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Baseball : WWJD?
Viewpoint
: Joey on the Line: Football's dangers grow
with the size of the plaer..
Letters:
EW readers sound off.
WWJD?
You've seen this bumper sticker designed by the
Republican legislative leadership,
haven't you? I was never quite sure what it meant — until our
caucus met with the governor last week: "What Will John Do?"
He hasn't made up his mind yet, but the gov seems
intent on vetoes for the Republican plan of stupid bonding schemes
and the infamous check-kiting shift of payments to schools and community
colleges into the next biennium. He's been consistent: no one-time
money to saddle the next Legislature; if you're gonna make cuts, make
'em, but don't come up with accounting schemes to get out of this
jam. One bonding plan would use current tobacco taxes for schools
instead of for the Oregon Health Plan and tobacco cessation for kids
and adults. I can tell you from personal experience that voters get
really pissed when they hear we're using tax dollars for something
other than they were intended. The dumbest bonding scam of all, to
bond tobacco taxes we haven't received yet — you won't even
vote on the issue until September — to backfill any shortfall
in the September revenue forecast, can only be described as a poor
business plan!
Kitzhaber may want to call us back into a fourth
special session in a few weeks because he believes Oregonians will
support a November referral of a temporary income-tax surcharge to
support K-12 and hold relatively harmless the community colleges,
universities, and human services to the $650 million in cuts that
have already occurred.
Sure, some Democratic leaders are freaked! They think
such a move will make the governor's race and legislative races become
a two-month debate solely on new taxes, which will hurt our Democratic
candidates. Polling is fuzzy on this subject, but the prevailing wisdom
is that if any credible segment of Oregon voters — i.e., big
business or high-tech — comes out against the referral, it's
dead. Right now, voters approve of a personal income tax increase
to fund education by a margin of 48 percent to 45 percent. Although
most of the Democratic senators vocally supported the governor during
our caucus, one of 'em immediately called back our leader, Kate Brown,
right afterward and asked her to count votes to see if we could override
the gov's vetoes.
But the recent polling also gives us a glimmer of
hope. Oregon voters are really irritated with the corporate greed
that seems to be pervasive in boardrooms across the nation. So how
about this: Governor, how about doing something progressive? I'll
agree to support your vetoes if we just raise the corporate income
tax to the same level that small businesses and workers pay, that
would be worth $109 million. And if we bump the personal income tax
by 2 percent on those earnings over $200,000 a year, we could add
an additional $178 million. And how about letting the voters decide
on whether it makes sense to give corporations an additional $124
million in cuts through the "disconnect" — the accelerated depreciation
break — during bad economic times? And you know, gov, if you
just cut the take of the video-poker venders, you could come up with
another $145 million. Just a thought.
I'll support you, Gov. Kitzhaber, if you'll ignore
the income tax surtax and just go for some progressive reforms on
the November ballot. The problem with the personal income tax increase
is that it adversely affects small businesses and working poor, folks
who are already overtaxed. Let's take it to the Republican leadership
and ask them to sign on to a deal before we do another quagmire special
session.
If the Republican leadership won't go there beforehand,
gov, then don't call us in. Just veto the bills and the shift; then
make across-the-board cuts and don't call us back. Let the Republican
leaders call us back in when we're cutting relief nurseries, K-12,
higher-ed, senior prescription drug relief, community colleges, college-student
aid, mental health and senior programs like Project Independence.
Let these alleged leaders take the heat. The Oregon
Constitution gives the Legislature the authority to call us back into
special session. It doesn't have to be you, governor. Let's expose
these leadership folks; they have neither a plan nor a clue.
Sen.
Tony Corcoran of Cottage Grove represents portions of Lane and Douglas
counties in the newly formed Senate District 4, which now includes the
UO area. He can be reached at corcoran.sen@state.or.us
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Joey
On the Line
Football's
dangers grow with size of players.
