind of talisman against the real
possibility of being one of the 200,000 diagnosed with breast cancer every year and/or
one of the 50,000 dying from it.
Last year, a Danish study insisted that mammograms did not reduce
breast cancer deaths; in fact, neither mammograms nor clinical or self-breast exams
had an advantage in reducing mortality. The P.D.Q., an independent committee of the
National Institute of Health, agreed with its conclusions, saying that their own
review showed seven large mammography studies with "serious flaws, weakening
and casting doubt on their validity." (New York Times, 2/1/01).
If these were air bag studies, recalls would escalate. Instead,
The Komen Foundation recently leased a local billboard promising: "JUST GET
A MAMMOGRAM -- SAVE YOUR LIFE." And they're not the only participants in this
deadly shell game: Zeneca, the originator of Breast Cancer Awareness month,
is the manufacturer of carcinogenic petrochemicals and a breast cancer drug (Tamoxifen)
that has been linked to different types of cancer in women. For documentation and
discussion of this drug, see www.bcation.org
You won't find any "truly" good news on expensively purchased billboards
or front pages (see Time 2/18), but it exists. Ductal lavage testing has just
cleared clinical trails. Research on this was begun in the 1950s in the U.S, but
only in the last decade has support and funding through breast cancer activist lobbying
made available opportunities for consistent, conclusive study. The result: More than
70 medical centers in the U.S. offer the screening (none in Oregon).
Dr. Susan Love, acclaimed breast cancer surgeon and researcher
whose The Breast Book, now in its third edition, helped multitudes of us,
our families and friends negotiate the breast cancer matrix, has funded and continues
to support research which focuses on the way that breast cancer begins in the milk
ducts. Her breast cancer foundation is a non-profit entity that accepts donations
for research and offers an excellent educational/medical/chatroom website, (www.susanlovemd.com),
including a list of centers performing ductal lavage. On Jan. 15, I had the test
at UCLA Revlon Breast Cancer Center.
Each breast has from two to four central milk ducts, with four to eight peripheral
ones; imagine these ducts as rivers running back toward the chest wall, each connected
to tributaries in its system, but not to any other system of rivers. In order to
assess the ducts, the doctor must first "aspirate" fluid from the nipple,
using a suction cup. If fluid comes from a duct, there is a greater likelihood that
there could be atypical cells there. All of our lives, epithelial cells that line
the ducts slough off, so the test literally "washes out" these cells by
using a microscopic catheter to inject a saline solution into the duct system, then
withdraw it along with these cells for microscopic examination.
I'm not an ideal candidate for the procedure because radiation
scar tissue blocks access from the right breast nipple. Because of my age (56) and
my chemotherapy induced postmenopausal condition, fluid could be aspirated from only
one duct on the right breast.
The nipple was numbed, and the pain as the saline filled the ducts
was less than mammogram pressure. It's a delicate procedure, as each duct is smaller
than a vein. The aftereffect was an engorged breast, reminiscent of breastfeeding.
It took a week for the ductal lavage and the blood chemistry work-ups to return.
Dr. Nyguen called me explaining that unusual but apparently benign cell formations
were worth watching. There is no cure for breast cancer, so it can reoccur at any
time. I gave permission for my testing to go into the research bank for women whose
mammograms didn't show cancer.
With only one duct open to testing, I'm not betting my life on
this test, even if it is my best bet. But, I'm wondering: What if I had had it at
40 or 35 and the atypical, malignant cells that surely were present in my then pliable
and accessible ducts had been discovered? What could I have done? I could have had
follow-ups frequently and treatment as suggested by the growth rate of the cells.
I could have put my advocacy time and money even earlier into the
links between persistent organic pollutants and hormonal changes, suggested in the
1960s by Rachel Carson's The Silent Spring and documented much more recently
by Dr.Theo Colborn's 1996 Our Stolen Future: Are We Threatening Our Fertility,
Intelligence, and Survival, and Sandra Steingraber's 1997 An Ecologist Looks
at Cancer and the Environment.
No wonder Dr. Cohen caught my eye: "As long as cancer victims
-- and indeed the general public -- are led to believe that their lifestyle or genes
are the sole cause of cancer, there is no need for the various industries to undergo
costly changes to production processes or product design."
Dr. Love understands that ductal research is the window into making
the toxin-cancer links, "The ductal cells will help us study the relationship
between environmental pollutants and breast cancer -- are pesticides present in larger
concentrations in the fluid containing atypical cells; are there links between concentrations
of estrogen in the fluid and cancer growth?" she writes.
