I applaud you for your Spring Style cover of March 26. With about 20% of this edition of The Source devoted to high fashion in the high desert, I reveled in your humor and good-natured distraction from the media saturated, depressing news about Afghanistan, the brutal drug war in Mexico, the esprit de corps of our city council, and the mind numbing cost of health care. And, haven't we all heard just about enough about the economy? Only today, NPR's Morning Edition, wasted a full 10 minutes of my morning with a segment detailing the 13% unemployment rate in Bend and Deschutes County. What a bummer! Those public radio depressos overlooked the fact that WE have $300 jeans...and on our very own Wall Street, no less. Really, I see your point... if we all follow your lead and spend $900 on a fashion ensemble for this evening, the economic downturn will vanish PDQ. Keep up the fine investigative reporting with that sunny outlook! One suggestion though. Eliminate this "Letters" section and you might have room for a Bend celebrity gossip column. You guys rock!
Mark Spencer
Editors note: The Source does a spring and fall Style issue every year. We didn't really see the need to depart from the schedule we handed out to readers and advertisers in January because of the ongoing recession. As far as the price tags on individual items, the same cover images also featured a $37 shirt and a $7 pair of gloves - hardly AIG bonus material.
While one could argue that the eight pages in the last issue devoted to spring fashions could have been better, or at least differently, used, I'll point out that just about every point covered in the NPR piece you mentioned has already been reported in this newspaper and other media outlets. Are their other stories out there pertaining to the recession? Yes, and we'll continue to tell them, but we don't think a few pages related to fashions (which by the way are available exclusively at locally owned and operated retailers) will preclude that.
