The Wandering Eye

Oh, happy day – the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose above 10,000 yesterday for the first time in over a year.
Meanwhile, however, we witnessed another milestone that probably means more to the typical Central Oregonian: The median sales price for single-family homes in Bend dropped below $200,000 in September.

The swine flu situation in Deschutes County is more serious than the local news media so far have reported, judging by an e-mail County Communicable Disease Manager Shannon Dames sent to health care professionals today.
Under the subject line “H1N1 Cases are way up!” Dames’s e-mail states:
“I am sure this is not news to you, given what you are seeing in your own clinics, but to be sure we are all in the loop:

Schools are seeing higher absentee rates – some up to 25%
The Bend and Redmond emergency rooms are packed – 44 ILI [influenza-like illness] admissions in two days early this week, and 22 positive results [for H1N1 flu] from the State lab.

Can Jeff Merkley solve America’s health care problems? The verdict on that is still out, but he’s a pretty slick operator with a Rubik’s Cube.
A new video shows Oregon’s junior senator fiddling with a cube as he explains: “Just as this cube is all mixed up, so is our health care system messed up.

Moderate tax increases will help Oregon climb out of the recession more than holding down revenues and cutting state services, according to a group of more than three dozen Oregon economists.
Initiatives to repeal two legislative measures that would raise corporate income taxes from the current minimum of $10 a year and hike personal income taxes for the most affluent 3% of Oregonians apparently have qualified for the January ballot.

Today The Eye turns from inconsequential matters like health care reform, the state budget deficit and real estate fraud and focuses on an issue of more intimate concern to our readers: the shrinking size of the toilet paper in public restrooms.
I’ve been noticing this trend for the past couple of years, but I was pushed over the brink of outrage when I went into the men’s room in Café Yumm in the Old Mill District the other day and saw a roll of toilet paper that appeared to have been made for a dollhouse.

The conventional local wisdom blames the Bend real estate bubble and bust on greedy people (mostly from California) buying homes they couldn't afford and borrowing against their equity to buy boats and Hummers and fancy vacations.
But according to real estate fraud expert Richard Hagar, there was a different culprit: Crooks.

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With the swine flu inflicting its second fatality in Bend, according to this morning’s Bulletin, worries about getting vaccinated in time will ratchet up another notch. But the swine flu vaccine hasn’t arrived here yet, and meanwhile vaccine for the “regular” seasonal flu may be hard to find.

Workers at an Ashland brewery and restaurant who agree to do some of their commuting by bike get a nice incentive – a free bike.
Writing for Greener World Media, Stephen Linaweaver reports that on a Labor Day weekend trip to Ashland he learned that in late August the Standing Stone Brewery started offering a bike to every employee who agrees to make at least 45 commutes per year by pedal power.

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Sen. Ron Wyden – whose support of the public option for health care reform had been considered somewhat iffy – finally came down in favor of it, voting yes today on two amendments in the Senate Finance Committee.

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John Kitzhaber, The Man Who Would Be Governor Again, had some right-on-the-money things to say about health care reform last week at the Columbia Forum in Astoria. The gist of his message: We need to create a new and better system, not just prop up the failed old one.