There they go again: USA Today has published another Chamber-of-Commerce-style puff piece on Bend, touting it as "the new Boulder."
So Now We’re “The New Boulder”
Posted inNews
Westlund Ups the Debate Ante
On Wednesday morning, Republican state treasurer candidate Allen Alley challenged Democratic nominee Ben Westlund to a series of five debates. On Wednesday afternoon, Westlund called Alley's bet and raised him by five.
Posted inNews
A Political Smackdown for Destination Resorts
It's not clear what the legal effect of Crook County's overwhelming vote against destination resorts will be, but it might make public officials all over Central Oregon want to hesitate before throwing open the gates for more of them.
Posted inOpinion
Cat Scratch Fever
Letter of the Week
Jim Anderson (tSW 5/22) has a long list of reasons to be alarmed about the killing of indigenous animals by non-indigenous cats, but he ignores one very critical fact. Countless indigenous populations have been decimated not by cats, but by non-indigenous humans who have irreparably altered or destroyed their natural habitats, or just plain killed them off.
Posted inNews
Westlund’s Opponent Issues Debate Challenge
Republican business executive Allen Alley threw down the gauntlet to Ben Westlund today, challenging his rival for the state treasurer's job to a series of debates.
Posted inMusic
Liner Notes: Don’t Skip the Openers
Did someone say old timey? the decembErists join death cab on Saturday’s lsa bill. This weekend is one of the biggest ever for the Les Schwab Amphitheater, which is hosting what we could fairly call Sasquatch Jr. or perhaps Baby Sasquatch, or maybe Oregon-quatch - take your pick. Any way you split it, we're basically just cashing in on the overflow from the Central Washington mega festival and bringing those acts down our way. This siphoning of Sasquatch Festival acts results in an added bonus - super sweet openers to already super sweet headliners.
The names on your ticket stubs will read Michael Franti & Spearhead, Death Cab For Cutie and Modest Mouse, but the bands warming the stage for those acts could each hold their own as headliners under different circumstances.
Friday night, it's Built to Spill, long time residents in the upper echelon of indie rock, taking the stage with their sometimes poppy, sometimes jammy and always tight brand of rock and roll. We've been looking for BTS to come by for a while now - their hometown of Boise isn't that far away is it? - and now we finally get a stop off.
Posted inCulture
Across the Earth: Lahiri’s new collection of stories spans the globe
Toward the end of Jhumpa Lahiri's mournful, deeply satisfying new collection of stories, two Bengali lovers visit a museum in an Italian town founded by Etruscans. There, amidst dusty sarcophagi, they discover shelves lined with terra-cotta urns depicting the journey the Etruscans made to this landscape - a landscape since claimed and reclaimed by several other populations. "The sides were covered with carvings showing so many migrations across land," observes Lahiri's narrator, "departures in covered wagons to the underworld." It is a beautiful, yet idealized, image of how people get from here to there. Nothing at all like the scattered, dislocating journey she or her family made to the U.S.
"Unaccustomed Earth" is a profound meditation on the emotional undertow
of these migrations. Ranging in setting from Seattle to suburban
Boston, Rome to the clattering streets of Calcutta, Lahiri's cast of
mostly Bengali characters struggles to grow accustomed to their new
homes, their new families created by loss sustained in faraway places.
In the title story, a recently widowed father flies out to Seattle to
visit his daughter, a new mother, ferrying a secret about a woman he
has begun to see. "Once in a Lifetime" chronicles a brief time when the
Chaudhuri family lived with friends outside Boston while searching for
a new home. It later emerges that their house hunting has a haunted
edge: Mrs. Chaudhuri has cancer. The home they buy will be the place
she dies.
Posted inOutside
Killer cat strikes again!: High Desert Museum turns a blind eye to cat menace
Nothing is safe when an outdoor cat is on the prowl. Last week I gave the High Desert Museum the glad hand for the many things they are doing to further conservation of our natural and cultural resources. The principal subject was the excellent work they are doing with spotted owl reproduction with captive owls.
In my opinion, the spotted owl work the High Desert Museum is doing is akin to the art and science carried out with the (once nearly extinct) California Condor in similar institutions around the nation.
However, when it comes to carrying out conservation of wildlife that inhabits the Museum's grounds the HDM is a total flop! At this moment they are not going to get the "glad hand," but the back of my hand. Why? The Oregon High Desert Museum is allowing one of the most destructive alien species in the country, the housecat, to kill Oregon's indigenous wildlife on museum property.
Let me tell you how this all came about…
Posted inOutside
Hot & Fast: The 2008 edition of the PPP proves scorching, while two skiers take Europe by storm
shortly after landing in their invisible jet. Pole Pedal Paddle
"It's hot, it's damn hot!" This classic line from O Brother, Where Art Thou must have played over and over again in the minds of many of the PPP racers on Saturday. Scorching temperatures reaching up into the 90s made for one of the hottest PPPs in history. This sentiment was the main topic of conversation among competitors after Saturday's race.
"Even the two skiing legs were hot today," said Colin Mahood, one of the first competitors to begin the journey down from the mountain, competing in the men's elite division. Jenny Ruiter was happy to cross the finish line and proud of finishing her first individual PPP race. "The run was so hot." She added that the kayaking stretch was a relief, as she was able to dip her hands in the water to cool off. Jen and Josh Newton, who competed as a pair in the race, echoed most everyone I talked to. "The sun was just beating off the rocks toward the end of the run. Sorry if I'm a little spacey right now, but it was just so hot out there!" exclaimed Josh. Brad Bond also discussed the difficulty during the run due to the lack of shade on the course. Overall, he was quite pleased to knock around five minutes off his individual time from last year. "I think I would attribute all five minutes to better borrowed gear," joked Brad. Brad and his wife Amy Peterson came up one kayak short. In order to both complete the race as individuals, Bond and Peterson simply shared the one kayak. After crossing the finish line in second place overall in the women's elite division, Peterson couldn't talk to the press as she had to trek back to the kayak exchange to complete her last leg of the day: the kayak transport.
Posted inCulture
Kill ‘Em All: Grand Theft Auto makes its triumphant return
American gangsta.When stores open at midnight on the day of a game’s release, you know it's big.
Grand Theft Auto (GTA) IV is the first installment in the popular series designed for the latest game systems. The Grand Theft Auto series was the first notable game outside of the RPG genre to introduce open world game play back, which it did back in 1997 with the release of GTA 1. Now, 11 years later, with GTA 4 the evolution of the series continues.
You take on the role of Niko Bellic, a Serbian who's come to Liberty City to meet up with his cousin and find that special someone. The core game play remains intact. Players navigate a massive interactive city while completing missions that earn you props in the organized crime world.
One of the series’ stand-out features is that players can ignore the main plot and just drive around filling their criminal fantasies. Killing virtual people on the street may not seem like fun, but after five minutes in Liberty City most folks will be running from the law and beating pimps with baseball bats. The way that GTA brings out the worst in people is part of the beauty of the whole series.