WTF

It's no secret that Oregon's prison spending has been spiraling out of control. Now comes the latest evidence that Oregon has its priorities backward at a time when it's slashing spending on education, healthcare and other social safety net programs.

We saw you, sir. You in your black Hummer, us leaning against a mighty Mt.

There are no astrological indications that 2010 is the Year of the Destructive Moron, but here in Oregon this week we made a damn good case for such a declaration. Only a destructive moron would be ripe with sort of Voldemort-like evilness required to leave a pug puppy in a plastic garbage bag on the side of a rural road north of Bend.

While the final report is still pending, the Department of Land Conservation and Development has indicated that it is getting ready to throw the city of Bend's growth boundary expansion back in Bend's lap after finding what appear to be numerous fatal flaws with the document. Most notably the expansion is totally overblown.

Unless you're stranded in a woodstove-heated cabin outside Sisters you've probably had the chance to gather that the only acceptable topic of conversation over the past few days in Bend is the weather, or specifically the temperature. (It got really cold, dontcha know?) This is more evidence that, despite our traction tires and abundant mountain snowfall, Bend is still not a winter town. We drive around in blinding snowstorms without our lights on. (Hey, I can see fine!) We don't change the summer diesel out of our school bus fleet, stranding students on street corners.

Hey there. How was your Thanksgiving weekend? Eat a lot of turkey? Get some football in? Good to hear.

Most news savvy Oregonians saw the recent dramatic footage of the Marysville school fire that featured flames leaping out of the top of the school building. What most people didn't see is Portland City Commissioner Randy Leonard donning a fire suit and scrambling onto the roof of the still-burning building to “assess” the situation.

Right-wing Christians have never been comfortable with secularization of Christmas. Nor have they liked the answer that schools and the rest of society came up with in rolling all the Jewish, Christian and secular holidays together and coming up with the more generic and inclusive, a.k.a. The Holiday Season. We have a brother-in-law, for instance, who after a religious transformation refuses to let his two children read write or watch anything that deals with the story of Santa Claus because of such concerns.

We were out sipping a beer this weekend at one of our local haunts, chatting with friends, keeping a tangential interest on a football game or two and generally enjoying ourselves as music played in the background when some dude, who apparently thought he ran the place, told the bartender, quite loudly, “It wouldn't kill you to turn down the music.” No, as far as we know, no one has ever been killed by music, loud or otherwise.

Halloween served up a hefty plate of WTFs – ass-bearing costumes, football beatdowns – but there was one that out WTFed the others and that was when we heard that H1N1 fears had canceled certain Halloween festivities. OK, we understand health concerns and the whole gotta-do-what-ya-gotta-do approach to public safety, but then we heard the alternative to a few shopping center and public building door-to-door trick or treating events – just give the kids a pre-packged bag of goodies.