Oregon's SMART (for "Start Making a Reader Today") program got started in 1992 with a handful of volunteers and one simple idea: that having a grownup spend a little time each week reading with a young child would encourage a love of books and improve the child's reading skills, confidence and school performance.
SMART’s Dumb Move
Posted inOpinion
King’s Inspiration
Earlier this month we marked the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's death, or should I say his assassination, in Memphis, TN. Hours have been spent on radio and television commemorating the event. Articles, some at great length, have been written about what this Baptist preacher accomplished not only for his race but for the problem of segregation we have in America.
What never seems to be mentioned is what context, motivation and background motivated this great man. Sure, he was a Baptist preacher, but what made him do what he did, say what he said, motivated this man?
Posted inNews
High Priorities, Low Budgets: A conversation with Bend-LaPine’s new schools superintendent
(Editor's Note: Ron Wilkinson will be taking over from Doug Nelson as superintendent of Bend-LaPine School District in July. This is an edited transcript of a conversation between Wilkinson and Source Weekly Senior Writer H. Bruce Miller.)
Posted inOpinion
War? What War?
"War in Iraq"??? It ended on an aircraft carrier with "Mission Accomplished"!
Posted inOpinion
Hard-Hitting Tax Day Coverage
Kudos to the local TV station for positioning a reporter outside the 4th Street post office on April 15. What a strategic place to pin down the people of Bend and ask some hard-hitting questions about taxes! I approached the reporter to offer my view: Paying taxes sucks when nearly 50% goes to military spending and not even 5% goes to education and social services.
Posted inNews
Merkley Goes Into Kitchen Sink Mode
The conventional wisdom advises that when a political candidate is trailing, what he should do is go negative against his opponent - and it looks like Jeff Merkley is following that advice.
Posted inNews
Thin Edge of the Broadband Wedge?
BendBroadband's plan to offer faster connections but charge heavy users extra inspired the technology site Gizmodo to post an article headlined: "The Future of Broadband: We're Totally Screwed."
Posted inCulture
Life as Art: Cristina Acosta is making her art at all costs
Brushing up on tile work. Bend artist Cristina Acosta is challenging the old truism that art imitates life. A painter, Acosta has learned to let her art into her everyday world.
"At one point I realized that I needed to take my art off of the canvas, and put it into my life," says Acosta
Acosta's vivid and joyful painting ranges from traditional Mexican influenced Madonnas and tri-paneled ex-votos to her "Paint Happy" series of flowing still lifes. They all explode with the color of an artist doing more than putting paint to canvas. Acosta has transformed her art in a business with her tile painting and color consultation services.
Originally trained at the university level in fine arts, Acosta has branched out dramatically - although this was not necessarily easy. The elite art world of the 1980's didn't necessarily encourage disciplines like tile painting and home decor. However, she says, "I realized that everything could start becoming art for me, and that was incredibly fun. It opened up a whole new world for me."
Posted inOutside
Things That Bite in the Night: Brown recluse and hobo spiders are getting a bum rap
The real bad "guy" (but really a "gal"), the infamous Brown Recluse. Spiders in Central Oregon are in a heap of trouble, and so are you. I say that because of a recent article in The Bulletin regarding a woman and her son who allegedly were bitten by so-called hobo spiders in their rental home in Terrebonne.
It is time for the medical community and those who suffer from arachnophobia and other arthropod-tainted fears to get their act in shape.
I've lived in Central Oregon for over 50 years in homes filled with just about every species of "house spider" there is, and have never been "bitten." My children have been exposed to them from the time they were born, and they have never been bitten, chased or otherwise harmed by a spider, and neither have my neighbors or my neighbors' kids.
Thousands upon thousands of people are living here and never experience an alleged "spider bite." So let's get off it! Let us find out what those alleged "bites" really are and what is causing them.
Posted inOutside
Break Out The Shorts: Will legs at last see the light of day?
Breaking Up Is Hard To DoGetting down on Gray Butte
By now every road bike geek in America is in a tizzy about the lawsuit- countersuit action between Greg Lemond and bicycle maker Trek. The situation is as exciting for rabid roadies as those Hollywood star split-ups are for celebrity worshipers.
For those of you who aren't in the know, here's how it all came down. On March 20, former Tour de France winner, and American cycling legend, Greg Lemond filed a 41-page lawsuit against bicycle maker Trek claiming, in essence, that Trek wasn't paying attention to the Lemond bike line. The suit can be read online at www.velonews.com.
Trek, which has manufactured the Lemond line of road bikes since 1995 and built it into a $15 million business, struck back with a counter-suit on April 8.