So, what can we do?
-- Begin by demanding insurance companies change their guidelines by understanding
that we do not cause our own cancer, that the majority of us diagnosed do not have
a history of it in our families nor do we fit the purported "profile" widely
discussed in women's magazines. I wouldn't have qualified for this test before my
cancer diagnosis.
-- Take the fearful leap of refusing the array of estrogen-altering
drugs that are offered as the "new technological" advances in the recent
Time cover story. Nowhere in this feature does ductal lavage nor the role
of the environment enter into the discussion, not even in the section that acknowledges
that most cancer begins in the ducts.
-- Refuse to buy and wear pink ribbons, decline to walk or race
"for the cure" until we've checked out the ways our money and our media
images are being used. Read Barbara Ehrenreich's "Welcome to Cancerland,"
Harper's (11/01); talk about it with others.
-- Join advocacy groups -- there's a list of them on the Love site,
powerful organizations working against the cancer industry machine and for researching
causes of cancers of all kinds and, in doing this, beginning real walks and runs
toward cures!
Susan Glassow is a free-lance writer living near Blue River and
is a grassroots breast cancer advocate working with Breast Cancer Action and the
National Breast Cancer Coalition. She has served as a "breast cancer consumer"
in the Department of Defense Peer Review for Allocating Innovative Research Monies.
Back to Top
Do
It Yourself
Undercovered #19,
the final chapter, for now.
By Kate
Rogers Gessert
 |
|
The children of Afghanistan,
caught in the crossfire of a fundamentalist war, have faced starvation, death and
mutilation in the wake of the "War on Terror."
. |
|
Because of a convergence of prior commitments, this is my last weekly
"Undercovered," although I may resurface on an irregular basis with bits
of news from the Internet.
Since last fall I've been teaching U.S. civics to immigrants who
are studying English. As we followed the war in Afghanistan in October, they kept
asking what was happening to the people who lived there. Day after day, searching
the pages of The Register-Guard, I realized I had no idea what was happening.
So my first thanks are to my good-hearted students, who ask the right questions.
Then thanks to Ted Taylor and Eugene Weekly! When I asked Ted if I could write
Undercovered as a volunteer, gathering news about Afghan civilian casualties from
the Internet, he found the space. Great thanks to Jo Ann Mazzarella, Ernie O'Byrne,
and my husband, Max, for steady and inspired research for Undercovered. And thank
you to many supportive people -- those in Afghanistan, Rome, New York, and Washington
who supplied information and photographs, people everywhere who maintain great websites,
and readers who tell me Undercovered helps them.
It's for this last group that I have assembled a do-it-yourself
Undercovered, Internet sites rich in information and sometimes in inspiration. Although
the R-G and other mainstream media now include more news about effects of
the war on civilians, and Afghans have more of a voice than they did last fall, the
Net is still the best way to get a clear picture of what is happening. This is by
no means an exhaustive list, just sites I have read most often. It includes both
website addresses and, often, what to do once you get to the site.
AFGHAN NEWS
www.afghan-network.net Go to Afghan News Channel. www.myafghan.com/news
Go to Archive, select dates to review news for past days or weeks. www.rawasongs.fancymarketing.net. Go to Recent Reports from Afghanistan, near the bottom of the home page.
Go to Photos: Victims of U.S. strikes (including dead and mutilated children).
BRITISH
NEWS SITES
www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan Excellent
reporting on Afghanistan, with archives of the war on terrorism. www.independent.co.uk
Search for Afghanistan, and you'll get this plus good related articles. Robert Fisk
and Patrick Cockburn, two great reporters, write about Afghanistan. www.bbc.co.uk/news
Search for Afghanistan. Go to After the Talaban, and to New Headlines from South
Asia. These British sites are informative not only about Afghanistan but about the
expanding U.S. war and how people in Europe view it, for example, "America's
morality has been distorted by 11 September" by Robert Fisk (Independent
3/7).
HUMANITARIAN
SITES
www.irinnews.org Go to IRIN ASIA, then to Latest News for frequently updated articles
from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. www.fao.org U.N.
Food and Agriculture Organization. Go to Press Releases, to Special Relief Operations,
and to TELEFOOD: click dots on a world map to find start-up farming projects from
Afghanistan to Madagascar. www.wfp.org U.N. World Food Program's inspiring
and exhaustive efforts to feed people in Afghanistan and elsewhere. www.unicef.org/noteworthy/afghanistan Go to Stories from the Field and to Real Lives. www.interaction.org/afghanistan Directory and links to the numerous organizations working on Afghan relief.
www.doctorswithoutborders.org Humanitarian news from Afghanistan and other countries. Go to Photos: Life
in Afghan Refugee Camps. www.oxfam.org.uk Oxfam's British site.
