Oct 1-7, 2009

Oct 1-7, 2009 / Vol. 13 / No. 40

Dear Lazy Trees, Thanks for Falling Down

An open letter to the trees in my backyard: Hey trees, I’m really sorry that you got so loaded with wet snow yesterday morning that you had no other choice but to drop all your branches on my lawn and break my fence and God knows what else. I love having my entire backyard fullโ€ฆ

Death By Water?

One of the more fascinating bad consumer product sagas of recent memory has been that of sports water bottles. That’s as in bottles that don’t contaminate the water that’s put into them.

Expert: Bend Bubble Was Inflated by Fraud

The conventional local wisdom blames the Bend real estate bubble and bust on greedy people (mostly from California) buying homes they couldn't afford and borrowing against their equity to buy boats and Hummers and fancy vacations. But according to real estate fraud expert Richard Hagar, there was a different culprit: Crooks.

Pepper Rocks the Domino Room

Last night's temps may have been near-freezing, but that didn't keep the young people of Bend from breaking a hardcore sweat and moshing like it was 1995 last night at the Domino Room's sold-out Pepper show. Packed to the point of possible injury, Bend rocked as hard as ever to the reggae-spank rock styles ofโ€ฆ

Flu Vaccine Supply Short of Expectations

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 With the swine flu inflicting its second fatality in Bend, according to this morning’s Bulletin, worries about getting vaccinated in time will ratchet up another notch. But the swine flu vaccine hasn’t arrived here yet, and meanwhile vaccine for the “regular” seasonal flu may be hardโ€ฆ

Video From the Clumsy Lovers Show

Music fans in Bend don’t easily forget. That’s why when Vancouver, BC’s bluegrassish party band Clumsy Lovers played the Silver Moon last night—despite not having played in town for at least three years—fans remembered that this band used to rip it up here in town.

Local Non-Profits Represent in Oregon Business Ranking

  Local non-profits made a strong showing in a new ranking of the best charitable and other not-for profit organizations in Oregon. Deschutes Public Library cracked the Top 10 in a list of the state’s larger organizations (75 or more employees), weighing in at number five in a list that was otherwise heavily dominated byโ€ฆ

Nice Perk for Brewery Workers: Free Bikes

Workers at an Ashland brewery and restaurant who agree to do some of their commuting by bike get a nice incentive – a free bike. Writing for Greener World Media, Stephen Linaweaver reports that on a Labor Day weekend trip to Ashland he learned that in late August the Standing Stone Brewery started offering aโ€ฆ

Video from last night: Yard Dogs Road Show

The Yard Dogs Road Show filled the Domino Room last night with plenty of fog, zany music, trombones, lasers and at least one fan wearing stilts for a show that melted the barriers between theater and rock music. For the first time in my tenure here in Bend, there were chairs on the floor ofโ€ฆ

Skip The Standing O Please

      The band had barely mastered three chords and the lead singer brought new meaning to singing flat. Yet when all was said and done and their set was finished,they got a standing ovation. In fact every act, good, bad or indifferent, at a recent music festival got a standing O.    In one case,โ€ฆ

Inside the Universe: The soul, funk and faith of Karl Denson

“You don't see Clark Kent and Superman at the same time, do you?” asks Karl Denson from his home in San Diego, the city where he's lived for the past 15 years. He's talking about the difference between the saxophone and flute master's two bands, the Greyboy Allstars and Karl Denson's Tiny Universe, the latterโ€ฆ

Recreational Drugs: Scientific support for addiction

It's Monday morning and I'm sitting at my computer. According to Doug Weber, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Pendleton, “For the whole area, today is going to be the last nice day in the current forecast.” The equinox came and went last week, daylight is waning, and it could be snowing inโ€ฆ

Albino Birds: The brass tax when it comes to white birds

This is the time of year when birds and other wildlife unlucky enough to not have their normal colors become very noticeable, such as “leucisitic,” “albino” and “partial albino” forms. These unfortunate victims of a quirk of nature lack their natural colors that would normally protect them from the energy of our sun, keep themโ€ฆ

No Joking Around: Arkham faithfully recreates the franchise's noir feel

The Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane – or just Arkham to the good citizens of Gotham – is the semi-permanent address of some of the world's most celebrated criminals. The Penguin, Two-Face and The Riddler have all made the crumbling madhouse-mansion their home at one time or another. And most of them haveโ€ฆ

Feeling So Good!

Been on vacation lately and thought you were feeling so much better for the much-needed rest and relaxation? Or could it be you spent a week downing blended drinks where there's a heap of anti-depressants in the drinking water? Why cities are afraid to post results of what's mingling in their municipal water supply isโ€ฆ

Rooted at the Revival

There was a moment at the Bend Roots Revival on Saturday night as Mosley Wotta was rhyming over the sounds of Empty Space Orchestra when Sound Check looked around and thought, “Damn, this is kind of crazy.” Not the bad kind of “crazy,” but the sort of wow-there-are-is-a-ridiculous-amount-of-people-here-just-to-see-local-music sort of “crazy.

Settling the Score: Legislators get their “green” cards, Metolius campaign gets a nod and more

OLCV Gives Telfer A Failing Grade Central Oregon's first-term legislators emerged on the opposite end of the spectrum on environmental issues, according to the legislative scorecard released this week by the environmental policy watchdog group Oregon League of Conservation Voters (OLCV). The non-profit has been tracking the votes of individual legislators on environmental policy issuesโ€ฆ

Pahlisch's Belated Dog Park Bitch

On its website, Pahlisch's Deschutes Landing development describes itself “as the next step in authentic Northwest living” with “unparalleled views of the Three Sisters Wilderness, the historic Old Mill District, and the heart of downtown Bend.” Apparently, one prospective buyer thinks his unparalleled view would be ruined by the sight of – how gross! -โ€ฆ

Sidewalk Bikers

Here's a clue, because you obviously missed all the other ones. If you look down and see small horizontal lines across the pavement, if everyone around you is on foot, if you see store fronts on one side and cars on the other, you may be on a sidewalk.

Size Does Matter

In H. Bruce Miller's recent article “Shrinkage Might Not Always be a Bad Thing,” he states, “Is a little shrinkage necessarily a bad thing? Certainly not for the schools. The overcrowding problem will be eased. Teacher/student ratios will improve and there'll be more of everything from library books to pencils to go around.” Hmm. Well,โ€ฆ

Cook Those Geese

I have the perfect solution to Bend's overpopulation of geese (I call them flying rats) Shoot them, clean them, and donate them to the hungry. Geese taste pretty good and with all the homeless people we have, and people needing food from the food banks, why not? This would help solve two problems, an overabundanceโ€ฆ

Local's Come Out For Cancer Research

Imagine telling someone their disease is too uncommon to invest in research for treatments and cures. Somehow, that just doesn't add up. Every life counts. Bend-area residents who believe no cancer is too rare to care came out in full force last Saturday for the 2nd Annual Oregon Walk for a Cure. The event atโ€ฆ

Let Beck Shine A Light

I try to look at your publication on a weekly basis. I can't recall reading about an avowed Communist, Van Jones, from Oakland, Calif., whom President BO tabbed as his “green” czar. It's also known that Jones signed a document holding the United States government responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Fortunately, guys like Bill O'Reillyโ€ฆ


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