Statistics are a steady part of the football fan's
diet, usually part of the game summary,
or an update on how favorite athletes are doing. The latest to rev
up Oregon football fans came in the off-season in mid-July. But this
stat was different — 36,000,000 — the dollars Oregon all-American
quarterback Joey Harrington got in his contract to play for the Detroit
Lions. Fans in Oregon get a vicarious boost when one of their own
achieves national attention. So they were floating high with word
of Joey's contract.
Those who hang onto Joey's shirttails for excitement
will figure I'm a nut. But I know the Lions can't pay him enough to
justify his risking serious and debilitating injury when he becomes
the main target for pro football defenders.
I've known and admired Joey since his days at Portland's
David Douglas High School, when Oregon's football patriarch, Len Casanova,
told me Joey would be Oregon's next great quarterback. I've special
respect for the courage he showed on the gridiron for the Ducks, even
when his protective pocket of blockers broke down, and he took blindside
hits by powerful linebackers. It's that courage he will need when
he leads the Lions offense this fall against NFL defensive lines that
can average near 300 pounds.
No matter how good the pocket of blockers, every pro
quarterback absorbs repeated bone-crunching slams to the ground in
each game. Fans don't notice them, because the eye of the observer
follows the ball after it leaves the quarterback's hands. What they
miss is the blindside tackle that bruises the thrower on many plays.
The "hit" is legal as long as officials rule the tackler was so close
he could not stop after the pass was thrown.
Don't kid yourself. Such late hits are very much a
part of the unwritten game plan. The more often tacklers can legally
pulverize a player, the more likely they will diminish his effectiveness
as the game wears on. Consider one of Joey's Oregon predecessors in
the NFL, Chris Miller. Chris achieved stardom with Atlanta, then quit
the game at his peak. Medics alerted him that repeated concussions
he was suffering could have a serious effect on his health. They could
lead to permanent disability, possibly death.
The money statistic is related to another that
does not appear in the game summary: Massive increase in player size
at all levels, including high school, is a threat to the health of
the excessively heavy players.
Consider the challenge when the Lions play their archrival,
the Chicago Bears. The two starting defensive tackles for the Bears
last year had a combined weight of 700 pounds. Keith Traylor played
at 320 pounds. Ted Washington was three inches taller, but 60 pounds
heavier at 380. They are not slow. On one Sunday last year, 93 players
were on the injured reserved list, physically unable to perform. The
danger of playing hurt also is common, often at the insistence of
the ailing player. Chris Courtney, a volunteer team physician for
two high schools in Scottsdale, Ariz., told me: "I've been begged
by players to not sideline them because of injuries. They feel they
must continue playing to earn their ticket to college — the
football scholarship."
The player's head is most vulnerable, as I learned
from a distinguished surgeon who was our team physician at Northwestern
University. Later studies elsewhere, unrelated to football, produce
insights into the causes of two contemporary health concerns not addressed
by Dr. Reid: Studies reported by Associated Press indicate concussions
and other head injuries in early adulthood may significantly raise
the risk of depression decades later; and repeated head injuries may
accelerate onset of Alzheimer's disease.
The impact and dangers of the game's big "hit"
could be lowered if player size dropped. There is a way. Trash the
platoon system, and have players go both on offense and defense, as
they did before the 1950s. To play both ways, you can't carry the
massive weight that cause the turf to tremble today. Some will claim
that's unfair to bloated young kids who make the team by specializing
as offensive linemen. More likely, their health and safety will improve
as they cut weight for added versatility. With the change would come
diminished danger for the quarterback-on-the-spot. But I know I'll
never be able to wean the younger generation from its obsession with
football specialization. As for Joey, I wish him good luck to go with
his great fortune.
George Beres is a Eugene writer and former sports
information director at Northwestern University and later at UO.
