Messed-up Texas

Another Republican who distrusts the men and women
 who serve this country to protect people like him

If some Texans believe that a military exercise is just a means to enforce martial law on the Lone Star State, well it would be apropos to go ahead and do it.

They deserve no less for disrespecting the men and women who put their lives on the line for them.

Jade Helm 15, which sounds like the name of some far-flung orb in the galaxy, is just a multi-state military maneuver slated sometime this summer.

Less than two weeks ago, a story surfaced on Talking Points Memo, a left-leaning political blog, that the right-wing blogosphere was apoplectic about Jade Helm 15. The feds are coming for them and gonna take their guns away.

It all seemed like a tale cooked up by The Onion.

Except that the Texas governor was so alarmed by the possibility of a federal takeover of Texas that he ordered the State Guard to monitor the military exercise.

Not to be left behind, Sens. Ted Cruz and Rand Paul also voiced concerns about what the military was up to in Texas and urged vigilance.

It appears some Texans are ready to stand their ground against this federal intrusion on their sovereignty.

Well, good luck with that. The federal government already owns Texas. There are 15 military bases in Texas, plus the Johnson Space Center.

In 2001, the largest military exercise up to that point, called Roving Sands, was conducted in Texas. There was no concern then because the commander in chief was a white dude named George W. Bush.

Today, we have an African-American commander in chief and that is the reason for the fear: Racism.

It would be fitting if some Texans actually fought against our military this summer and got blown away. That's the only way to cure stupid racists.

COCC turning 66, not 50

COCC is situated on some of the most scenic land in Oregon

The local papers, daily and weekly, have stories touting the 50th anniversary of Central Oregon Community College.

Actually, that milestone was reached in 1999.

In 1949, COCC started as a night school in the basement of the current Bend-LaPine School District's administration building, which also housed Bend High and the junior high school during the daytime.

In September 1964, the COCC campus opened for daytime classes on the west slope of Awbrey Butte.

The 1965 Oregon Legislature decreed that the word "community" would be used for all the "junior" colleges in the state.

On Veterans Day 1965, Gov. Mark Hatfield officially dedicated the campus at COCC.

The reason COCC is using this year to tout its 50th anniversary is because it will rename the Campus Center as the Coats Campus Center after the family that donated most of the land  in the early 1960s that would eventually become COCC.

That's important in light of the fact that no land was donated for the new OSU-Cascades campus. (Oregon State University was first established in Corvallis on donated land from the federal government.)

A group of doctors in Bend sold the initial 10 acres to OSU-Cascades at 22 percent over the assessed value.

The adjacent 46-acre pumice pit, that nobody but OSU-Cascades wants, will cost much more than the $8 million budgeted just to make it capable to accommodate a parking lot, let alone a multi-story building.

COCC, a two-year college, has more than 200 acres, which is 20 times the initial size of OSU-Cascades, a four-year university on Bend's west side. Now, if anyone can do simple math, a four-year university will have more full-time students than a two-year school.

Anyway, the siting of COCC in the early 1960s was also a contentious affair.

Don Pence, the president of COCC and a pioneer in the community college movement in Oregon, pushed for the Coats property on Awbrey Butte with a breathtaking view of the Cascades.

Bob Chandler, former editor/publisher/owner of The Bulletin and a member of the COCC board, wanted the school built on the northeast side of Pilot Butte, near where Pilot Butte Middle School now sits. Chandler lived on a multi-acre parcel adjacent to the Pilot Butte site but said he would sell the property to avoid a conflict of interest. Chandler noted later that the money he made selling that land paid for his kids' college educations.

Redmond, the geographic center of the region and why it was called The Hub, made a strong pitch to have COCC sited there.

But, board member Owen Panner made the crafty move to include Lakeview in the COCC district which made Bend the geographic center of the proposed college district.

At a key COCC board meeting in 1962, board member Bill Miller (of Miller Lumber)  left the meeting early because his wife was giving birth to their child, Charley, who, coincidentally, is running for re-election to the COCC board this month.

After the board voted for the Coats property, Chandler abruptly left the meeting in a huff.

Panner then remarked, "It looks like we had two babies tonight."

In the mid-1960s, Chandler got his revenge against Pence when he sided with assistant professor Ashleigh Brilliant as he defied Pence's orders not to play a recording of Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl." When Brilliant's contract was not renewed, the issue festered in public.

