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For 25 years, the Hubble Space Telescope has captured images of astronomic wonders — nebulae, galaxies, star clusters — that exist millions of light years away from Earth. These pictures are spectacular, but for members of the Eugene Astronomical Society, there’s nothing quite like looking at the night sky with their own eyes. Continue reading
Before Connor Doran’s indoor kite-flying performances were wowing television audiences on season five of NBC’s America’s Got Talent, he was tearing up the skies on the beach at Lincoln City’s annual Summer Kite Festival. “It’s where I started out,” Doran says, who will perform at the next iteration of the annual kite festival in late June alongside a host of other champion kite fliers. Continue reading
Golfing is to sports what masturbation is to sex — a solitary endeavor that, no matter how vigorously you go at it, always ends up being about you and you alone, as you come face to face with your own failings in the universe as well as the measure of your stamina in overcoming them. I’ve been golfing, more or less vigorously, for years, and I’m sad to report that my game hasn’t improved one jot. It’s an existential dilemma. Golf, for me, is too often a good walk spoiled, just like people think Mark Twain said. So why walk? Continue reading
With hashtags like #HowToSpotAFeminist recently creating a focal point for derogatory tweets that peg feminists as hairy man-haters, it’s clear that, even in 2015, people still love to hate feminism, or whatever their warped interpretation of it is. Continue reading
Ashlee Olson, Artist. Photo by Athena Delene. Not many understand the difference between style and fashion, the ebb and flow of trends and tastes. But if anyone does, it’s the groundbreaking designer Yves Saint Laurent. Continue reading
It’s no secret that beer has added to Oregon’s economy by billions of dollars — total economic impact from the beer industry is $2.83 billion in 2014, according to the Oregon Brewers Guild — but another local industry is picking up speed, as well. “Oregon is on the cusp of a big expansion in biking,” says Nick Meltzer, project manager for the Community Service Center at the University of Oregon. Continue reading
For most Eugeneans, “foraging” means a trip to Market of Choice or The Kiva. But the ability to forage for food in the wild, a throwback from our hunter-gatherer days, has a certain appeal and lets food-intrepid adventurers connect their nourishment to the outdoors. Pat Patterson, currently a volunteer master gardener with Lane County’s Oregon State University Extension, has been foraging since her grandmother tasked her with gathering stinging nettle and other wild greens when she was young. Foraging is “very in,” Patterson says. Continue reading
Despite the potentially disastrous effects a multiyear, recording-breaking drought will have on the people and wildlife of western Oregon, there is a small consolation prize: early season hiking near the Cascade Crest. Typically trails in the Mount Jefferson Wilderness are under snow through late June, but with snowpack in the Willamette Basin at an abysmal 8 percent of the normal snowpack for that area, the majority of snow below 6,000 feet has already melted. Continue reading
In May, as the sun sets each evening, thousands of small birds swarm above the brown brick chimney of Agate Hall on the University of Oregon campus. They are Vaux’s swifts, newly arrived from Central America. When the light begins to die, the cloud flies together and spins into a funnel above the chimney mouth and the swifts dive down to roost for the night. Below in the parking lot, a dozen people watch the show, including Maeve Sowles, president of Lane County Audubon Society. Continue reading
Forget this remote BLM campground north of Bend if you hate bad roads, rattlesnakes, ticks, heat and bugs the size of your thumb that crawl up inside your pant legs. And forget your dog. This time of year brings acres of foxtails, nasty little barbed seedpods that can get up dog snouts and work their way into dog brains. Continue reading