MASKING
OUR HIPPIE ROOTS
Nate Puckett's piece on the Oregon Country
Fair (7/18) was an excellent example of the creativity at the heart
of the fair. In the "head" of the Fair, however is the idea of big
business, wall-to-wall security, false image propaganda, and generally
the kind of "machine" we were "counter" to early on when the "magic"
was first born.
I came in on the Fair's third birthday as a free-lance
prophet of the Great Pyramid Prophecy (sharing a vision I was given)
and then founded the Pyramid Meditation Sanctuary in Community Village
when it began. I've been there ever since, as keeper of the flame
at the pyramid and as a meditation teacher .
One year, I founded the Radical Fair Underground,
spreading fliers all around, encouraging everyone to sneak in all
their friends as a noble act of "opening" the fair. I performed the
camping pass shuffle (the reason for wristbands) willingly upon request,
and protested wristbands at Main Stage — "break out of your
shackles — free the Fair" — but it was a small and insignificant
protest!
I've written letters to the Fair Family News
over the years advocating a transformation beyond the "us vs. them"
duality of "Fair Family" and "The Public." My Woodstock and Rainbow
Gathering models get no response from the business managers who run
the Fair. (No it isn't, but it could be!)
My calls to civil disobedience are unheeded. If we
opened the gates and just accepted donations we would violate the
unconstitutional 3,000-person camping limit, and exercise our "freedom
of peaceful assembly." And if we smoked our sacrament (yes, it is
my sacrament!) openly, again, in the Law's face, as a movement, we
could sooner legalize it. We need just one law: "Do as you will and
harm no one." When did we give up freedom over the sovereign domain
of our own bodies?
So, as a Fair elder, I must say that our collective
hypocrisy is a strange mask to wear — looking so much like the
culture we were once an "alternative" to — masking our radical
hippie roots with a pseudo-law abiding "artsy folk" persona. We all
know better but "the gun-slinging DA made us into hypocrites just
to survive and keep our land." Maybe, but we could be a major movement
for freedom if we weren't so business-wise and politically savvy.
Maybe if we honored our original innocence as inspired "flower children,"
we could risk losing our event and gain the day as a new renaissance
of freedom.
So, Nate, I empathize with your dilemma as an outsider
who would like to join in our celebration as a full member. This duality
is only a passing illusion. We are all One Family. But meanwhile,
we will need a clandestine meeting to plan your hideout from the Sweep.
Peace and love and freedom — as "uninhibited humans."
Michael Mooney
a.k.a. Pyramid Michael, Rainbow Man.
PERPETUAL IGNORANCE
It appears to me that many of our present-day
political problems stem from a failure to examine the positions of
our opponents. No one acts as if they believe that nothing but evil
will result from their actions. There is always the delusion of righteousness
even in the most horrifying crimes. Herbert Spencer put it best: "There
is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof
against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting
ignorance — that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
Perhaps it would be in our best interests were we
all to stop reflexive reactions and engage in a dialogue that produces
compromise instead of hardened positions. Hegelian theory posits that
the dynamic exchange between opposing theses results in a synthesis
satisfying to all but the extremists who refuse to allow the legitimacy
of the opposition.
This form of extremism is what drives anarchists,
terrorists, religious bigots, racists and capitalists alike. It serves
to polarize rather than synthesize, divide rather than unify. I hear
much of it from the reactionary media (ironically, many of the popular
ones, like Liddy and Colson and North are felons), but just as much
of it appears in the pages of EW in the form of anarchist letters
written by people who have never heard of Bakunin, Tolstoy or Prudhon
and have no clue about mutualism or syndicalism. Ignorance is a mistake
no would-be activist can afford.
The one common element I read or hear from extremist
demagogues is that of punishing their opponents. This would be a good
time to follow the dictum of Frederich Nietzche: "Distrust all in
whom the impulse to punish is powerful."
