From Kari Chisholm on the BlueOregon blog comes word that KGW-TV in Portland has launched a nightly half-hour program called "Decision 2008" that's entirely devoted to this year's election contests.
“Campaign News”? What’s “Campaign News”?
Posted inNews
Willy Week: Smith’s Food Plant Hires Illegal Workers
Although details are sketchy, Willamette Week is reporting that Gordon Smith's frozen food plant near Pendleton has been employing illegal immigrants for years.
Posted inOpinion
McCain Is Not the Answer
McCain has a long history of working against workers. He has worked with large corporations and the right wing to weaken and destroy organized labor by supporting right to work (for less) laws, he has attempted to limit overtime for workers by radically overhauling the Fair Labor Standards Act and he has blocked a Senate vote on the Employee Free Choice Act which would restore workers' freedom to form unions and bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions without employer harassment.
McCain has waged a 25-year attack to destroy prevailing wages by attempting to completely waive or repeal the Davis-Bacon Act which requires that workers on federally-funded construction projects be paid no less than the wages and benefits paid in the community for similar work. He has also blocked votes on "Strikers' Rights" legislation which allows SCABs to undermine striking workers by permanently replacing them while the workers are on the picket line fighting for wages, benefits and working conditions.
McCain failed to vote on legislation extending unemployment benefits to hundreds of thousands of unemployed workers whose lives are being brutalized in this economic crisis created by the Bush administration. McCain, who claims to be an independent thinker, has actually supported the Bush policies and positions 89% of the time including making Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy permanent and attempting to privatize social security.
Posted inCulture
C’est La Ski: Rage Films unofficially launches winter with Such is Life premier
Super FloatyThe growing cold, the occasional frost, the ski shop sales: Winter is
just around the corner. With last year's epic snow season still in the
back of our minds and the last patches of the deep snow pack still
holding in the mountains, dreams of bottomless powder and of floating
smoothly into the pillowy abyss below creep back into our subconscious.
While we mere mortals may only realize our winter desires on the
weekends, saving our on-hill heroics for deep REM sleep, elite skiers
from around the world further the limits of possibility to feed our
fantasies in the form of the ski film. And the debut of these mountain
flicks has become as synonymous with winter's return as the first
snowfall.
For years, Bend's Rage Films has charged ahead into
exotic locales and enough shots of our own backyard to hype up the
eager crowd. This year's release, Such is Life, is no exception,
delivering an ample dose of kickers, bottomless Japanese powder, one of
the most brutally awesome haircuts ever, and the creativity and quality
we’ve come to expect from this crew.
Posted inOutside
There’s fungus among us
Our world, as we know it, would cease to exist if it weren't for fungi,
(the plural of "fungus" is "fungi") which is among us everywhere
whether we like it or not, and is – hopefully – here to stay.
When a
deer, cockroach or elephant dies there are a whole string of events
that take place to insure that (a) said animal is not lying around
stinking up the countryside, and worse, (b) spreading germs around that
will create biological havoc.
The process of cleaning up and
recycling dead things in the wild usually begins with the scavengers.
During the summer around these parts, that's the handsome turkey
vulture, the clever coyote and a whole lot of other opportunists. Once
vultures, coyotes, woodpeckers, hawks, eagles, owls, weasels, skunks,
mice, rats, squirrels and other so-called "higher " organisms have
gleaned all they can, insects take over.
Posted inOutside
I Love the Deschutes: Upriver, Downriver and In Between
How lucky am I? The Deschutes River flows through my backyard.
Everyday, I watch the geese and the ducks, sometimes the swans, float
by as I work in my home office. It's magical when the sinking sun
bounces off the rippling river under the willow tree and sets my living
room asparkle. My dog is endlessly entertained by the beavers, otters
and minks and I never have to worry about filling her outdoor water
bowl. Occasionally, neighborhood boys set crawdad traps from my dock. I
frequently paddle from my backyard up to McKay Park, down to the
Newport Bridge and back again. I can say with 100% confidence that I
have logged more river miles on the Mirror Pond run in the past eight
years than anyone in the world. I am intimately familiar with the
channel of best flow, the submerged rocks above the Columbia Park
footbridge, the underwater pylons below the Drake Park footbridge, the
swan nests, the water level and the silt buildup in Mirror Pond.