The adverse publicity in The Bulletin proved to be the eventual downfall of Pence, who was hit by a vote of "no confidence" from the faculty. Pence, though, became the founding president of Central Arizona College in Coolidge before returning to Bend and becoming a pivotal player of the United Senior Citizens of Bend.

When Fred Boyle became COCC president in 1967, he considered moving the community college to more accessible land on Bend's north end. Ironically, decades later, the Bend City Council created Juniper Ridge, in the same area that Boyle coveted, to include a "world-class" four-year university.

COCC continues to have a big impact on the region. Its foundation is now 60 years old. Let's hope that COCC can still fill a need even with a four-year university just a couple of miles away.

More elephants crowd the circus ring

Even the circus is getting rid of its elephant acts

Three Republicans (blind mice anyone?) joined the bloated Republican race for president this week and they have absolutely no chance of winning the nomination.

So why would Dr. Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina and Mick Huckabee even bother wasting everyone's time?

Well, ego is one reason. The other is money.

The GOP establishment needs Carson and Fiorina on the ballot to show they have some token diversity street cred. Plus, whatever money they can prevent going to Hillary's campaign from women and African-Americans will help Jeb Bush in the long run.

Huckabee, the Bible-thumper, did win a few primaries in 2008, but his fame is strictly with the Fox News crowd now. His time is over.

Carson, Fiorina and Huckabee carry around so much baggage that their airline luggage fees alone will bankrupt their candidacies. Of course, the same could be said for the rest of the Republican field.

Yes, Hillary Clinton totes some serious baggage herself, but she's got the money to hire plenty of footmen to do the heavy lifting.

Fiorina, the onetime hapless head of Hewlett-Packard, got crushed by Sen. Barbara Boxer in 2010 in her first bid for elective office.

For someone who ran one of the largest tech firms in the world, it seems she's clueless about technology. Here's a link to a WSJ story about how Fiorina failed to register the domain name CarlyFiorina.org before a critic of hers got it.

And, here's the link to the website that includes emoticons representing the 30,000 she laid off at HP. Yep, that's what we need right now in America, more layoffs.

Carson, the respected neurosurgeon whose life story is inspirational to many Americans, including whites, has the knack for saying crazy things.

He refers to "Obamacare" as the worst thing since slavery and claims that President Obama is a pyschopath.

Those comments delight the Republican wingnuts, but they suggest that Carson is the one needing his head examined.

Plus, Carson, like most GOP candidates, comes out swinging against gays. That's not a viable strategy when many wealthy homosexuals will just give their money to a candidate who doesn't hate them.

Carson, though, is loved by many Republicans because he shares their hatred of President Obama.

Again, hate is not a sound policy position. And, President Obama is not running for president again.

Also, the bedrock base of the GOP in the Deep South is racist and would never vote for an African-American as president.

As for Fiorina, she attracts some Republican love because she champions positions that are detrimental to women. Instead of ending the GOP's "war on women," she perpetuates it.

The Republican base doesn't want anyone but a white, "Christian" man to be the nominee. Unfortunately for Huckabee, he's not it.

'Unintelligible at any speed'

That phrase about sums up an era that ended decades ago.

Evidently, Jack Ely, the singer of the ultimate party song "Louie, Louie" performed in 1963 by The Kingsmen from Portland, has died just up the road in Redmond.

I remember the song well as it was considered dirty and you were somehow breaking some taboo just by listening to it.

It was rumored at the time to be investigated for its questionable lyrics.

Well, it was confirmed later that yes, indeed, the FBI made an exhaustive probe of the "obscene" lyrics and issued a 455-page report that determined the words were "unintelligible at any speed."

Is that not hilarious?

Of course, if you survived the Sixties, it was further proof that those in power had no idea what was going on and deserved the upheaval that followed.

Actually, "Louie, Louie" was more representative of the 1950s than the 1960s. The song, by Richard Berry, first came out in 1957.  Yes, another case where a song by an African-American becomes iconic after a lily-white band performs it.

By the end of 1963, everything would change. The Beatles second album, and it's first to be released in the U.S., came out on Nov. 22 of that year. What a day that was. By the time The Beatles landed in America in early 1964, this country would never be the same.

"Louie, Louie," in its own misunderstood way, represented an end of innocence, when harmless lyrics could provide such controversy.

The song lives on through countless versions and immortality in "Animal House," which was, coincidentally, filmed at the University of Oregon in Eugene.