Pete Giberson
Eugene
GIMME
SOME SPACE
I went to my first Country Fair yesterday (7/13),
and I was a little disappointed, mainly from the fact that there wasn't
a central meeting place where a vast number of people could gather
to hear a speaker, band or other event. A common and general wide
open space would lend a feeling of having a shared mass experience
with all those attending the Fair.
The Main Stage area just isn't big enough. The result
is a much spread-out array of miniature shops and such, lending a
"mall" type feeling while walking through. Now, I know that this is
a very special and unordinary type of "mall," but I got the same feeling
of being in a mall that I have had at any mall I've visited. Of course,
there are a multitude of special things going on at the Fair, but
the continuous wandering and purchasing just seems all too similar.
In order for the Fair to be a more unifying experience,
in order for it to reach a truly enlightening status, it will be important
for the organizers to provide a space where everyone can see and hear
each other, where they can see how enormous an event they are attending.
Then, a reading by someone might have a truly moving effect as an
entire crowd is moved by the words, instead of it being fractured
as it is now.
Edward Brown
Eugene
UNCHECKED
AVARICE
Beginning in earnest with the Reagan years
the corporate culture has been moving toward this current rash of
criminal scandals. Corporate officers were getting bigger and bigger
bonuses for fewer and fewer results. Near-term profits replaced long-term
stability. First labor unions and then the rest of the workforce were
sacrificed to increase company (officer) profits. Companies or divisions
that didn't make a big enough profit were raided, assets sold, and
pension funds wiped out.
To go along with this mentality was a concerted effort
to convince Americans that private industries worked best unregulated.
Deregulation started with the airlines, the phone company and finally
the energy industry. Laws were changed to reduce the burden of regulation
on industry.
The result of all these changes brought profits to
stockholders at first but shipped millions of manufacturing jobs overseas.
The service industry is now moving overseas as telecommunication enables
phone banks to be set up almost anywhere in the world. In addition,
tax loopholes encourage corporations to move off shore.
The corporate culture is now avarice unchecked. All
the incentives to do the right thing have slowly but steadily been
torn down. Where have the headlines been of political, corporate,
or media leaders standing up and shouting about these abuses? I guess
it is extremely hard to talk about real American values when the truth
is being hidden behind the flag and ridiculed and attacked by the
corrupted corporate-backed media.
Frank and Mary Lou Vignola
Eugene
ALARM
BELLS
In Oliver Stone's movie, Wall Street,
Gordon Gecko proclaims: "Greed is good!" It motivates CEOs to increase
corporate profitability which enhances shareholder value. But with
recent revelations of corporate cook(ed) books and a collapsing stock
market — maybe not.
Closer to home, development interests proclaim: Growth
is good! It creates more tax revenues. But apparently not enough,
as we witness our legislators cooking up creative accounting solutions
(for) massive budget deficits and a collapsing public school system.
So again — maybe not ...
I'm concerned that the greed/growth-is-good! movers
and shakers and their bought-and-paid-for political sycophants are
having their way with us less avaricious folks here on Kesey Street.
Their promises of a better life look more like crowded schools, crowded
highways, paved-over wetlands and sprawl — not to mention crowded
swimming pools!
That alarm you hear is your wake-up call. Pull yourself
out of the greed-induced pro-growth fog before you sleep through what
remains of your quality of life. As they say in the old growth forests:
Tim-ber! It's going fast.
But it's not too late (for some critical thinking).
Quit helping the rich get richer while the rest of our lives become
poorer in the process. Tune in the alarm, tune out the other noise,
and — like the bumper sticker says: Question authority!
Benton Elliott
Eugene
MAKE
IT HAPPEN
The secret of business is being revealed
as schemes to steal from investors, and drug companies are charged
with sustaining obscene profits by withholding drugs to manipulate
price. This is the system we trust with our health care. We receive
care if it results in a profit for someone, and the less care we get,
the more they profit.
I believe health care is best accomplished through
cooperation, not competition for profit. The initiative petition "Health
Care For All-Oregon" will allow us to collectively buy health care,
without the expense or intervention, of insurance. Everyone, except
insurance companies, benefits by this initiative.