Over
the years, I have also collected the following out of our river: a love
note in a beer bottle, a leather statue of an ibex, a plastic frog, an
Aerobie Flying Ring, a license plate, a horseshoe, a lawn chair, a
couple flip flops per summer, several pumpkins, a few unmanned
floaties, 20 softballs, 39 tennis balls and approximately $5.75 in
recycling. A couple of weeks ago we reported to the Bend Police a
picnic table going down the river. It is still hung up on the buoy line
in front of the Newport spillway. Why someone felt compelled to launch
the table, presumably from McKay Park, and why no one has removed it, I
don't know. I love the Deschutes River and I think we should all
appreciate this treasure that flows through the heart of Bend.
Posted inMusic
SF or Bust: We get down at the first-ever Outside Lands fest
Editor’s note: Terribly agoraphobic, Sound Check couldn't muster the courage to get
out of our Central Oregon comfort zone to check out the brand spankin'
new Outside Lands festival in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. So,
knowing that we couldn't let this event go uncovered, we sent intrepid
Source contributor Kaycee Anseth-Townsend southward.
Serious music lovers often equate a festival schedule
with a tapas menu: scrumptiously delicious, but portions too small to
satisfy. That's how the first-ever Outside Lands Music and Arts
Festival in Golden Gate Park left me feeling.
A festival
experience is really about scale: The scale of a city you've never been
to, guided by an overpriced and inaccurate tourist map where an almost
2,000 acre park is shrunk to the size of ten city blocks, which is only
realized when suddenly you've walked ten miles and haven't even gotten
to the park yet. The scale of 60,000 people and the eerie silence of
such a large crowd that was heard when the sound system died twice
during Radiohead, amplifying the shared experience to those it didn't
annoy. As I waded through a sea of corn-based and fully-compostable
beer cups after Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers left the stage Saturday
night, the multitude of cups a visual hangover from the day.
Posted inMusic
All-Stars of the World: DJ Logic rounds up two camels and a slew of musical greats for Global Noize
Those Camels like it loud.The above photo is actually the cover art for Global Noize's
self-titled debut CD, if you can believe that. It's hardly the stuff of
multi-thousand-dollar photo shoots or commissioned artistic renderings
that are often found on CD covers. It's just two dudes standing next to
a couple of camels with some stacks of records and a few speakers
photoshopped in for extra pizzazz.
But those two dudes are Jason
Miles, the illustrious jazz keyboardist also known for his producing
career, and the dude on the right is none other than DJ Logic, the
expert turntablist known for his collaborations with a myriad of
musicians of varying genres. As for the camels, they remain
unidentified.
The photo was taken when Miles and Logic were in
Morocco prior to the birth of the world music project known as Global
Noize and the all-star band that then sprouted. If you ask Logic, he
says the image has some weight to it.
Posted inMusic
Dropping Names: Problem Stick’s Wayne Newcome on sharing the stage with David Allan Coe
Forget the Madonna headset, David Allan Coe is a badass.Wayne Newcome now leads the local rock band Problem Stick but 25 years
ago he was driving a delivery truck in San Francisco and hating nearly
every song he heard on the radio. It was around this time that he
bought the 45 single of David Allan Coe's "Willie, Waylon and Me." Now,
a quarter of a century later, Newcome and Problem Stick take the stage
in an opening slot for Coe's Midtown Ballroom performance.
"When all
those stupid hair bands came out, I couldn't stand all that shit. So I
started listening to country music and that's when I bought my first
David Allan Coe 45," Newcome says.
Posted inOpinion
Don’t Dismiss Petitioners
This week's LOW comes from long time resident and frequent city council critic Barbara McAusland who seconds our recent Boot to the council's proposed time limit on initiative petitions. Thanks for the letter Barbara, you're entitled to a $25 gift certificate courtesy of Dinner's Ready for your contribution to this week's Mailbag.