First There Was A Mountain: A new proposal could change the face of winter

Posted inNews

First There Was A Mountain: A new proposal could change the face of winter

Eric Flowers

A solitary moment.As a rule, backcountry skiers don't tend to make a lot of noise. Aside
from the occasional powder whoop, they tend to tread pretty lightly.
The
same principle holds true away from the slopes where backcountry
enthusiasts tend to keep a low political profile. But a new proposal
from a group of backcountry skiers is causing a stir in the outdoor
recreation community and could shake up the way the Forest Service
manages one of the most popular winter recreation zones near Bend.
What
some backcountry users want - there is no formal backcountry skiers
group in Central Oregon - is for the Forest Service to re-draw
snowmobile boundaries around Tumalo Mountain, moving the sleds entirely
off the butte.
Backcountry skiers are accustomed to working for
their turns, but this is a different kind of uphill battle that pits
backcountry skiers against well organized motorized users and their
supporters, which include, somewhat surprisingly, a number of cross
country skiers who benefit from the snowmobilers grooming efforts.
Skiers are also up against a historical "anything-goes" attitude about
winter recreation from the Forest Service, which much prefers "shared"
recreation opportunities for all user groups than to shut out one group
entirely, as would be the case on Tumalo.

Posted inCulture

Our Picks for the Week of 7/3-7/10

The Source Staff

Central Oregon Blues
and Crawfish Festival
thursday-sunday 3-5
You'll get a pretty good rundown of this festival in the Liner Notes column, but if you need more convincing, here's a good chunk of the lineup: John Lee Hooker Jr., Kenny Neal, Ty Curtis Band, Big Fish, Jon Maclennan, T-Bone Stone, Lisa Mann, Blue Moon Society, Megan Smith & The Fam, Kelly Stone, Zsa Zsa, Stephanie Slade, Joseph Balsamo and more. July 3-5. Go to ampmediagroup.com for more info. $20/day, $30/3 day pass, 10 and under free. Creekside City Park, Hwy. 20 and Jefferson.
Pet Parade
friday 4
Finally your chance to parade around your incredibly cute kids and your incredibly cute llama at the same time in celebration of Independence Day! The annual Pet Parade is a chance for the kids to bring their special pets (from llamas to lizards to goats) and parade them through downtown. Just don't bring a rabbit or a cat, seriously. Decorating and lineup starts at 9:30am on Wall Street next to the School Administration building, parade starts at 10am. Call 330-7096 for info.

Posted inOpinion

One Good Oil Spill Deserves Another

Intern

Order in the Court!
Baby rapers, oil spillers and gang-bangers be heartened! Gitmo be gone, but the new and utterly bought and sold Supreme Court handed down decisions that will impact us for decades - Much like the President Bush, who nominated its two new Justices, Chief Roberts and Count Weirdly Alito. Let's take a look at these precedents, led by quotes from the new members.Court Weirdly
"I've also represented corporations accused of antitrust violations, and I think that balanced perspective is something that's valuable for a judge."
Chief Justice John Roberts stated this on January 29, 2003, before the Judiciary Committee, explaining how whistleblowers can be fired for cause. Roberts also defended Microsoft against States suing for antitrust as a private lawyer. So, when Exxon Mobil came before the Roberts-led Supreme Court, his sympathies were already known. "So what can a corporation do to protect itself against punitive-damages awards such as this?" asked Roberts during the initial arguments in February, seeming to defend Exxon Mobil for employing a known alcoholic captain for the Exxon Valdez in 1989, who crashed and spilled 11 million gallons of crude oil into Prince William Sound. How oh how can we help this poor corporation? Throw out the $2.5 billion in punitive damages (equaling one week of profits for Exxon Mobil) through some archaic maritime law that compensatory to punitive damages must be 1:1. Ahoy! This precedent will reverse medical malpractice, tobacco settlements and corporate malfeasance lawsuits for years; of course Exxon Mobil would have preferred a slap on wrist but, in a shocking moment of conscience, Justice Alito recused himself because he owns over $100,000 in Exxon Mobil stock.