This is our big chance to state our intentions, take
back our health care dollars and put them where they will work for
us, instead of giving them to a greedy, corporate machine. Let's make
our voices heard in every state — they are all watching us and
hoping a leader will emerge.
The people want affordable, accessible health care.
Government can't provide it without offending powerful campaign contributors,
but we can make it happen. To participate in this citizen initiative,
your job is to register and vote! That's how you get the only tool
there is. Be part of this historical effort of the people, by the
people, for the people, to provide themselves with a service that
we are being denied because current law provides profit for a few,
while denying the needs of many.
Jane Moodie
Eugene
DAMNED
PARASITES
That's it, enough already, I have to do
something about that damn English ivy climbing and choking my trees.
Armed with loppers and anger, I entered the grove and began the task
of freeing my trees from the choking grasp of the clinging ivy.
My thoughts turned to the collapsing stock market
as I cut an ivy vine thick as my wrist that had climbed clear to the
top of my tree. The ivy was like those people in our society who climb
to the top of the money tree by parasitically using other peoples
money and energy, giving nothing in return.
Just as Jesus in a fit of anger whipped and beat the
money grubbers choking the steps of the temple, the hard working people
of this nation must rise up and cull the parasites that are choking
the life from our nation's financial tree.
Michael T. Hinojosa
Drain
SOME
DEMOCRACY
One way of slashing corporate influence
over the guardians of our freedom is to number our lawmakers on a
per capita basis, one per 50,000 or so being recommended in the Bill
of Rights. There will always be the influence peddlers and power brokers,
so given the probability of a certain percentage of our highest officials
being controlled by someone besides their constituency, is it not
in our best interest to limit their misrepresentation to fewer people?
It would also increase the odds of someone honest having a vote in
our destiny.
The money is always found to number our law enforcers
on a per capita basis, so why do I along with about 649,999+ of you
have to be represented by one single person in the U.S. House of Representatives?
The technology is available for each of us to securely cast a vote
on every law that affects us, so how much longer must we be at the
mercy of "representatives" who are too busy fund-raising to take our
calls?
Pete Raiteri
Eugene
GETTING
AROUND
And the answer is ...WALK. Walking is the
most efficient and sustainable form of human transportation, as well
as the most equitable, egalitarian and healthy. No need for hand wringing
over which car stinks worst — just take a hike.
So why does this seem like such a stretch to lots
of folks? Because our cities are designed for auto based transportation,
e.g. the West Eugene Parkway. The policy is made by public bodies
under the influence of business interests (not public interests).
The choice is individual, though.
Each person can choose to live in a way that minimizes
reliance on auto-based transportation. Places of residence, work,
etc., can be chosen which are near enough for non-motorized transport
for most trips. We, as a citizens of an evolving society, need to
get accustomed to making such adjustments, instead of just assuming
that driving an automobile to work is necessary.
Bicycling is also a possibility, though the vast majority
of bicycles available locally are totally unsuitable (by design) for
regular, all-season, low-maintenance, long-life, utilitarian duty.
Better plan on walking most of the time.
Boz Van Houten
Eugene
EASY,
BAD CHOICES
What is important to us? I am confused as
I look around; everything seems backwards. We say kids are the future,
yet our schools are grossly underfunded. Programs are cut and class
sizes grow. Health care costs spiral out of control, leaving basic
care out of reach for far too many.
The gap between the extremely wealthy and everyone
else is larger than ever before. Minimum wage is surely not a living
wage. Yet our government gives tax breaks to the wealthy and huge
corporations. After last fall's tragedy, we were told to buy, buy
and fly. Does anyone really believe more stuff will make us happy
or fix our economy? They have one thing correct: it is the economy
stupid! This has to be the stupidest economy ever.
