If there was ever any doubt that Bend can host and be party to a great sports event, it was laid to rest on Sunday at the U.S.
Cross Nats-Bend at its best
Posted inNews
Quakes Rattle Newberry Geothermal Hopes
Could earthquakes in Switzerland throw a geothermal energy project in Central Oregon’s Newberry Crater area off the rails?
About a month ago AltaRock Energy got a $25 million grant (on top of an earlier $36 million) from the US Department of Energy toward development of a plant that will produce power by tapping natural heat deep beneath the Earth’s surface.
AltaRock’s process, called “enhanced geothermal,” involves drilling wells up to 10,000 feet deep, pumping cold water down them to create small cracks in the bedrock, then withdrawing heated water from these fissures to turn turbines.
Posted inNews
Merkley Might Be a Health Care Holdout
Senate Democrats are hopeful they have a filibuster-proof majority in favor of a health care reform package that would offer Medicare to people as young as 55 – but Jeff Merkley could throw a monkey wrench into the works.
Oregon's junior senator told Huffington Post blogger Sam Stein that the bill in its present form would worsen Oregon's health care problems because doctors in the state are woefully underpaid for Medicare patients and are increasingly unwilling to treat them.
Posted inNews
Video From Today’s Cyclocross Nationals Action
We just got back from the Old Mill District, which has been taken over by the USA Cyclocross National Championships. The course is still largely covered with snow, but it’s warming up just enough to get a bit muddy — which is actually good for a cross race.
Posted inNews
The Dirty Words Want You in Their Music Video
Music videos aren’t dead, even if the cable channel that essentially created the format no longer airs them (or at least not when anyone is awake or home).
Case in point: Bend’s own Dirty Words are in the midst of creating their first music video for their song, “Damn Jacket.
Posted inCulture
Get on the Duck Bus: Ride along with Duck fans to one of the biggest Civil War games ever
It's 9:38pm on Thursday, December 3 and I see fireworks, literally. I am sitting on a bus packed full of Ducks and a handful of Beavers destined for Bend. The woman in the seat ahead of me is drinking from a mini-bottle of champagne. Autzen Stadium is alive with celebration as the University of Oregon Ducks just defeated the Oregon State University Beavers 37-33 in the 113th Civil War game, thus punching a ticket to the Rose Bowl.
I must say upfront I have nothing against the Beavers. In fact, my father was an OSU grad and there is photographic evidence of me sitting on the Easter Bunny's lap sporting a Benny the Beaver shirt, circa 1989. That said, I am an Oregon grad and I spent four of my best years braving the student section and bleeding green and yellow.
Posted inCulture
Book Review: Chronic City By Jonathan Lethem
West Coasters might not be drawn to a novel that takes place exclusively on Manhattan, well actually a specific part of the island, but what if this Manhattan isn't the real Manhattan? That's essentially what Jonathan Lethem has done with Chronic City.
The book is strangely fantastical, taking place in Lethem's custom-crafted Manhattan – a city where an escaped tiger demolishes city blocks, the New York Times publishes a “War-Free” edition, snow falls in August and Marlon Brandon just might be alive. Chase Insteadman, a child actor turned B-list celebrity, serves as our narrator, leading us through his chance friendship with Perkus Tooth, a lazy-eyed former gonzo artist and rock critic who now spends his time battling cluster headaches, pontificating about old films and smoking marijuana… incredible amounts of marijuana.
Posted inCulture
X-miss : Or what I miss about solstice
In the US recycling is a cool thing & communities brag about 40-50 % involvement. Here nothing makes it to the dump (if there is one) exceptstuff that can be composted. Forget things like metal, glass or wood, even plastic is picked up before the city trash collectors get to it. The city trash collectors don't even realize that they have a shitty job (in American minds),
– Eddie H. writing from Viet Nam
X-miss in America is bi-polar. On one hand, there are tens of thousands of articles on the perfect gifts, the perfect decorations, the perfect tree, the perfect turkey and punch and cookies and antacid. On the other hand, there are pious calls to give to others, to cut back, make gifts, give green, buy a live tree, teach the kids not to be greedy, to not grow into adults who wander the streets of “charming” towns with that vapid and irritated look of “Done it, seen it all, how tedious” on their faces.
Posted inOutside
Please Pity Peter Rabbit: Understanding the cottontail rabbit
If there is one poor little guy that's on the short end of just about everyone's shopping list who eats meat, it's the cottontail rabbit, or as children's book author and illustrator Beatrix Potter called it, “Peter Rabbit.”
Perhaps the animal that depends on poor little Peter for food in our parts is the great horned owl. Both rabbit and owl are out feeding at night, but the owl has the upper hand. Yes, poor little Peter is dull brown and gray because of its fur, and it moves very slowly as it snips off tender buds, leaves and grass, but that big owl has some of the best equipment Nature ever invented for seeing and hearing small, slow-moving, rabbits. Once spotted, few escape the needle-sharp talons of this tiger of the air.
Posted inCulture
Baring Bad News: The Messenger explores the tragedies of war from the home front
Here is a good idea for a movie: After serving his stint on the Iraq frontline, an American soldier is assigned to work in casualty notification and alongside a struggling alcoholic partner he appears on the doorstep of the mothers, fathers and spouses of the dead to offer the apologies of the Secretary of the Army. The relatives react, but the soldiers are supposed to keep to the script and then walk away.
The Messenger must have looked great on paper, good enough to attract an impressive cast including Woody Harrelson, Samantha Morton and Steve Buscemi who saw the potential of this previously untold story. The film, however, never gets off that paper, remaining as a series of annotations on this good idea. The scenes are held together sketchily with far too much in the margins. It could be a New Yorker article, but it never quite makes it on celluloid.