Posted inOpinion

Gordon Smith and the Cascade Festival

Intern

The US Senate is often called the world's most exclusive club. Sen. Gordon Smith belongs to an even more elite club - the Society of Republican Senators from West Coast States. It's so exclusive that Smith is the only member.
Oregon's junior senator would like to remain in that club by winning a third term, but the signs are it won't be easy.He’s only red on the inside. Republicans are saddled with the most unpopular president in modern American history, a war that two-thirds of Americans oppose, a tanking economy and a lackluster candidate at the top of their ticket. Democrats have an exciting, charismatic presidential nominee-apparent, surging party enrollment and, above all, the distinction of not being the party that put George W. Bush in the White House.
Sensing that all this might make Gordon Smith vulnerable, the Democrats have been throwing the kitchen sink at him (not to mention a set of golf clubs; see this week's Wandering Eye, Page 11). Smith has countered with a campaign designed to show him as a moderate, non-partisan chap who has no trouble working with both sides of the aisle.

Posted inOpinion

Advertise in the Bulletin

Jim Anderson

Letter of the Week

This week's top letter comes from Jim Anderson, the sage of Sisters, who laments the proliferation of litter from free shoppers circulated by our local daily to pump up its circulation numbers. The blue bags truly are an eye sore, Jim. But we're not talking trash when we say that you can cash in your gripe for a $20 gift certificate from Dinner's Ready for being our letter of the week. Bon Appetite!
    If you are looking for the best bang for your buck in advertising, do it with the Bulletin; they really spread the word! The Bulletin doesn't only "spread the word," they litter the countryside with it.
    And they're not hard to locate either; you can probably find a rotting Bulletin in someone's driveway, front yard, or even out in the middle of the road. Moreover, don't worry, you will get your money’s worth advertising in the Bulletin, they wrap their "Central Oregon Market Place" in a blue plastic bag before it is thrown on your property, that way it litters longer.
   

Posted inOpinion

No Shortage of Lazy Journalists

Intern

    Greetings. And arghh.
    Your perpetuation (deliberate word choice … hint hint) of this morning's "Oregon Man's Invention: Commute Generates Electricity" in the Bend Bulletin is yet another example of how high energy prices makes reporters and editors stupid. Okay, perhaps not stupid … but certainly it seems to render them so un-critical that they fail to recognize a perpetual motion machine when they see it - or that they simply assume their sources are telling the truth or have a clue what they're talking about.
    Other recent horrid examples: (1) A New York Times reporter's
acceptance without request for explanation of a hybrid land yacht
owner's claim that she goes twice as long between fill-ups as with the
old behemoth, even though the new one only gets 50 percent better gas
mileage. (2) A different Bend Bulletin reporter's acceptance last week
without apparent skepticism of a scooter salesman's quote about
"average" drivers of four-wheeled vehicles spending $120/week on gas
compared to $6 per week for drivers of scooters - when even the most
generous look at the math shows the salesman has assumed for his
audience's sake that the "average" driver gets just 5 miles per gallon
and that the average scooter gets 100 mpg.

Posted inOpinion

Road Outrage

Intern

    The Bend PD and The Bulletin should both get The Boot by perpetuating the myth that cyclists "cause the majority of the problems." The PD gets it for making a sweeping generalization that is contrary to statistics (ODOT statistics say 56.

Posted inOpinion

Outdoor Cats Are A Plague

Intern

    It is time that people in Bend wake up. I live by the Old Mill District and I have had almost no songbirds around this year.
I live by the canal, yet I have not seen any gold finch. My chickadees that nested last year did not come back to the birdhouse when they should have. Also, the couple of the robins I had around are gone. We are losing our songbirds to cats and windows in this town.
    
  A few days ago, I got up at 5:30 a.m. to put my dogs out. There was no sound; it was complete silence. This is not normal. Songbirds should have been very actively singing by this time. This should raise the alarm.   

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