The Boot

It’s more than three decades since a blazer-bedecked stick figure of a first lady admonished Americans to “Just Say No.”
Believe it or not Americans have actually been heeding Nancy’s advice as of late. According to some of the recent figures, Americans are using fewer hard drugs than in recent years. Methamphetamine, the scourge of the past decade, and cocaine, the scourge of the ‘80s, have both seen a drop in use over the past several years. Cocaine use is down significantly from 5.8 million users in the mid-1980s (at least among those who acknowledged using the drug in the past month) to roughly 1. 5 million users this year, according to a recent New York Times story about changing drug trends and enforcement.

A core doctrine of classical economics is that competition is a good thing. According to orthodox theory, it produces better products and services, greater efficiency and lower prices.
But things don’t always work out that way, at least in the health care field. Case in point: the crazy air ambulance situation Central Oregonians are stuck with.
Up until this year there was only one air ambulance service based in the region: AirLink, operated by St. Charles Health System, the parent company of St. Charles Medical Center. AirLink had reciprocal arrangements with other air ambulance services around the state so that its subscribers were covered if they had to use those services.

Nothing in life is certain, they say, except death and taxes. Conservatives haven’t found a way to exempt rich people from death yet, but they’re doing their damnedest to make sure they never have to pay taxes.
One of the right-wingers’ favorite targets in this crusade is the estate tax, or “death tax,” as they like to call it. Here in Oregon the current campaign to eliminate the state estate tax is being led by professional ballot initiative promoter Kevin Mannix and his trusty lieutenant, Koch Brothers protégée Tim Knopp, who also is the Republican nominee for the state Senate district including Bend.

Ah, summer in Bend. The mountain biking, the fishing, the hiking, the camping, the float trips down the river. The street festivals. The barbecues. The beer.
Not to mention the roar of the power mowers and leaf blowers, the whine of the chainsaws, the barking of the dogs and the high-decibel blasts of music from outdoor concerts.
Cities have struggled with the problem of noise since the days of ancient Rome, if not longer. Solving the problem is tough, because one person’s noise (“non-harmonious or discordant sound”) is another person’s livelihood – or his entertainment – and what’s tolerable at one time and place can be unbearable in other circumstances. How loud is too loud? How late is too late?

It was a pet owner’s nightmare. Jack Williamson of West Linn was walking on a trail along the Metolius River near the Wizard Falls fish hatchery with Kieri, his 8-year-old Wheaton terrier, when the dog was caught in a body-crushing otter trap less than two feet off the trail.
Kieri survived, but suffered injuries that included pulmonary edema and a broken vertebra that required surgery to fix. All told, the dog racked up about $16,000 in vet bills.

Take a close look at almost any far-right-wing organization in this country and you'll probably find that the Koch brothers have their fingers in it.
The Koch brothers, Charles and David, trace their family fortune and ideological pedigree back to their father, Fred C. Koch, a John Bircher from Texas who went around in the '60s raving about the imminent Communist takeover of America. David Koch ran for president in 1980 as Libertarian on a platform that called for, among other things, abolishing Social Security and public schools.

You have to give the City of Bend credit for trying to come up with a way to jump-start this town's economy. The only problem is it keeps coming up with the same idea over and over again.
Almost four years ago, after the real estate bubble had popped and folks here had finally figured out it wasn't going to re-inflate any time soon, the city council had the bright idea of letting developers defer payment of SDCs, or systems development charges – fees paid to (partially) cover the cost of road improvements, sewers and other things made necessary when somebody put up a new housing subdivision or shopping mall. Instead of having to pay SDCs up front, the new policy allowed developers to wait nine months or until they applied for an occupancy permit, whichever came first.