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Posted inNews

Down the Drain?: Critics say Bend's multimillion dollar water system upgrade is a boondoggle in the making

Bend’s prize winning water may be feeling the heat.
Source Weekly

Bend water is famous.
It has won awards for its clarity and flavor. It makes amazing beer. It tastes great straight from the tap. It's so good we've never had to filter it. And perhaps best of all, it's cheap, flowing from Bridge Creek to Bend on a century-old pipe. But now the Environmental Protection Agency says it is not clean enough.
By October of 2014, if we do not begin filtering the drinking water we get from picturesque Bridge Creek that empties into Tumalo Creek just below the falls, the city must start sending “boil your water” notices and possibly paying costly fines.
Responding to this EPA mandate, and dealing with a few other issues such as leaky old pipes and the potential for a forest fire in the watershed, has been the subject of three years of study for city officials. But the answer they've come up with – a $68.2 million plan to install a new pipe to carry the water to a hydropower plant connected to a high-end membrane filtration facility – is not turning out to be the popular project for which they'd hoped.

Posted inFood & Drink

Breakfast Down Under: A postmodern morning at 10 Below

The Oxford Hotel’s 10 Below offers a breakfast that’s hard to find.
Source Weekly

When it comes to breakfast in this town I prefer the comforts of a dark seedy joint and an excess of heavy sauces, gravy and greasy meats. Breakfast is an occasion for over-consumption and gluttony so that eating is not a concern again till nightfall. But, hell, for the sake of the greater good, I decided this time to go undercover and underground, get a taste of the way the other half lives – the half with economic stability and a proclivity for all things fine – and try breakfast at The Oxford Hotel's 10 Below.
Circle through a revolving door into the hotel lobby, and down to the basement via elevator. Welcome to what the 1970s thought the future would look like. A black, lime green and white color scheme plays out in various patterns of geometric shapes, a busy carpet, tubular shapes, light fixtures of porcelain antlers and branches. There is a balance between the real and artificial that leaves one questioning the authenticity of the bright-green flower on the table, the rounded cross-sections of wood on the wall.

Posted inCulture

Virtual Hoops: NBA 2K12 provides a solution for your basketball withdrawals

NBA 2K12 will help you get through this NBA lockout.
Source Weekly

As I’m writing this, there is a very real chance that there won’t be an NBA season in 2012. The dispute between the players and the team owners has already postponed the pre-season. Unless someone capitulates, there might not be an official season at all. So much for real life.
Videogames, on the other hand, are chugging right along. Without an official NBA roster for 2012, 2K sports has drafted all the players from 2011, along with plenty of old and retired players. They return via 2K12’s “NBA’s Greatest” mode. And really, who wouldn’t rather have a legend than a rookie, anyway?
The lack of new faces puts the emphasis on the gameplay. In a game like basketball, which is based on reflex and reaction, it’s important that the controls allow a twitch of my thumbs to immediately register with the onscreen player. But because the player is a virtual human being with a virtual body, he can’t just switch directions. He needs to reverse his momentum and swing his limbs. His digital reflexes must be tempered by believable physics. In this crucial combination of electron-fast response and realistic follow-through, NBA 2K12 is completely lifelike. My players respond as though they share my thoughts.

Posted inCulture

On Farewell Bend and Forgiveness

A final farewell from Charles Finn.
Source Weekly

It was three years, three damn good years, and I don't think it's the sandpapering nature of memory saying that. I remember arriving in Bend, pulling up alongside all this good weather and better beer, passing Badlands and bad golf swings on my way to making great new friends – thank you great new friends. It wasn't love at first sight, but this place sure is a head turner – thank you Cascade Range, Deschutes River, High Desert of Oregon – ultimately I fell in love with you. Granted, it took time, a few years to feel like I belonged, but it happened – thank you Dudley's, High Desert Journal, the Source, The Nature of Words, KPOV, you precious ones at OSU; quality is the word that describes you. How ironic, then, that just as I feel I've arrived, I look up to see you in my rearview mirror. Dammit. Dammit all to hell.
What happened? I still don't know. Except it's a leaving that needn't, shouldn't be, and yet calm-voiced Prudence prevails, counsels me, and I listen – thank you Prudence, and damn you. On top of everything I discovered shame, because never in my life have I felt more ill-will toward a person. Let me repeat: I am ashamed. I'm ashamed I feel this way, act this way, show myself to be the small person I am. Where is my forgiveness? A long time ago I learned the story of a woman who'd been infected with HIV. Her husband had hidden from her the fact that he was gay and eventually he'd passed the disease onto her. The woman was able to forgive him. In South Africa, when Nelson Mandela was freed, he instigated a program of reconciliation where murderers and rapists came before their victims and victims' families and confessed their crimes – and they were forgiven. So why can't I?

