The Boot

Behold the humble plastic grocery bag. It is small, flimsy and almost weightless, but in numbers it is mighty.
Since its introduction about 30 years ago, the plastic grocery bag has become as ubiquitous as the cockroach, but a lot more harmful to the Earth. An estimated 500 billion of the things are used worldwide each year. The United States alone uses about 84 billion.
Only 1 to 3 percent of these billions of bags are recycled. The rest end up in the environment – in landfills, or in lakes, streams, oceans, forests or your backyard.

“There is always an easy solution to every human problem – neat, plausible and wrong.” – H.L. Mencken
The Republicans in the Oregon Legislature believe they've found a problem: Businesses are burdened with too many state regulations, and that's holding back economic growth and stifling job creation.

Laws can be a real pain in the ass. They often make you do things you don't want to do, or stop you from doing things you want to do.
But without laws, society would be in one hell of a mess. Which is why state Rep. Gene Whisnant's effort to eviscerate the Urban Growth Boundary approval process is a mistake.

Whenever a horrifying event like Saturday's massacre in Tucson happens, the phrase “senseless tragedy” inevitably turns up in every news report and commentary.
The Tucson attack – in which a lone shooter opened fire at a political event outside a supermarket, critically wounding Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and 13 others and killing six people, including a 9-year-old girl – unquestionably was a tragedy. But was it really “senseless” – meaning there was no reason for it, that it was a random act like an earthquake or a bolt of lightning?

Imagine yourself trying to negotiate the traffic at the north end of the Bend Parkway, in the area of the Cascade Village Mall shopping center. (We know it's painful, but please try.)
Now imagine thousands more cars and trucks stirred into the mix every day. And imagine that no improvements have been made to allow the road grid to handle that extra load.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the …
Well, actually, no. Although the year 2010 probably wasn't the worst of times – for instance, it wasn't as bad as 1348, when the Black Death was ravaging Europe – there's no way to pretend it was the best of times, or even one of the almost-pretty-good times.
How did 2010 suck? Let us count the ways. Or at least some of the ways, because we don't have room for all of them.

When the Central Oregon Builders Association, Central Oregon LandWatch and the developer of the Old Mill District – among others – all think there's something sketchy about an idea, it's probably worthwhile to pay attention.
The Bend City Council paid attention – sort of – but then voted last week to go ahead with a multimillion-dollar expansion of the Bridge Creek water system anyway.

“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets and to steal bread,” the novelist Anatole France wrote in 1894.
The law the City of Bend is contemplating to deal with the (supposed) problem of loitering on downtown streets would, we assume, forbid the rich as well as the poor to sit or lie down on the sidewalks. Just the same, it would be an inherently inequitable ordinance – and an unnecessary one.