With Ely's passing, the song's main line stands out: "We gotta go."

OSU-Cascades' west-side supporters unpersuasive

From civil engineer, Fred Gientke

OSU-Cascades, aka OSU-Pumice Pit

Awhile back, the daily paper urged supporters of the expansion of OSU-Cascades on contaminated land on Bend's west side to be more vocal because the opponents sure are.

Well, amid the preponderance of letters opposing the west-side location, we've seen a few letters/opinion pieces in the paper from backers of the ill-conceived plan, and they make no case for building the campus on junk land.

The latest is former city councilor Allan Bruckner who whines that the preferred alternative, Juniper Ridge, is no place for OSU-Cascades.

Well, Bruckner is getting old. His memory must be failing.

The city council, after Bruckner's tenure, designed Juniper Ridge to accommodate a "world-class" four-year, research university. Granted, OSU-Cascades is not world-class, but it is the only legitimate university this town will ever see.

Bruckner blathers on about infrastructure at Juniper Ridge as if he cared about such things when he served on the council and when Bend fell woefully behind in infrastructure during the building boom of the 1990s.

Yes, there are infrastructure issues with Juniper Ridge, just as there are with any undeveloped land, including the west side parcels.

The main issue he has with Juniper Ridge, and the only legitimate complaint about the site, is that the state Dept. of Transportation wants road improvements to Hwy. 97 next to Juniper Ridge as that mixed-use area develops.

Bruckner throws out estimates of $50 million (mostly covered by highway funds when available), but whatever is spent on improving access to and from Hwy. 97, it will be minuscule next to cleaning up the former dump sites on Bend's west side. In fact, the costs of mitigation of the toxic lands may never end.

On the other hand, improving Hwy. 97 on Bend's north end will make traveling safer and better there for everyone in the region. It would make OSU-Cascades at Juniper Ridge more accessible to more people at more times of the day or night. Plus, there is room to grow at the 1,500-acre site.

On the other hand, using a shoehorn to wedge OSU-Cascades into Bend's traffic-choked west side would only benefit the landowners who swindled OSU-Cascades/the taxpayers of Oregon.

Oh, brewpubs, future marijuana shops and eateries will see good business, too.

The location, though, is inaccessible even for many Bend residents, let alone others from neighboring towns.

There is no place to grow beyond a total of 100 acres, which is about half the size of Central Oregon Community College, a two-year school on Bend's west side.

Bruckner, and others, also make the ridiculous claim that students would bike or walk to school.

From where? The northeast side of town where the only "affordable" housing exists in Bend? That's about five miles away and, coincidentally, much closer to Juniper Ridge.

Traffic would increase dramatically to and from a west-side, 5,000-student university by students commuting from the more affordable side of town to the west-side campus.

There is no affordable housing on Bend's west side, not even for most Bend working families, let alone college students. And, there are no plans to build any affordable housing on Bend's west side for anyone, student or not.

About four years ago, Bruckner donated $800,000 for OSU-Cascades' graduate program housed in a business park less than a mile from the planned OSU-Cascades expansion site. It's easy to see why he is biased in favor of the west-side location.

Still, to claim that the west-side spot is "the best possible location for OSU-Cascades" is just plain idiotic, asinine and deceitful, with all due respect.

There is nothing but land in Central Oregon and anywhere else would be better than what is being considered on garbage property on Bend's west side.

(Full disclosure: I own a small rental house right next to the proposed west-side location and I would make a killing renting to college students. I still think it's a terrible location for a four-year university. And, it'll cost Oregon taxpayers untold millions just to get the land ready for any classroom or even a parking lot.)

Bend's eastsiders shut out of civic affairs

And we don't

When Garrison Keillor and his Prairie Home Companion ensemble played in Bend the first time in 2003, he was quick to notice the big differences from Bend's west side and its east side.

Even then, it was obvious to Keillor that the west side was upscale and the east side was downscale.

And that's the way the city likes it, or at least those making the decisions.

The local daily ran an interesting story over the weekend that showed that almost all of the city councilors and almost all of the various committees in Bend are made up of people who live on the west side.

The committees include infrastructure, UGB expansion, planning and budget.

In addition, the park and rec board only has westside members.

In other words, even though there are more voters on the east side of town, they are grossly under-represented on the councils and boards that matter.

The result is that the west side gets more parks, better roads with better landscaping and their snow is removed before the east side of town.

