Clarification: In the print edition of the 6/27 story, “Boarding Babes Branch Out,” Cady Lindsey stated, “I now have a job I love.” She is a volunteer, not an employee or business owner.
Boomers are not paying the price
Boomer America long ago abandoned the republic. As evidence, far too many today play bingo and eat barbeque while their communities circle down the toilet.
Many run off to national parks or retirement communities while their grandkids are being eaten alive by social media.
Others ignore the Constitution and their ancestors and pay fealty to a madman despot politician.
Still others watch daytime soaps and nighttime game shows, worshipping celebrities like they were homecoming kings and queens, soaking in misleading advertising and forgetting everything they ever learned in high school and college.
Yet others satisfy their need for afterlife security by going to church and basking in the love of pastors or priests, while the neighbor walks past the chapel door flailing about in the arms of cartel chieftains and usurious bankers.
Every pleasure has a price, and Boomers are not paying it.
—Kimball Shinkoskey
RE: Oregon Enacted Laws Around Homeless Camp Removals in 2023. After the Grants Pass Decision, Will They Be Enough? Opinion, 7/4
In her dissent on the Grants Pass decision, Judge Sonia Sotomayor cited the case of a Nashville man compelled to wear a T-shirt with the words, “Please do not arrest me; my outreach worker is working on my housing.”
Fortunately, Bend is not Nashville. Oregon is not (shudder) Tennessee.
An election season of “endless diatribes” foreseen in this astute editorial need not take place in Bend. Here we have an innovative and courageous City government, which on a shoestring, has partnered with nonprofits and the County to build numerous facilities for transitional housing, life-saving shelter and safe parking.
As a result, the number of unhoused people living in Bend has declined, according to the 2024 Point In Time Count. A lesson is slowly emerging: The way to resolve the national crisis of homelessness lies in helping people, not criminalizing them.
Little remarked in the Grants Pass decision is the Catch 22 forced on Oregon, where people who might be increasingly impacted by the “crime” of homelessness because they are poor and older, no longer have ready access to a public defender. The Supreme Court took away 8th Amendment protections for unhoused people at a time when, practically speaking, 6th Amendment legal protections no longer exist.
—Foster Fell via bendsource.com
RE: Expanding Access to Water Leasing News, 6/27
Re-define “beneficial use” to exclude ornamental/hobby use, limit it to actual agriculture that furnishes edible crops.
Leasing, transfers and “water banks” simply shift water to those with money. Any benefit to water levels, both low and high, in the Deschutes are minimal at best. The only benefit is to the rich.
—Geoff Reynolds via bendsource.com
Crash, Bang, Clunk, Ouch South Highway 97
Appeal for a Comprehensive Bend Crosswalk Safety Assessment…
The pedestrian crosswalk on South Highway 97 near the Badger Street intersection represents a safety concern for both pedestrians and motorists. A high percentage of motorists exceed the posted speed limit on this roadway. Assuming the existing crosswalk meets ODOT design standards for roadways in a 45mph zone, does this crosswalk design work when the average motorist far exceeds the posted speed limit? The average motorist’s reaction times increase exponentially as speeds increase. According to data, the overall stopping distance for motorist traveling at 45mph is 156 feet, or if traveling at 60mph it is 265 feet. For this reason, speed should be an important factor when determining crosswalk locations.
Last month, a speeding truck failed to brake and ran into two stopped vehicles waiting for a pedestrian to cross the multilane South Highway 97 crosswalk. Two of the three vehicles were totaled. This crosswalk near the Badger Street intersection poses a safety concern for both motorists and pedestrians. ODOT needs to remove this crosswalk or install an overhead pedestrian walking bridge.
—Ray Sohl
Letter of
the Week:
Thanks for your letter, Ray. Come on in for your gift card to Palate on us!
—Nicole Vulcan
This article appears in Source Weekly July 11, 2024.
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Re: Boomers are not paying the price.
I’m not sure what Kimball is asking of us Boomers. Not paying the price? Kimball should review the history of the era us Boomers grew up in. If Kimball’s not a fan of history, without getting into details, I’ll sum the era up in three words, “It wasn’t pretty.” We are certainly not babysitters for Kimball’s generation. This Boomer is on the tail end of the Boomer generation. For the most part, we’re all retired. We get involved in the community. We stay close to our family group. We visit National Parks. We didn’t abandon the Republic. In fact, this Boomer is more politically involved than before. One hundred percent devoted to keeping the madman despot politician as far away from our White house as possible. For the sake of my generation and Kimball’s too. Retirement is sorta like that. We do what we want to do with the precious time we have left. When grandkids need some direction with growing up, we, wait for it….. let the parents of the grandchildren do the same job our parents did with us and the same job we did with our kids.
The lessons learned in high school and college continue to provide a successful life.
I’d love to help Kimball secure a babysitter, but we’re loading up the Wagon Queen Family Truckster and heading off to the nearest National Park.
Mike
Yikes, what a dumbf**k letter. I’m a boomer who is exactly opposite of what you describe. And so are all of my many boomer friends. No bingo, no daytime soaps, no BBQ, no despots, no game shows, no worshipping anyone. I was resisting oppression, opposing war, fighting for justice and democracy when you were in diapers, Kimball. Which doesn’t sound like it was all that long ago.