Opinion
Posted inOpinion

Victory for Freedom in the Supreme Court

Justice is done One of your neighbors has a grudge against you and secretly informs on you to the police. The next thing you know
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Justice is done One of your neighbors has a grudge against you and secretly informs on you to the police. The next thing you know you're being held in a prison in a strange country. You don't know what you're charged with or what the evidence against you is, and you can't go to court to find out. You end up staying in that prison for years without any trial.
 
That's the position that many of the approximately 270 prisoners incarcerated at "Camp X-Ray" in the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, find themselves in. Thanks to a landmark decision last Friday by the US Supreme Court, that unconscionable situation will change.
The court ruled, 5-4, that the ancient principle of habeas corpus - the right of an accused person to know the evidence the government has against him - applies to Guantanamo prisoners. Under last week's ruling, Guantanamo prisoners will be able to go into federal district courts to demand that the government show why they should remain incarcerated.

Posted inOpinion

Don’t Ignore Pet Abuse Story

Dr Holly O’Brien was right on in her letter regarding animal abuse in our area. She brought up the worthwhile idea of the Source doing
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Dr Holly O'Brien was right on in her letter regarding animal abuse in our area. She brought up the worthwhile idea of the Source doing an article on animal cruelty laws and what the public can do if they witness animal abuse. I was disappointed that you did not jump on her suggestion, choosing instead to print only a summary of the general concept of the law. You did the public a disservice by ignoring her advice, which called for also pointing out what the public can DO when such shameful behavior is viewed.
Please do take her valuable recommendation about doing an in-depth article on animal cruelty and its prevention. This is a subject that can never be brought up too many times; people who abuse animals rarely stop there. One of my dogs, Piper, was subjected to an electrified food dish for three years, before he came to be my forever friend. His owner was married with children. What example does this set for them?

Posted inOpinion

Golf Courses Need To Go

Some of the largest nitrate polluters are the golf courses. The courses are massive green grass lawns being grown in a semi-arid environment. What makes
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Some of the largest nitrate polluters are the golf courses. The courses are massive green grass lawns being grown in a semi-arid environment. What makes plants green? Nitrogen. Therefore, in order to have green golf courses on the edge of the desert one needs massive amounts of polluting nitrogen. Plant nutrient uptake can be significantly altered by the ph of the solution it is being delivered in, meaning the grass might not even be able to use much of the fertilizer being applied. Much of this nitrogen (among many other chemicals in synthetic commercial golf course fertilizer) stays in the ground unused by the grass. Even when used by the grass these chemicals go back into the soil when the plant dies.

Posted inOpinion

Bonus Coverage: Hanks crosses Pope, Source takes to the air and more

Joseph Oguiza

They don’t care how big tom hanks is. Vatican to Hanks: Get Lost
The Vatican has told Tom Hanks it doesn't want him in church. It's not his religion they have a problem with - it's the movie he's making.
The producers of Hanks' new movie, Angels and Demons, had asked permission to shoot inside two of Rome's historic churches, Santa Maria del Popolo and Santa Maria della Vittoria. Fuhgeddaboudit, said the diocese of Rome.
Angels and Demons is a prequel to the 2006 movie The Da Vinci Code, based on the blockbuster novel of the same name by Dan Brown, which espoused the controversial (at least to orthodox Christians) theory that Jesus had married Mary Magdalene and had children.
Monsignor Marco Fibbi, a diocesan spokesman, told Reuters that the diocese had denied the filmmakers access to the churches because of the movie's subject matter. "It's a film that treats religious issues in a way that contrasts with common religious sentiment," Fibbi said. "Normally we read the script but this time it was not necessary. The name Dan Brown was enough."

Posted inOpinion

Advice Goddess Grates

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Letter of the Week 
We're not exactly sure who brought us this week's letter of the
week, as she flies under the righteous handle of Mora Lee Sound. But
anyone who calls out the Advice Goddesses' panties has our respect. Go
Mora Lee!

