A Cozy Little Business Get-Together

Posted inOpinion

A Cozy Little Business Get-Together

Eric Flowers

Legal scholars have a saying that hard cases make bad law. Political scientists should have a version that says hard times make bad policies.

Bend, like the rest of the country, is in the midst of some hard times and they're likely to get even harder. To help them figure out how to help the local economy, three of Bend's city councilors-elect - Jeff Eager, Tom Greene and Kathie Eckman - decided to hold a "forum" last week with local business leaders.
Their motive might have been noble, but their method wasn't.
To begin with, it doesn't appear that any worthwhile new ideas emerged from the 40 or so businesspersons who attended. According to news accounts, the meeting seems to have been mostly a bitch session at which the business leaders voiced standard and familiar themes: "All our problems are the fault of Big Bad Government" and "Whatever you do to help the economy, don't ask us to pay for it."

Posted inOpinion

The Loafer Lob Heard Round the World: Bush’s dodge ball skills, cooling out in Dubai, and more.

Eric Flowers

So Shoe Me!

The face that launched a thousand shoes.In a Los Angeles Times article this week, former Secret Service agent Patrick J. Lennon was quoted as saying, "Thank God, Bush apparently played a little dodge ball when he was younger."
You probably know what this former agent is talking about, but if somehow you missed this, Upfront will fill you in with a one-sentence recap: Some Iraqi journalist removed both of his shoes during a press conference and tossed them at President Bush on Sunday - and this is actually a sign of severe disrespect in the Arab world.
This was all during a "surprise visit" to Iraq by the president and very likely the last trek of his waning presidency to the embattled nation. The only "surprise" to be seen was the look on Bush's face as he somewhat deftly dodged each shoe toss…but this look of surprise soon melted into the same sly little smirk we've come to love to hate over the past eight years. Bush subsequently likened the shoe missles to a campaign heckler or one driver flipping off another. Oh President Bush! Not even a size 10 loafer whizzing past your temple can dampen your reckless disregard of public opinion.

Posted inCulture

A Ghost in the Paint: Alex Reisfar’s late night creations

Mike Bookey

Where the magic happens.You may be surprised when you walk into Hot Box Betty expecting pretty
things and are confronted by Jaws and Dead Birds. Not that the
paintings by Alex Reisfar aren't beautiful - they are.

Reisfar's work has a Latin American influence; the figures are rendered
like those of Diego Rivera or Antonio Ruiz. In Maria and Child, the
breastfeeding mother's hair transforms into artery and umbilical cord
ala Frida Kahlo, while her masked face draws from the indigenous
revolution. "In parts of the Zapatista movement, they have these
pamphlets, and the imagery in them, especially the female Zapatistas,
is very powerful," Reisfar says. While initially surrealist, Reisfar's
paintings are not about dream worlds, but full of intentionally applied
symbols. The drama in the work is not happenstance from the
subconscious, but grounded, as he says, in "anarchist history and
theory." One piece is blatantly anti-war; a soldier with a leering
skull greets a smiling baby and a female figure that cannot face him or
the viewer. In El Cazadore, a great white shark signifies a menacing
force ("great white: GW," Reisfar points out) while a Zapatista child
stands in defiance. In Gaurdian, a Native American child begins to
unravel. Reisfar is confronting big subject matter: death, organized
religion, war, propaganda and white guilt.

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