Guest Commentary

I recently visited hundreds of homes to educate ordinary citizens on the horrors of SWIPE (Surface Water Improvement Plan Exposed) and to expose the politicians and bureaucrats responsible for the mess. I met a lot of terrific people along the way who don’t deserve atrocities like SWIPE, and they certainly have no way to pay […]

In the article on proposed changes to Temporary Use Rules and Food Carts, reporter Erin Marlowe accurately describes me as a “food cart junkie.” I support the food cart cottage industry as a gear in Bend's economic engine, as delivering delicious eats, as creating income for owners of undeveloped lots when carts parked there pay rent, and as incubation for bricks and mortar restaurants. For instance, Barrio evolved from the Soupcon and El Sancho carts.

The only thing that pisses me off more than the capital gains tax rate is the fact that Nickelback can re record the same song every 4 years with different words and make millions off it!!!
– Travis Ehrenstrom

So there's $536MM of federal funds and another $550MM in “non-federal funds.” Why do you hoist the canard that this only costs $536MM? What are the other non-federal funds? Where does this other money come from? Who pays that price tag? I can guess and I know I'll be right.

Thank you for sharing the story of Bruce Morris and the HDC, their work is appreciated and will not doubt continue “the evolution” toward less separation and more respect for all people.

The Occupy Movement is all about economic justice without which we will not have social justice.
We are challenging an economic system built on the greed of banksters, corporados and the wealthy ruling elites emboldened and empowered by politicians, government officials and the legal system enforced by the police state whose duty is to protect and serve the 1 percent.
We are the 99 percent committed to changing this system of injustice based on exploitation, oppression, financial devastation and environmental degradation. We are determined to Occupy our minds with truth, occupy our streets, our parks, our towns and cities, our states and our country in solidarity with the 99percent throughout the world. We engage in civil disobedience, direct action and non-violent activities as we Occupy Wall St., Occupy Main St., Occupy Everywhere to achieve economic justice.

Thank you to the Source and Mike Bookey for writing about the important issue of marriage equality last week. I am the “big bearded dude” in the photos, writing to comment on my being the “unlikely face” of the marriage equality movement in Central Oregon. My positions with Basic Rights Oregon and now Human Dignity Coalition may make me the most visible local advocate on this issue. However, the true faces of marriage inequality in Oregon are the thousands of loving, committed same-sex couples and their families being denied the freedom to marry by the Oregon Constitution.
Same-sex couples want to get married for the same reason I did, and most couples do, namely to make that vast and courageous expression of love and commitment to their beloved. Take a moment to imagine the pain of knowing it would be illegal – illegal! – to make that expression to the person you are so deeply in love with. Now take one more step and imagine the suffering of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people who remain stigmatized for simply being who they really are or for openly loving who they really love; the bewildered despair of teenagers whose parents reject and punish them and whose schoolmates bully them just for being their authentic selves.

Dear Gordon,
I was disappointed I had to hear the financial news about your Chapter 11 filing from your newspaper. You don't call anymore. I know I haven't been any better about reaching out, but I can't believe we have grown so distant that it has come to this.
To be honest, it wasn't the most delicate way to approach the subject with readers. What were you thinking, giving Costa a front-page column to drone on about your predicament . . . right next to your news piece about the very same thing? I told you before, you gotta rein that guy in. BofA was a “trusted partner?” Who is Costa kidding? He's not doing himself any favors when he spends one week telling everyone they need to be more accountable in his column, then in a moment of crisis starts conjuring up creditor boogeymen, and strange bank accounting to blame for your financial woes. If you have to do it again, Gordon, trust your readers and let your news article stand on its own.

As a pundit, it’s my job to explain why politicians do the things they do. Every now and then, however, a pol behaves so irrationally that I have to throw up my arms and ask: What the hell is this guy thinking?
That’s what Obama has me doing. For over two years. Why isn’t he worried about unemployment?
Thomas Frank wondered in “What’s the Matter with Kansas?” why Americans don’t vote their (liberal) self-interest. What I can’t figure out is why President Obama isn’t following his self-interest.
Obama says he wants a second term. I believe him. Every president wants one.

Government spending is under the microscope wherever you look. Here in Bend, City staff have succeeded in getting the City Manager and the City Council out on a plank on a “trophy” water infrastructure project misnamed the Surface Water “Improvement” Project (SWP). This project is an unnecessary and costly burden that ratepayers cannot afford, and one that will lock the City into taking water away from Tumalo Creek for the next century. To stop this waste, a diverse group of concerned citizens is starting a petition drive to the City Council.
The City's overhaul of its surface water supply system involves installing a new steel pipe for 10 miles along the Skyline Road corridor to the Outback site west of town. There the water will pass through a new hydropower turbine and into a new high tech membrane filtration plant and finally into the city delivery system.