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.
Hard-Hitting Tax Day Coverage
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.
Posted inCulture
It was SIMply a matter of Time: The Sims franchise drops on the Wii
In a better world, we’re all cartoonsThis was going to happen; it was just a matter of when. Electronic Arts has taken one of their premier franchises and combined it with the hottest game system around. The first installment of the Sims franchise for the Wii has arrived under the name My Sims. This game is much more cartoon-like, giving it a bright atmosphere and different approach.
If you're looking for the standard Sims game, you're in for a surprise. This version of the game is a lot simpler and easier to play. And, thanks to the Wii controller, there are plenty of new features, most notably building. The one thing that is really annoying is load times. Every time you go into a house or access the design interface, it seems like it takes forever.
Posted inCulture
Slashed to Pieces: Prom Night probes new depths of lame
Quick, act like a cat. My first reaction leaving the theatre after this movie, besides ramming my head into the wall, was to consult my thesaurus for new ways to say horrible, terrible and awful (words I've been using a lot lately to describe movies). Wretched and abominable seem to work.
The only thing faithfully reproduced in this remake is the prom night setting. The predecessor-flick was pretty bad to begin with, but the remake makes it look like Citizen Kane. In the original, four students were stalked and victimized by a knife-wielding ski-mask wearing psycho because they were responsible for the accidental death of a child. This time around a non-masked stalker escapes from a mental institution to wreak havoc on all in his path because he has an unhealthy infatuation with Donna (Brittany Snow), an ex-student of his before he was put away.
Posted inCulture
Indie Picks: Fields of Fuel
Filmmaker Josh Tickell is aiming for "a shift in human consciousness," with his film, Fields of Fuel. Focused on biodiesel and biofuels as alternatives to reliance on big oil and soy production, the film asks us to choose more self-reliant, peaceful, and healthier lives.
Posted inCulture
Corn Fed: A look at America’s most planted, processed and subsidized crop
Stuffing their cornholes.You might think twice about devouring another McDonald's Quarter Pounder after watching Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis' eye-opening documentary, King Corn. The film won Best Documentary at the 2007 Bend Film festival and will screen again on April 22 at the Tower Theatre as part of the Indie Reels series. Co-producer Curt Ellis will be on hand for discussion.
Best friends Ian and Curt moved from Boston to Greene, Iowa after college to find out where their food really comes from. The film follows them as they plant an acre of corn in the heartland and attempt to navigate modern agribusiness. Remarkably, both Ian and Curt's great-grandfathers were from Greene, and the two also trace their family histories throughout the story. They assimilate into the community and learn how to drive tractors and drink Budweiser. On the way, we-along with the filmmakers-learn everything from what a grain elevator is, to the fact that corn is present in about 60% of the American diet.