Photo essays: Afghanistan Unveiled, about life changes in Kabul. www.hrw.org Human
Rights Watch: international monitoring of human rights, frequent reports about Afghanistan.
THE EXPANDING
WAR
www.antiwar.com This invaluable site, organized with today's news on the homepage,
includes links to articles and editorials in many newspapers. On the left edge of
the page, you can choose other days and read the past week's news.
THREATS
TO CIVIL RIGHTS
www.aclu.org/safeandfree Safe & Free articles are an important new section of the American
Civil Liberties Union website.
OPINIONS
AND VIEWS
www.counterpunch.org Hard-hitting articles selected by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair,
for example, "War on Terrorism for Dummies," by Bernard Weiner, 3/3. www.thenation.com Even if you subscribe to the print version of The Nation, this site
includes great articles that appear only on the web. www.iht.com/opinion.htm
International Herald Tribune has good editorial columnists including my all-time
favorite, William Pfaff, often reprinted in the R-G. Also check out www.alternet.org www.commondreams.org and www.workingforchange.org
SUBSCRIPTION
E-MAIL LISTS
www.harpers.org Roger Hodge of Harper's Weekly assembles a weekly collage of world
events, hilarious and awful. www.accuracy.org Concise e-mail bulletins
from the Institute for Public Accuracy about key policy issues relating to peace,
economic and social justice, and human rights.
As you collect information, I have two suggestions. I recommend
letting your elected representatives know how you feel about what you are reading
as often and as strongly as possible. I believe many of us are already doing this,
and I hope with the passage of time, our representatives will listen. I also recommend
sharing what you learn with your friends and family. It spreads the news and helps
you deal with what is sad. By yourself, it is hard to absorb a lot of news from the
Internet. Crying and talking can both help, I think.
This week on The Nation site I read "Prayer for America,"
an undercovered speech given in February by U.S. Congressman Dennis Kusinich. He
enumerates the ways in which civil rights have been crippled since Sept. 11, describes
the fearfulness in Washington that has helped create a cowed Congress, and protests
the Bush administration's broadening of the war without congressional authorization.
Kusinich concludes: "Let us pray that we have the courage
and the will as a people and as a nation to shore ourselves up, to reclaim from the
ruins of Sept. 11th our democratic traditions ... Let us recommit ourselves to the
slow and painstaking work of statecraft, which sees peace, not war, as being inevitable
...
"Let us pray that we have the courage to replace the images
of death which haunt us, the layers of images of Sept. 11th, faded into images of
patriotism, spliced into images of military mobilization ... the strobic flashes
which touch our deepest fears. Let us replace those images with the work of human
relations, reaching out to people ... with compassion and forbearance and a commitment
to peace, to democracy, to economic justice here at home and throughout the world
..."
Back to Top
 
Mary-Minn Sirag
"I'm a model of the success of early intervention,"
says autist Mary-Minn Sirag, who was sent off to her grandparents' Iowa farm at age
3. "I was severely autistic -- high-maintenance and violent. My grandmother
gave me constant one-on-one attention." When Sirag rejoined her parents at age
7, she prospered in school. "I found academics easy," she notes. "I
was the class brain, so I was accepted as eccentric." Sirag graduated from Cornell
College in Iowa, worked corporate jobs in the San Franciso Bay Area during the '80s
and moved to Eugene with her husband Saul-Paul Sirag in '91. In 2000, she discovered
KindTree Productions (a.k.a. Autism Rocks -- a support group for autists) and attended
its annual weekend retreat as a volunteer. She joined KindTree's Board of Directors,
and recently became president. Sirag also found new work, mentoring teenagers and
teaching art to developmentally disabled adults. "I'm a misfit refugee from
the corporate world," she says. "I find this much more congenial."
Catch musicians Spirit Farm, Rob Tobias, and Tim Mueller in a benefit concert for
Autism Rocks at 8 pm Sunday, April 14 at Sam Bond's Garage. Learn more about Autism
Rocks at www.kindtree.org
-- Photo by Paul Neevel
Happenin' People Archives
Nominate A Happenin' Person
Table
of Contents
| News | Views | Arts & Entertainment
Classifieds | Personals
| EW
Archive
|