Why does winter linger in Central Oregon like a particularly stubborn case of toenail fungus? Meteorologist Adam Clark of KOHD has the answer - sort of.
Our Endless Winters: What’s the Real Story?
Posted inNews
Whisnant: Ditch That Creaky State Song
Adopted in 1927, our official state song, "Oregon, My Oregon," is getting a little creaky, with lyrics about Oregon being "conquered and held by free men" and "blest by the blood of martyrs."
Posted inNews
Video: Who knew swine flu could be this funny?
The Blender was forwarded this pretty damn funny video of public service announcements from the late 1970s about the dangers of swine flu. Our favorite line: "Dotty had a heart condition, so she died.
Posted inNews
Too Big To Fail: After a big setback, questions about the salmon recovery plan
An artist's digital rendering of fish entering the control tower. Bill Bakke isn't exactly a celebrity. But if you fish in Oregon, particularly if you fly fish - which it seems everyone does these days- you owe him a debt of gratitude.
A lifelong conservationist, Bakke is the man responsible for removing hatchery fish from the Metolius River in the mid 1990s and imposing a slot limit on rainbow trout on the Lower Deschutes, a move that has resulted in bigger fish in the river year round.
I called Bakke this past week to get his take on the somewhat spectacular setback at the multi-million dollar fish collection facility at Pelton Dam. The fish tower, as it is sometimes called, is the linchpin of a plan to reintroduce salmon and steelhead to the Upper Deschutes Basin, which includes parts of Deschutes, Crook and Jefferson counties. Just a few weeks earlier, crews working on the fish passage system watched as a critical piece of the mechanism, a 40-foot wide, 140-foot long tube that cycles water from the fish collection facility into the dam's turbine system, split into pieces during its installation. A portion of the nearly 290-ton conduit floated to the surface, while several other pieces dropped to the bottom of the lake.
The mishap is expected to delay the completion of the tower, which project managers had hoped to bring on line this week, by a minimum of four months at a time when thousands of juvenile fish are beginning their ocean migration.
Posted inOpinion
Stiegler’s Concealed-Carry Compromise
Ever since Oregon's public records law was passed some 40 years ago, special interests have been nibbling holes in it. This week, with the help of Rep. Judy Stiegler of Bend, the legislature bit off another chunk.
Stiegler issued a press release on Monday talking about her role in the passage of HB 2727, a bill that would create an exemption from the law for information about holders of concealed handgun licenses (CHLs).
Sheriffs in counties across Oregon, including Deschutes, have been simply flouting the public records law and refusing requests by reporters for information about concealed-carry permits. This legislation essentially throws a cloak of legality over what the sheriffs have been doing illegally.
Posted inOpinion
We Need More Ammo: Lead shortages, libraries, Jack Kemp sacked, and Souter
The author has been sent on the road to discover a lost country formerly known as America. He is reporting on hedge-funding the 'Green' movement, and stealing advertisers from the Boston Globe while on assignment for Or-Bust.com and The Source Weekly.
Never speak ill of the deadThankfully,
Obama's Recession
Hasn't Hurt Bush
107 days and counting, it is amazing how Obama has utterly ruined our country - the economy sucks, the CIA tortures, exotic flus are spreading, Joe Biden can't shut-up… Gracefully, the president who handed our country over to this Socialism semi-Muslim is still doing swell; George W. Bush has already raised $100 million for his Presidential Library, planned to open on Southern Methodist University's campus in Dallas by 2013 when the shredding is completed. Pitched to donors as a place to "further the domestic and international goals of the Bush administration," the library will contain no books, pictures, or documents, but rather house a total of 911 American flags and the souls of all who worked in the White House from 2001-2008. Two notes: Bill Clinton didn't hit the $100 hallmark until well into his second year of fundraising for his own brothel, err, library in Arkansas, and Bush can thank the same friends who made his two terms so successful; Texas oilman Donald Evans chairs the library foundation – one of the seven total Americans who benefited from eight years of Bush, a president who left office with a favorability rating of 22%, and still believes that "history will vindicate" him.
Posted inOpinion
The Torture Trade Off
This week's letter comes from Mike Caba who continues our ongoing dialogue over interrogation practices with a nice meditation on the moral perils of state-sponsored torture. Thanks for the letter, Mike. You can pick up your winnings, a pound of Strictly Organic Coffee, at our offices, 704 NW Georgia.
With this business about torture our country has accomplished two bits of the devil's business, namely, we are both more evil within, and less protected from evil without. When this unfortunate practice is examined, we see that discussion surrounding the use of torture nearly always circles around two pivot points, the moral and the utilitarian, summarized as follows: is it evil and, does it work? On the first question, nary a voice is heard in opposition to the contention that torture is essentially evil at its core; and those who have practiced it in the past, or who unfortunately still practice it today, have often devalued their victims to a subhuman status in order to soothe their own moral vibes against the use of various devices (e.g. the Nazis and the untermensch).
Posted inOpinion
Going Backwards at BMPRD
The Bend Metro Parks and Recreation District has applicants for its summer programs in a bind suitable for Ken Kesey or Joseph Heller. We've tried to hack our way out only to be ensnared by the befuddling labyrinth of BMPRD's Dickensian circumlocution office.
BMPRD plans to queue up all walk-in summer program applicants-seniors, other adults and children alike-at the Senior Center at 7 a.m. on Saturday, May 9, and to use the DMV model (take a number and wait your turn) once the doors are opened to the clamoring throng. We are a group of senior hikers who object to this procedure.
Recent registrations until now have reduced crowding for everybody either by accommodating different groups simultaneously at different facilities or by registering different groups on different days in the Senior Center.
Posted inOpinion
Dirt Bag Deal
Being a recovering climbing "dirt bag," I used to spend A LOT of nights out at Skull. Most of the people camping out there are climbers.
Posted inOpinion
The American Taliban
I was so amused by Mr. Epstein's letter in Source (April 16) that at first I thought it intended to be satirical. It was such a perfect presentation of the usual non-sequiturs, pseudo-history, myth making, errors and canards of the loony Right, that I assumed it must have been written in jest. Its delivery, in the tone of one who is as uninformed as he is supremely self-assured - so like the boss in "The Office" - was first class. The "Jesus Loves You" finish was a classic of the condescension and hypocrisy at which American Evangelicals lead the world! I even drafted a quick note to the editor of Source to compliment him for being so brave as to publish a letter that so effectively satirized the Christian Right. But Mr. Epstein, like the large slice of the US population he so closely resembles, is serious - and dangerous.