The president recently acknowledged global warming
as a problem, but in the next breath called it inevitable —
an appalling and complete lack of leadership. As we continue to set
the bar lower and lower, it is easy to say we got over it. The question
is how long do we go? What will it take to wake us up?
Daily we mortgage our future on more and more military
spending. It seems obvious those in power have neither the will or
courage to make tough choices. It will be up to us as individuals
to lead the way to a sustainable future with priorities we can all
be proud of.
Tim Boyden
Eugene
FEELING
SHEEPISH?
Years ago, when I taught history, my main
goal was to teach students to read, think and reason for themselves.
I wonder if my students are reading newspapers with critical minds.
Several weeks ago, the headline in well known newspaper
was "Airplanes Rain Death on Afghan Village." It is very difficult
for me to accept the bombing of poor people in a small nation that
cannot even protect themselves. It this military action reasonable?
When does this bombing become terrorism? Have history teachers failed
en masse if American citizens accept this type of news without questioning
the reality of the world situation?
There was a book, Nation of Sheep, that was
written two decades ago. Are we indeed a nation of sheep? Other books
come to mind. When I taught history, I required students to read Brave
New World, 1984 and other futuristic novels. How many Americans
have read these books?
A letter in the July 11 EW was headlined "God
Help Us." The closing sentence was, "Please! Don't we as Americans
have more to truly deal with right now than depleting the world of
anyone's belief that a higher, spiritual power exists to assist us?"
I would answer that question with other questions. Why all the trouble
to have a ruling that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional?
Is there a concern that the GOP has merged church and state in order
to make the fight against alleged terrorism a holy war? If it is a
holy war, do we accept this violence on faith? I hope not. Peace is
possible.
What do we learn from history? A common answer is
"so we don't repeat mistakes." What was the war in Vietnam all about?
Perhaps Americans should ask themselves now, "Why all the flag waving?"
I hope more and more Americans are asking similar questions.
In my second career as a psychologist, I encourage
humanitarianism. I'd like to encourage readers to reflect on what
they are reading and raise a few questions themselves. Also, I hope
it is time for humanitarians to take a stand and start speaking out.
Charlotte Higgins-Lee
Springfield
TRUE
AUTHORITY
Moral authority. Everybody is talking about
it but nobody has any of it. I can think of no one in this present
generation who has anything even resembling moral authority.
Our political leaders like to bandy about the phrase
in order to make themselves feel better, but are there really any
of them that could stand the test of their moral rectitude? To be
certain, our political leaders are in authority over us, but through
coercion and force, not their moral standing.
Then there is the church, God love it. The Catholic
Church hasn't been on the side of morality in over a thousand years.
The Protestant churches are the manifestation of spiritual babble,
not even able to agree amongst themselves what God is really saying
in His Word. As for those churches that deny Jesus Christ is Messiah,
what do they have to offer anyone at all? Morality? Based on what?
There is the business community that offers us its
amoral examples of corrupt conduct and the entertainment industry
that has consistently worked to eradicate all trace of morality in
our society — any morality there?
Moral authority is an anachronism in our world. What
makes your morality any better than the next guy's morality? If it's
your morality, then just keep it to yourself. Anybody can talk the
talk but who can walk the walk? This present generation is singularly
unqualified to even talk about it.
When God walked among men, he was despised and rejected
by His own tribe, publicly humiliated, beaten and executed by a gang
of Italians. Is there any reason to think His fate wouldn't be the
same in 20th century America, the rosy bloom of 2,000 years of Western
civilization? To me, it seems that in this world, the only clear and
unequivocal moral authority comes from the barrel of a gun.
Doug McDougal
Eugene
LETTERS POLICY: We welcome letters on all topics
and will print as many as space allows. Please limit length to 250 words,
keep submissions to once a month, and include your address and phone
number. E-mail to editor@eugeneweekly.com,
fax to 484-4044, or mail to 1251 Lincoln, Eugene 97401.
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