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Last spring at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge birdwatcher Tim Blount saw a bird that brought him back to his childhood in Nebraska. Up in a cottonwood tree was a black and white warbler, a small songbird with a high, piercing call (“weesy, weesy, weesy”) stopping on its way to northern Canada. Continue reading
In the days before the snowstorm last December, Cory*, a Lane Community College student, was having trouble getting words down on the page. Continue reading
With a disarming smile and a lilting baritone made for public radio, Rick Steves has been making traveling the world less frightening for the past 30 years. Through his European travel guidebooks and public radio and television programs, he has introduced Americans to a kinder, more accessible world outside of our own. This October, Steves is taking a different kind of trip — a six-day tour around Oregon to calm our nerves in regards to November’s Measure 91, which would legalize, tax and regulate recreational marijuana. Continue reading
Weeks after President Obama deemed immigration reform too contentious to act upon until after the November midterm elections, local advocates for Oregon’s Measure 88 are trying to keep the debate from dissolving into another divisive scuffle over immigration. The measure is a referendum on an Oregon Senate bill that makes four-year driver licenses available to those who cannot prove they are in the country legally. Continue reading
In mid-July, Eugene resident David Nickles was at the canoe landing below the River House on the Willamette River, a stretch of water he visits with his son two or three times a week, when he alleges he saw the city essentially “dumping trash into the river.” Continue reading
This November, Oregonians have the chance to make their state the first to require genetically modified organisms (GMOs) to be labeled as such. In the wake of failed GMO-labeling ballot initiatives in Washington and California, representatives of Oregon’s “Yes on 92” campaign have invited biologist Michael Hansen to drum up support for the measure. Continue reading
Alex Paige, a trans woman from Portland, describes the gender dysphoria she experienced as “a supreme unhappiness with the way my body looked, the way it felt, the way other people interacted with me.” Thanks to an Aug. 14 vote by the Health Evidence Review Commission (HERC), treatments for gender dysphoria will be covered under the Oregon Health Plan (OHP) beginning January 2015. Continue reading
Daniel Borson has known that Bulbus Slimebledore was the stuff of queens since 2009. He was taken by the idea of a slug wizard, but allowed it to take backseat to some other magnetic personalities he’s pulled out for SLUG (Society for the Legitimization of the Ubiquitous Gastropod) queen competitions over the years. Continue reading
A bumblebee handing out shots amid a flood of flashy, radiant costumes on the Saturday Market stage at the downtown Park Blocks marked the beginning of this year’s SLUG (Society for the Legitimization of the Ubiquitous Gastropod) queen coronation Aug. 8. This observance of unconventional beauty was a heated competition between four colorful candidates that was ultimately won by Bulbous Slimebledore, aka local software developer Daniel Borson. Continue reading