Amy, the Advice Goddess,
My commentary is in reference to your wellspring Source of advice to Nun for Me in last week's paper:
Is this really what our world has arrived at? Has God been replaced by a goddess whose "good advice" is to ditch the woman with high morality and a sense of self-worth in favor of floozies who will drop their pants at the first fluctuation of a hormone?
As for Biblical criticisms, please open your Bible more often than you open your "after-one-night-stand" birth control pills, and you might see that the Old (Mosaic) Law Covenant in which disobedient children were "stoned" was replaced by an entirely New Covenant dominated by Christian principles. (Romans 7:6) Yes, "principles" - another word you may want to look up in the dictionary, the other dusty book presently buried by the thong undies of your avid advice-takers.

Posted inOpinion

Direct From Killington: A new face at Mt. B, Downtown Bend valet, more

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New Brass on the Mountain
Three weeks to the day after firing Matt Janney, who served as Mt. Bachelor's president, the ski resort has announced the hiring of Dave Rathbun to take the top position at the mountain.
After what Mt. Bachelor described as a "nationwide search," the result was the hiring of yet another POWDR Corp. (Mt. Bachelor's parent company) employee in Rathbun, who has previously worked as director of marketing, sales, reservations and golf at Killington Resort and Pico mountain, both located in Vermont. Rathbun, who was touted as having more than 20 years of resort experience, will serve as both president and general manager at Bachelor.
POWDR purchased Killington resort as a joint investment with SP Land Co. The pair had plans for a large scale resort development at the base of Killington - not unlike what POWDR has discussed for Mt. Bachelor. However, SP Land backed out of the deal earlier this year over what it said was community opposition, according to the Rutland Herald.

Posted inOpinion

Feline Muddies Museum’s Mission

Editor’s Note: The following piece is part of an ongoing debate in our letters page that started with a column by Jim Anderson (Killer Cat
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Editor’s Note: The following piece is part of an ongoing debate in our letters page that started with a column by Jim Anderson (Killer Cat 5-21) about a domestic cat at the High Desert Museum that nabbed a chipmunk in front of patrons.
By Tom Rodhouse
At the risk of fanning the flames here, I cannot sit idly by. By way of reply to an email response from The High Desert Museum to Jim Anderson's "Killer Cat" article last week, I have been compelled to clarify that the cat in question was nowhere near the cabin "scene" but was hunting around the bird feeders at the sitting area above the otter exhibit.
This particular part of the Museum is a wildlife viewing area, not a historical reconstruction. Jim's article, perhaps a result of editing down for word count, failed to mention that the cat actually caught a yellow-pine chipmunk, and was not just stalking it. And it was indeed a chipmunk, not one of the "overrunning" ground squirrels that the Museum complains about. As a wildlife biologist with a life-long fascination with predatory animals, I have to admit I was mighty impressed with the facility this cat exhibited. Honestly, I have never seen such a talented hunter at work before. If it were a bobcat, I'd have chalked it up as one of my life list's top wonderful natural history moments. The cat clearly was a pro working around the feeders and the rocks and log adjacent to the clearing. It did run halfway up a tree after another chipmunk or bird moments after I tried to run it off after its first catch. The cat was serious about its business and clearly had spent time working that particular area over before. Of course at the time I had no idea this was a sanctioned Museum exhibition, and assumed it was one of the many feral cats wreaking havoc on native wildlife in our open lands. I was shocked when I was met with resistance by Museum staff over this issue, and I am amazed at the Museum's continued insistence that the cat is not a detriment.

Posted inOpinion

Daly Doesn’t Get It

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Letter of the Week
Kommissar Daly's "jokes" are particularly UNFUNNY, insensitive and demeaning to women and those 5% (reported) of male victims of domestic violence and battery. I am personally repulsed by his remarks on behalf of my late mother, herself a victim of my late father's brutality for many years.

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