When I was young, my family lived on the flanks of Cheyenne Mountain outside Colorado Springs, Colorado. My father would scan the horizon to the east and say, “on a clear day you can see Kansas from here.
Radio Nights: a music education via the airwaves
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See This Film: Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars documentary tonight at the Tower Theatre
Tonight, the Tower Theatre is screening a documentary about the Sierra Leone’s Refugee All Stars, the reggae/Afro-beat band that will play at the Tower on May 18.
The film tells the story of the band, which originated in the refugee camps of Sierra Leone — a country that was devastated by civil war and remains one of the most impoverished countries in the world.
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Dine and Drink: a guide to post-ride beer and eats
The routine since this past November has been a simple. A good friend and I finish every weekend mountain bike ride with the search for the best post-ride place to drink beer and have something to eat.
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Poop Bombs, Adjective Bombs and Poll Bombs
Is there something about Bend that generates weirdness? The air, the water, the altitude? We’ve had the Pregnant Man, the Lawn Chair Balloonist, the Clothesline Lady – and now, the Mad Poop Bomber.
Melinda Hoffman, a Bend entrepreneur whose company, The Bomb Squad, is in the business of removing doggie doodoo from people’s yards, got mad at a customer who owed her $150 and retaliated by dumping 30 gallons of canine excrement in front of the customer’s house.
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The OLCC’s Jason Evers is in Jail
You may have already heard about this from local bartender/restaurant owner who was doing cartwheels and high-fiving strangers on the street, but the embattled former regional manager of the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, Jason Evers, is sitting in the Ada County, Idaho, jail right now.
According to a deputy at the jail this afternoon, Evers was arrested on Tuesday, April 27.
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Oregon's Soak-the-Poor Tax Policy
Should a family living below the poverty level have to pay state income tax? Most states say no – but Oregon says yes.
According to a report released yesterday by the Washington-based Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the income tax in this state for a family of four kicks in at $19,800.
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The Rise of Decline: When things are bad, should we be praying for worse?
When Andrew Joseph Stack, a software consultant with a history of tax troubles and marital problems, crashed his Piper Cherokee into the Austin, Texas, office of the Internal Revenue Service in February, the crime was widely seen as a referendum on the national psyche. Stack, who killed himself and one other person while injuring 13, was said to represent a strain of legitimate grievances in America.
In his syndicated column, Richard Parker credited Stack with summing up the American “continuum of disappointment, anxiety, fear and yes, anger” related to economic pressure and income inequality. “On the day of Stack's violence,” Parker wrote, “everyone I interview who has read his suicide note has the same reaction: No, he should not have tried to kill anyone to make his point and so he deserved to die. And yes, the guy did have a point.” Writing on AlterNet, Rich Benjamin called Stack “an acute symptom of this nation's neglected wounds,” concluding, “We dismiss his screed, suicide and crime as 'lunatic' at our own risk.”
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AG Finds No Crime in Bellotti Contract
Oregon Attorney John Kroger announced today that his office will not be filing criminal charges against the University of Oregon over its handling of the dismissal of former football coach and athletic director Mike Bellotti, who was given a roughly $2.3 million severance earlier this year by the school.
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New Leif James Music Video
Yesterday, Tim Cash of Far From Earth Films stopped by my office and said he’d just wrapped up shooting a video for local blues rocker Leif James.
Then this morning, I get an e-mail with a link to the video.
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OIA Plots Oregon's Biggest Land Grab
Oregonians in Action, the “property rights” group that brought us Measure 37 six years ago, has come up with a new bright idea – and it’s a real doozy.
OIA wants Oregon to emulate Utah, whose legislature in its 2009 session enacted a law that supposedly gives the state the power to use eminent domain to seize land held by the federal government.