Posted inCulture

Our Picks for 10/21-10/27

Top happenings around town chosen by the Source staff.
Source Weekly

SPL with Harry Champagne and DJ Swett
friday 21
Who is Central Oregon's most world-renown musician? The Dirtball or perhaps the men of Larry and His Flask? Close, but we're going to say that Bend's own SPL (real name: Sam Pool) is likely the most known entity out there, thanks to the DJ's contributions to the dub step and dub hop genres. In fact, he recently got a little shout out in Spin for his efforts! Now, he's coming to town, along with Harry Champagne and DJ Swett to remind us how to party. 21 and over. $5 at brownpapertickets.com/event or $7 at the door. 10pm. Astro Lounge, 939 NW Bond St.
Violin vs. Vinyl with Jay Tablet
friday 21
This crafty Canadian outfit combines the violin work of master player Kytami and the turntable techniques of The Phonograff with the hip-hop verses of Mista Chatman to create one of the most unique party acts you're likely to see. This show also features local MC and producer Jay Tablet, who will be hosting this sure-to-be-raging show. 18 and over. 9pm. Innovation Theatre Works, 1155 SW Division St.

Posted inOpinion

This Space Occupied By Fresh Straight Poop Weekly

A run down of news events in recent days.
Source Weekly

Monday,
Oct. 10
Winning hearts and minds: United Nations report says prisoners in Afghanistan hung by hands, beaten with cables and have genitals twisted until they pass out … Let the “good times” roll: Research shows US household incomes have fallen more since recession (supposedly) ended than during recession … Getting really bad reviews: Iranian actress Marzieh Vafamehr sentenced to year in jail and 90 lashes for making movie government didn't like … Down to the wire: Amber Miller, 27, runs Chicago Marathon while 39 weeks pregnant, goes into labor, gives birth to 7-pound, 13-ounce baby girl shortly after finishing. “Everybody just kind of stared as I'm running by,” she says.

Posted inOpinion

Occupy Wall Street: The Message Is Clear

Occupy protests continue and for that, demonstrators deserve our thanks.
Source Weekly

“There's something happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear,” Buffalo Springfield sang in 1967. Actually it was pretty clear what was happening back then: Hundreds of thousands of Americans were demanding an end to the Vietnam War.
For over a month now, hundreds of thousands of people have been taking part in the Occupy Wall Street movement. Starting in New York, the protests have spread across the United States and the world. There's even an Occupy Bend event, with demonstrators camping in a vacant lot on (where else?) Wall Street.
Compared to the Vietnam-era protesters, the Occupy Wall Streeters are a strangely mixed ideological bag. Their gripes are about everything from home foreclosures to the Federal Reserve to the high cost of gasoline to the alleged cover-up of the real story behind 9/11.
Critics of Occupy Wall Street – mostly Wall Street's Masters of the Universe themselves and their shills in politics and the media – try to use this lack of a single sharp focus to discredit the movement. “It's just a ragtag mob of lazy socialist communist hippie trustafarians with too much time on their hands and no idea what they really want,” their rap goes.

Posted inOpinion

A Party that Reagan Wouldn't Recognize

Reader has doubts over the status of Republican party.
Source Weekly

The current atmosphere of the Republican Party presents incredible challenges for traditional Republicans. So difficult are the choices of real and sincere conservatives given the litmus tests now employed by those who drank the tea (cut services, allow the government to collapse and refuse any revenue considerations) and the other extreme faction bathed in the purity of family values. (read: intense and renewed attacks on women’s right to choose.)

Posted inOpinion

Aim High, Shoot Low

Reader defends President Obama’s honesty.
Source Weekly

Yesterday morning's Los Angeles Times reported that health insurer Blue Cross will have to return $283 million in credit to its customers, this on top of the $167 million in credit to customers that was returned this month. This means two million policyholders will see their bills reduced an average $420 dollars for a family of four. All of this because of Obama's much-maligned healthcare overhaul.

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