Killing Deer with Kindness (7/5)
Thanks Jim for yet another educational article on our natural environment; and unfortunately what we are doing to destroy it.
— Alice H, via bendsource.com
I can't tell you how many times I read in local Facebook groups about people feeding deer in their yards. They're wild animals. Let's leave them that way.
— Paul Moriarty, via facebook.com
In Response to, Unsolicited Accolades (7/8)
Our community created a Frankenstein with the misguided belief during the Great Recession that tourism was going to somehow "save" the town. It turned around and killed our brothers, desiccated our close-in neighborhoods, and yet still insisted we love it and created a female version of it in the form of cultural and shoulder season tourism marketing.
As with any great allegory there are winners and losers and maybe the proclaimed "300 days of sunshine" is going to our heads, because the media and the city government tends to favor the positive tales, this "runner to riches" story about Picky Bars co-founder Jesse Thomas is no exception.
We needed only to turn back the pages of history and read about the fate of dozens of other western mountain towns hollowed out by tourism to grasp the direction we were headed, but drunk on money and power, we plowed forward, dumbstruck and silent as the real estate and building industries reaped the biggest rewards, while those interested in maintaining some semblance of sustainability and community in Bend were touted as anti-growth and isolationist.
We are not powerless, and we don't have to let this Frankenstein haunt our remaining days. Ecotourism is a beautiful movement that insists that tourism benefit the local people and the environment, instead of allowing the place to fall victim to the forces of capitalism. The problem is, this requires a lot more work and intentional planning and decision-making than our egregiously underpaid City Council has time for.
In a YouTube video published on June 5 of this year, Bill Valentine, the guy who "famously" predicted the real estate crash a decade ago, cockily proclaims to a room full of titillated real estate agents that there will never be affordable housing in Bend, and that prices are headed towards Aspen-levels during the course of the next decade due to the portability of jobs, and the financial choices available to the newly retired. And he's right, there won't be affordable or sustainable housing, if we let people like him and the real estate vultures that he addresses, dictate our community's future as an inevitability.
— Laurel Brauns, via bendsource.com
In Response to, 1st World Naked Bike Ride BEND! (7/8)
This event has NOTHING to do with clean air or whatever crap you're trying to spin!!!! It's live porn!!!
— Michelle Wheeler, via bendsource.com
I wish that people would quit moving to Central Oregon (a traditionally conservative area) from the big cities and California because they "love it here", only to turn right around and try to turn it into the place they came from. If you don't like the way Central Oregon is, then don't move here. We locals happen to like the way it is. If we didn't, we'd move to California.
— Christine Alford, via bendsource.com
This has nothing to do with pornography or sex and everything to do with freedom of expression. If you don't want to participate, then don't. But what you're projecting into this says more about your dirty mind than anything else. The human body is a beautiful thing and should be celebrated. Simply being unclothed is not equivalent to sex. Remember...it's not all about YOU.
— Victor Johnson, via bendsource.com
Nudity = Pornography? Man, your parents really messed you all up. Astounding you made it to your keyboard to type that nonsense under the crippling weight of your shame. Probably best if you avoid the event by staying in and scrubbing all that sin off your dirty filthy bodies. Just make sure you avoid eye contact with the mirror on your way to the shower as we all wouldn't want you to get aroused.
— Jacob Z., via bendsource.com
My concern is for people who have experienced trauma and are going to be caught off guard by this. I have to walk through this to get to work tonight and in all honesty, it makes me uncomfortable too. The human body is not shameful but neither is having boundaries and respecting others limits.
— Kathy Denfeld, via bendsource.com
Good lord, are we living in the dark ages? I am absolutely amazed at how many prudes are commenting. Such a level of close-mindedness is an embarrassment to my town. There's nothing sexual about this. It's human bodies, get over it, everybody has one. Nudity is legal in Oregon and has been for a long time. You are 100 percent able to legally walk down the street completely nude.
For those of you getting your panties in an uproar over this, chill out. It's no big deal. And if you don't like it don't go.
— David Hart, via bendsource.com
Is anyone working on petitioning to change Bend's law? If so, please let me know. I would like to help prevent this from occurring annually. I agree with the right to protest, but exposing yourself publicly is obscene and ridiculous.
— A. Robles, via bendsource.com
Lighten up people. There are plenty of things to do in Bend if this is not your flavor. It strikes me as silly fun that may or may not draw attention to the global "issue" the group talks about. Personally, I find the way this bike ride is revealing Bend's cache of narrow minds steeped in Victorian-era morality much more illuminating.
— Patty Davis, via bendsource.com
Public nudity is against the law isn't it? The extreme left will continue to drag the Democrat party into the mud and will continue to lose elections. It's too bad the lunatics have destroyed this party.
— Burt James, via bendsource.com
This is clearly nothing more than pornography and everyone who is involved should be arrested and go to jail. This is protesting nothing, it's a way to try and get everyone to be ok with this crap and it's not ok. No one needs to see this. This is very offensive and should be treated and dealt with as strongly or worse than sex offenders. Really what's the difference? Little kids forced to possibly come into contact with this garbage and no fault of their own. This is an outage and should not be tolerated period. Not even once. Arrest them all, convict them as sex offenders and make them do lifetime registry.
— Darrell Kimball
Hey, I was the organizer of this event. I just want to say THANK YOU to those who came and supported this event! We got a great reception from the city of Bend! You've shown you appreciate cyclists, appreciate our right to freedom of expression and protest, and can have fun at some silliness.
Ride on, Bend.
— Lief. K., via bendsource.com
Correction:
In our "Unsolicited Accolades" (7/5) feature last week, we incorrectly attributed Bend Park and Recreation District (BPRD) as having created 150 miles of trails in the Deschutes National Forest. BPRD created 65 miles worth of trails in the Bend area, whereas the Deschutes National Forest is responsible for 150 miles in the greater area. We regret the error.
