There are no astrological indications that 2010 is the Year of the Destructive Moron, but here in Oregon this week we made a damn good case for such a declaration. Only a destructive moron would be ripe with sort of Voldemort-like evilness required to leave a pug puppy in a plastic garbage bag on the side of a rural road north of Bend.
Source Weekly
Posted inOpinion
The Same Old “Death Tax” Lies
We deliver THE BOOT to Congressman Greg Walden for his lack of originality.
The United States enacted the federal estate tax in 1916, and conservatives have been trying to get rid of it ever since. Over the decades they've propagated an astonishing array of half-truths and untruths, such as labeling it “the death tax.” (Rest assured that you can die anywhere in the United States without having to pay a tax to do it.)
Carrying on that long tradition of dissimulation, Congressman Greg Walden sent a letter to constituents at the end of last year explaining why he voted against HR 4154, a bill to permanently set the tax at 2009 levels.
The lies begin in the first paragraph: “Estate tax may sound harmless, but here's what it is: the government taxing, when you pass away, about half of what you've worked in a lifetime to save.”
Posted inOpinion
Letter of the Week: Don't Deny Inmates Correspondence
Letter of the Week
This week's letter comes from alert reader Tricia Knoll who makes a good case for not restricting inmate correspondences as several Oregon county jails are considering. Thanks for the letter Tricia. If you're ever in the neighborhood, drop by the Source for your bag of free coffee courtesy of Lone Pine roasters.
Recently The Oregonian had an article about upcoming county jail restrictions on inmates' right to receive mail by restricting mail to postcards. Note that the sidebar on this article mentions that Deschutes County is soon to enact this same restriction.
Yesterday's Oregonian editorial says this is a bad idea, quoting Max Williams of the Oregon Department of Corrections among others.
Posted inOpinion
Gay Rights Are Everybody's Rights
Letter to the Editor
It's so simple! The Constitution, Amendment 14, Sec. 1, states that all people have “equal protection under the laws.
Posted inOpinion
He Never Promised You A Rose Garden
Letter to the Editor
A year ago, if we had read in the paper that employers were hiring again, that health care legislation was proceeding without a bump, that Afghanistan suddenly became a nice place to take your kids, we would've known we were being lied to. Back then, we recognized that the problems Obama inherited as President wouldn't go away overnight.
During his campaign, Obama clearly said that an economy that took eight years to break couldn't be fixed in a year, that Afghanistan was a graveyard of empires and would not be an easy venture for us. Candidate Obama didn't feed us happy-talk, which is why we elected him. He never said America could solve our health care, economic and security problems without raising the deficit. Instead, he talked of hard choices, of government taking painful and contentious first steps towards fixing problems that can't be left for another day.
Posted inCulture
Ten Best and Worst Films Of 2009
Ten Best Films Of 2009
Holly really liked Paranormal Activity!
By Holly Grigg-Spall
1. Where The Wild Things Are
This dreamy wonder of a movie made me very proud to have once loaned my Internet cable to Dave Eggers while working as an intern in the McSweeney's offices.
2. Fantastic Mr. Fox
Such a jolly tale, handsomely animated and run through with an infectious energy. The badger in the skeleton t-shirt is cute as hell, too.
3. An Education
Carey Mulligan is fantastic as the starry-eyed young girl in this British drama, a performance that will likely glean her an Oscar nomination. She's so dazzling, that her real-life romance with half-wit Shia LaBeouf seems positively bizarre.
Posted inMusic
The New Year's Shuffle
New Year's Eve was a hotbed of musical offerings here in Bend. Armed with beer-and-scotch energy, Sound Check made it to a few places before ending up at the inevitable mosh pit of drunken people that was Corey's at 1:30am.
First up was Silver Moon Brewing, which was jam packed with revelers for the Blue Moon Bash. We didn't make it in time to hear Eric Tollefson but Mosley Wotta rocked it, as he always does. Joined by his brother Eric on backup vocals, he cycled through tunes such as “Love, Pain, Growth,” “Front Porch” well as a new track entitled “Big Head Small Town, during which MoWo blew up a condom to the size of a hot air balloon (always wanted to do that), presumably to symbolically illustrate the song.
Posted inCulture
Our Picks for 1/6 – 1/14: Luck One, Slick Side Down, Liferuiner, Mystic Roots Band and more
What to do in Central Oregon the week of 1/6 – 1/14.
Diezel P, Bad Habit, Luck-One
friday 8
We had the chance to chat with Portland hip-hop artist Luck-One for this week's Sound feature. Flip to that section and you'll be convinced (probably) to hit up this hip-hop showcase at the Martini Bar.
Posted inNews
After the Floods: Unraveling the mystery behind the Northwest's channeled scablands
The view from State Route 281, a few miles south of Quincy, Wash., doesn't seem like one of the world's more dramatic landscapes. Not to me, anyway. This is country to be endured (better yet, slept through) on the way to other, more captivating environments. The topography here is mostly flat, and whatever isn't paved is russet or beige or an irrigated green. But Gary Kleinknecht is doing his best to show off the region's subtle charms.
“So where we're standing, we'd be under, oh,” – he takes his bearings – “probably 800 feet of water.” We are in the midst of the Channeled Scablands, a braided maze of buttes and canyons scoured out by massive floods thousands of years ago, and now blended into the workaday scenery of eastern Washington. A few miles north of us are the Frenchman Hills; the Saddle Mountains are to the south. Kleinknecht explains that the area they bracket, the Quincy Basin, was at one time under a huge temporary lake, Lake Lewis, which also covered the nearby Pasco Basin and the Yakima Valley. The lake only existed for a week or so, but in places it was nearly 1,000 feet deep – transforming today's mountains into small islands, or submerging them completely. Then it drained swiftly away, leaving behind raw earth.
Posted inOpinion
Yes on Measures 66 and 67
Ever since the pharaohs made Egyptian farmers hand over 10 sacks of grain per acre – probably even before – people have detested taxes. And they like tax increases even less.
But with the state of Oregon facing a budget deficit of more than $733 million, there are no realistic and acceptable alternatives to the two very moderate tax increases proposed in Measures 66 and 67.
Measure 66 would slightly raise the marginal tax rate for the state's top income earners – individuals making $125,000 a year or more and couples making $250,000 or more. For every other taxpayer – 97% of Oregonians – the tax rate stays unchanged.