The potholes also get patched quicker than on the east side.

Even the sewer system that is now coursing through the southeast side of town is mainly for the benefit of the west side of Bend even though there are hundreds of homes along the new sewer route on the east side that still have no sewer service.

The paper quoted city councilors and others about the dramatic under-representation of east-side residents on the council and key committees.

They noted that the east side of Bend has more working-class residents who don't have the time to get involved with civic affairs. Those that do apply are bypassed in favor of west-side residents.

Meanwhile, the west side has more retired and affluent residents who have the time and money to steer the direction of the town in their favor.

What the paper failed to note is that west-side residents, because they have more money, are far more litigious than east-siders.

And, the city caves to whoever sues it, be it the builders or west-siders out to protect their turf.

The challenge to the OSU-Cascades campus location on contaminated land on the west side is spear-headed by west-side residents who have reasonable fears about traffic and congestion on a grid system that is currently failing to meet the current demands.

Even though they'll likely lose their lawsuit to thwart the west-side expansion of OSU-Cascades, they'll at least delay the inevitable for a year, maybe longer.

It's unfortunate, but it's the new normal in America.

And Bend is a microcosm of what's happening across the country.

Those who have the money and influence supersede the will of the voters.

We no longer live in a democracy, but rather an oligarchy, according to this study last year from Princeton and Northwestern universities. This is what the researchers had to say.

A democracy is a form of government in which the leaders are elected by the people and the power is vested by the voters.

An oligarchy is a form of government in which the power is controlled by a small group of people. The Wikipedia definition notes that throughout history, oligarchies have often been tyrannical.

This outtake from the study explains why more citizens are apathetic about voting or being aligned with a political party:

"The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy," they write, "while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence."

In Bend, and elsewhere in the country, the oligarchy is not necessarily the government.

In fact, it is composed of those with the most money. Nationally, you could say it's the Koch brothers.

Locally, it would be the builders/developers and Realtors who wield undue influence on the growth of Bend.

The only recourse to challenge this oligarchy is through legal action, not the ballot box.

Until east-siders realize this, they will be consigned to second-class status.

So, east-siders, pool your resources and get in the game. Prepare to sue to get fair treatment in this town.

Was America ready for a black president?

While listening to On Point, an NPR program the other day, I was struck by one of the caller's response to the shooting of a black man by a white police officer in South Carolina.

The caller, who identified herself as a white Hispanic woman from the Atlanta area, said all these recent shootings of unarmed black men is proof that this country wasn't ready for a black president.

It's a jarring comment that, in spite of President Obama's record-setting popular vote victories, is probably, and sadly, true.

Clearly, this country has huge problems with race that simmered during President Obama's first term but have percolated into the open during his second term.

It seems that many white folks out there are now perfectly comfortable in expressing their latent racism.

If you read any story that is even remotely related to race on Yahoo news or Fox News or the Wall Street Journal websites, the racist, anti-President Obama vitriolic comments from readers go on and and on and on.

It's disgraceful.

The 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War was commemorated last week, but, in many ways, that war still reverberates today. Here is a piece that shows how fighting continued for years after 1865. An estimated 50,000 blacks were murdered by whites in the South in the 25 years after the Civil War "ended."

Lynchings continued for decades after that, boosted in part by the film "The Birth of a Nation," which was released exactly 100 years ago.

A cop shooting or beating of a black person today, however justified at times, is so routine that it hardly seems newsworthy.

While formulating this blog post, another unarmed black man was killed by a volunteer cop in Oklahoma.

The difference now is that the video age has changed everything.

The Rodney King clip, more than 20 years ago, was the first video to show police brutality to the masses. Riots eventually followed.

It mirrored TV news footage from the 1960s of police using fire hoses on black protesters and also beating them. Riots spread throughout the country then.

The smartphone video from South Carolina is the latest to reveal how easily a white cop can shoot an unarmed black man in the back and how easily it is to capture for the YouTube generation. Without the video, Walter Scott would be just another statistic.

With the video, our country faces an uncomfortable truth. We're still at war with ourselves.

As we commemorate the assassination of Abraham Lincoln 150 years ago this week, we should be hopeful that nothing of the sort happens to President Obama.

Because if something terrible should occur to him or his family, I fear that the relative restraint the African-American community has demonstrated over the past six years will reach the breaking point.

And then, white Americans may realize that their protected, privileged world is truly gone with the wind.